Sales is applicable to everyone everywhere in almost every situation. Our discussions with Evan Adams and his workings with restaurants reminded me when I was waitress in New Wilmington. It was my second job, but first job as a salesperson. I would not have admitted to being a salesperson however because I was trying to satisfy peoples’ needs and didn’t realize that in order to do this, I was selling.
What I remember most about my waitressing experience was my boss. She was always telling me to upsell at each table and I felt extremely pressured to say things I didn’t feel felt my personality. Within 2 months I was one of the top sellers.
Looking back now, there are so many things I would try, especially after this sales class and a few things I would change about my previous way of waitressing.
The hardest lesson in sales
The hardest thing I have had to learn over the past few years in sales is that you should never feel bad about recommending or offering a customer something that will cost more money. This leads me to my first point, and that is to understand why a customer is at your restaurant.
This takes time to find out through conversation but many of the times, customers are not there to spend as little money as possible. So I began to look at my job like this: if I don’t offer them a variety of food from the cheapest to the most expensive, there is a much greater chance I cannot satisfy their wants. Not only this, the customer might not know what they really want until you describe it and they change their mind.
This happens to me a lot when I go out for dinner. I can never think of anything to drink, partly because I don’t know what the place has and partly because water is a safe bet. A good waitress will introduce herself and ask if you want tea, coffee, or a Pepsi drink. This tells me what they have and I almost always then order a Coke or Pepsi.
Describe
Describing food items is also very important so the customer can visualize what you are saying. And don’t just say words that can be used for things other than food. Use food descriptors. It is also a great idea to know the menu by heart and be able to answer any questions right away.
Read the room
Something I was pretty good at was reading the room (aka the table) and being able to offer more if they seemed okay with it, or just serve the minimum. One thing I would like to try, however, is imitation. I think it could go a long way in making each table feel at home and more comfortable.
I know it is a strange application for a waitress to take note of a sales class, but as we have been learning, sales is applicable to just about everyone.
BoweryJE22
I work in the restaurant industry as well, and until this class I would agree that I did not realize I was in sales. I think that when I go back to working in a restaurant this summer, I will realize a lot of what we learned in this class correlates with what we do.
I worked in a restaurant as well, and I agree that you really need to read the room for a customer. You get a wide variety of people who dine and it’s essentially a great opportunity to exercise sales technique.
Malibu Meredith – you’ve gifted us with a thorough analysis of sales-to-waitressing parallels. Truly a treat it is, being a rarely discussed subject on this blog. I wonder, have you ever tipped a plate of fine spaghetti & meatballs onto a customers head? If so, how did they react? Did they leave a tip? Personally, I would laugh until my lungs hurt if someone covered me in spaghetti. And for entertaining me, I would leave you a sizable tip.