Restaurant Owner Says My Marketing Is A Rip-Off

I recently had an inquiry about my done-for-you marketing system come in from the internet. So being good marketers we sent them the information they requested plus we followed up with 4 subsequent mailings which we call our “Sequence Mailings.” (More information about what makes us so special)

Our 5th contact is always a personal phone call. Here’s how this restaurant owner started the conversation with our Marketing Director. “I love your stuff, but it’s too expensive and I can do the same thing myself for 60 cents. That’s your cost so you guys are just trying to rip me off.”

First, what he does himself is a chintzy, small postcard. We send out a full color personalized letter with a glossy certificate. SO he was measuring apples to oranges.

Sorry, I digress…let me finish the story. Now, we do it all: Get the list, design the letter, insert the letter, stamp and mail! So it’s a completely Turn-Key and all Done-For-Them specialized New Customer Acquisition mailer. The owner does none of the work except decide how many new guests he wants to come through his door.

After his brusque, inaccurate reply, my Marketing Director asked him the following questions:

#1. Is your personal time worth anything? He answered, “No, that’s just part of my job.”

Okay, that tells me he’s a loser already, but the second question got his undies in a bundle. My Marketing Director asked him:

#2. I see on your website that you sell a 12 ounce New York Strip for $29.95, is that right? The restaurant owner replied, “Yes, that’s right.” So my Marketing guy proceeded, “Well if I can buy a steak that size in the big family pack at Costco for $8.90 a pound, my question to you is are you ripping off your guests or have you created a value for them?”

Of course the restaurant owner said that he was creating a value for his guests which my Marketing Director replied to by saying, “Well, that’s exactly what we do for our clients.” The restaurant owner said he still wanted to do it himself. Fine. We can respect that. But we would have appreciated him not telling us that we were ripping him off.

As my mentor says, “Sorry, but you can’t fix stupid.”

Have a Great Marketing Day!