Gain some Customer-focused Perspective on the Foodservice industry:

When starting your focus group, gaining a better understanding of the foodservice industry is a great place to start. Ask your customer the kind of places they go for lunch and/or dinner. Do they generally:

• Eat in
• Take out
• Get food delivered

Next, have them assess the overall foodservice landscape:

• What is the frequency in which they visit?
• Which places do they visit most often?
• Are there advantages/disadvantages of each?

Lastly, get a feel for the preferred foodservice category. Does your customer view sandwiches, pizza, and chicken, etc. all the same?

• Do they go to any of these places for lunch, dinner or both?
• Do they prefer one brand or category vs. other fast food or quick service?
• Identify closest competitors. What makes them similar? What makes them different?
• What are the perceived “advantages” of each competitor vs. your foodservice brand?

Associations with your Foodservice Brand:

Now you want to zero in on your specific foodservice brand. You should attempt to see if your foodservice brand resonates with any of your customers with regard to the following senses:

• What do you see?
• What do you hear?
• What do you smell?
• What do you feel?
• Then, ask your focus group their perceptions regarding taste.

There are some that feel carrying a Starbuck’s cup down the street says more about the consumer than the actual product. With that in mind, ask your customers the following:

• What does being a your foodservice brand consumer say about you?
• What does it say to your friends/neighbors/colleagues?
• How does that compare with other quick-service restaurants or other foodservice brands?

Next, probe into the underlying aspects of perception or imagery. This is an interesting perspective in that it makes the customer articulate your brand with an unrelated object:

• If the foodservice brand were a car, what kind of car would it be and why?

Lastly, probe your customers with questions regarding a time continuum for your foodservice brand – has it changed over time and if so, what have been the implications of those changes?

Experience with your Foodservice Brand:

Understanding how the customer first encountered your foodservice brand can shed insights into attracting additional customers. Questions should probe around the initial attraction as well as how the interaction has progressed over time:

• Where was the initial encounter – what city?
• How was your foodservice offering introduced? When?
• What were some of the first impressions?
• What is the relationship like today? How is it different than at first?
• What types of advertising or communications do they recall?

Your Foodservice Brand Eulogy Exercise:

Lastly, have your customer focus group describe your brand as though they were writing a eulogy. This exercise will help crystalize the core attributes of your brand.

In summary, conducting a foodservice focus group helps capture real feedback from an outside perspective. All too often, chains develop their foodservice offerings in a vacuum without asking the customer what they like/dislike about the offering. Focus groups can cut to the core and provide clear guidance for your foodservice brand in the eyes of the consumer.

The point of the story is he had no idea what the value of his company was and the $5 million number was a guess.  [NOTE: The rest of the story is that I sold his company for substantially more than $5 million].  I liken this story to a number of sales forecasts that I consistently come across that are swags, round numbers or guesses.  Anyone can come up with a number – the question is whether it is legitimate or vaporware.  What I am not describing is a software program (i.e., Sales Force) as a management tool, but rather the foundational premise of the importance of developing ratable sales forecasts – that feed software programs.  Here are some tips to consider that will make your sales forecasting much tighter than “a nice round number”:

It’s Basic Math:  In order to arrive at a number – say, $50,000 in sales for the month – a sales rep should have a number of clients forecasted that cumulatively add up to $50,000. This isn’t rocket science, but I am amazed at how often this simple premise isn’t followed.  How can you come up with a monthly forecast number if you do not know where it is coming from?  This simple exercise separates the accountability of the salesperson from the pretenders.  These monthly sales targets – by customer – provide the salesperson specific bench marks that not only serve as guidance to achieving their aggregate number, but specific reasons why or why not they did not hit their goal.

Develop a Sales Model– Most likely, at the beginning of the sales year, an annualized targeted sales number was developed that tracked sales by client by salesperson (and perhaps, even by month).  If not, read above.  It is important that when this plan is finalized that this plan is kept unchanged throughout the year and established as the benchmark for the salesperson (and collectively by the sales team).  A second component to the sales model should be a month-by-month forecasting section that is designed to be updated throughout the year as more information is learned.  While the aggregate annual sales figure never changes, the monthly forecast can change – both the timing as well as the client allocation – throughout the year. Other items to include would be actual figures as each month ends as well as historical sales information from previous years.

Daily Sales Flash– Armed with a annualized Sales Model that combines a hard line plan with month-by-month forecasting, the next area to address is how to communicate ongoing activity to not only the sales team, but to the entire support teams as well.  The Daily Sales Flash is a communication tool that provides a reminder of the overall monthly targets by sales person all on a daily basis.  If we are 30% of the way through the month, are we 30% on our way to achieving the forecasted sales for the month?  This Daily Flash keeps your sales targets front-and-center with the entire team and projected shortfalls can be addressed throughout the month as opposed to learning of them at the end of the month.

Forward Forecasting– Likewise, the Sales Model can help the team identify gaps to the overall annual plan well in advance. Tell me that I have a projected overall annualized shortfall in May so that I have seven months to create a plan to address the shortfall as opposed to not recognizing this until Q4. Forward forecasting keeps the team on task – or the individual salesperson – by proactively identifying and addressing issues throughout the year.

Develop Routines– Holding each sales person accountable for their forecast requires milepost discussions throughout the year.  I like to schedule individual meetings with each sales person at the end of the month so that we can discuss the existing month to see how we fared against the forecast.  More importantly, I use the end of the month to set the stage for the upcoming month(s).  Getting the sales person prepared to deliver a month forecast that is credible is the premise of these meetings, eliminating the vaporware during this time.  At mid-month, I meet collectively with the sales team to address our sales activities as a group.  Often times, the sales team provides some of the greatest mentorship to the other sales people on how to address any sales-related issues.

Peer Pressure– Lastly, some good old-fashioned peer pressure can motivate every sales person to hit his or her individual goals in addition to contributing positively to the overall team goal.  Communicating sales achievements throughout the month helps create an inspirational message to the overall team that positive efforts are appreciated.  With the right sales team, each sales person will want to strive to never be the weak link and deliver not only on behalf of themselves, but also for the team.

Sales forecasting is not difficult.  In fact, what I have outlined above is very, very basic and yet I am surprised at how often these practices are simply not followed.  While there seems to always be a rush to technology to solve all of our problems, sometimes you just have to have the basics in place first, in order to capture the benefits of such tools.  In the end, only the sales person knows when, what and how much each of their clients will buy from them.  Your job is to hold them accountable to those forecasts.

Start with the consumer:  The new foodservice screams fresh!  But, not one-size-fits-all; it’s fresh food offerings that target urban, suburban, rural, commuter and truck stop customer bases.  Your foodservice operation needs to address the consumer needs for quality, ready-prepared and made-to-order food where they work, live and travel.  Product offerings should be matched to the “needs” and “wants” of workers, students and homeowners throughout the day based on a demographic matrix.  This approach provides optimized convenience with a data-driven, diverse menu appealing to healthier eating habits.

Make the design feel like food: It is critical that within the design, you set the stage for the theatre of freshly prepared food.  Accents of wood throughout add warmth and create a friendlier environment – there is a reason why consumers flock to and hang out at Starbuck’s. Employees should look the part by wearing aprons and perhaps even chef hats.  Seating within the store communicates to the consumer that they can relax and enjoy the food on premise.  Adding restaurant materials such as quarry tile floors, darker counter tops, subway tile behind the counter, and stainless steel prep tables further enhance the aesthetics of a true foodservice operation.

Develop an appealing menu:  Make your menu appeal to the your targeted consumers. Creating your menu with locally sourced food ingredients and featuring them on a chalkboard tells the consumer about your authenticity. The key end caps of the grab & go signature-offering merchandiser should feature a variety of sandwiches that are freshly made each day in the kitchen.   Slicing meat throughout the day sends branding cues to the consumer that exemplifies the theatre and wholesomeness of fresh and better items for them.  Lastly, creating a menu that includes specialty items with names that tie to the communities in which you operate, make the offering unique and proprietary.

Run it like a restaurant:  This will be the make-or-break portion of your rollout – developing systems and procedures that position your concept to operationally satisfy the customer each and every time they visit.  McDonald’s is better known for their consistency first, their food second, because their operational systems and procedures are second-to-none. Cross training your employees to execute every phase of the foodservice operation not only creates bench strength but strengthens consistency of execution.  Training and ongoing monitoring of operations should include par level/build-to inventory management; optimized sequential prep of products; food safety, cleaning and sanitation; and step-by-step processes for foodservice execution to name a few.

Proforma the concept:  This is where the pedal hits the wallet.  The development of the Proforma – in advance – is a step often forgotten.  Dedicating prime real estate within your store in addition to the capital investment should mandate that a Proforma be completed in order to judge whether your concept can be a success.  In addition to the cost of the build-out, the next most important expenses to monitor are food, paper and labor.  Failure to manage these “big three” will kill any chance for foodservice success.  To get a true apples-to-apples comparison, create your Proforma as if was a stand-alone concept.  Remember, you have many options for the real estate you are earmarking for this concept, so it is important to know all the costs associated with the foodservice concept. Create a Proforma that captures those comparable items.

Foodservice operations should have the consumer in mind first and foremost but keep the behemoths in the food industry close to the vest as well.  Like it or not, we are all competing for share-of-stomach.