The number of chefs that let great media opportunities slip through their fingers because they can't answer a simple question is staggering.  More accurately, staggeringly sad. So, yesterday I suggested tapping one of your staff people to handle basic media requests.

I assume you are already acting on this sage piece of advice.  If not, don't read further.  Seriously.  You really need to get that handled before you can move on.

If you have, the next thing you should do is find one person on the staff who can do the same for your restaurant's Facebook page (and yours!). All it takes is one person -- albeit, one creative person with a unique voice -- to tend your Facebook presence.

Oh, and a digital camera and maybe a flipcam would be nice, too.

See, simply starting a Facebook page and putting up an update once a week or every few days isn't enough to keep your fans engaged. But putting up a post or two a day, varying them between photos, menu/specials alerts, links of interesting articles, maybe even a video -- that'll do ya.

Of course, if you are a chef, the very thought of this likely makes you want to call me nasty names.  Which is why I am suggesting finding a go-getter on the staff to take this on. 

And believe me, they are there, right under your nose.  I meet these go-getters who are bored, underutilized and often frustrated that their bosses don't "get it" every day I step into a restaurant.  They want to help.  They ask me if they can help.  Go, ask them to help!

Once you do, here are a few other ideas they can try out, but don't just take my suggestions. Remember, two heads are better than one, which is why you enlisted help in the first place.

Once or twice a month, post a recipe for a signature dish or cocktail.

Once a week, offer peeks into the kitchen through flipcam videos.

If you have a special event, livestream the event via UStream.

Post quotes from customers' feedback forms, with permission, of course.

Drop some "Did You Know?" facts and figures about the restaurant into posts over the course of a week or month, and then spring a pop quiz on your fans. Whoever answers the most questions right is entered into a drawing to win a gift certificate.

In other words, mix it up, dish out some fun, let your customers in and reap the rewards.

When you own your own business, whether a restaurant or a web-based PR service, there are many, many days when you wish you were a mad scientist octopus, with eight arms and the power to stop, reverse and add time to the clock. We’ve all had those days when we think, “Man, if only I could clone me, I would be this close to cleaning out my in-box, catching up on phone calls, and tackling those projects on my wish list.”

Thing is, until cloning has been perfected and we can be assured our duplicates won’t actually come out with eight arms, we don’t seem to have much of a choice but to dive solo into the mountainous pile of obligations, day after day.

However, I do have an idea I hope you’ll consider now, so that on your most hectic days when you’re thinking, “Ack, I haven’t called back that nice reporter who called twice in the past week because she really wants more information about my event to do me the favor of publicizing it, and I’m about to miss her deadline,” you have an option: Designate one of your employees as your go-to person for media help.

Chances are good there’s at least one person working in your restaurant who is passionate, articulate and knows you well. On the first two counts: If not, why did you hire them? And on the third count, if there’s no one you work with who knows you well, I’m kind of sad all of a sudden.

So do you have that person in mind? Maybe it’s your sous chef, or perhaps your manager. (Bonus points if you select one of your rising stars, whose bright future would only benefit from building PR skills now.)

Next step: Start asking him or her to respond to a media request now and then. Let them start small, of course. The time to test this out is not when your restaurant has been cited for a busted hand sink, in the midst of food poisoning allegations, or when a reporter wants to profile you about an award you just won. But calling back with a menu item, clarification on a recipe or an update on an interview time would certainly be within the capabilities of a restaurant staffer.

The toughest part of all of this probably will be our own internal struggle with giving up a bit of control. Not only will you free up time, but if your current m.o. is to pass on simple media requests to your high-priced publicist, it will also save you tons of cash.

Chefs are an ornery bunch. Back when I worked in kitchens, it was far too close to normal for a pot to fly across the room. Thankfully, this is now generally accepted as d-bag behavior.

The thing is, while they've learned that decent human behavior is de rigueur, chefs now have more on their plates than ever before, thanks to technology.

So instead of ducking pots a-flying, I now tend to get a lot of chefs who vent about all the FBing, Tweeting, blogging and emailing they have to do. Some, I think, are actually looking to me for an out — for permission to ignore what amounts to their responsibilities.

Well, sorry.

Our world has changed and you, dear chef, need to change with it if you are gonna stay on top of the heap (or crawl yourself there, if the case may be).

• We now all communicate by email. Phone calls are interruptive and inefficient, and the “stopping by to chat” thing is ridiculously expensive in people terms.
• We communicate daily with influencers and connectors via Facebook and Twitter, Flickr and YouTube —  and if you are not in the conversation, guess what? You'll be overlooked again and again.
• We promote ourselves ourselves, via blogs, so that we can actually get our thoughts, ideas and unique value out in the world, and not just wait for journalists to discover us. (The discovery is a 15-minute-fame thing anyway.)

What I will do, though, is spend a week or so helping dig you out of the morass. So stay tuned — if you have time!

The other day I ran into a chef who hadn't gotten back to me with some information a journalist needed.  Clarifications on a recipe. 

"Oh," he said, "I have been meaning to call you about that email. I keep forgetting.  Seriously, I remembered on Saturday when I was running an errand."

I suggested that maybe just emailing back would have been an option.

"No, it's easier for me to call.  But I kept on remembering at the worst times. Like right in the middle of service or when I was checking in an order."

And so I wonder: How can it possibly be easier to call when the nagging reminder interrupts what seems to be every day of your life?

Emailing can "seem" inconvenient if you are not a proficient typist.  But, it has a few virtues to consider:

1) You can do it when it is convenient for you;

2) It provides a written record of what transpired, so no guessing;

3) It serves as a de facto to-do list.

4) In the end, it is faster, because you don't have to wait on hold, exchange lots of pleasantries, wait for one party or the other to get a pen so notes can be recorded, what have you.

Email. It's a good thing.

Chefs, has this ever happened to you? You check in with a cook multiple times during prep to be sure she’ll be finished with her place before service. She seems in the weeds, so you keep stopping by, asking questions, offering assistance, but she keeps insisting she’s on target. Then, at 5:31, the ball drops; she confesses she was over her head, and now she’s missing her entire station.

You feel anger, disappointment, frustration – but mostly panic, as the orders start rolling in.

It’s the same way journalists feel when you tell them you’re going to give them a quote/recipe/interview, but you keep putting off that phone call or e-mail.

If your cook is struggling to get her place ready for service, better for her to tell you she can’t handle it than to pretend she can and then come up empty-handed when the doors open.

Likewise, if you don’t think you can deliver by a reporter’s deadline, better to take a pass from the start than to become the reason for that person’s panic.

I’ve been doing this job for so many years – 13-plus – that sometimes I forget PR doesn’t come naturally to most ordinary people. Let’s take small talk as an example. Most people really suck at small talk. See, the point of small talk – if you’re someone with something to offer, which last I checked covers all of my clients – isn’t just to kill time. Done right, small talk can lead to Big Talk.

Small talk happens in plenty of circumstances, the classics being in lines, in waiting rooms, and on elevators. But it’s also a staple in most premeditated conversations, such as at deal closings, or during an interview between a reporter and – oh, let’s just use a chef for the heck of it. When the conversation is either just getting going or starting to wrap up, there’s that awkward gap of time to fill – small talk time.

Here’s a quick tip to make it Big: Whatever is the most important thing you’re doing right now – your new restaurant, recent chef change, upcoming TV appearance or event – find a way to insert it into the conversation.

• The TV producer guy says they’re short on camera crews? Tell him that’s a shame, but you hope he can make it to your opening on the evening of Sept. 22.
• The reporter has to cut short her interview because she’s on a tight deadline? Use your last few seconds to thank her for her time, and let her know you hope to continue the conversation at your annual beer-pairing dinner on Oct. 4.

The art of small talk is learning to use tiny openings to turn the tide of conversation in your favor. Learn it, and you’ll leave more lasting impressions.

Last Friday, I posted a response to an oft-asked question I get about Groupon. What transpired was an inspiration for what to do when one gets a bad review.

Within an hour or two of the post going up, the CEO of Groupon called me to sort out my response.  He explained his position, that Groupon is great and Grouponistas aren't your average discount seekers.

It kinda reminded me of the chef who gets a bad review and can prove the reviewer was wrong with a litany of facts.  The chef can ALWAYS prove the reviewer was wrong.  There are ALWAYS supporting facts.

But of course, I (and the reviewer) generally do have a point.  And the point, while Groupon (or the chef) may not at first be agreeable, it always behooves someone to wonder, "Could their opinion also have merit?"

Andrew Mason, CEO/Founder of Groupon, of course, was savvy enough to pay attention to the opportunity.  Because in every adversity, we all know, there is opportunity.  By mid-day he had written me with a great idea of how to make Groupon relevant to the kind of restaurants I work with -- and making Groupon even better for Grouponistas to boot!

So, chefs, when Groupon calls, take a listen to their new plan.  And if Andrew is on the line, maybe see if you can trade him dinner for a great lesson in how to deal with critics.

Ben Bernanke may have declared the recession over but it seems a lot of restaurants have decided to jump off the cliff any way and discount.  Specifically, using Groupon. 

Now, I love Groupon, have used it myself and even have a Groupon on my desk right now (not for dinner).  And Groupon is a good thing, generally, in that it can prompt a youngish cadre of customers to beat down your door.

But you'll certainly experience Groupon #FAIL if you treat the Grouponistas, in the recent words of one chef, as "Not Real Diners." That's right, the chef in question, who invited the vampire in the front door, was then pissed off that a bunch of discount-lovers didn't throw down for the Calera. Really?

So, let's review.

1) Desperate owner agrees to Groupon in order to get people in the door.
2) Grouponistas jump on the opportunity to eat in one of Chicago's premier restaurants at a price they can actually afford.
3) D-day arrives and the Grouponistas start flooding the restaurant.  They order smart, staying in their budget, sharing food so everyone can try as much as possible, probably order one glass of wine or stick with water.
4) Servers start to notice a trend:  no extras, no wine upcharge, small tip.
5) Because the Groupon needs to be handed to server at start of meal, server knows what's coming and they, well, let's say they act accordingly.
6) Owner is happy to see a full restaurant but begins to see no value in the diners eating there at all and the servers are grumpy.
7) Groupon period is over, restaurant goes back to desperately empty and has a bunch of new bad gossip on the street and online about just how rude and bad the service was.  So bad, the "reviewer" probably decided the food sucked too.

So, if you are thinking of calling me and asking me if Groupon is a good idea, there's your answer.

And don't think, dear owner, that your well-trained staff would "never" do this to anyone in your restaurant.  I've heard tell it happened in many a fine restaurant around town.

Sure, food TV is entertaining and gives at-home cooks tasty ideas they can replicate in their own kitchens. On the whole, getting people excited about food is a good thing.

But there’s a dark side when wanna-be chefs watch food TV and get the impression that being a chef means, first, applying a load of makeup; second, finding an outfit and tablescape to coordinate with your menu; and third, only making dump-and-stir dishes that can go from prep to plate in 30 minutes.

It’s this sort of nonsense that makes chefs like Anthony Bourdain sneer at Food Network (despite, ahem, his own move from kitchen to camera. But we won’t dwell.)

Let’s not mince words: Being a chef is incredibly demanding, the kind of job that kicks your ass day in and day out. To suggest otherwise not only is disingenuous, but it’s also bad PR for the entire industry. Not everyone can be a chef. Everyone can cook, but there’s a big difference between cooking and being a chef. I know, I can cook.

Food Network has missed some great opportunities to show the less glamorous side of the business. The Chefographies series, hour-long profiles of Food Network stars, claim to go behind the scenes. But I still think the stories glamorize the lives of people like Pat and Gina Neely, who built a family barbecue business into a Memphis icon; and Ina Garten, who chucked her government career to open Barefoot Contessa, a specialty food shop in Westhampton, NY, which ultimately launched her stardom.

Here’s what their biographies left out: 16-hour days, clogged sinks, suppliers falling through at the last minute, cooks walking five minutes before service, staff with addictions, hostess cat fighting, industry back-stabbing, break-ins, in-house theft, holidays away from loved ones, and all the rest that comes along with running a restaurant.

It’s true: It’s not all bad, or no one would do it. But there’s bad to be had and leaving it out isn’t really giving chefs what's due.

I’ve known many successful chefs. Enough to form the opinion that success, and all that comes with it, can transform people.

Food TV personalities such as Paula Deen are prime examples. Deen had humble beginnings as a divorcee who, with her two young sons, began to put her life back together by starting a family catering business. Eventually, her little venture became so popular in her southern hometown that she opened a restaurant. Then, lo, one day Deen was discovered by a Food Network producer who liked her pluck. They gave her a show, and then another show, and in the meantime she acquired her dream house and a new husband, and even brought her two boys into the new family business, TV.

Well, you may be arguing, Paula is still Paula. She’s still the same butter-lovin’, giggly, sweet with a bit of spice, Southern dame she always was.

But is she? Really?

After I watched a recent episode of Paula’s Party in which she entertained Donald Trump’s son (yes, his name is Donald, too. How did you guess?), I would argue that she’s not quite as authentic as she used to be. The Don Jr.? Really?

The most important lesson for people whose stars are rising – whether you’re a chef in a four-star restaurant or a Southern gal who got a chance and ran with it – is to stay true to yourself. To my mind, if you’re Paula Deen, that means putting your foot down on whatever producer came up with the Don Jr. idea.

If you’re a chef, it means refusing to compromise your food and personality to suit the masses, your publicist, or anyone else who thinks they know you better.

Some people (most food professionals) can't stand Food Network and other TV shows about food; some (most customers) can't live without it. I'm somewhere in between, so in today's and tomorrow's posts, I'm going to riff on some of the positive and negative restaurant PR lessons I've gleaned from watching food TV.
 
We'll start with the good stuff: programs such as "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," "No Reservations," and "Check, Please!" that allow viewers to experience a restaurant vicariously through the host and the people he or she interviews.
 
Why is this the good stuff? To me, these shows are a reminder to chefs and restaurants that your customers can be your cheapest and best advertising. Think about it: They've paid to eat your food, sometimes many times. When they like what they've tasted, they're also a targeted ad, because they probably have friends who are a lot like them -- people who fit your customer profile. 
 
Consider Chicago's "Check, Please!," a wildly popular show in which three regular Joes/Janes sit around a table and talk up their favorite restaurants. The producer usually selects three very different people, so one guest's pick may elicit lukewarm responses from the others. But when I watch the show, I tend to identify with at least one of the guests, making me more likely to check out his or her top choice.

And when it strikes a chord, and it always does, you've got an onslaught of customers.  All because one person believed in you, defended you, promoted you, all on TV.

So, you may not like what has happened to food and restaurants because of TV, but your banker likely will if you play the game a bit and realize its power to persuade.

While it's true restaurants everywhere are feeling the pinch of the recession, if you're only cooking for a handful of people every night, believe me, you have problems that need fixin'. Sure, your competitors who are booked a week out have problems, too; but yours are worse. You need to stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and really face the music.
 
If your numbers are down, do two things:
 
1. Eat in your restaurant, a lot, and so that your presence isn't such that everyone is walking on eggshells. Make like your customers, to whom it is obvious most of the time what isn't working. Think about everything from the way they are greeted when they walk in the door to how often they see their server and, of course, the quality and consistency of the food. If you were paying to eat in your restaurant, if you were coming in after a long day at the office or to celebrate an occasion, would you feel like you got your money's worth and more?
 
2. Befriend the people who are eating in your restaurant -- and I don't mean in a slimy, opportunistic way. Thank them for choosing to dine with you, ask them what they like about your place, and ask them what they want to see more of. Then, deliver, so that they eat there more often.
 
3. Don't stop there. Your friends have friends. Encourage them to bring them in. And use social media, like Twitter and Facebook, to stay in touch with your friends -- and to get in touch with their friends, because most of them are all right there for you to connect with.
 
The bottom line: Learn what your customers like, and give them more of that and less of what they don't like. And whatever you do, don't go trying to find an entirely new group of friends. That's about as do-able as switching from the dorky group to the popular group in high school.

In my last post, I acknowledged that PR can be hypey and inauthentic - but quickly pointed out it doesn't have to be.

One way to avoid looking like a shameless self-promoter is to put your story - what you want people to remember about you, your restaurant, or your product - in context. It's a big world out there, with lots of stories competing for people's attention. Some will rise to the top, snagging all the headlines. Most of the time, the reality is yours will not be among them. In that case, the question you should be asking yourself is, "How does my story relate to the one getting all the attention?"

I'll give you an example: Greg Hall, the master brewer at Chicago's Goose Island, posted the following update on his Facebook page the day before the President was to meet with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and the Cambridge cop who arrested him: "Obama celebrated election night with 312 and Honkers Ale. What will he serve at the White House on Thursday? Stay tuned!"

Brilliant!

Hall recognized that what was capturing America's attention that week was the much-anticipated White House "beer summit," where, over brewskis, Gates, the cop and the President would discuss the infamous incident and, at the end of the evening, hopefully hug it out.

Hall saw a connection to his message -- Goose Island beer kicks butt -- and used it in a way that wasn't slimy and opportunistic, but rather natural and even a bit cheeky. Obviously, Hall understood the power of tapping into the stories people already are talking about. For starters, you don't have to work so hard to get their attention, and they're more likely to chat up your comments if they fit into a conversation in progress.

One more thing: If you don't think your story fits anywhere, trust me, you're wrong. With a little thought, everything has context; it just takes practice to find the right connections.

True chefs are artists. Like painters, poets and sculptors, most chefs want to be free to create their masterpieces -- on porcelain canvases, mind you -- unfettered by the necessary evils of promotion and peddling. Yet, like the rest of us, they want and need to put food on their own tables.

Oh, the dilemma!

As a publicist, I find myself smack-dab in the thick of this personal turmoil when a reporter calls me frantically trying to track down a chef who refuses to return her calls. I’ve given a lot of thought (probably more thought than is healthy) as to why chefs give reporters the runaround, and I’ve determined there are two main reasons:

1. Some chefs think they’ll look like sellouts if they play the media game.

2. And some are afraid reporters will make them look bad, somewhere on the disadvantageous spectrum with egomaniacal blowhard on the one end and dunce or dilettante on the other.

To those with the second fear, your best “defense” (allowing that reporters can sometimes be on the offense, though most of the time they are not) most certainly is not ignoring reporters. For one, snubbing them doesn’t mean they aren’t going to write about you. It just means you won’t have a say. At a bare minimum, you need to take ownership of the facts -- both your own and your restaurant's. Why would you hand over your image control to a reporter’s imagination, or even to your publicist, when it was you who worked so hard to get here?

And to chefs with the starving artist complex (I will not even comment on the irony), I agree PR can be hypey and inauthentic. But it doesn’t have to be. And to avoid it altogether is downright wrongheaded -- that is if you want to make it in this crazy world.

So find a way to tell your story your way, to provide your audience with the information they need without compromising your principles. I know it can be done, because I’ve been doing it for over 14 years.

The other day, a PR friend of mine called me up. She'd been fired. (No, this isn't about a restaurant client, stop trying to guess, sheesh.)

"You're a visionary," she said.

"Uh, OK. Sure, I'll go with that." (Far be it from me to disagree with a statement like that.)

"I was just fired from Client X. They told me it wasn't me, it was just that PR didn't make sense any more.  They meant media relations, you know, there aren't that many journalists left, it seems.  But they knew, they knew."

"What?  What did they know?" I asked, hoping that my brilliance would be revealed in the answer so I could agree with her more.

"They knew that spending all that money on me chasing around media stories isn't cost effective.  It's a crapshoot. No, it is a really bad run at the craps table.  It doesn't work," she said. "And you are not gonna believe this, they actually said they knew they were wasting my time. That I probably could do great work for them, that I was smarter than what they charged me to do."

"Wow. So your client knows you can do more than forward emails, take dictation and assemble a monthly report?  That's revolutionary, in my book."

I had a couple of interesting conversations this week with publicists just starting out in the restaurant area. One is very experienced in PR, this is just her first restaurant client. The other isn't, just starting out.

Yet both told the same sad tale about clients who don't respond. 

"We meet, we agree on the plan, then they don't follow up, don't respond to emails. So nothing gets done. It doesn't make sense!"

No, throwing money away doesn't make sense. Ever. It doesn't matter if you are busy or hate email or can't get to a computer or whatever other cockamamee excuse you dish up. It doesn't matter why, it matters what you do.  And you are, in fact, throwing your money away if you do any of the following:

• Don't respond to your publicist's emails in a timely manner.

* Ask for their advice and then ignore it (if you don't trust the advice of the person you hired to give you advice, well, I am not even writing a post on that, you need to seek medical help).

• Tell your publicist you will get her something for a journalist and then don't do it.

It's ironic. The restaurant who hired the newbie did so because they "couldn't afford" to hire experienced help. Yet they are rich enough to throw money into the toilet, and flush.

In a time when magazines and newspapers are tight on space -- and are even trimming their physical size to cut costs in the most literal sense -- Bon Appétit's September issue devoted six full pages to the story behind Chef David Chang's signature Soft-Boiled Egg with Caviar.

On its face, the story isn't much of a page-turner. Chang is Korean, so he grew up on bi bim bap. He got his start in Japan, where he saw a woman eat a hard-boiled egg in a movie theater and learned about a cool method the Japanese have of slow-poaching eggs in hot springs.

When he opened Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York in 2004, it was eggs, eggs, eggs. (Get the picture? Chef loves eggs.) So when he opened Momofuku Ko a few years later, he drew on all he knew about them to come up with his signature egg dish.

What made me keep reading was not, I assure you, suspense. It was the lovely way Bon Appétit told the story, through a series of graphic-novel style illustrations by Matthew Woodson.

This got me thinking about different chefs and how they express themselves.

For some, it's easy to get all Jack Kerouac and bang out stream-of-consciousness blog posts. Others are more direct -- and addicted to their phones -- so Twitter is the obvious next step.

On the other hand, some chefs --- many chefs, really -- are visual. They want to meet in person and see the event space. To these I say, get a good digital camera and a Flickr page, or a Flip cam and a YouTube channel, and start showing us your story!

A picture - whether drawn, still or animated - really can be worth 1,000 words.

Recently, I was having a nice chat on Facebook with a chef about why he should take charge of his own PR and image. The same old advice, different day: Get a Twitter account, start a blog, post on FB, befriend journalists, get yourself out there.

That's when he bared his deepest, darkest insecurity to me:  "But I'm not a publicist," he moaned, sure that this professional fact -- indeed, he is "merely" a well-known chef -- was holding him back.

My reaction? I banged out, "PERFECT!!!" (You know, because we were chatting online, so he wouldn't have heard me when I actually shouted it. My dogs did, though, and they were a bit confused, but proudly accepted the compliment.)

You're not a publicist, either, you say? P.E.R.F.E.C.T.!!!

No one -- not your clients, nor the media -- wants to hear from a publicist. Believe me, I know, I am a publicist. 

You're th chef -- everyone wants to hear your voice, not someone's interpretation of your voice. Some of the most successful chefs are discovering that through blogs, Flip cams, videos, Twitter and the like; it's not only faster and more fun to tell their own stories rather than rely on a publicist, but it's also more effective.

The interesting thing about this direct-to-the-audience shift is that some chefs love the instant gratification and results they're seeing, and others are frozen by fear, their icy fingers clinging to a sinking ship. I call it The Wizard of Oz Effect. For so long, most chefs have relied on an elaborately crafted PR machine with smoke and mirrors and a megaphone to turn them into something different than they are. Strip it all away, and they're not even sure who the man or woman behind the curtain is anymore.

Stop being afraid that person isn't enough or right. Instead, write a few blog posts or tweets and send them my way. I'll guide you a bit until you get used to hearing the sound of your own voice.

And I promise I'll skip the whole lesson that all it takes is brains, courage, and a little bit of heart.

The 2nd Annual Chicago Gourmet Festival is just around the corner, September 26 and 27, in my city's front yard, Millennium Park.

Festival organizers learned a thing or two their first go-'round, and this year, it seems they're on top of their game -- which, for event organizers means planning in excruciating detail far further in advance than most people can fathom. This, of course, includes the chefs and winemakers who will be the festival's main attraction (some of whom, yes, are my clients).

The thing is, agreeing to participate in an event, whether a benefit, festival, or progressive dinner, means signing on to stuff like printing deadlines and all of the other evil necessities required to market an event. And it's not just for the benefit of the event. It's about making sure your restaurant, your product, yourself are best represented in all that marketing.

So the next time you get irritated because some marketing person is nagging you to turn in your form/bio/headshot/menu plan/wine list, like, two months before you've given it any thought -- instead of getting all huffy and annoyed, sit down and give it some thought, and turn whatever it is in. And don't just do it for them.

Do it for you, too.