by Emery Eaton

Created on: April 11, 2009

My wife is the General Manager of a busy restaurant in Florida. She tells me that during busy season she has no time what so ever to market her business because from open to close her restaurant is slammed packed. Obviously having butts in seats is of the utmost importance to a restaurant manager, and when you are filled to capacity how much marketing can she do, or for that matter, does she need to do? Well, if you look at marketing as only driving customers to your business, you can look at it from that perspective. I know though that marketing is much more than that, and even in a busy restaurant there is a need for marketing. For example, having a smooth running restaurant that pleases every guest that walks through the door, and makes them excited to come back is marketing. So she can train her staff to give each guest an amazing experience, and then to invite them back next week. She can train her hosts to more effectively manage the tables, so that wait times are shorter, and more people can enjoy the great food and friendly staff. This too is marketing, and will lead to hire revenues in the long run.

So how can a business owner find time for marketing in a hectic day? It is a simple as planning for it, each and every day. The best thing to do is start with a marketing plan, and follow it to the tee. There are many sights to help you to create a marketing plan. www.stepabovemarketing.com is a sight I created which may be of interest when doing this.

The next step you may take, but only after you have created you plan, is to set aside 20 minutes a day dedicated to marketing your business. This can be to institute some of the advertising campaigns that are in your plan, or to send out some promotional mail to people in surrounding neighborhoods. It can even be to train your staff on up selling customers to a better product or service that you provide.

I have met many business owners who are great at what they do, but are not great at marketing their business. One of the things I have found is that they get bogged down in the day to day operations of their business, so they tend to put marketing on the bottom of their list. This can then lead to a slow but steady decline in sale revenue over time, and eventually put their company out of business. In this situation the business owner may consider using a professional consulting service to help them create a plan which will lay out a simple, systematic, and measurable way to market their business most effectively. It must be able to become a routine for the business owner to come in to work daily and spend 20 minutes marketing. For example, every Monday the business owner sends out 100 thank you cards to the customers who came in that week. Every Tuesday he has his direct mail company mail out 1000 invitations to the weekend wine tasting event. On Wednesdays he holds a seminar to help people better understand the different regional varieties of wine. On Thursday he writes an article for the local newspapers food section about the best value wine out there. Early Friday morning he cleans his store thoroughly, and trains his staff on how to up sell customers from a $10 bottle of wine to a $15 bottle of wine.

All of those things he does are designed to increase his revenue at his store, and most of them take very little time. So, the best way to find time for marketing when your busy is to start with a plan. Then dedicate 20 minutes a day to instituting that plan. Never be scared to ask for help along the way from a professional, because those same people come to you for advice for things that you are a profesional at.

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