Valentine's Day is here and since love is in the air, I'm sharing the tools, courses, websites, and resources that I LOVE... the things that help me market restaurants!

Finally this week on Episode #48, I announced a Pre-Sale Special for two online workshops I'm launching this summer. Regularly priced at $197, I'm offering 50% OFF until the end of March. Plus... PLUS... the first 25 people who reserve a spot will get a FREE Restaurant Strategy Tote Bag. 

There are two things that are absolutly crucial to creating a profitable business... understanding WHAT your product is, and identifying WHO it's for. The tricky part, however is articulating those things successfully. 

In this week's episode we're talking all about building a short, medium, and long elevator pitch for your business. You'll use these for press releases and whenever you find yourself talking to potential investors. More than that, these pitches will become the base for your marketing efforts moving forward. 

There are three things that are essential for a great elevator pitch: 

I've put together a freebie for you this week to help you with the assignment. The Elevator Pitch Cheatsheet will show you short, medium, and long pitches for 4 successful restaurant brands, plus it'll walk you through the 4 steps to building a pitch of your own.

Your assignment then is to write 3 different elevator pitches for your own restaurant.

And as a refresher go back and listen to Episodes #2-6, where we talk all about the 5 Pillars Marketing. CLICK HERE to list to the first of those 5 episodes.

When pondering the question "What do we sell," it's all too easy to respond with the "food and beverage." It's easy, and it's lazy. And it's also wrong. As we've discussed in past episodes, as restaurant operates we're doing so much more than just feeding people. We're providing a comfortable environment for them to collect. We provide a table and a choice of items. We prepare the food, serve the food, then clear and clean all of the dishes, all while giving them the chance to focus in on the people they're dining with. At the very least we are selling an experience, and I believe much more. We are selling a feeling. We are filling a NEED. And all great marketing comes down to that. In this week's episode we're going to talk about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and I'll explain how it can help you better serve your audience. That means more covers and more revenue, but you have to get clear on the underlying issues that plague your customers. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html Much of the work we do in modern marketing is influenced by Maslow's work, first published almost 80 years ago. And his work will provide deep insight to what your customers really want. Which is good news because if our patrons were just looking to "eat" they could go elsewhere to get food quicker and for less money. After all, a can of beans only costs about 80 cents and will fill you up pretty good. So even if you just run a fast food joint, a burger, fries, and a drink will cost 5 or 6 or 7 times that much. So we have to assume that our customers are looking for more than just "food." What exactly do they need? That's what this episode is all about! This episode will stack right on top of the work we did at the very beginning of this show... go back and listen to episodes #2-6 for a refresher on the 5 Pillars of Marketing and follow along with the workbook...

As always, if you have questions or ideas about future episodes, please reach out... [email protected]

Valentine's Day is the first big holiday of 2020 and offers a great opportunity to #1 boost Q1 sales figures, and #2 to make an impression on a bunch of first time diners. In this week's episode I'm walking you through eight different ways to help maximize profits on this, the most romantic day of the year

And as promised, there's also a freebie that goes along with this episode... a checklist that highlights all 8 of these along with 3 additional ideas. Follow the link below to get the download:

LINKS FROM THE SHOW:

As always, if you have questions or ideas about future episodes, please reach out... [email protected]

At the end of 2018 my wife and I sat down and said that travel was going to be a priority moving forward. We did very little of it growing up, and we wanted it to be a big part of our son's life. So we looked at the calendar, picked some dates, and booked our trip. Obviously food is a big part of my life, and so dining would be a big part of the trip. But still I was blown away by the experience. And so on this week's episode I'm sharing eight Insights from my 8-day vacation in Paris!

Part 1 - Dine at a brand new restaurant sometime this week -- even just a sandwich shop -- and take stock of everything. Check the website before you go and see what you learn from it. Call them ahead of time and ask some questions. Scout out the neighborhood, the block, the front door and see if you would go in as a tourist. Grade the meal, and think about whether you would recommend it to a friend or a co-worker. What would you say about it? Then Part 2 - Do this same exercise with your own restaurant and try to be as honest as possible.

As always, if you have questions or ideas about future episodes, please reach out... [email protected]

The best way to predict where we’re going is to take a look at where we’ve been. So I think it’s worth taking this opportunity to look back at the decade that just passed. This week we're going to talk about the 10 biggest trends in dining from the past decade, and use that to make some predictions about the decade ahead. This one is filled with all kinds of great insights. Do not skip!!!

American Catch by Paul Greenberg - CLICK HERE

Marketing Rebellion by Mark W. Schaefer - CLICK HERE

As always, if you have questions or ideas about future episodes, please reach out... [email protected]

What’s the product? Who’s it for? And how can you reach them?  That’s what all marketing boils down to. The ways in which we reach people will constantly change, but the first two should never change. If you can get clear on those, you’ll have a leg up on your competition. In fact, this is what I spend most of my life doing - helping restaurants and chefs get clear answers to those first two questions. The rest of my time is spent brainstorming ideas, and figuring out the best ways to reach audiences, and the most effective ways to promote our products. The way I do that is by getting organized. Organization requires a long term view… not working a week at a time, not a month, but for the entire year ahead.

On this week’s episode I’ll be helping you build your 2020 Marketing Calendar, and sharing a link to download a killer template you can use to do it.

CLICK HERE to get your 2020 Marketing Calendar

As always, if you have questions or ideas about future episodes, please reach out... [email protected]

The holiday season means big business for the restaurant industry. People are going out more and celebrating… friends and families get together, there are office parties, plus people are spending more than they normally would… there’s a festive energy in the air and people are more willing to indulge. And still, restaurants can hardly seem to keep up with the demand. For most restaurants it’s an all-out sprint to the end of the year; we hardly have time to look around. This week is a short little episode with a big lesson wrapped up inside. Happy Holidays, everyone!

As always, if you have questions or ideas about future episodes, please reach out... [email protected]

Kevin Kelly is an author, editor, public speaker, and technologist who, whether you’re aware of it or not, has been quietly changing the world for the past 40 years. Tech geeks will know him as the founding executive editor of WIRED magazine, but he’s also been a pioneer in the world of virtual reality and AI programming. He got his first shot of real fame in 2010 with the release of a book called “What Technology Wants.” And found further notoriety with the follow-up to that — another brilliant book titled “The Inevitable.” This episode, however, is about a little essay he wrote in 2008 called 1,000 True Fans. The link to the essay is below, along with a workbook I've created specifically for this episode. I hope you get as much out of Kevin Kelly's ideas as I have.

Read Kevin Kelly's essay:1,000 True Fans

DOWNLOAD THE TRUE FANS WORKBOOK HERE ... or simply visit www.ChipKlose.com/truefans

As always, if you have questions or ideas about future episodes, please reach out... [email protected]

There’s a YouTube clip that’s famous at this point in marketing circles. Perhaps you’ve seen it. Gary Vaynerchuk, marketing superstar and head of Vayner Media, hosts a show called Ask Gary Vee. It’s a call-in show, and each episode he has on a different co-host. Back in 2017 on Episode #257, Gary sat with Jon Taffer, the host of a TV show called Bar Rescue on the Paramount Network. Now, a young guy calls in with questions about how to promote his family’s barbecue restaurant, and what followed was four and a half minutes of absolute gold. I’ve linked to it above so if you’ve never watched it, go take the time to watch it now. In this week's episode we’re going to break it down, and talk about what it can mean for your restaurant.

As always, if you have questions or ideas about future episodes, please reach out... [email protected]