Selling or just taking orders

A lesson learned in a restaurant

Think about the last time you went out for a meal. Most of us go to a sit-down restaurant with the intent to enjoy a meal. It may be a reward for a hard day’s work; a date night; or to enjoy the cooking and experience of a restaurant.

With these occasions we would refer to the spending of money as “discretionary”, meaning we are doing it because we want to and not because we must. With this discretionary spending it should be a pleasant and enjoyable experience. After all, you are spending money you don’t have to spend. There are many occasions where we have discretionary spending but for today’s story we will focus on the restaurant experience and a comparison to our industry.

Our experience has been that most restaurant owners and staff have not grasped the concept that the meal in their restaurant should be an enjoyable experience. Here is the sequence we frequently observe:

You are seated; given a menu; and asked what you want to drink. After the drinks are served and you have a few minutes to review the menu, the wait person returns and then wants to tell you about the specials for the day. If you chose the special, you could consider the time you spent looking at the menu as wasted because if you had first heard of the special, instead of looking at the menu, you would have engaged in conversation with others at your table.

Further, the wait person could be unique by initially asking what you are hungry for. It could start a conversation that would cause you to interact with the wait staff.
Outside of being a chain restaurant, surely every restaurant wants to be unique. That is how they attract customers.

At the other end of the dining experience, we find a point in time when the wait person sets the bill on the table with a comment of, “take your time”, “no hurry”, or, “I’ll be your cashier”.

We find more times than not there is no effort to make an additional sale. Perhaps the customer enjoyed the meal and would be open to a suggestion of having a take out of the meal for another day. We rarely see the wait person asking if room was saved for dessert. The restaurant we were at as we thought of this article offers their coffee, cookies and cinnamon rolls for sale. The wait person mentioned none of these and the customer is left to see a sign or these items at the checkout counter.

Yet the tip the wait person earns is generally based on the dollar amount of the bill. Wouldn’t you think the owner would explain this to the staff and teach them how to sell? Is this restaurant selling or just serving a meal?

We then take this experience to our own businesses. Are we serving the customer or just being order takers for the art materials we sell?

Perhaps a part of the answer comes in how we pay our employees. If we utilize the traditional hourly wage, we are essentially trading money for the hours they are present working in/for our business. A full time person is expected to be a part of the business for 8 hours a day. There is nothing in the pay that mentions your expecting them to sell. Likewise, there is no reward for them if they outsell another person.

A salesperson can, and should be, anyone and everyone. We have experienced a delivery person who was also a great salesperson because they made a point to engage every customer in conversation; asked what they needed and told them what was new.

We might think that being a wait person should be a pretty simple job. We can say that as we are on the outside looking in. Perhaps we have customers thinking the same about our industry. Perhaps we have customers who are taking some of their business elsewhere because another company is making a bigger effort to sell.

Salesmanship is more than answering the phone, although it is easy for a customer to detect a smiling voice on the phone that is genuinely interested in them. If not naturally acquired, it should be a skill that is taught to everyone in our businesses.
While offering a sample of a new product shows interest in our customers, we can also express an interest in our customer by helping others. We know of a coffee brewer in a community that was dealing with the challenge of selling online. No matter how great a description is written, the customer still can’t taste a sample.

A B2B vendor offered to help by including a small sample (enough to brew a pot) with every delivery. In addition to a hand written thank you note that was specific to the customer’s business, the coffee brewer suddenly grew a new and sizable customer base.

The cost to the first business? Just the time and paper to write the note. While not a specific item, that is selling! And yes, that free bag of coffee did help in swaying customers when making further orders.

Are we selling? Or, are we just taking orders?

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This article is copyrighted by Tom Shay and Profits Plus Solutions, who can be reached at: PO Box 128, Dardanelle, AR. 72834. Phone 727-823-7205. It may be printed for an individual to read, but not duplicated or distributed without expressed written consent of the copyright owner.