This book really changed my perspective on running my business, but as I type this, it’s time to reread it.
Business owners are faced with problems every day. Take restaurants. A big issue most face is not having enough sales. I had a client in Pittsburgh and was tasked with solving a sales problem at the restaurant during lunch and 1st quarter.
Pretty simple, right? Find sales.
But for me, it was more than that. This was right around when Groupon launched, and we all thought that was a great way to attack Q1. They’d sell a bunch of gift cards to their users, we’d get the cash up front, and then we’d drive the traffic we need in 1st quarter. One thing we misunderstood about Groupon was we thought we’d get the customer list as well, so we could market to them after they used their discounted gift card.
Yes, we got a cash infusion and some sales. But it didn’t solve our problem. They drove the wrong type of customers who wouldn’t visit later at full price. Plus, we couldn’t get any customer data from Groupon, so the people who were an excellent fit for us could be marketed to for future visits.
The issue here is that we fell in love with the solution, which turned out to be a shot in the arm: a bandage.
FALL IN LOVE WITH THE PROBLEM
This experience taught me a valuable lesson-to delve into the root causes of our business challenges. Instead of focusing on how to drive lunch sales, I started to understand why we were struggling with lunch sales. This shift in perspective was enlightening and empowering.
The client was a large brewery on the south side of downtown Pittsburgh. Their food was solid, but they were known for beer and entertainment. They also did not have a parking lot, which required paying to park in a parking garage and walk a few hundred feet to the restaurant. And this was the 2010s; drinking at lunch wasn’t as popular for client lunches as it was many years ago.
Another issue I discovered was where our customers were coming from. Most evening and weekend crowds came from the suburbs or the three colleges up the street. First, students didn’t care about the food, so lunch was out for them. That meant the only primary traffic source we had was the office workers in downtown Pittsburgh. But, when you looked at the headache of leaving the office, getting your car out of the parking garage, driving to the restaurant only to park in another garage, walking to the restaurant, and FINALLY getting to eat. There just wasn’t enough time.
There were some local residents, but they didn’t fit our clientele for lunch, and the nearby hotels only drove a few people per day.
I broke down what I saw as the problems for bad lunch sales:
1st = Location, and no solid traffic source
2nd = Parking
3rd = Beer wasn’t big at lunch for 1-2-1 business lunches
This led me to think about how I could overcome these. I figured out quickly that driving consumers in for lunch would be futile. So I started to think about how we could overcome these issues.
Who does drink beer at lunch?
Who’s not going to have a time limit for lunch?
Who won’t care about the parking garage issue?
EVENTS!
I needed groups. I needed to find business events that drove in large crowds for an extended period and to an environment where social drinking is acceptable. From here, we identified two opportunities:
1st = Tour groups
2nd = Business events
Both of these groups would be fine with the issues that made it tough for us to get consumers, and our marketing spend was worth it to go after one group of 100 vs trying to drag 100 individual customers into the restaurant against their will.
AND IT WORKED
As I recount that story and connect it with this book, I realize the need to pick up the book again. But more importantly, to write down all of our company’s problems and examine if we are too in love with the solution vs. the work we need to put in actually to tackle the problems.
