My business idea

[Ericlim1226]

Hi I want to start up a business because I'm sick and tired of working for somebody.

My idea is to contact those pretty nice restaurants in the city and ask them if we can market for them. Selling our service.

We will go to the restaurant, try it out ourselves, write a full report on how the place was. How the food was, enviroment, etc etc in our foreign language and recommend/advertise on our weekly newspapers. (Since lot of adults read newspapers in that nationality and barely use technology) We also advertise to our groups on facebook and twitter, we meet all the new college students to our city, hold events (club party) and advertise the restaurant there too. We also gonna translate all the menus for our market to understand. and etc etc.

Lot of people wants to try out new place but doesn't and stick around in their race business because of language barrier. I hope we can help a business expand its market and customer base with this

What do you guys think?

I dont know how much how services should costs bc advertising on newspaper is lot of money, hiring a team is expensive too.

[BALLERMODE]

...write a full report on how the place was. How the food was, enviroment, etc etc in our foreign language...

And which language would that be? I think a problem you'll run into is, most nice restaurants are already rated in guides like Zagat. If the restaurant truly is as nice as the targets you are hoping to gain business from, it will already have a reputation and not need to pay for extra advertisements to a small audience.

[Ericlim1226]

itll be in Korean. I don't know if its just korean thing but koreans only deal businesses with koreans and I believe its just the language barrier.

Most of the old generations dont have the knowledge of technology today, so zagat is something I'm pretty sure they dont know about.

Maybe they wont, maybe they will, but I think worth giving it a shot. If I was a nice restaurant owner, I'd pay to have potential additional 1% of the korean population in this city. Even 1% comes out to great number.

I know younger generations go out to eat, but I know older generation wants to too but just dont know where. They do what other koreans recommends.

So my idea is to recommend a new place to try out somewhere nice this week.

[2heaven]

Sounds cool cant wait to see how you execute it.

[BALLERMODE]

Well, if you believe you have a potential to make some good profits- go for it. The worst that can happen is the restaurants say no.

[Ericlim1226]

thats true. I gotta get fear of rejection. Thats one thing I noticed lately, I thought I wasnt scared of rejection but im horrified by it.

So I took a job at a car dealership as a salesman. to overcome it, i heard you have to face it. I hope to get many no's as possible and get yes as well.

I got hired basically im Korean and the dealership knows koreans only deal with koreans so they decided to hire me. I'm gon ask if i can advertise on korean newspapers, facebook and all the marketing tools to see how well i do. If the business improves, I'm gonna ask him to write like a testimony to get the ball rolling.

If anyones in marketing firm, any advices on how to start one? things i need to do, things i need to invest in?

[sep]

If you have a big fear of sales rejection and need help to overcome it, get the book "Ziglar on Selling" by Zig Ziglar. It will be the best $14.99 you ever spent.
Once you've read it, then I think you'll have all the confidence to go out and attack your new business venture. Good Luck

[rpermana]

for advertisement, you can use facebook ads. It is cheaper than newspaper and you may choose to be charged per click.

You can also target when the advertisement will be shown...maybe 12 - 1 pm (when people searching for food) , target specific audience and more...

For your business, i suggest you can start with blogging and buy a good camera... ;D

[jonathanfigaro]

thats true. I gotta get fear of rejection. Thats one thing I noticed lately, I thought I wasnt scared of rejection but im horrified by it.

So I took a job at a car dealership as a salesman. to overcome it, i heard you have to face it. I hope to get many no's as possible and get yes as well.

I got hired basically im Korean and the dealership knows koreans only deal with koreans so they decided to hire me. I'm gon ask if i can advertise on korean newspapers, facebook and all the marketing tools to see how well i do. If the business improves, I'm gonna ask him to write like a testimony to get the ball rolling.

If anyones in marketing firm, any advices on how to start one? things i need to do, things i need to invest in?

DUDE....that is fantastic. You have a fear and your facing it, because you know the fear will never keep you from succeeding. That just awesome. I think you business has potential for success. So i suggest you think big, expect the best and set goals! good luck


p.s.....Never Give up!

[inle]

hihi..

I am into sales & marketing myself & I think I had went through your stage with sales, reachîng out to the target marketing & e rejections when I started working..

Currently I am liasing with a resturant in my home country on their marketing campaign, rather similar to what you are planning to do..

I will be glad to help you out with your business, as much as possible within my own limitations..

btw, do you have a biz plan or at least a marketing plan?
I like to know where & how I can chip in..

thx thx..

[lilg1989@gmail.com]

Sounds like a very good idea. The problem I see wit that is you have to. Get the resturants to trust you(try small resturant for startup charge them small fee and build a portfolio for the bigger resturant build a name for yourself). You should use friends and family for free first and then seek employing after the first stage but it sounds like a very good idea

[Bugman]

As a restaurant manager for 6 years, here's my two cents.

1. You'll have to find the guy who actually makes the decisions, often it isn't the manager.
2. Go with a smaller restaurant first, the larger ones probably don't care a lot.
3. Go to your potential prospects several times to gauge business, if they are already at capacity a lot of the time, you might not be able to make a measurable difference.
4. Learn about restaurant marketing
4a. Internal marketing is the #1(IMO) most underutilized marketing avenue for restaurants and has great potential. In other words, get current customers to spend more there. Not only will sales increase but they'll be more likely to tell their friends. This will require you to do a certain level of 'consulting' as well.
4b. Do they have beer and wine menus? If not, there is a missed opportunity. Track it with their monthly alcohol sales reports contrasted with the prior 6 months. (I did this and it worked) Do they have a dessert menu? Same thing. Do their employees ask if the customer wants to add a salad, dessert, drink, appetizer, etc? Consult them to do so and track it with the avg. ticket price contrasted over 6 months.
4c. Restaurants are one of the businesses for which door hangers can actually be effective. They are fairly expensive though. Rule #1 with coupons, if it is a good deal they will buy. You have to get them to really offer some discounts. Track this by using different deals than they already have and they put new coupons into the computer, then print a report showing how many times those coupons were used. Alternate method: have them keep the coupons and count them(not reliable).
5. Do it over several months.
6. Track the results. A marketing firm which doesn't won't last long or be re-hired. Why would they? How would they know that your products worked?
7. I would tell the first prospect that I'm willing to use them as a showcase and set it up where they only pay a 10% commission based on results(gauged as shown above). Then you have an example to show your next customer.
8. Fast casual restaurants would probably be the best starting point. These are restaurants where you order at the register and they bring you the food, generally no waitstaff.
9. Don't forget current customer mailing lists. If they do delivery they should be able to figure out people who have ordered in the last 6 months but not the last 30 days and send them coupons in the mail.

Good luck! I hope some of that helped.

[Ericlim1226]

I recently found out from a friend of mine who is in restaurant business is that theres a radio station who advertises for restaurants as "restaurant of the week" and they sell gift cards.

Restaurants pay the radio station with gift cards and they'd have to sell it. People that bought gift cards are going to the restaurants to dine there. If they like it, they'd be regular customers.

I'm going to approach it that way so Restaurant owners KNOW I'd HAVE to advertise to profit on my own.

I was wondering what would be the best sales approach and sale's pitch to the restaurant. And I'm still wondering what I would need to get a marketing firm started. Legal wise, things I need, People I need to hire.

I'm going to hire a reporter to write an essay about the whole place, food etc.

[inle]

I provide SELLABLE ideas, RESULT-BASED strategies & ACTIONABLE plans to help organizations to BOOST sales in my work..

Whatever your campaigns will be, do keep in mind that SALES RESULTS & PROFITS are all that matters..
No matter how CREATIVE/ARTISTIC your marketing campaigns & materials might be, no matter how many AWARD-WINNING creative directors you engaged, no matter how PROFESSIONALLY done are your sales copies etc, only SALES RESULTS & PROFITS matters for companies to engage you..
And that's perhaps the BEST thing you can help your clients achieve..

Drop me a pm if you want me to share witn you how I work and why I can give results..
I could use your company as a demonstration & see if we got opportunities to explore together..