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“You're busy. That's why we've kept this special report

just about 10 pages. Take a read and think about how it
applies to your restaurant business —because this could
be the most important document you'll read this year.”
Alex Makarski & Troy Authement
Restaurant Commando

NOTICE: This document represents copyrighted material and may

only be reproduced and distributed in whole, without any changes. It
may not be edited, altered, or otherwise modified, except with the
express permission of the author. This report discusses general busi-
ness issues of interest and is not designed to give any specific legal,
marketing, or accounting advice pertaining to any specific circum-
stances. It is important that professional advice be obtained before
acting upon any of the information contained in this report.

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 First, a Reality Check
If you're like many of the restaurant owners who come to Restaurant Com- Restaurant marketing
mando for help, you've been told for years that marketing is complex, expen- is simple. Not easy —
sive, and time-consuming — that it takes blood, sweat and tears (mostly just simple.
tears) to produce any results. That's why you need an expensive agency with
a fancy-sounding name and slick logo to handle your marketing.
Right?
Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.
Restaurant marketing is simple.
Not easy — just simple. You only need to do
three things: get more
There are only 3 key targets you need to focus on, to increase the bottom- new customers, get
line profits of your restaurant: exiting customer in
more often, and make
• Get more new customers;
more profits every
• Get existing customers to come back more often; time they come
• Make more profits on every customer.
That's all there is to it!
Full stop.
End of story.
So, why do most restaurants fail at marketing?
Why do so many restaurants never live up to the full potential of their con-
cept, and lose out to the competition?
Restaurant Commando's first-hand consulting work with real-world restau-
rants — and our in-depth interviews with industry experts — points to one
clear reason for restaurant failures.
Marketing fails when restaurant owners are taught myths about what There is a grain of truth in
makes a restaurant successful and profitable. these myth. But there is
also a big lie
The three myths we are going to discuss today are interesting because there
is a grain of truth in there. But there is also a big lie.
Unlike what most restaurant owners think, these 3 factor don’t guarantee
success. Their impact is not as significant as most tend to believe… That’s
why they are myths!
But since so many people take these myths as absolutes, the myths become
a self-fulfilling prophecy — making the restaurant owner give up too soon,
and shun any type of marketing that's really directed at bottom-line business

© 2008 by http://www.RestaurantCommando.com 3
results. After all, why bother if the stakes are against you?
And we're not talking here about restaurant owners who slack off. Not in the
least. Those who struggle are typically the most hardworking and dedicated
people.
No, it is because they hold onto these myths that they end up focusing on Those who struggle are
the many trivial things that clutter their "To Do" list, instead of those few typically the most hard-
vital actions that would actually make a difference. After all, in a restaurant working and dedicated
business, there are always little things to take care of and fires to put out... restaurant owners
and that's how the downward spiral begins...
But it doesn't have to be that way!
Let's look at the 3 biggest restaurant myths —and how to get past them.

Myth #1: Marketing Takes a Lot of

Money and Time
Let's discuss the money part first, and then we'll deal with the time.
“Marketing” does not
Marketing is often confused with advertising. They are not same thing. Ad- equal “advertising”
vertising is just one way — of the many possible ways — to deliver your mar-
keting message. And yes, advertising can be expensive.
Marketing is about what you do, from the kitchen to the front of the house,
and outside your restaurant, to better understand what your customers
want and to give that to them.
The right marketing doesn't cost money. It creates it.
When you treat your marketing as pure expense and a "necessary evil"—
that's exactly what it will soon become. But when you track a few important
numbers about every campaign and direct your best marketing effort to de-
livering a great dining experience to your existing customers, it becomes a
sure-fire way to generate profits.
Here's the key: Marketing should be
accountable for results
Every campaign must be made accountable for results.
There are always ways to track the amount of dollars you invest into a cam-
paign and the amount of business you generate as a result. The entire mar-
keting exercise is about turning $1 invested in marketing into $1.20, or
$1.55, or $2 in profits. When you know your numbers and know which cam-
paigns work, it is like owning a magic slot machine that spits out two coins
for every coin you put in it.
Now, let's talk about the "time" part of the myth.
Many restaurant owners start their business on a false premise that good

© 2008 by http://RestaurantCommando.com 4
food is all they need for the success of their venture (and we'll talk more
about this in Myth #3). As a result, marketing is an afterthought that gets
attention only when they "have time" away from running their business.
You know firsthand that in a restaurant there's no end to the little things you
have to take care of, all of them urgent. When marketing comes second to all
the "busy-ness" in your long day, you end up doing it grudgingly — or not at
all. You are NOT in a restaurant
The way to overcome this problem is to realize that you are NOT in a restau- business; you are in the
rant business, per se. You are in the MARKETING business that happens to MARKETING business that
provide a great food experience to its patrons. In a marketing business, provides a great food
marketing takes the center stage. It doesn't happen just during the off hours experience
— it happens every minute and permeates every step of every process in
your restaurant:
• The way your guests are greeted;
• The way the food is presented;
• The way your wait staff is helpful yet invisible;
• The way your customers rave about your restaurant to their
friends;
• The way you get to know your guests — and what they know Good marketing is like
about you — breathing: you don’t
think about it
It's all marketing.
When you embrace and internalize this idea, you'll see that marketing does-
n't take time away from running your restaurant... because it is at the core of
your business. Like the act of breathing to your body, marketing is something
you don't have to think about or set aside time to do. Good marketing is
what takes place naturally as part of everything else you do.
With the right systems and training, you can put your marketing almost on Learn about more ways
autopilot so it naturally becomes a part of your everyday life. If you would to put your marketing
like to learn more about marketing automation, visit this great website: almost on autopilot at
MarketingRobotics.com
http://www.MarketingRobotics.com.

Myth #2: Location, Location, Location

Another old adage that probably has inflicted more hardship on restaurant
owners than anything else in the history of mankind!
I'll bet you've seen it many times, too — restaurant owners who wailed
away what could've been a real success story. Because they believed in the
magic of "location, location, location" — they did nothing more. And the end
was as devastating and predictable as it was avoidable.

© 2008 by http://RestaurantCommando.com 5
A good location helps, but it won't guarantee success.
Here's an example:
A good location doesn’t
As a restaurant owner, Kenny took an incredibly precise — almost scientific guarantee success
— approach to choosing a location for his new venture. He studied popula-
tion dynamics in the area, traffic profiles within several blocks, kept tabs on
everything about his business… All indicators were pointing up the location
was an A+, which was confirmed by a newly-opened Starbucks next door.
That was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. A guaranteed winner.
Yet Kenny’s restaurant never showed a profit. At every month's end, he has
to pour another $6K into his troubled venture just to keep it afloat. What
should've been a profitable business has turned into a very expensive hobby. We’ve seen restaurant
While there is no simple and easy way to measure how good a location really owners give up too soon
is, some locations are better than others. No question. and quit because they
considered their location
But even if you've been dealt a bad hand, that doesn't always mean the not good enough
game is over and it's time to turn off the lights and go home.
Sometimes, even a "bad" location can be made to work.
At one point in his career, Troy owned a Cajun restaurant located next to a
Gold's Gym in a small strip mall. The sales never took off, and it wasn't hard
to see why — the tiny parking lot was always filled with the cars of the gym Understand the market
members. Anyone who'd want come for dinner would have no place to park. and be ready to adapt
Talking to the landlord about allocating a few parking spots to the restaurant the menu
didn't yield results. And selling the health nuts on his high-calorie, high-
cholesterol Cajun food seemed like a lost cause.
Sure, the thought of quitting crossed Troy's mind more than once — but he
felt there had to be a way to turn this lemon into lemonade, and he was de-
termined to find it.
First, several very deliberate and gradual tweaks to the recipes produced a
menu that was a lot "lighter" than the old one, but just as tasty and exciting.
With that in place, the restaurant launched a number of laser-targeted mar-
keting campaigns to bring in more gym-goers — folks who normally would
sooner help themselves to a can of protein than a sandwich. Little by little, Be realistic about the
persistence and a few "guerilla" marketing tactics paid off, and the place was constraints of your
buzzing with new and repeat guests. location and see if you
By being realistic about the constraints of his location, Troy managed to cre- can flip them around
ate success where many people wouldn't even try. into advantages

Cypress Grill (the name of the restaurant) was featured as a success story at
a recent Restaurant Marketing Super-Bootcamp , which participants paid
over $5,000 to attend. It was only through the rejection of the myth and the
refusal to give up on the location that Troy was able to build a strong restau-
rant business.

© 2008 by http://RestaurantCommando.com 6
 Myth #3: Give Them Good Food and
They'll Beat a Path to Your Door; Give
Them Good Service and They'll Keep
Coming Back
Granted, you can't fix bad food with good marketing. One obviously can't go
poisoning people and expect to have a thriving business at the same time!
On the other side of this spectrum are restaurants that strive to produce out-
standing food creations, but fail to show a profit. Every one of us has eaten
at places that provided good food and/or service but that fell off the face of
the planet faster than they opened for business, to the complete bewilder- Good food and service
ment of both the owners and the guests (“Oh that restaurant was so good. aren’t enough; they
How come they are not around anymore?”) are an admittance ticket
meaning you simply get
"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." to play the game
We've all heard this formula that is attributed to either Emerson, or Thoreau,
or Hubbard. Well, whichever sage said that — he was wrong.
Over the last 200 years, huge strides have been made in the science of trap-
ping mice (there's an entire course on "mousetrapology," and if you ever
care to look into it, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_mousetrap).
Yet the world hardly took notice. That mousetrap you buy today at your local
convenience store is the same model your great-great-great-grandfather
used to buy in his time.
So what's the real deal?
Like the old-style mousetrap, your food just needs to be good enough. That’s
the admittance ticket that means you get to play the game. But winning in
the restaurant game is a whole other story.
To be successful, good food and good service may not be enough. You need
to find ways to improve.
Here's one more story:
Joshua had a solid background in retail but was new to the restaurant busi-
ness. When he opened a coffee shop in a trendy neighborhood of Austin, A steady stream of
Texas, he figured it was a pretty safe bet. Everyone can afford a cup of cof- customers may not
fee, right? always result in profits

An active arts scene brought a steady stream of young professionals in the

door. Before long, Josh had a full menu in place. From the outside, the res-
taurant looked like a success — business was booming — but the profits
weren't there. Josh was working 60 hours a week and pumping in his per-
sonal money to keep the place afloat. He was building up debt at a catastro-
phic rate — and just about ready to throw in the towel.

© 2008 by http://RestaurantCommando.com 7
Fast forward 6 months, and Josh is working just 30 hours a week — half
as much time — and taking home $2,000 a month. Instead of merely sur-
viving, Progress Coffee shows a healthy profit, and is opening a second
store.
What saved the business?
Restaurant Commando helped Josh to put in place a structure and proc-
ess that meant he could step away for a day every now and then, and
trust the new systems to help his staff keep things humming along. Por-
tion control and a few tweaks to the European style menu bumped up
the profit per plate. Re-staffing and re-training, attention to detail,
helped to create the kind of restaurant that a sophisticated clientele de-
mands.
Setting up a V.I.P. Club
But the biggest change was in Josh's marketing strategy.
and a newsletter can be
Instead of dropping $400 or $500 a shot on one-time ads in newspapers essential to reaching out
or magazines, he learned to take a more targeted approach. to your customers and
building a successful
Unconventional, local, imaginative marketing campaigns brought in the restaurant business
"right" kind of people — and a V.I.P. club and email newsletter made
sure they kept coming back.
"I needed to decide why I wanted a restaurant," Josh says, "Why I
wanted to be in this business. And I realized it was the relationships, the
people, having a niche market where we provide something that other
cafes don’t."

The Restaurant Marketing Formula

You want to make your restaurant a success. Not just surviving, not even
just a busy place — but a truly profitable and thriving business. So
where do you start? What actions will give you the biggest bang for your
buck?
The answer is in the Restaurant Marketing Formula:
Sometimes it is okay NOT
F + R + M = $$ to make a profit on their
first visit if you know how
(First-time guests + Returning guests + profit Margin = $$) to get them to come again
F: First-Time Guests and again

A lot of advertising sales guys will tell you that the key is to bring in more
first-time customers. But that's doing it the hard way. Sure, it’s impor-
tant to keep doing things that help the "F," this is the hardest point to
build on. Typically, it's also the most expensive.
In fact, you may make very little profit — or no profit at all — off your
first-time guests. And that is okay, as long as you’ve got the other parts
of The Formula right.

© 2008 by http://RestaurantCommando.com 8
R: Repeat or Returning Guests
Getting your existing customers to come in more often is a whole lot
easier and more profitable than trying to find new guests. And if you're Getting existing
like most restaurant owners, you have yet to realize the full potential of customers to come in more
the "R" in The Formula — so there's exciting room for growth! often is a whole lot easier
than getting new customers
Creating a V.I.P. Club (http://www.InstantVIPClubs.com), a membership
program or a newsletter are great ways to dramatically build loyalty and
keep those "regulars" coming back.
But first, you need to get the basic economics of your restaurant right.
M: Profit Margin
If you’re losing money on every customer, you just can’t "make it up in
volume."
First, fix the basic
Restaurant profit margins are thin and fragile. An unwise marketing deci- economics of your
sion, or a small shift in overhead costs, can wipe out your profits. business, then focus on
“M” is always the right place to start. getting more customers

Have You Thought About

What You Really Want?
So, you’ve read this special report and have learned about the 3 Biggest
Restaurant Myths. Now tell us, as you were reading this document:
• Have you thought of situations when your business suffered
because you considered these myth absolutes?
• Have you thought of things you are going to do differently in
your restaurant from now on? As a restaurant owner,
it’s entirely up to you
• Have you thought of what you really want your restaurant what you want from
business to be like and to do for you, the owner? your business
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, take a look at the Res-
taurant Commando’s Profit Backpack:
http://www.ProfitBackpack.com
It is a very affordable self-study course that comes with a book, audios,
and calculators to help you create more profits in your restaurant busi-
ness. Our consulting clients have spent thousands of dollars to have us
teach these concepts to them. This information is not available any-
where else and now you can get your hands on it for a tiny fraction of
what others paid:
http://www.ProfitBackpack.com

© 2008 by http://RestaurantCommando.com 9
 “The World Doesn’t Need
Another Restaurant”
This quote belongs to Bill Marvin, a great restaurant marketing expert.
And he’s right. As a next step, visit
ProfitBackpack.com
If you are happy with the way things are in your business right now, that
is perfectly fine.
If you are okay with your restaurant being another everyday, “run-of-the
-mill” food establishment, that’s okay too.
On the other hand, if you’d like to turn your restaurant into a real busi-
ness that creates more value for its customers and more profits and free
time for its owners then visit A restaurant the can
http://www.ProfitBackpack.com afford to spend MORE
to acquire a customer
This unique industry resource shows you how to boost your profit mar- than the competition
gins to make more money on every check. ultimately wins
It's real, it's practical, and — most importantly — it works.
Remember: A restaurant that can afford to spend MORE on a new cus-
tomer ultimately wins. And the one that can’t, closes.

Something You Need To Know

About Food Cost...
Here’s the deal: You shouldn’t be paying more for the ingredients than
the other guy but you shouldn’t be spending the majority of your time
checking prices either. Cost is just a part of management and not a
whole other job.
It is usually easier to grow your revenues by 5%
using the right marketing tactics than it is
to bring your cost down by the same 5%
It is usually easier to
I know it’s a stretch but… if you were to knock down your food cost by grow revenues by 5%
5%, what would it mean to you in terms of profits? On a $100K monthly than it is to bring
revenue and $30K in food cost, that’s a respectable $1.5K in new profits. the cost down by
Not bad so far. the same 5%

But inevitably food cost will go up again, wiping out the savings you have
worked so hard to create. And you don’t need to be a psychic to know
that is bound to happen.
On the other hand, if you consider growing your profits through better
marketing, you have 2 options:

© 2008 by http://RestaurantCommando.com 10
 • Get more new guests to check out your food, or
• Bring in existing customers more often.
The latter is much easier than the former. One good way to do that could Creating a VIP Club is the
be a V.I.P. Club. (http://www.InstantVIPClubs.com) Not only can you get surest way to get your
them to come in more often, you can get them to bring their friends too. customers to come more
often and bring their
A V.I.P. Club that increases your revenue by the same 5% will put an ex- friends with them
tra $3.5K in your pocket — that’s $5.0K in extra revenue minus $1.5K in
food to feed all the additional customers! The best part is, you can do
this again and again, month after month. Once a successful marketing
method is in place, it works month after month, indefinitely, with little
additional effort.
Now, which one would you rather have: A doubtful $1.5K once or a more
likely $3.5K over and over again?
http://www.InstantVIPClubs.com
Thank you & see you at RestaurantCommando.com!

Troy Alex
Makarski
Authement

Websites referenced in this special report:

http://www.MarketingRobotics.com - A collection of tools that make your marketing run almost on
autopilot, from email campaigns to birthday greeting cards.
http://www.ProfitBackpack.com - The “30% food cost / 30% labor cost” rule is dead. If you still use it,
you’re leaving bushels of money on the table. A new and revolutionary way to look at food and labor
will impact every business decision you will make from now on and create more restaurant profits.
http://www.InstantVIPClubs.com - Discover a step-by-step, fill-in-the-blanks method to creating a
powerful restaurant VIP Club. It has never been easier to get your existing customer to come in more
often and bring their friends with them.

http://www.RestaurantCommando.com
“Straight talk about restaurant marketing, business and profit”
In USA: 500 San Marcos St. Ste. 205, Austin, TX 78702
+1 (512) 444-5510
In Canada: 9251 Yonge St, Unit 8505, Richmond Hill, ON L4C 9T3
+1 (416) 240-7990

© 2008 by http://RestaurantCommando.com 11