When you think of Plato, likely the first word that comes to mind, if it isn't "huh?," is virtue. Me, the first thing I think of is Meno. In the Meno, Plato demonstrates that man already possesses all knowledge, he just needs to be prompted to remember it.  He proves this by showing that a random slave boy picked out of the crowd could solve a complex mathematical problem because the answer was inside of him all along.

I was reminded of Meno while chatting with a client for the first time after the completion of a big project we worked on together. Apparently, the client beamed, I had been the reason this guy's business has now turned around. I actually don't agree with him. I think he turned it around himself.  And if you listen to him tell the story, you'd agree with me.

The way he tells it, during the project, I had "beat him up" in meeting after meeting, asking "...and why are we doing that?" over and over (I am pretty persistent) until he finally burst out with the fact that he was making decisions based on his ego rather than his business and that he knew that wasn't the best course of action.

Once he gave up his idea of how things should be, the project took off because he knew what needed to be done. So you see, I just asked a few questions (or actually, it seems, just one question...repeatedly). He was the one who had the answer.

Now that I have the luxury of not being a publicist anymore, all I do is drive around from meeting to meeting. And at all those meetings, I feel like all I do is ask people questions about their problems in a way that makes them tell me what they need to do to be more successful. I leave and they write me thank you notes saying, "We were so stoked when we left the meeting, THANKS!"

If Plato were around, we could have a beer and chuckle about how I didn't really do anything because they had the answers all along. I just asked the right questions.

If you wanna start asking yourself your own right questions, here is, I believe, the only tip and hint you need:

Tip: What does success look like to you?  A lot of people don't start here. They start with the problem and try to get to the answer.  I say start with the answer and then figure out what the problems are that keep you from being at the answer right now.

Hint: What is standing in the way of your success?  If you have a bunch of legitimate reasons why something hasn't happened yet, likely you either need to really face those legitimate reasons and figure out how to make them unlegitimate or you need to change your idea about what success is achievable.

A few weeks ago, I broke the screen on my iPhone. To get something like this fixed by Apple takes somewheres around five days and a solid $200. I don't have a home/office phone. I can't live five days without my iPhone.  So a friend sent me to Jet City Devices, where for $100 and about 10 minutes time, I could get my screen fixed and be on my way.

I liked the guy, tweeted about it and then had already forgotten the name of his company by the time my assistant broke her iPhone screen about five days later.

Somehow, I don't feel that will happen again because this morning, I received an email from Jet City Devices:

Hi Ellen,

This is Matt with Jet City Devices and I wanted to do a quick follow-up on the repair I did for you a couple of weeks ago. I just wanted to make sure everything is still working fine and that you're happy with our service.

I'd also love to get your feedback. If you have a Yelp.com account (and if you don't, you should definitely check them out), you can tell people about us on our Chicago Yelp page:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/jet-city-devices-chicago

Or if you have a Facebook account, you're invited to become a fan of our business and leave a short comment:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jet-City-Devices/110818884900

Or if you're not on Yelp or Facebook, you can always leave a comment on our forum page. Just click the following link and hit the red "NewTopic" button:

http://www.jetcitydevices.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

Thanks again for trusting us with your phone. As always, don't hesitate to call if you have questions or concerns.

Take care and have a great day.

********************************************

Matt McCormick
Jet City Devices, LLC

********************************************

PS: Feel free to check out what other customers say about us:

http://www.jetcitydevices.com/testimonials

For all the people who are curious about how to make money in a bad economy, I say follow this leader and start thanking your customers (semi) personally. For all the people who wonder how to get more better reviews on Yelp!, I say why don't you just ask, like Matt does. For all the people wondering how to get their customers to fan them on Facebook, I say give them directions on how to do it when they are sitting at their desk and likely, on Facebook.

And for all those in Chicago who need a new iPhone screen, I recommend Matt from Jet City Devices.

The other day, Lauren and I were discussing the roll out of some new software and we realized that quite possibly, we could complete a major project -- the complete overhaul of our clients' online press kits -- by her one-year anniversary start date with RIA.

"You know Lauren, you should aim for that date. It would be great for your resume to say that you started with RIA and within a year ferried the building of a comprehensive back-end system and a complete overhaul of the press kits themselves. We need to aim for that cause really, that would be a great resume-builder."

Lauren looked at me with a combination of deer-in-the-headlights and mortal fear. Did she need a resume?

Let me back up. The closest Lauren gets to a title at RIA is Consigliere. Probably, if she worked somewhere where titles were valued, she'd be Operations Director. But really, she is so much more than that. She organizes and manages most of the staff stuff, directs the web team, manages all the new client uploads, is a sounding board for all of us, tells me when I am wrong, reminds me that she told me I was wrong and should have listened to her. It goes on.

Lauren, really, is a Linchpin. 

So the thought of her leaving RIA is nothing short of a horror movie I don't want to watch. She works so hard and so smart -- so passionately -- that I am not sure how I could replace her. But that doesn't mean I have a right to chain her to the company. And in fact, letting her know that I am thinking of her future most probably strengthens her commitment to our team.

People like Lauren, like amazing chefs de cuisine, have drive. The drive that makes them such good employees, such indispensable right-hand mans, is also the drive that fuels their desire to move up the ladder, make their careers fulfilling while reaching for the stars. Supporting them and their drive, no matter where it takes them, is an important part of being a good boss. After all, if you are so selfish that you don't want your people to succeed, they won't succeed for you, either.

The best employers know this, value this and end up using it to their own advantage. Where some chefs become toxic waste dumps of rage when an employee decides it is time to move on, others opt to actually help make the transition a smooth one. After all, the chef/underchef relationship really worked in the past, it could work again. Maybe that person would be perfect when it comes time to open a new restaurant or maybe they are essential a few months later when the chef is going to be featured at a big national event and needs a right hand he can count on and the new right hand just isn't there yet.

It's hard to think about linchpins leaving. I for one can't really imagine how I would function without my Consigliere. But I need to, for her sake and for mine.

I didn't sleep at all last night.  I spent most of the night thinking about Steve Dolinsky's post about the M Burger press release. First, a sigh of relief that it wasn't me. Wow. Ouch. Second, a shout out to the person who wrote the offending release: We've all, publicist, journalist and ex-publicist alike, have written up the wonky release or story. That blog post could have been about any of us whose job it is to communicate.  And if you need it, I know Steve's home address.

The reality is, we all now live in a world of transparency. People can review their meal on their iPhone while eating dinner. Anyone can tweet about stupid mistakes in about thirty seconds.  Blog posts can be tossed out into the ether without the leveling influence of an editor.

I, for one, think it is a good thing. 

Because of a blog post I wrote about Groupon and its impact on chef-driven restaurants, Groupon and I are going to be meeting about how Groupon can work to serve these kinds of restaurants better.  Sure, the post stung, but there is no way we would have gotten to moving the conversation forward without it.  And now, the Grouponistas are eager to get to brainstorming a solution where chef-driven restaurants will win as much as Groupon does. So, in the end, that whole saga is a happy ending waiting to happen.

At RIA, whenever we catch wind of some negative talk, we try to understand the source and assume it is something we can fix. Now, I am not saying it is easy to hear the sniping chatter of bored people with nothing better to do with their time than gripe about everyone and everything. And thankfully, there is precious little of it, probably because we are still so new.

But how else would we ever really uncover real problems that need to be addressed?

You'd be surprised how much a the ridiculous insanity of a blowhard can lead the RIA team to identifying and resolving an actual problem. So you'd be surprised at the little gripes I actually pay attention to because I believe there might be something there that can make my service better for my clients. And since that is my business, how I spend my day, I care a lot about doing it right.

Personally, I think all this transparency is going to make us all a lot more honest. We'll work harder if we know that the product of our work is potential fodder for public ridicule.  For a while there, our culture seemed to exist in an alternate reality where everyone's attempt to keep things shrouded in mystery, not question aloud, be PC and not ruffle feathers ended up creating a lot of mess that nearly took down our entire country.

And while it may seem odd that a blog post by a Hungry Hound could lead me to worry about the state of American society, this new age of transparency is really all about people being a lot more accountable for their little corner of the world.  Publicists being more accountable for accuracy in press releases, even if it is just about a hamburger; journalists being more accountable for writing without agendas; chefs being more accountable for, well, I'll let you fill in the blank there.

A couple weeks ago, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, a chef I have never met posted a link on my personal Facebook page. No hello or howya doing, no nothing but a link. Curious, I clicked on it.  It was an ad. A bad one, at that.

If the point of sharing the link with me was to turn my Facebook wall into his own personal billboard while simultaneously confirming my belief that he is an egomaniacal crazy person, it worked.  If it was an attempt to connect with me via social media, it didn't.

But it did get me thinking about what would have engaged me. And how insanely simple it would have been. "Hello, we haven't met but I am really excited about this video and you seemed like someone who might enjoy it." Or even, "I'm gonna be on TV and wanted to tell everyone because I am that excited." Or even, "Hey, you've never been in my restaurant so I thought I would bring a piece of it to you, hope you like it and hope you'll come in soon."  Anything, anything that told me he actually gave a crap about me as a person and wasn't just posting on my wall because I have a lot of foodie friends who would likely then see it.

So, what does this mean for restaurants?

Social media is about sharing and the restaurants whose Facebook Pages I actually visit from time to time are the ones that make a little effort to post something beyond the old "come in for our new menu items" or "buy tickets to our event." The ones that go beyond just advertising. 

I don't think I am alone in that I love to look at pictures of events that the restaurant holds or maybe snapshots from out-of-house charity events or out-of-town chef events. I would love to hear about a chef going to a photo shoot, just a note saying "getting ready for my close-up." How about a mention of a favorite farming bringing in an order. I love seeing short/tiny posts from chefs about dishes they are working on, especially with a picture of dishes in progress, or about wines they discovered.

Over time, my favorite posts have been those that featured the best customer order of the night, lauding the brave soul who ordered the brains -- not the insufferable kind bashing the person with dietary restrictions who ordered sauce on the side. And the chef who got some fancy fish in the doors he was so excited about he told his followers to come in and try some.

But it doesn't all have to be about work. I loved one post from a restaurant that announced a staffer who had a baby.  Another that celebrated a server who got the lead in a play. And yet another that posted the latest track from a server who plays in a band.

We are all, I think, fanning the restaurants we like because we want to be let into the restaurants' world. We want to feel we are a part of what is going on, let into the little inner circle, a part of the club. Unfortunately, some restaurants are just using their Facebook fans as another form of mailing list, blasting out invites to events all the livelong day.

For the restaurant, of course, the best part about taking a little time every day to put some good 10 minutes worth of effort into a restaurant Facebook page is that you then don't have to spend time trying to get new fans. They'll come to you, because you are interesting and you are trying.

You won't have to sell as many tickets to events because their is an army of people who have gotten to know you a little as a person and believe enough in what you are doing to want to see you again. Actually, I am going to one such event tonight, because I got to know the chef's style from Facebook and I think he is pretty cool.

With just 10 minutes a day, you put a little savings into the pot every day and when you need it, the bounty is there. You've spent time giving to a group of people who, over time, get wrapped up in the excitement of being part of the restaurant family. 

Which is to say, in the end, that social media is about selling after all.

It is the kind of selling that builds solid business, incrementally, with real, devoted customers. Customers who enjoy what you are doing, will pay full price for it, and who will be your greatest tools for getting more customers just like them.

Wanna know how to reach out to new audiences? Get media coverage? Sell events a little easier?  Share on Facebook, on Twitter, post your photos on Flickr. Try your hand at marketing a little every day yourself, instead of looking for some magic bullet to do it for you.

Which is why I am posting this post this week.  Because with 10 minutes a day of actual effort -- not just dialing-it-in effort -- I'd venture that a restaurant would discover the single best marketing tool around. One that is free, doesn't devalue your brand and won't, by any stretch of the imagination, eat into your bottom line.

I was never a Deadhead when I was younger. I am not sure why, actually, since I am perfectly aged and, back in high school and college, tended toward going to a lot of concerts in a somewhat altered state. But The Dead, for some reason, passed right on by me and my friends. 

But that is not to say that I can't be a connoisseur of their marketing prowess, as I was reminded by Joshua Green in a fantastic article in this month's Atlantic Monthly.

The Dead were the originators of true viral marketing and their guerrilla tactics were, many believe, a preview of the possibilities of social media. By allowing their fans to record and share concert tapes, they taught us all the value of sharing.  And through that, they became larger than life.

Dana Oshiro wrote a great blog about The Dead's marketing prowess as it pertains to today on ReadWriteStart, quoting John Perry Barlow,

"What people today are beginning to realize is what became obvious to us back then--the important correlation is the one between familiarity and value, not scarcity and value. Adam Smith taught that the scarcer you make something, the more valuable it becomes...The Internet doesn't behave that way...If I give my song away to 20 people, and they give it to 20 people, pretty soon everybody knows me, and my value as a creator is dramatically enhanced."

This is why blogs work, sharing recipes, posting behind-the-scenes photos and commentary from a busy night of service, even sharing a new, almost-on-the-menu dish with a regular customer to try out and give some feedback.  Because by sharing, which is what social media is all about, you tap into what The Dead already knew -- that when you give customers something for free, they tend to drive sales.

When was the last time you gave away anything for free?

My dislike of discounting at chef-driven restaurants is by now well-known in my tiny little corner of the world (which is chef-driven restaurants, only, really).

Restaurants, so I am told, discount in order to bring in new audiences. Sometimes they do this because they are desperate. Other times because they are just interested in seeing who else is out there.

But on the whole, they feel they need to reach out beyond their target audience and find people who wouldn't normally try them out because the restaurant is perceived as "too expensive." I guess the idea is that all these new customers will be so overcome with awe over the food/experience, they will revise their monthly budget to work in fancy dinners on a regular basis.

My issue, of course, is that likely the restaurant hasn't maximized their existing audience or even really attempted a cohesive marketing strategy in the first place. So, even if they do increase the size of their audience, they don't have mechanisms in place to retain these new customers either -- just as they couldn't retain the original customers.

The fact of the matter is, there's an actual problem if a restaurant isn't busy, and by resorting to deep discounts, the problem itself isn't getting solved, it's just getting ignored a little longer.

When you shouldn't
Discounting should never be done to stem the tide of slumping sales. The minute you freak out about your low customer counts and decide to offer a significant discount on your food, create a a cut-price promotion that is off-brand or sign up with a discount program, you are devaluing your brand.

It's of course easier to discount than to figure out how you can be more valuable or more compelling and build your numbers authentically. In fact, Paul Williams, in the post Can your brand afford to discount, said it best:

"The root of the problem is in the lack of creativity by companies. Or at least a lack of being able to think creatively - quickly. Companies are having to do something QUICK and FAST to drive sales, so they turn to the 'low hanging fruit' of marketing tactics - discounting."

Discounting is a lazy way to drive sales.

When you can
That said, there are times when "discounting" can work. A lot of fancy restaurants struggle with customer perceptions -- everyone, it seems, thinks chef-driven restaurants are something to be saved for monumental special occasions.

In fact, many chef-driven restaurants are more affordable than people think.  And many that may be out of range for regular dining do offer affordable options, such as an attractively priced prix fixe, lunch menu or lounge menu that isn't outside the realm of possibility -- if people only knew.

In these cases, one can use "the discount" to make a point. Blackbird did this very well during Restaurant Week, using the media hysteria of the city-wide promotion to drive home the point that their year-round lunch prix fixe is always $22. In doing that, Blackbird communicated to a very large audience that the restaurant can be approachable.

When you might
In more desperate times, likely the best scenario is to look to Steve Jobs. Primary Apple product pricing doesn't swing much but discounts are often to be had on things like refurbished iPhones. So, the value of the brand itself is kept intact while new customers are captured and cash flow is buoyed.

In chef terms, this means not discounting your food -- which is your brand -- but maybe hosting a half-priced wine night because the wine is not uniquely yours. The idea here is to keep your brand intact while creating cash flow -- presumably so you'll save the leaky boat while you figure out how to fix the hole so you can sail on for the long term.

Yesterday's blog post, it seems, caused a bit of a stir.  In it, if you missed it, I did some back-of-the-envelope math based on standard industry calculations to determine if Groupon was good for chef-driven restaurants. The bottom line is that with fees and discounts, a chef sells his food for 25% of the value (not 25% off, 25 percent of).

Groupon feels they are a good marketing tool; I think there's a lot better ideas out there.  Ideas that reach the target audience instead of basically trying to reach everyone on the planet and hoping one of your targets is included.  Ideas that don't get chefs into what I think seems like a legal version of loansharking. Celebrated Chefs is one of those ideas (more will come next week).

No, this in no way gets anyone off the hook on the hard work of being a great restaurant. If you are dead or really anywhere in the vicinity of scrambling, you likely have an actual problem you need to solve and not a marketing program you need to execute. But this, and the few other things like it I'll feature, is my concession that not every restaurant has the magical powers that a few seem to possess and so into their toque a marketing program must fall. 

Here's the rundown from the Celebrated Chefs people. They're in Seattle now, rolling into Chicago and methinks they'll be in other cities soon, because it's a solid program, easy to understand, does a little good for the world and doesn't devalue the hard work of a chef.

Here's the topline:

• Celebrated Chefs publishes an upscale recipe book with an associated marketing program featuring the area's top restaurants and chefs in support of local non-profit organizations.
• Celebrated Chefs drives business to restaurant partners by targeting affluent, philanthropic-minded individuals who like to dine out. So, Celebrated Chefs is already ahead of Groupon because, well, it actually targets the market -- line-caught fish rather than industrial trawling.
  
• No upfront costs -- production and distribution of our book, as well as our marketing program, are paid for by Celebrated Chefs. Restaurants only contribute when we deliver results.  This is one of the key selling points of Groupon, per Groupon. Here, you've got that same offer without devaluing your food with a discount.

Here's how it works:

• Every time a Celebrated Chefs diner visits any of our participating restaurants, a donation is made to the customer's designated charity. I guess the rub here is that if the customer wanted to donate to Glenn Beck for President, you'd have to honor that.
  
• Celebrated Chefs supporters enroll their Visa/MasterCard/American Express into the program. When supporters pay their bill with their enrolled credit card, the restaurant makes a donation to the supporter's cause.
• The process is seamless and automatic -- we work with credit card processing technology to administer the funds so there are no special cards or coupons, no new equipment, and ... no employee training.
• 100% Trackable -- A detailed statement is sent on a monthly basis summarizing the previous month's activity. So, you'll know if your 10% cost is actually bringing in full-paying customers the whole time. Not a year later when you've hoped the Grouponistas have come back 6-8 times to convert to profitability.
  
• Celebrated Chefs is not a "discount program" -- nothing happens at the point of sale and nothing is returned or credited back to the consumer.
• The only cost is 10% of the Celebrated Chefs customer's adjusted bill. The adjustment is tax and gratuity -- which is an important point; there are rewards programs that charge restaurants on the full bill, including tax and gratuity. Celebrated Chefs collects the 10% on a monthly basis after sending the billing statement.  Of the 10 percent, half (5%) is donated to the customer's designated charity, the other half (5%) goes to Celebrated Chefs to foot the bill for the book, running the program, etc.

If you have any other programs you'd like RIA to drill down for you, send them along!  We are happy to share our thoughts and math about anything out there.

I read an article yesterday that made my blood boil. It was the blog post Julia Kramer wrote about the Groupon Lawsuit.  Personally, I am neither here nor there on the lawsuit. What really rankled me was the Mephistophelean comment from the Groupon Guy about restaurants.

"If Groupon didn't work for restaurants, they wouldn't use us (We're not the cable company)."

So, their top-line net is $369,408. If I were Groupon Guy, that is the number I would use to sell the concept to a restaurant. That's more intoxicating than an Adam Seger drink. 

The sales may stop there, the numbers don't.

According to the article, the restaurant pays Groupon for the privilege of participation. So let's just use the numbers that Groupon reported in the article, which the PR Manager said was "about half," so $20. That comes to a $115,440 fee.

So they gross, $253,968 (for those actually crunching these numbers, I am including the 60 percent bump).
Wow, tons o' cash. At this point, I would do a Groupon for RIA if someone facilitated me getting that kind of cash into my flow, which is right now more of a trickle.

But, OH! Craptacular! Everyone forgot the Cost of Goods Sold. Because unlike a tech company that was built to scale monumentally, restaurants have massive COGS to manage.

Let's just back-of-the-envelope this scenario.

• Say their food cost is 30% of the full-price, plus the 24 tacked on (that 60 percent of the value). $180,086
• Labor.  I'll toss that in at 25%, so that comes to $150,072.
• Rent -- I don't even wanna guess the rent and heck, don't need to because... 

We are at, um, -$76,190. (Please note, there is a negative there).
Before electric, ice, heat, breakage, everything else. Like, uh, rent.

Which means that, dang it, that restaurant has to do another Groupon because by the time they are done, they need cash and man alive, getting nearly $400,000 would really solve their problems, wouldn't it?

Which is why, Andrew Mason, 98% of the businesses you feature do it again -- they don't really have a choice if they wanna stay in business.

Every day, I feel like I cajole chefs to get busy with their social media marketing and every day the message back is: I am too busy.

Seriously, I feel that pain. Right now, my own todo list hovers around 750 things to do (I log everything into my list, from get cat litter to raise $75,000 cash for software development).  I have to continue building the 300-page wiki we are adding to SpoonFeed, update and distribute the new partnership agreements for my investors, help a young chef finish his business plan, find another young chef a job, figure out what the hell to write in this space tomorrow, and, yes, raise $75,000 cash for software development, which of course means updating my own business plan.

So, believe me, it is hard for me to also get to the social media for my company -- one look at our RIA Facebook page sorta makes it obvious how much I have been ignoring my own social media problem.  Frankly, it just seemed overwhelming to even try to figure it out.

Then I read a post by a gal I follow on Twitter and Facebook, Pamela Price.  She wrote a blog post on her patriotic gardening blog called  "Fluff Up and Promote Your FB Fan Page. And it seemed a great rundown for even the overwhelmed to be able to grasp:

• Create exclusive content and quit regurgitating what everyone else is saying.
• Allow your fans to post to your page because, it is social media, right?
• Post info from other pages to build your network. Like twitter, Facebook allows for people and pages you follow to be tagged (by typing @restaurant intelligent agency) in an update or post, which then shows up on both your feed, and the feed of whomever was tagged.
  
• Promote your page on every Internet site you belong to because, how else am I going to know about it?
  
• Ask folks to be your fans because, what do you have to lose?

So, we're going to start really drilling down on the RIA Facebook page in coming weeks.  We're hoping to make it a bit of a go-to place for some behind the scenes info from great Chicago restaurants (soon, make that restaurants from around the country!). We realize that, in our position, we can probably corral and share so many great restaurant stories that we should probably do that.

It took me about ten months to figure this out. And I think we are going to have to continue to tweak and evolve the whole strategy as we go, seeing what works and what doesn't.  But that is what social media all about.  No one is an expert, it is all still too new.  So the best thing to do is just jump in and try.

Hopefully, the work we are going to start doing over on our page will inspire you to start thinking about yours.