Using Food As A Sales and Management Tool
People that work in transmission shops love to eat but, the long hours we work make it hard to for us eat right. When I was a manager and could not leave for lunch, I had to improvise a little bit in order to get a decent meal. Not being able to leave kind of made it tough but, I was able to came up with a few tricks to solve the problem.
I always had a little something cooking. That created a family atmosphere at the shop. We always sat down together and ate breakfast and lunch at the same table. It was really just my production meetings with food but, it gave us all a chance to talk about what was going on in the shop as a team and have a meal together. I always cooked each employee their favorite meal on their birthday and holidays were off the charts. I had other shops offer my guys a job and they would turn them down because they did not want to lose me as their cook.
Over time, I acquired the basics tools of the trade… table, cutting board, knives, can opener, refrigerator ,hot plate, electric griddle, BBQ grill, smoker, crock pot, toaster oven spice rack etc…. I took those with me from shop to shop. If you saw me driving down the road with my refrigerator and grills tied down in the back of the truck, you could bet I had just quit my job. With all my cooking stuff, I could pretty well cook anything you wanted back in those days
One of the most requested lunches was bratwurst with beer buttered onions. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it ? Easy to make. You cut up a couple of onions while you bring a quart of your favorite beer to a boil on the hot plate. Put the onions, a stick of real butter and the bratwurst in the boiling beer for about 10 minutes. Take out the brats and brown them on the charcoal grill. Put some mustard on a hot dog bun and load it up with a brat topped with onions then, take a bite and step into flavortown.
You know, food can help a manager expedite production. I had an installer that was hard to motivate. When I pushed him he would say…”I have two speeds sir. This one and the other one is sitting down over there.” I tried everything to get him to speed up and come to find out, he would walk through fire for one of my cheeseburgers. The food bonus was what motivated him when nothing else could. That is when the cheeseburger bonus began. There was also another standing food bonus. Ribeye steaks cooked to order anytime we did a 20,000 dollar week. Every week we all had our eye on those ribeyes. I had a picture of ribeyes on the grill taped to the refrigerator. It took a team effort to win the ribeye bonus. Individual efforts were rewarded with the cheeseburger bonuses.
Food can also help increase your sales. We had a meat guy come by the shop and deliver 10 lbs of breakfast sausage at a time. I cooked breakfast every morning. Customers could smell it when they pulled up. If I was performing a service recommendation, I would tell customers that they got a free breakfast if they bought the extended warranty. I had almost a 100% closing ratio before noon.
When it comes to outside sales, donuts are the most effective sales tool an outside salesman can have. When you walk in with 12 hot donuts , people stop what they are doing and eat your donuts. That is your selling time. I picked up so many wholesale accounts with donuts I quit counting. If you want to go out and get some wholesale business, deliver some donuts. Let me give you an example.
Carmax was a large used car dealership that was opening up about 5 miles from the shop. While they were building it I would take my road tests by there every day. One day there were people there in the office. So, I bought some donuts and paid them a visit. I met the general manager that day and went by with donuts a couple more times before they opened their doors . When they opened, I was friends with everybody there. I was the donut guy that did transmissions.
When the first transmission job came in they sent it to me. It had an internal problem and they wanted to send by one of their guys to look at the transmission when we got it apart, just to keep us honest. No problem. I set him up to come by at lunch time. I cooked up some Earl Campbell hot links on the grill with some of my homemade BBQ sauce and I owned him from the first bite. He didn’t have a chance.
Looking back on it, cooking for everybody created some of my best memories. I made a lot of friends and had a lot of fun. Food is a big deal in business when you think about it. I wonder how many deals are made over lunch everyday? It is like magic. If you play your cards right, food can help you retain employees, expedite production and increase sales. But, you know what the best part of cooking at the shop is ? You get to eat the food you use as a sales and management tool too. Now , that is truly a win-win situation for any transmission shop manager. I am starting to get hungry now just talking about it. Time to wrap this up. I have to go boil some beer and cut up some onions.