Pizzeria Wants to Interview me - Help me Offliners

SMS + Social Media + Direct mail = bank

I know you dont have the swagger yet just from the tone of your post but you need to come with the attitude that YOU are interviewing them.

Resist the temptation to just go in there and start spouting off solutions, ie social media,direct mail etc.
Spend some time to find out about him and his business first.
Find out if you and guy would work well together.

But if you are just looking for a quick one hitter then a direct mail eddm offering to a 3 mile or so radius to his biz is probably best bang for buck.

Good luck.

You have to adopt a different mind set as Eddie says.

Look....YOU are the doctor...THEY are the patient so it needs to go a bit like this.

You: What's your best selling product at the moment? (make notes of their answer)

You: Is that the product with the best profit margin? (make notes of their answer)

You: What's the best marketing result you've had in recent times? (make notes of their answer)

You: What's the worst? (make notes of their answer)

You: How close are you to your maximum capacity in terms of new customers?(make notes of their answer)

You: How much a month are you spending on your marketing at the moment?(make notes of their answer)

You: Are you able to increase on that if you get the results you're looking for?(make notes of their answer)

You: Up to a maximum of what? (make notes of their answer)

etc
etc
etc
etc
etc

At the end.

You: Ok guys I think I've covered everything there unless you can think of something I've missed? (make notes of their answer)

You:So if I can come up with some innovative marketing ideas that will get you more customers at the times you need them, increase your profits with upsells, sidesells etc and do all that within the budget you've set me there....can we go ahead and have an agreement? (make notes of their answer)

You: Go away and construct a marketing plan for them.

THEY are the patient...YOU are the doctor. Find out where it hurts, show them you know what you're doing by asking intelligent questions, make a prognosis, come up with a treatment.

Easy really

Good luck. Thanks Eddie Spangler. I've been training people to interview the potential customer for years......some sales people still think they are there to answer questions tut

Adwords for pizza is not expensive did you even check to see what the cost per click and the competition is?

What you don't want to happen is for him to 'interview' you and have you give him all these marketing options that he can now figure out himself.

The key is to make your solutions look easy on your part but terribly difficult on his part. You don't want him ever thinking that he can do this himself.

Personally I don't care for the interviewer/interviewee approach. Not to say it doesn't work, it just doesn't fit my style and I believe I'll outsell anyone using a "same side" approach. I make it a point to make everything feel like I have control but that we're both on the same side fighting against the same enemy and understanding the same pain. I just have the resources to generate business that they don't.

Not just the knowledge, but the resources, which is important because like I said above you don't want them ever feeling like they have the ability to do what you're doing or they'll drop you.

I like to get them riled up and asking questions about their competitors. That's something that motivates business owners highly, when they feel you can take business away from their competitors. Figure out where college students are living so you can market to them. Talk about getting business from businesses, where offices start to routinely order hundreds per week from them. Talk about targeting new movers to the area.

As far as what services to offer, EDDM (every door direct mail), Targeted mailings, and doorhangers that they're staff can put up.

Another service you could offer them is the "10% OFF Your Next Visit" flyer.
You design the flyer (or get it done) and arrange the printing, and they give the flyers to their
customers. This is an incentive for customers to keep coming back!

Look at and analyze his current marketing efforts - website etc so
you can have some recommendations ready without giving it all
so he thinks he can do it with out you. Enough so he views you
as the expert.

Ask him what all he is doing, or has done, in the way of marketing
in case you missed anything in your research. What worked? Why stopped?
What does not work for his business?

Find out why people should choose him over the other places.
Atmosphere and capability of the facility, staff, specialty pizzas and
other dishes... (There's a phone app for what beers are offered locally.)
Can he create unique products for the market?

A Mobile site might be good depending upon his location and where he
is trying to get customers from - as in a tourist town v a neighborhood pizza place...

Delivery might be a good option if he is not doing so and there is a good
neighborhood density.

Yes to local SEO - some video - and claiming google, bing and yahoo local spots

Dan

when I worked with Dominos they would let us get extra hours by posting flyers on the mornings for four hours. We did it in the neighborhood close to the store. We also did it on slow days. I would notice the results, 200% more calls for pizza on nights we did it versus nights we didnt do it... and all the deliveries closer to the store. This same model works for any business even plumbers electricians and restaurants.

I have a pizza client and by far the best thing that has boosted business (dine in) is an email birthday club. Give away a small pizza during the month of someone's birthday. Put the Aweber form on the website and advertise the deal on Facebook. We have built a list of about 1200 subscribers (and lots of FB likes), averaging about 100 subscribers per month getting the coupon. Not all will use the free pizza coupon, but a percentage will and that's that many more tables filled each month. (Because virtually one eats alone on their birthday.)

I think the first thing you should ask that pizzaria is what they want? New customer walk-ins? More deliveries? A new market? Think about those things first. That should guide you to what you should do.

Full disclosure: Both Scott Anthony and Michael Sheppard gave me copies of their books. I did not pay for them. The books I recommend stand on their own merit. In my opinion, these resources are required reading for anyone who is thinking about marketing for a pizzeria.

Being somewhat of a pizza man myself, I have two priceless resources for you:

1) Profits in the Pie by Scott Anthony. I know Scott personally and when it comes to marketing for a pizzeria, he is a genius. I've also interviewed him on several occasions and his wealth of how to promote a pizzeria is amazing. One of the most incredible things about Scott is he has taken his small town pizzeria to the top of the standings in his locale.

He discusses out of the box methods to promote a pizzeria. Note his internationally famous successful campaign in fund raising for the local fire department. This fundraiser has gotten international buzz because it is unique, outstanding and very buzz-worthy.

The book is full of gems that will assist you in helping to market any pizzeria. Scott also has his own consulting business to help pizzerias succeed. On top of everything else, he is one of the good guys. He believes firmly in giving back to his community.

I could go on and on, but I'll let his book speak for itself (it is available in both hard back and as a Kindle.)

2) Another great resource is Michael Sheppard's book, Growing Pizza: How to Plant the Seeds to a Successful Pizzeria .
Michael is someone I know who is not only a master pizzaiolo, but also a master pizza marketer. Reading his book will explain the good the bad and the ugly of marketing a pizzeria. He is a member of the World Pizza Champions and has used this affiliation in his marketing. The book is available in both hardback as well as Kindle.

I can't say enough about these two resources. The small investment will give you insights into what it takes to actually market a pizzeria. You will have insights from people who are on the inside. They know what it takes to market pizza and a pizzeria.

And on top of everything else: you will be light years ahead of anyone trying to market a pizzeria without inside information from actual pizzeria owners. Both of these guys are in the trenches of marketing their own pizzerias on a day by day basis. They are both wildly successful with their marketing efforts.

Both are seen as top experts in the field and are presenters at International Pizza Expo, the largest pizzeria event in the World.

Great question.

Understand the books are written for pizzeria owners to educatate and assist in marketing their pizzeria.

In my opinion, both books would be applicable for restaurants.

Marketing is after all: marketing. I would say that a number of the concepts covered would also assist anyone who is running a business.

If you are on the fence, go to amazon and check out a preview of the books. you should be able to look at the table of contents and that will give you a very good idea about what is covered.

I think if you are able get a pizzeria to ask for assistance with their marketing you have won half the battle.

And I commend you for that ZachRobinson! Go for it!

There is some excellent advice in this post already.

Most pizzeria owners (and I'm talking about the mom and pop operations. Not the chains) are very hesitant to put a lot of money and effort into marketing their pizzerias. That includes both on-line and off-line. They are to busy running their operation to worry about on-line promotions.

And that is obviously where they make a huge mistake. Many of these pizzerias will close after a few years...

If you can show them (and prove) that your marketing efforts will bring more customers in the door, you have just gotten a client for life!

Hey guys, and thank you.
Here is the update. They are breaking even. They are going to make changes, and turn it into a restaurant full bar. He wasn't making money with pizza.

Get this he told me their marketing budget is very low.

Oh man, there is only so much you can do to get paid, and money to grow the restaurant?

I don't know where to take it. He said to give a quote, web design, fb marketing, marketing campaign.

Thank you offliners

Hmmm,

1. I'd sit down and get some details about what they are doing now. What ha worked and what has not. Look for the basics, a lot of business owners still overlook this stuff, like what's are the top 3 items that sell, what's the average sale quantity, which nights are busiest, which subsection of their clients make up the bulk of the revenue etc.

Let them do lots of talking...one good way to look like an expert is to be quiet, listen and take notes

2. Think about improving what they have now before adding more stuff. Chances are that you can massively improve their profit by making stuff that is working work better and removing stuff that isn't working. This might mean setting up a basic method of tracking if they don't already do that.

3. Related to this is getting everyone who does come in to come back again / more often...coupons for example.

4. If they've got a list of past customers make an offer to them! If not...add list building onto your 12 month plan for them.

5. After optimizing what they're already doing look at adding new stuff. Mobile, SMS, loyalty, Adwords, social media, direct mail.

I've heard a lot of case studies around building "Pizza of the month" type clubs / memberships as a way to increase revenue and also make it more stable - offer a price advantage over not being a member but also essential pre-sell more pizzas in a month than they would usually buy - they can always give away the extra pizza vouchers (referrals).

Less is more usually, and I find with clients that results come faster (and with less resistance) if we start with tweaking / optimizing first.

This is a goldmine of information right here, take the best of each post and you have yourself the interview and a new customer!

The most important part would be the listening part because you will probably be anxious to ask him all the material you've been reading here.

My advice would be to build a general mockup mobile website that you can use for this client and future ones and integrate their logo quickly before your presentation. This is very optional, but IMO the restaurant owner will see that you actually care about his cause if you took time to do a sketch.

Good luck with your gig and thanks to everybody for motivating me to try this myself!

I'm sure if you are doing this or not, the post started a month ago but, my two cents...

Work on the reputation of the business, take your friends out for pizza there and get them to write reviews on the company's facebook page, google places and Yelp! listing. Build their reputation as the best Pizza place in town.

No idea, sorry am unable to help you.

All the best. Regards.