“One Great Idea Could be the Golden Ticket for Your Restaurant,” Says Howard Cannon, CEO Restaurant Consultants of America

Birmingham, AL, April 15, 2012 --(PR.com)-- The only bad ideas are the ones you don’t have. You need ideas, lots of dreams, plans, and visions. Write down all of your ideas. You can analyze them later. Restaurant Consultant, Restaurant Expert Witness, and CEO, Howard Cannon says, "Spend three or four days considering all kinds of marketing concepts and ideas. You will come across dozens, and possibly hundreds, of good ones but you can’t do them all. Once you complete this marketing brain dump, take your entire list and begin to whittle out the ones you don’t want to use. Start by thinking about creative and memorable ways to make your name and logo recognizable, memorable, and descriptive."

Even if you have lots of good marketing ideas, keep in mind that you don’t want to use them all. A few very well executed and tightly woven together marketing ideas are much more powerful than a bunch of poorly executed and unrelated concepts and plans. Cannon advises, "Don't try to be everything to everybody. You can see this every day across the restaurant industry. Restaurants that are great at executing a tightly woven marketing idea send one solid and distinct message. That's what you have to do." Their television ad talks about their new lemon Dijon chicken. They send a direct mail piece or an insert falls out of the newspaper, and it talks about their lemon Dijon chicken. You hear a radio spot from them, and it talks about their lemon Dijon chicken. You walk into their restaurant craving their lemon Dijon chicken, and you see their lemon Dijon chicken plastered in their point of purchase material; and, the employee asks, “Would you like to try our new lemon Dijon chicken?”

On the other side of the equation, you see plenty of restaurants that are sending so many different messages that the consumer really doesn’t hear any of them. Mr. Cannon says, "You’ve seen those places. They talk lemon Dijon chicken on television. They do print pieces with a steak fajita. The radio spot talks about their garden salad. The point of purchase in the restaurant is selling gift certificates or, worse yet, 'now hiring' signage, and the business section of the newspaper is talking about how they're experiencing sales declines, and the company leadership can’t explain why. Well, the reason is staring them right in the eye - total lack of focus in their marketing messages."

When you are brainstorming for your own restaurant, these are the kind of ideas to hone in on. Cannon adds, "Don’t worry at this juncture about any particular order or cost of implementation. Just create ideas and concepts of your own and borrow ideas from successful restaurants you have seen. Put these ideas in an idea file and update it often. You never know when that one brilliant idea will come along and be the golden ticket to your restaurant's success."

Howard Cannon is a highly-recognized restaurant expert witness, consultant, analyst, and speaker. He is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Restaurant© - found in 76 countries around the globe. Mr. Cannon is the CEO of Restaurant Consultants of America and Restaurant Expert Witness, and can be reached at 800-300-5764 or via the web at RestaurantConsultantsOfAmerica.com or RestaurantExpertWitness.com.