To make money in the restaurant business, restaurant owners must have a competitive advantage. If only hard work was enough, most restaurant owners would already be rich.

There are only two real and sustainable competitive advantages that anyone can have in the restaurant business.

Restaurant owners can’t have the best chef or the best location or the best menu or the cheapest prices, at least not for long. Chef’s may get a better deal, road construction, construction projects, and population changes turn large locations into regular locations. Great recipes can be swiped and even improved. And of course trying to have the lowest prices is not the way to go.

The only two real and lasting competitive advantages that any restaurant owner can have are: Innovation and Marketing.

Ray Kroc knew the importance of innovation when he said, “McDonald’s can innovate faster than the competition can copy.

Peter Drucker (the greatest author and management guru of all time) said, “Innovation is the only lasting competitive advantage anyone can have in any business.”

You are right: “Marketing” is just a subpart of “Innovation”.

The application of unique marketing techniques is an important part of innovation because:

Marketing is the only thing that generates profit for a restaurant. Everything else is an expense.

Marketing (when done right) is the best investment any restaurant owner can make. In the stock market or in real estate, someone can expect a 5% or even a 20% return on their investment. But in marketing, a $100 investment in promotion (ads, direct mail, press releases, etc.) could yield $1,000 in profit, and sometimes much more.

For example, changing just a few words in a headline can generate 2 to 10 times more revenue from the same ad. And the only cost of making the switch would be the time it took for the restaurant owner to learn how to write headlines. What kind of return on investment is that?

The average restaurant owner thinks his job is to “run his restaurant.” He doesn’t have time to market his restaurant, or even to learn how to market a restaurant. Maybe that’s why he’s average.

A restaurant owner cannot earn $100,000 a year by working $10 and hours. A restaurant owner’s job should be to market, innovate and promote her restaurant.

The restaurant marketing plan for many restaurants is based on whatever the latest ad seller is promoting. When it comes to marketing, many restaurant owners simply copy what the big boys do. That could spell disaster for almost any independent restaurant.

Most restaurant owners work long hours, but it doesn’t take long hours to market, innovate, and promote a restaurant.

Look at it this way. A restaurant owner who is proficient in innovation and marketing could trade restaurants with any restaurant owner in town. Let him have the location, the menu, the chef and the staff and within a year the restaurant owner who knows how to market and innovate would have the most profitable restaurant.

Learn to stop chasing so-called competitive advantages that are short-lived and not sustainable. Focus on innovation and marketing and watch your restaurant profits soar.

Jerry Minchey, editor

http://www.MarketingTuRestaurante.com

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