Where was this guy when I needed him?
Tonight was a partly great night spending time with some of the extended family visiting from Hong Kong. They are great people and we had a great time in Sydney’s beautiful Darling Harbour but someone didn’t want us to have a great time at all.
We went to this really expensive restaurant that served average food, was very costly and there was a 55 minute delay till our food came out. It was really bad and really ate up lots of time on the night and besides the money being quite a bit – it was more the time taken from our night.
We don’t get a lot of free time as it is, so whenever something like this impacts us – I am sure like you, it would be quite annoying. We had a fantastic waiter and from someone who has worked a bit on the food industry it came down to really that the kitchen that was totally useless. The front of house staff was working their butts off, with a bunch of chef’s standing around looking important and getting nothing done.
As I reflected on this experience, it got me thinking about some of my earlier Marketing Management jobs. One of my early jobs was for a Bakery Cafe Franchise which was a great concept, had some great stores – but some stores were really badly run. I would always be forced into this quagmire where they are doing a poor job, they don’t have many customers coming back and they demand more Marketing help.
The tragic reality (and I would be forced to be the bad guy) would be if I did Market their stores, they would totally stuff up in that it would only convince people not to come back.
Basically the message is this like that lazy restaurant we went too tonight, it’s quality before Marketing.
I have had potential clients before (which in some cases I have turned down) ask me for Marketing help, but the truth is that their quality is just terrible. Marketing won’t help them as they have a quality issue meaning that people won’t come back.
My advice? Quality before Marketing. And this is coming from a “Marketing Mentor” too.
You will love it, so will your clients and so shall they bank account!
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