Transcript File - CATERING FOR PROFIT 475

Catering Marketing, Sales and
Computer Software
CM226 Catering and Event Management
Chapter 4, pages 76 – 112
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
 Explain the importance and results of catering
sales.
 Define the concepts of marketing.
 Discuss the principal goals of the marketing
process.
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
 Identify trends related to catering menu
management.
 Discuss the different functions of computer
software programs.
1. THE MARKETING CYCLE.
 The American Marketing Association
defines marketing as “the process of
planning and executing the
conception, pricing, promotion, and
distribution of ideas, goods, and services
to create exchanges that satisfy individual
and organizational objectives.”
The marketing cycle is the process of
achieving these objectives:
 customer needs are identified
 products and services are developed to satisfy
those needs
 customer interest in the product or service is
created
 the success of these efforts is measured against
both financial goals and customer satisfaction.
Meeting the Objectives of Marketing
 It is critical to the ongoing success of catering
businesses that the business person
CONTINUALLY:
 Identifying customer needs,
 Developing products and services with
appropriate pricing strategies, and
 Effectively promoting them –
BENEFITS vs. Features
 Catering services must possess the flexibility to
respond to a wide variety of customer needs.
 Marketing opportunities are created through
customer needs identified for product or service
development.
 This identified NEED is a Benefit if YOU
can provide it.
 How do some salespeople consistently outsell
their competition?
 Why does closing work in small sales but fail in
larger ones?
 How can salespeople dramatically increase their
sales volume from major accounts?
The savvy, well trained, motivated, self
starting marketer (sales person):
 Gets to know their prospective customer
 Identifies potential features offered that would
benefit the prospective customer (be important
to)
 Overcomes any objections
The savvy, well trained, motivated, self
starting marketer (sales person):
 Paints them into the picture
 Trial closes
 Closes the sale (gets the check),
 asks for a new lead
 The original survey showed that in successful sales calls
it's the buyer who does most of the talking, which means
that the salespeople are asking questions.
 Asking questions means that the salesperson is building
Rapport with the buyer, building sales rapport with the
buyer allows the buyer to feel more comfortable talking.
 For example, the tractor sales person can ask how
much better the tractor was like when it was new,
or whether any of the farmer's neighbors have
solved problems of old and problematic tractors.
 The insurance sales person could ask questions
that build pictures of the target person's children
being safe and secure whatever curve-balls the
world might throw at the family.
SPIN Selling
 Situation Questions
 Problem questions
 Implication Questions
 Need-Payoff Questions
Situation Questions
 Situation Questions deal with the facts about the
buyers existing situation.
 In big sales, minimize the small talk and focus on
finding background detail that can be used to make
sense of the buyer's business situation.
 This is about understanding the wider context before
you zoom into the details.
Problem Solving Questions
 Problem Questions ask about the buyer's pain
and focus the buyer on this pain while clarifying
the problem, before asking implication questions.
 These give Implied Needs.
 Ask questions to uncover problems which your
product can address.
 If you are selling tractors, ask about maintenance
costs, breakdowns and so on.
 If you are selling life insurance, ask about how
many dependents the person has.
 A trap here is to dive straight into presenting the
benefits of what you are selling.
 You may know the problem, but they do not!
Going straight to the sales pitch will just get you
objections.
Implication Questions
 Implication Questions discuss the effects of
the problem, before talking about solutions, and
develop the seriousness of the problem to
increase the buyer's motivation to change.
 Instead of telling them the problem they have
(which is also likely to raise objections), the goal
is now to get them to see (and feel!) the problem.
 By asking questions which draw out the
implications of the problem, they get to feel the
pain that will drive them towards your product.
 This is the 'hurt' of Hurt and Rescue.
 For example, the person selling tractors might
ask about implications of unplowed fields whilst
the life insurance salesperson could carefully ask
what would happen to the children if the target
person died or became very ill.
Need-Payoff Questions
 Need-Payoff Questions get the buyer to tell
you about their Explicit Needs and the benefits
your solutions offers, rather than forcing you to
explain the benefits to the buyer.
Need-Payoff Questions
 Getting the buyer to state the benefits has greater
impact while sounding a lot less pushy.
 What these questions do is probe for explicit
needs.
 Having hurt the target person with your
implications, you now give them a straw to grasp
at by asking how their pain could be resolved.
 With careful questions, you can get them to the
state where they are asking for your product even
before you show it to them.
 This is a very neat 'rescue' of Hurt and Rescue,
where they either rescue themselves or ask you to
rescue them.
The research on the use of SPIN selling
uncovered the following facts :
 The first students trained in the "SPIN" model
showed an average of 17% improvement in sales
results.
 After analyzing more than 35,000 sales calls
they were able to put to rest a variety of
traditional myths about closing sales.
2. THE 4 Ps of MARKETING MIX.
 The Marketing Mix incorporates:
 Product,
 Place,
 Promotion, and
 Price
into the overall strategy of marketing a
product or service.
Product
 Product can refer to separate details of a
larger product concept.
 For example, entertainment can be a highly
profitable service produce created through a
series of strategic alliances with external
resources. (strategery) 
Product
 A wide variety of customer needs for
entertainment can be met with musicians,
entertainers, and DJs with whom a catering
company is comfortable arranging for as
part of their overall products.
Place
 Place refers to how and where the product
will be made available to the customer.
 This includes not only the physical
environment in which the product is
presented but also the reservation process.
Place
 By including the reservation process as part
of the product, it becomes a functional
component, planned into the product
overall design.
Promotion
 Promotion refers to the advertising and
public relations activities supporting a
product or service.
Promotion
 For example, the wedding segment of a
catering business is often treats as an
individual product, accompanied by
separate promotional material, displays,
advertising, and promotional calendar
within the marketing plan.
Price
 The development of Pricing strategies, the
financial measurement of a successful
product planning and promotional effort, is
a critical business activity.
Price
 Price, in the marketing mix, is concerned
primarily with identifying a price that both
reflect the profit-and-cost reality of the
business and is acceptable to the consumer
on a perceived-value basis.
3. CUISINE, ENTERTAINMENT, AND
CONCEPT TRENDS.
 Trends, as they relate to catering menu
management, reflect changes in the patterns
of customer requests for catering services.
 Entertainment and concept packaging provide
dynamic and profitable ways to expand catering
services.
 Decorations, entertainment, and cuisine themes
combine to create festive settings for business and
social functions
 Package pricing of food, beverage, and services
responds to customers’ needs for time-saving in
the catering function planning process
3. CUISINE, ENTERTAINMENT, AND
CONCEPT TRENDS.
 Current trends in catering functions:
 Incorporate media technology,
computerized laser light shows and
indoor fireworks displays, often
simultaneously, in the production of
entertainment performances and
corporate presentations.
3. CUISINE, ENTERTAINMENT, AND
CONCEPT TRENDS (continued).
 Current trends in catering functions:
 Social functions include video
presentations of the participants.
 The biggest trends in the catering
industry of the early part of the twentyfirst century is special events and “The
Show.”
4. MAXIMIZING CATERING REVENUE
MANAGEMENT.
 Catering services often experience both
busy and slow periods, regulated by season,
business activity trends, social calendars,
and regional customs.
5. PACKAGING CATERING SERVICE.
 Packaging catering services into one price
for customers can provide additional
sources of revenues and profit by capturing
a percentage of the income that would
otherwise go to outside contractors.
6. MEASURING CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION.
 The level of satisfaction of guests attending
catering functions is difficult to evaluate.
 A customer comment form that elicits the
information most useful to improving
operations and assessing service quality.
7. CATERING COMPUTER MANAGEMENT AND
SOFTWARE SUPPORT.
 The integration of computer systems into
the management of any type of business is
essential.
7. CATERING COMPUTER MANAGEMENT AND
SOFTWARE SUPPORT.
 Computer software systems offer a wide
range of management options for
accounting systems, contract and function
booking management, along with sales and
marketing activities.
 Computer software programs provide catering
management valuable tools with which to achieve
profitable and efficient operations.
 Software programs offer a range of reporting
facilities capabilities.
 Foodservice operators expanding into catering
areas find that many of these programs are
compatible with their existing computer systems.
 The success of a catering foodservice business is
greatly enhanced by using software programs in
marketing, purchasing inventory, production
forecasting and analysis, sales mix, costing, and
accounting.
 Word processing has numerous applications,
including sales files, contracts, and
correspondence.
8. MARKETING.
 Computer foodservice management systems
are invaluable to the marketing process.
8. MARKETING.
 There are software programs that track
correspondence on individual client
accounts, create future reminders, and
compile account contact histories that can
be accessed instantly.
8. MARKETING.
 Marketing efforts can be tracked and lost
leads maintained in a file for future
solicitation.
 Generating letters using a merge-field
function allows a standard letter format.
9. EVENT INFORMATION AND
REPORTS.
 The event contract precedes the distribution
of the event sheet, the principle form of
communication within a catering operation.
9. EVENT INFORMATION AND
REPORTS.
 By forwarding an event contract to the
customer the sales department is assured of
the customer’s agreement with the
organizational features of the event as well
as the menu, prices, and the additional
contract services.
10. REPORTING FORMS.
 A variety of additional reports and forms
can be generated by catering software
programs.
11. DESKTOP PUBLISHING.
 Generating menus using design-oriented
software is effective in reducing costs.
 Desktop publishing software programs can assist
marketing efforts with the production of
newsletters, brochures, and menu package
design.
 The ability to create menu design with typeface
fonts and symbols allows every catering operation
the ability to design its own menus in-house.
Key Points Reviewed
 Meeting the objectives of marketing—
identifying customer needs, developing
products and services with appropriate
pricing strategies, and effectively promoting
them—is critical to the success of catering
businesses.
Key Points Reviewed
 Catering services must possess the
flexibility to respond to a wide variety of
customer needs.
 Entertainment and concept packaging
provides dynamic and profitable ways to
expand catering services.
Key Points Reviewed
 Computer software programs provide
catering-management valuable tools with
which to achieve profitable and efficient
operations.
Key Points Reviewed