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We've moved most of this blog to the new Profitable Hospitality Espresso Updates - a new format and much more frequent posts.

Please come across and add it to your bookmarks or reader...

Just Pay Me!

Tired of customers or clients who think your menu or service is too expensive? Maybe you'd like to share these two videos with them:

And a writer reacts to requests by salaried staff to donate his work for free:

(dedicated to people who ask for sponsorship and offer little in return)

My membership of the Restaurant Association has lapsed...

It was another invoice in the pile, asking for $700...and I ignored it. I've been a member for more than 20 years, as a restaurateur and then an Associate Member. Associate membership is meant to give access to restaurant, cafe and catering owners, but one by one the ways to connect with them have disappeared (email contacts), are ineffective (online directories) or come at an additional cost (magazine advertising).

The reason a business joins as Associate Member of a trade organisation is to sell stuff to the regular members: services, membership or products. The high-minded ideals of these associations are important for regular members, but don't hold much interest for Associates if sales leads don't follow. The local organisation is in flux, and while the 'renovations' are underway, the customers have been neglected and are quietly slipping away. Not good.

How to Identify 'Open Leader' Types

Charlene Li shares her thoughts on the essential features and value of 'Open Leaders'. To explain the concept, she puts people in the (familiar) 2x2 matrix, with Collaborative or Independent on one axis, and Pessimist or Optimist on the other. Simple matrixes like this are effective because they engage both visual and traditional readers, even if there's a risk of over-simplification.

These give 4 different types of leaders:

• Cautious Tester (a Collaborative Pessimist)
• Worried Sceptic (an Independent Pessimist)
• Transparent Evangelist (an Independent Optimist)
• Realist Optimist (a Collaborative Optimist)

Here's a short video in which she explains the model:

Make a 'Life in a Day' Video for your business

YouTube has an ambitious project underway for 24 July: film what's happening in your life, and contribute it to a movie (like a time capsule) being produced by Ridley Scott. Sounds great, and most cameras and phones can record video. Kevin McDonald, the director, asks us to focus on several topics: What do you fear; What do you love; What makes you laugh; and finally, film what's in your pocket.

But there's something simpler that could be done - using those themes, take lots of photos of the 'Life in Your Day' at your restaurant, cafe, bar, school or wherever, then choose the best 50 or so and put them together into a slide-show movie with a sound track.

Apple's iMovie, Windows Moviemaker or the free online service Animoto can do this in a snap, and there are keen staff who would love to assist. Start with waking up, opening up, staff arriving, first customers, cooks at work, grumpy delivery drivers, mistakes and laughter, lots of emotions...right through to closing and putting the bins out. Encourage people to use their phones for spontaneous pictures, and share some cameras around. Have everyone lined up showing what's in their pockets! Offer your own prize for best or funniest picture. And remember one of the rules for successful digital photography: take 20 pictures and throw away 15, keeping just the best. Contribute to the competition, and add it to your own YouTube channel - if you don't have one, here's a great way to start!

Here's Kevin McDonald talking about his vision for the movie:

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time

It's been too long between blog posts, so this will keep us all going...NSFW and NSF_Staff

Trust...Are You Really Green, or Just Pretending?

The T word: Trust. It was a constant theme of the speakers I heard today at a Social Media Conference, including greats such as Problogger Darren Rowse and Wine Library's Gary Vaynerchuck. It's hard to gain and easy to lose, and often easier for a small business to win than a large one...

And then came today's newsletter from Marcia Yudkin, of the Marketing Minute. As usual, she hits the nail on the head, and warns about the dangers of greenwashing - being all hype and no substance. [Like restaurants that have a 'sustainable' product or two on the menu, but still bring bottled water half way round the earth to sell. Or cafes that only supply coffee in paper cups, even if you sit down.]

She reminds us: "To show that you're not just pretending to jump on today's greenwagon, incorporate as many as possible of these factors:

1. Hard facts (what you've done), not commitments (what you say you'll do).

2. Substantiation for your claims - for example, back up the statement that your operations are carbon-neutral.

3. Third-party green certifications, with links that show what they mean.

4. Non-promotional material that helps readers understand the issues on which you're taking action.

5. Advice for readers on how they too can follow suit.

6. Transparency and truthfulness. Don't attempt to hide elements that go against your overall stance.

Your reward: The trust of those who share your convictions, respect from those who haven't yet seen the light, and joyfulness in your conscience."

3 Tough Business Lessons shown in the Movies

Not the gentlest examples of how to handle staff, competition and customers, but it may be worth contrasting your own approach with these three classics...

Coffee is for Closers - from Glengarry Glen Ross. If you don't succeed in sales, you can find another job:

No matter what happens, Pay the Bills! from Goodfellas:

The Risotto Scene from Big Night - a chef learns that making a customer happy is what keeps the place open:

What do you think - still relevant, out of date or timeless?

Hat tip: Small Business Trends

To Lead is to Teach: new Expectations for Modern Managers

Interesting comments from recruiter Harry Joiner, about what's expected of managers/leaders in his area of ecommerce. 'Now more than ever...to teach is to lead. You can't just hit home runs while being a lone wolf in the clubhouse. You gotta raise the batting average of everyone in your dugout.'

He quotes from an article on Cycles of Leadership:

Great leaders don't care where good ideas come from. They don't let their egos prevent them from learning from any source--outside their industry or below their hierarchical level. The ability to teach begins with what we call a "teachable point of view," a set of ideas, values, and ways of energizing people that can be articulated and put into action.

How about raising these ideas next time you're interviewing for a senior position?

How the new 'Pyramid of Influence' enables more effective marketing

As busy operators, how many decision makers and opinion leaders can we reach?

The video below shows 4 groups: a wide range of consumers at the bottom of the pyramid, then pro-sumers further up (still numerous), then amateur influencers and finally at the top, the brand journalists. These last are the small handful of reviewers or magazine writers who we've traditionally been desperate to reach, hoping for a 'once in a lifetime' review or mention. Or we ensure their attention with enough money so an 'advertorial' looks our way.

We're always reaching out to consumers, through advertising, promotions, email, and good service to keep them coming back. But now we there are two other groups that influence public opinion and 5 years ago they hardly existed.

Pro-sumers are, in the case of hospitality, the people who eat or drink out a lot, or travel frequently, and like to share their opinions on review sites eg TripAdvisor, Yelp or Eatability. Not just once when they had a bad experience, but regularly: they feel a duty to share or boast about good (and bad) finds. They may also join relevant Facebook Groups or Pages eg one for Best Eats in your city. Coffee fanatics, craft beer and chocolate fans are other examples. As operators we can influence them by joining discussions on websites, posting comments on blogs, responding to reviews and joining Facebook groups.

Higher up the chain (just below, and sometimes resented by journalists) are the amateur influencers who work hard on their specialist blogs or websites, reviewing and gathering information. Some of them leverage their appeal to run banner ads and Google Adwords to make a reasonable income. They reach out through Twitter and newsletters, and are increasing sought by PR groups for product or venue launches.

How many amateur influencers are there? Some months ago we found a list of more than 500 locally in Australia (pop. 21 million) - scale that up or down for where you are: it's a lot! Your influence comes from making friends, posting comments and above all offering a good product! They pride themselves on finding the venues that mainstream media don't cover, and representing the 'voice of the people'. The photo above shows how MuMu Grill posts food blog mentions in their window - a nice compliment and a good read for people passing by.

[hat tip to Harry Joiner]

Tweetups expand your network of like-minded people

In the last 2 weeks I've attended my first Tweetups. One was spontaneous at the local Restaurant & Catering Assoc. Awards Dinner - tweeters (about 10 of the 700) agreed on a #hashtag for the event and kept the comments flowing. This added fun to a predictable night - a good reason for table-hopping and meeting new people. One tip: if there's no official #hashtag for an event, take the lead and make one up (most event organisers are still learning about blogs, let alone Twitter). Track the tweeters present by searching Twitter for the event name.

The second Tweetup was at a favourite gelateria: an opportunity to meet local & active social media people. Tony the organiser (@hollingsworth) had set up the tag #gelatotub and used Eventbrite to collect responses (no cost for free events and excellent for managing paid ones).

More good connections: Rebecca who I knew as a chef 15 years ago and has 22,000 twitter followers for her food tweets!! Mei, who manages community relations for the famous Brasserie Bread, retail guru Nancy and a host of others. I added some theatre with a laptop running VisibleTweets up on a shelf - it shows a continuous, colourful display of your chosen tweet word or #hashtag. It didn't take long for iPhones and Flips to record videos and pics - Posterous seems to be the preferred way to share them eg Tony's collection.

If Twitter makes sense to you, track down or create a Tweetup and expand your network of like-minded people. Even searching Eventbrite for your location will reveal some surprises. Oh, and I'm on Twitter at KenBurgin.

Food Bloggers: new force in restaurant land!

Local food bloggers and tweeters reacted with scorn to a statement by Masterchef celeb. George Calombaris:

'Bloggers have no idea about restaurants. They've got no idea how they're run.'

Maybe they don't have a company gold card to pay for review dinners, but don't overlook the passion, knowledge and number of participants in this food army. Here's a list of more than 500 Australian Food Blogs, and this is a country of only 21 million people. Have keyboard and broadband - you're in business.

Instead of black & white newspaper text, most feature gorgeous photography and lengthy analysis - these are no novices, and some make it a full-time job. Professional restaurant reviewers have always guided us from on high, but here is their audience acting like an opinionated, hungry rabble!

If you're visiting a big city like Sydney - do you pay $29.95 for the official guide, or dive into joyful (and free) blogs like GrabYour Fork or Not Quite Nigella or the yummy Lemon Pi?

Restaurateurs (like George above) are just coming to terms with free-flowing online review sites, Google Alerts and email. Now they're besieged by amateur bloggers and the twitterati - people who don't know the meaning of 'Yes Chef!' Stand by for more sweet and bitter episodes as the decline of old media (and rise of the new) is played out in the world of food. My stomach says it's a great idea!

Update: here's Jen's list of the Top 50 Aussie Food Blogs...and Mr Calombaris is still not happy!

Secrets of wedding prices - how else can we use this?

Shock, horror - using emotion to charge extra for a product! There are so many ways this can be done in a restaurant or bar, without making it a rip-off. What do your sales team think?

The future of restaurant ordering by phone

Watch how the new Pizza Hut app for iPhone works (and expect one for Blackberry etc very soon). Won't be long until you can order a personalised one for your business - no doubt developers are working on this right now.

Think about it: ordering coffee to go as I approach the store, flashing through a food order, setting up drinks for the interval of a show, avoiding the food queue at a crowded football game...you get the idea. With all the upsell and add-on possibilities that staff usually forget.

Driving it is the pervasiveness of the hardware. How to get familiar? Start using this app and roam around the iTunes Store and in the Apps section, use search words like pizza, coffee and restaurant. It's early days yet, but watch for developments...oh, and get an iPhone!

Update: just found Eatnotwait who build an iPhone app for your restaurant and handle the order processing. It will be interesting to get feedback from their users...

Promoting your Restaurant, Bar or Hotel...

How many of these lines do you recognise? Just substitute the word 'bar' or 'restaurant' for 'book'.

Hat tip: Mike Duffy