Is your Restaurant a Specific Niche to your Market surrounding?
Three simple STEPS with respect to business success;
Find out what people want…
Go out and get it…
Give it to them…
While the message is simple, the reality is many new restaurant entrepreneurs fall short on fulfilling these basic fundamentals. For instance, in the first step, find out what people want, owners too often focus on what type of restaurant they want to provide rather than on what the market needs or craves. There’s nothing wrong with providing the type of restaurant concept you want to provide – as long as you have done the research to confirm your proposed market wants the same thing.
It’s important both you and your guests understand how your restaurants particular concept fulfills a specific niche in the surrounding marketplace. Your niche can be defined as the real estate of your restaurant - and only your restaurant - occupies in your guests’ mind. This niche is created not just by your concept, but by everything you do including your marketing, service, product, price point and management thus resulting in the construction of your brand in the marketplace.
How your restaurant is perceived is your market is influenced to a large degree by your competition. For instance, if you are planning to open a Japanese restaurant and your proposed market is overly-saturated with Japanese restaurants then your unique position in the marketplace will be more difficult to establish. The same can be true for price points. If the surrounding market is saturated with low-price competition you need to either stay within range of these or you must differentiate yourself by creating the perception that your brand is better, and thus worth the higher price.
Remember!! “Your brand is nothing more than what people say about you when you are not around.” To truly comprehend how customers will receive their brand, restaurateurs need to know not only what their guests want – they must think through the details of their proposed concept to be sure they will be able to deliver it to them.
