I used to work at Lyric Opera of Chicago, back in what I think of its heyday when Ardis Krainik was at the helm.

I am sure I know a lot more about opera now than when I started and I have a lot of great stories about fat ladies singing, about the day Pavarotti was fired, and about "creating art" with David Hockney.  But the lasting impact working there had on my life was in Miss Krainik's unbridled support of marketing and what restaurants can learn from her legacy.

Clearly, opera is more "art" than restaurants. And yet, Miss Krainik approached running her opera like it was a business...and man, did that place hum.  While I worked there, as Sales Manager, Lyric sold over 100% of its seats. Right, I said OVER (we resold seats that patrons returned for a tax write-off).

And it didn't matter that we were selling over capacity, we still sent out millions of subscription and single ticket brochures each year. Customers were pounded and pounded with mailings, telemarketing, whatever it would take to get them to buy. She pushed us to move past the over-capacity mark to, oh, I don't even know what that would be called.

A few people questioned why we were sending out so many brochures when we were the hottest ticket in town. They wondered if it was a waste of money. What they didn't realize is that one of the biggest reasons we sold so many tickets is because we DID send out so many brochures. And we didn't let up just because we were busy, we continued to work just as hard, or maybe even harder, to make sure the gravy train continued running.

A lot of restaurants seem to rest on the laurels of busy nights. "Oh, we don't need PR, the press are calling all the time."  "Oh, we're alright without marketing, we are busier than ever."

And I always think of the lesson Miss Krainik taught me: When you are up, you actually have to work harder than you do if you are down. That way, you'll never really know how hard you'd have to work if you were down.