A recent article in Business on Main entitled, Don’t Let To-Die-For Publicity Kill Your Business, reminded me of a local restaurant that served fantastic Arabic cuisine.
The restaurant, soon after opening, was visited by a restaurant critic who posted his review in The Boston Globe magazine and a few other magazines. The critic raved about the food, portions and pricing. Soon thereafter, the owner of the restaurant had a lunch line extending out the door and snaking around the corner! Great news right? Should have been…but not so fast….the owner wasn’t prepared. He didn’t have enough servers to meet customer’s needs and he was the only chef on the premises. He couldn’t handle the rush. Mind you, people didn’t complain about the wait initially. Then the owner decided to stop serving lunch altogether because he couldn’t find the right help and it was getting too busy. As if that wasn’t enough – the owner gave up his liquor license – the “money maker” in the restaurant. No valid reason given when asked why. Then he neglected – when he had the chance – to raise the menu prices. They could have been a bit higher; to say the food was priced low was an understatement!
Not much later than all this occurring – the restaurant closed down. What a shame! The owner was a very personable guy and the place was busy. People enjoyed the food, atmosphere and the conversation.
The publicity – frankly – killed his business because he couldn’t handle it. He had no plan in place.
Let’s get back to the article in Business on Main. Five lessons are provided to ensure that publicity does not kill your business:
- After a rave review, don’t screw up.
- Be willing to revolutionize your business.
- Dare to do things differently.
- Perfect your customer experience.
- Protect your business.
Read more about each lesson in the article, and read the story of how one small business did it right.
Publicity is fantastic for any business – what a great opportunity! Certainly if you have a “heads up” about it coming your way, it enables you to do a bit of planning. But you can still plan without a “heads up.” The minute you hear of the publicity – pull together key folks from the business and strategize how the business will handle it. Put a short-term plan in place and then spend some time creating a longer term strategy.
Your thoughts?
