If you don’t study people, don’t open a restaurant

Don’t open a restaurant if you don’t study people

In recent years, catering entrepreneurship has been very popular. Everyone thinks that this industry has low investment, low risk and high profits. High, but I don’t know how many illusions and minefields there are in it!

Not everyone can succeed in catering. Of course, if you have already thought about it, you are sure to go." If you want to jump into the catering fire pit, you might as well take a look at Lai Linping, the columnist of this issue of Red Dining Network, who shares the truth about catering entrepreneurship and business experience.

As long as you have good products, you can open a restaurant;

As long as you have a team, you can open a restaurant;

As long as you have "money", you can open a restaurant .

--This is what many catering start-ups and store owners take for granted.

Do you think that if you have a shop in a good location, customers will come? With delicious products, will customers come? In today’s market, is it still an era of waiting for customers to come to your door? Region Different people, different customs, and different consumer groups. In this era, the only constant is "change"! And this change changes with the changes in the market.

The catering industry involves complex factors in many industries, which should be explained like this: from laws and regulations, economic policies, trademark registration, investment location selection, decoration design, clothing design, property negotiation, to market research, Advertising, product research and development, supply chain logistics, financial systems, customer management, operations management, etc., almost cover the professionalism of many other industries.

By the way, there is another core point, which is the "consumer psychology" we are going to talk about today.

Only by taking the initiative can you have an absolute chance of winning

If you don’t study consumer psychology, you won’t know who will buy the product. How do you position the product structure? To create a hot product in the market?

Some restaurants have good products, but their business is not good? There are many reasons, the first of which is that the consumer groups have not been studied well, which is closely related to the location selection.

Only when you understand what type of consumer groups buy your products can you take the initiative and have an absolute chance of winning.

The collision between the Internet and physical catering has promoted the development of this industry and made many people feel impetuous. They do not know that Internet hype is a double-edged sword.

Is it a good thing for cross-border people to rush into the catering industry? I think it is. This is a warning to people in the catering industry - let catering people be vigilant and not be discouraged by past successes. Blinded. And what is the trend behind the hype? We know it very well.

No matter what your original intention is or what kind of restaurant you want to build, you must first figure out: What is your restaurant going to sell? What type of customers will come to eat? You haven’t even researched the consumer groups. A slap in the head... If you have money, you will be willful. This sentence really makes sense. The worst is to start over. Hahaha! (But how many investors are so willful?)

Often when that happens, Brother Ze encounters countless people asking, "What should my store do?" What should I do?", "Can you help me?" "Who" are you selling to? Why should they come to eat?

Today is a market where resources are integrated and connected. If you have good ingredients and have dedicated personnel to develop them, product, then the next thing you have to do is - research! Research!! Research!!!

What to research? Your product - "who" do you want to sell it to? Why do customers come to eat it? In the final analysis, it comes down to the word "people", and you have to study it thoroughly! This step is the core! But how many people have done it now?

Three questions

1. Selling What product?

2. Who do you sell it to?

3. Why do consumers come to your store?

1. What product do you sell?

What products should be sold in a restaurant? This is the first condition! Investors should consider their own actual situation. For example, do you know the ingredients? Can you get good ingredients? Are the supply and price of this ingredient stable? Can you develop a good product? If you can't do it yourself, then you need to study, conduct research, and screen products, R&D teams, and management teams.

If you know catering, or have been a chef, then you need to consider one question, which is whether consumers of your products will be satisfied? We have seen many incidents where chefs opened stores and finally closed them.

If you can make good products, what are your operating costs? For example, the rent is very high, but the price of your products belongs to the middle and low consumer groups, which requires a lot of turnover and customer flow. , then you are bound to make ends meet.

2. Who do you want to sell the product to?

Then the question is, who do you sell to? You need to research the location of your favorite commercial area. Is it in a commercial plaza? Near the business building? Community store?... Your location selection is very important!

Once you invest in a restaurant, it means you are spending money every day. For market customer group research, you have to consider all time periods from Monday to Sunday and holidays.

Is parking convenient? Is there a dedicated parking lot? How much is free? How much discount can be given?

If it is in a commercial plaza, on the exterior wall, entrance elevator and passage, can it be made clear? What are the store sign guidelines?

If it is near a community store or commercial building, is it possible to park?

Is the road a one-way street or has other passages? Will it affect walking and driving?< /p>

Is there excess recruitment and space at the door? If it is summer and the space at the door is large, you can definitely add a late-night snack stall. When opening a restaurant, use time to adjust the space and use the space to increase revenue. This is the key point of operation!

3. Why do consumers come to your store?

You put your products After it has been developed and sold to someone, I have to ask the most critical question: Why should consumers come to your store to eat? What is your core advantage?

This is related to the positioning and positioning of the company. Product positioning and cultural core are very relevant. Even if you are the simplest fast food, you still need to have product "highlights" and "business" highlights!

To attract your consumers, do you rely on "discounts"? Do you rely on "group purchases"? NO !!!What is marketing we are talking about? It is products, channels, consumers, advertising, and word-of-mouth inheritance from customers!

If you want consumers to take the initiative to come to your restaurant, first of all, Your product must have certain competitive advantages. For example, through the origin and culture of good ingredients, and developing products suitable for targeted consumers, you will be halfway to success.

So, what’s the other half of success? It’s the interaction between you and your consumers. It’s not the interaction between WeChat and text messages, or saying hello to customers while dining. These are the most basic. What’s more, what is it about your corporate culture that attracts consumers, and the emotions between you and consumers? What does it rely on to maintain it?

Although there are many tools on the Internet, as a caterer who has been engaged in the catering industry for many years,

Managers have to communicate with customers at each table. For communication, you must have a group that you are familiar with and can handle, which is one of the assessments;

Use the restaurant's supporting customer management system to become a member, and perform maintenance and upgrades according to the different stages of returning customers;

The charm of the community - fans and foodie groups, cross-border resource docking, plus emotional exchanges among managers. (As for how to do it, I won’t say much here; if you have the opportunity, you can listen to Brother Ze’s sharing.)

For any company, if your products and culture cannot connect with consumers on a spiritual level** *Ming, then your company will definitely disappear within five years.

Five catering cases

Let us take a look at these cases:

Example 1

If you plan to do traditional For Chinese food, the family has several ancestral secret recipes. We believe your products are good! But who are you selling to? Don’t tell me, if you sell to the post-90s generation, they won’t sit down at the round table to eat. These dishes , during holidays, their parents would let them eat a lot, but they really wouldn’t come to eat at ordinary times.

Example 2

If you make a single product, such as the popular "grilled fish", and choose it in a commercial plaza with a younger decoration, I think it is more reliable; but grilled fish It is not recommended to choose a store in a shopping mall in the old city because people there don’t like to eat.

For example, for grilled fish, it is recommended to try to consider the southern region. If you drive in the north, people eat beef, mutton, and pork every two days. Who comes to eat grilled fish every day! But this is not absolute. There are also people in the north. In the consumer market, it really depends on the location.

Example 3

If you are making Korean and Japanese simple meals, it is recommended to choose a place near a white-collar business district, or a place with a large flow of college students and young people. The products should be rich and diversified and produced quickly. This type of restaurant is not recommended to be opened around the community, as there will not be too many people in the community coming to consume.

In these fast fashion restaurants, you also need to connect to the Internet system, ordering, placing orders, paying, taking out, queuing, customer management, etc., can all be done on your mobile phone. These are really not something you can do well if you want to. There are so many Internet companies, which one is trustworthy?

Example 4

Know why those traditional Chinese restaurants in the old city And are dim sum shops very popular? For example, Qiaojiazha, Dafugui, Laoshengxing, etc. in Shanghai; because their fried buns, small wontons, scallion noodles, xiaolongbao, pork ribs rice cakes, etc. are for these old cities. Even if the residents provide these old products every day, 365 days a year, some people still like to eat them.

Example 5

It is difficult to create a brand by yourself, so joining the franchise is the best way. But which brand to join? Researching a franchise brand is another learning topic, otherwise you will also fall into the abyss.

For example: Is this franchised brand suitable for the people in your region and the venue you choose? Why was this restaurant so popular in the first place? Is it just discounts or various fashions?

The culture of subversion? Wait, it all needs to be investigated clearly.

(I won’t go into details about the specific situation. You can go to third- and fourth-tier cities to do your own research! Brother Ze has researched many places.

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For another example, if you join the Coffee Meal franchise, Cross-Strait Coffee has been joining the franchise relatively early. How many of today’s franchisees have earned their principal back? We won’t discuss these. Having said that, let’s think about which brand to choose to join! It’s not that all franchise brands are bad!

Someone asked me in a message a few days ago: Why can insiders and professionals try to open a store, while we laymen Can’t you test the waters and open a store?

My answer is: laymen can definitely open it, but catering does not make money as soon as you invest. If you want to make money immediately by investing in catering, I advise you to turn back and do it! Catering It depends on the advantages of the product, the service of the operation team, and the spread of good reputation, so that customers will continue to consume. If you want to make money in the short term, how much money do you have to spend on advertising? This is really not something ordinary people can do!

Not everyone can succeed in catering, and no one can succeed casually! What kind of store? What products are sold? Who are they selling to? Why do your consumers come? Think through these questions first, and then you start! In addition, you also need to study "people", study "consumer groups", age , gender, consumption habits, and surrounding groups. It is best to conduct an in-depth study of consumer psychology. Catering is not easy, you have to learn everything, right? If you don’t learn now, your millions will be wasted and it will be too late to learn. You should be pragmatic and do the preparations, and everything will fall into place.