Comment by orangethirty | Hacker News Reader

Comment by orangethirty | Hacker News Reader

Ok, let's unravel this out a bit.

- From what I gather you are 3 guys (who cook ethnic food) who get hired through a catering agency.

- For Zeus knows why, your biggest client (the catering agency) dropped you.

- You mention not marketing properly and now seem to not have a good customer list to cater to (pun intended).

In your situation the best option would be:

Print out some flyers and cook some samples. Go door to door to every fucking office park in a 5 mile radius and take some sales. Do this before lunch! Now, about those samples. You have to prepare plenty of samples. Put out your best stuff. The way you display them is very, very important. Make sure that everything looks and is clean and tidy. Wear some nice clothes that don't smell like you came out of a kitchen. Smile.

Do this for 3 times a week for 3 months, then once a week forever. You will not have to worry about this happening again.

Remember: Every person that tries and likes your food is a customer. Take an order right there. Close the sale while they are enjoying the sample. Don't hesitate.

Also, raise your prices by one dollar in the entire menu, and give a $1 discount to those who order right there. People can't turn down tasty discounted food.

Disclaimer: My sister in law has a business like yours and I grew it to a very nice size with that same tactic.

Thank you so much for all your suggestions, I am definitely going to hit the streets hard and will look into doing some of the things you suggested. I appreciate it greatly.

Get busy and report back to my email (click on my username).

Some office buildings wont let you in to some floors. Bribe the security guards with samples. A good way to do this is to just hand out a sample before even talking. Hand it out, and tell them about what you do. Don't forget that these guys are also customers.

You ideas (your parent comment) are excellent I've made the same recommendations over the years to people in similar situations. Put feet (and free product) on the street. Most recently with a local cupcake bakery. "Go out and give your cupcakes to all the offices in the area". (Free sweets? What's the chance that the office workers won't stop by for more if they are good?)

One thing though that I've found is when you give good ideas to people you'd be surprised at the amount of excuses they have for not following up on suggestions. The lack of "oomph".

What I'm saying is this. It's easy for someone to write a plea (as was done here) for help on HN (or anywhere). That takes almost no effort at all (like a magic "diet pill" when you want to lose weight). Let's see if the entrepreneur actually follows through on the advice that you gave.

(If you do a follow up post or anything on what happens here please email me in case I miss it because I'd like to know the outcome positive or negative to the outbound sales effort).

I totally agree Larry. I am definitely taking the intiative. My plan of attack right now, unsure if this is the right idea, is to take a large sample to upcoming meetups for people to try my food, hit up companies via email, twitter, etc... past clients that are willing to go direct, and lastly hitting up nearby startups for sure. I am totally committed to doing whatever I can right now. My whole business is at stake. Going to spend all night tonight to strategize and make a list of companies to reach out actually. Appreciate the comments. This is incredibly hard for me to admit public. I will hustle.

The publicity will help. In fact, go and open up a free blog and write about it. People tend to eat this off and it will be you sales. Realize that people love underdogs and want to be part of happy endings. By sharing the process with them they will become emotionally invested and then be obliged to root for you (which means more sales). All startups go through scramble mode. It's normal.

Have you seen any of the Kitchen Nightmares UK episodes? They're all on YouTube. (Not the U.S. version, it's terrible.) A lot of the episodes have at least one part where Ramsay gets out and puts samples in front of people ... I'm not even in the food business and I find these things helpful to watch from time to time for learning customer engagement.

I have only watched a few US version. I am definitely going to put more samples out there, starting by hitting up meetups and getting people to try my food. Thanks a lot for the suggestion.

Hitting meetups is a really good idea, but can I say that orangethirty said get out now, today, before lunch.

Hitting meetups - well it might be a good excuse to wait. You know, that meetup tonight is not so big, I will do Thursdays. Plus Thursdays, well the venue does its own catering and won't let me in till ....

Get outside the nearest two pre made sandwich places - and success is selling twenty lunch packs to people who otherwise would have bought a sandwich - this lunchtime.

Get out if the office and get out now.

Good luck :-).

I definitely appreciate the feedback. I am planning to work day and night at the moment on reaching out to people online in many different sources from email, twitter, facebook, etc. As it is the weekend and many business are closed, I wanted to maximize my time in this way and also make a list of things to prepare for next week, so I can hit the ground running on Monday.

In the age of online marketing, those who master the offline variant are kings. A sales message delivered by a real person outsells the same message delivered by a gadget.

I disagree.

Stop focusing on building your brand and start focusing on distributing your product. You need to accept the fact that for whatever reason, people choose to label you as a foreigner because you cook ethnic food, so you lose branding credibility. Therefore, you need to outsource your branding. You can leverage your distribution channels to increase distribution and build your brand simultaneously. Your distribution channels are a) your restaurant, and b) a catering business. Why not sell your food to other catering companies? There is no reason for it to be exclusive to your own. When more catering companies sell your food, you control more distribution channels and move more product. Your product is your food, and that is what differentiates you.

Reduce the cost of preparing your food [1] and outsource distribution. Allow catering businesses to serve your food. Tell them you will give them a discount if they call it "<Your Last Name> Food." [2] From the sounds of it, customers love your food (demand is high) and few people know how to cook it (supply is low). So price can be high. Just show catering companies how much they can charge for your food, and they will jump at the opportunity to buy your food at seems like a large discount. Not only will they distribute your food, but they will build your brand because a positive brand for your food increases their sales.

[1] Start by reducing cost of labor (chefs, sous chefs, dishwashers, waitstaff) and inventory (make more efficient shopping trips).

[2] The name of your food is your only branding decision. Choose a good one.

> people choose to label you as a foreigner because you cook ethnic food, so you lose branding credibility.

This part makes no sense.

It does in general. Racism is still alive and well in the US, although if most white racists knew how many non-whites handled their food on a day to day basis, they'd starve to death.

That said, there is a lot less racism going on in the Bay Area. This shouldn't really be an issue as long as you speak clearly and enunciate your words (the hallmark of any good salesman, really).

Disclosure: I'm white.

In many ways though being a 'different'/'ethnic'/'cultural', whatever you want to call it, brand and marketing as such can be brilliant for a business. I come from an arab/white american background and everyone within that culture will stay loyal to anyone with a good business that is also arab(to some degrees of cultural diversity). With that comes your base market to keep your business going, then because of that loyalty you have people hear about it and come regardless of their backgrounds. If you're running a good business those people become loyal to your brand even if you don't sell hotdogs and hamburgers per se (the typical 'white american' food :P).

> That said, there is a lot less racism going on in the Bay Area.

I don't agree with that. I think it's just more hidden or wrapped up sarcastic "hipster" jokes. Something similar to http://jezebel.com/5905291/a-complete-guide-to-hipster-racis...

Disclosure: I'm black.

I found it hilarious that the author of this piece feels that calling a non-black person a "thug" is racist.

Um, the word thug is actually of Indian origin. It's borrowed into English. So based on this logic the original thugs who were Indian are now racist.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=thug

I think what you're debating is similar to how someone could tell me "gay" means happy. Yes, we all know that's the origin of the word - but in 2013, if you hear someone describe someone else(or something else) as "gay" you can probably assume they don't mean "happy".

Disclosure: I'm white.

I never thought of "thug" as conveying an implication of the subject being black. "Thug" to me is more of a attitude / mindset / way of life, not something that corresponds to race. IOW, it's as easy to be a white "thug" as a black "thug". In fact, now that I think about it, the context in which I usually think of the word "thug" is the phrase "jack booted thug" which has connotations of Nazis, who were - as far as I know - mostly white. The other thing the word "thug" brings to mind for me, is the stereotyped image of a big white (Italian, probably) guy in an expensive suit, working as an "enforcer" for some mafioso type or something.

Maybe it varies by region, age or other factors, but I would not think of myself as being racist towards blacks by using the word "thug".

Maybe in the US, but I am sure in India "thug" does not mean a black person.

No, what I meant is that white people selling ethnic food are actually in disadvantage. Curries are Indian, yakitories are Japanese, croissants are French. If they say satays are Indonesian, then, an Asian looking chef automatically scores extra points for being of a related origin.

Your post does not make sense. I tell him to go out and get sales (cash flow) now by going directly to his market. The samples are not for branding. The samples are necessary because nobody is going to order food without trying it first. The biggest issue with selling food is overcoming the fact that people are picky about food. Thus giving samples allows him to convert people into customers immediately. It's the best sales technique he can use at the moment.

Plus racism is going to help the business in this case. This is ethnic food. If some white dude went around selling his stuff people wouldn't buy it because it would not be authentic.

"You need to accept the fact that for whatever reason, people choose to label you as a foreigner because you cook ethnic food, so you lose branding credibility. "

The comment lost its value with that one statement. Was there even info stated by the OP that this was the case? I know a few very high priced restaurants in NY that serve high priced "ethnic" food and the owners are both foreign but NOT from the region the food is from. They're branding is pretty strong.

This. Especially "Take an order right there." Also, have nice cards to hand out that mention your website, and ASK EVERYONE FOR REFERRALS of SEVERAL kinds.

Role-play asking for referrals. Ask for more than one. Ask for business, restaurant, catering company, friend, co-worker referrals. Get together and review how asking for referrals has been working. Brainstorm. Get better and better at it.

A few people will give you DOZENS of leads to follow up. Most will give you at least one. Get phone numbers AND email addresses AND business names where you can. Be prepared.

Also, begin connecting to everyone you think could give you a referral or new business on LinkedIn and export contact to get their email when the accept your connection request. Send an email to thank them for accepting (this is not spam, this is a transactional "thanks" if you write shortly after they accept your connection), and give them a short, compelling pitch that you plan and modify and improve.

That is a fascinating response. I was wondering how you would reply if someone asked the same question about selling a software.

I like this idea, but aren't there laws against distributing food like this?

orangethirty always gives great advice

This is exactly how i marketed my first ONLINE STORE when i was 16 (that's 6 years ago now). I Made about 2000 Pounds doing that alone that summer.

Wow, at 16 you were hustling way more than me at your age. Nice. I agree that orangethirty sales tactic is very good and that it has worked for you. So it's all about executing on it on my end. Which is definitely not an easy task for me, but clearly it needs to get done to get this business afloat and survive.

Shoot me an email.

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