Imagine you're a chef. Not just any old chef either, but someone who knows that cooking amazing delicious and gorgeous food is their Thing. And actually your Thing isn't cooking just any food, it's serving up delicious steak (no guessing what I had for dinner). You know exactly how to cook the most tender, juicy, flavourful, yummy steak ever. In fact, the way you cook steak is your signature dish.
Now imagine this. Your restaurant has a bar next to it–perhaps it's part of the same venue, or it just happens to be next door–and there are people in there having a nice drink after work, or just at the end of their day (or even at lunchtime, if they are cheeky). And they are kinda thinking about having some dinner. And you know if you could just encourage them a little, get their taste buds woken up, a little bit of lip licking happening, you could easily fill your restaurant. So you think: "OK, I'll send them a little taster over to entice them"...
So do you: a) send them some chips (even if they are triple-cooked fancy ones), or b) a tiny little piece of your unbelievably yummy signature steak dish.
If you answered 'a) the chips' you might want to look at your marketing. If you answered 'b) the steak' then YAY... correct answer. Of course, you wouldn't send out a bowl of chips–anyone can cook some chips! And chips aren't your Thing. You want to share a taster of your yummiest stuff. Because just one taste is THAT good, they are coming in to eat in your restaurant. It's your Thing after all.
Now, I appreciate you might be vegetarian–or not like steak or whatever–and that's OK, as it's not what I am 'really' talking about here. I'm talking about how you get people excited about your Thing. I'm making sure you 'get' that when you offer a taster of your Thing–perhaps it's what you give away on your website or it's what you share in exchange for email addresses–it needs to be part of your signature dish. Obviously, you're not going to give away the whole thing (if they ate the whole steak they'd be full up so no need to book a table!). But a taste... a really yummy, delicious taste... they'll want more if they like it.
And it means that you're not offering something else, then saving your best for when people buy. Sometimes it's hard to say: "Well if you like this (chips), then you'll love this (steak) but you'll have to come pay for it". What if they don't believe you? What if they think the chips you sent out were the best you can do in your kitchen? You just lost some customers then.
It's the 'best dress in the shop window' scenario, it's the 'fire the big guns first' option. Don't offer tasters of anything less than what you do that's brilliant when you're faced with hungry potential customers. Serve them a little bit of your steak :)
(NOTE: the emphasis here is always on a SMALL piece of what you do that's brilliant–it's a slice, a taster, a morsel. It's not the whole thing, as of course then there's nothing left to buy!).
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