The Restaurant Doctor - Electronic House Call

ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - August 4, 2000

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
We are back . . . and SO ready to be back! Travel may be eye-opening and mind-expanding but it is also foot-numbing and not a little disorienting. I will have some final thoughts on the trip . . . but my primary thought at the moment is to get some sleep! So don't look for any penetrating insights today. Instead, let me take this opportunity to clear out a couple of items that stacked up in in-box while I was on the road.

OLD IDEAS REVISITED
Peter Pavlis <manager@fisherstudor.com> has requested your help:
"We are considering putting in a salad bar. Can you see what other EHC readers can contribute? Negatives and positives both welcome." As always, send your comments directly to Peter with a copy to me.

ACTION REWARDED
In a recent Management Insight Series tape, Phyllis Ann Marshall discussed the idea of value engineering. I received this note from entrepreneur extraordinaire Tom Martin of Clovis, New Mexico who owns several quick service restaurants:

A little addendum to the Value Engineering Insight. I just listened to it this week and thought I would share with you what happened to us by using "Value Engineering", although at the time we did our thing I didn't know it had a name.

Although most of what Ms. Marshall said was directed to full service, I did listen intently and near the end she talked about the visibility thing and how one restaurant put up balloons and increased business 10% the first week. Well about two years ago, Jim Laube, with whom you are familiar, suggested that I liven up the outside of our Hilltop Plaza location (the flagship store, home to the Penthouse Suite). He assured me that it would increase business 10%-15%.

Well, I hemmed and hawed and procrastinated and dilly-dallied until about a month ago. I decided to "just do it". Got a painter, decided on some graphics and 2 weeks later we were done. The first week was up 21%, second week 14% and this week is starting out the same. Translation to dollars: about $6000 sales increase (so far) for a $2500 investment. We are going to do the same with our Portales location and are thinking of how to incorporate something into our Mall location.

A note from the Doc:
The universe rewards action. Good ideas are useless unless you actually do something with them. Some will work and some won't, but you know what to expect if you do nothing. What great ideas are you sitting on? When do you plan to do something about them? No risk, no reward.

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