How do you get customers to give you more business?
By Staff -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 8/1/2005
 Michael Rea Rapids Wholesale Equipment Greensboro, N.C. |
Anybody can go in and find out what something costs, put a margin on the item, mark it up and sell it to a customer. But if you try and show a genuine interest in what your customer is trying to do and how they’re trying to do it, it helps. With all the technology that’s coming out today, you may possibly give them alternatives that are better — not necessarily cheaper — for what they’re trying to do.
Let’s say the guy is trying to do hamburgers, hotdogs and chicken, but he’s also going to do breakfast. He says he needs a 10-burner range, a 36-inch flat-top griddle and two fryers. Well, you can come to him and say, “Well, just how much hamburger and hotdog and chicken business do you think you need?” We could go in and find the customer doesn’t actually need 10 burners; that we can do a six-burner range with a 24-inch griddle on top with double ovens. By doing that you’ve consolidated a lot of pieces into one and you can still get the volume you want with the menu items you want.
Some (operators) are from the “old school.” They’ve had several restaurants, they like one particular piece of equipment, and all they want to know is, “What’s your price vs. the other guy’s?” But if you try to show them that you’re really interested in what they’re doing and how they’re trying to do it, you can give them some options, you can be the guy he goes to all the time.