“No thank you.”
Unfortunately this is a common answer when restaurant waiters ask clients if they want starters or desserts.
One of the biggest difficulties of a restaurant is to have customers order starters or desserts.
And yet, this is one of the most powerful, and simple, ways to boost sales. Simple, because customers are already inside the restaurant. You don’t need to get new customers.
Imagine a restaurant where only 20% of customers order a starter or dessert. The restaurant only sells $10,000 of starters and desserts per month.
Now imagine that the restaurant makes changes, and gets 40% of customers to order a starter and dessert. Suddenly, monthly sales increase by another $10,000.
And the most interesting thing is that to increase sales of starters and desserts, you don’t have to make changes that require a big investment.
Why customers don’t order starters or desserts?
But before we find solutions to make customers order more starters and desserts, we have to find out why customers don’t order them. Only this way we can find solutions to this problem.
There are 4 reasons why customers don’t order starters or desserts:
- Because they don’t want to spend a lot of money on the restaurant. Many customers only order the main course and the drink. But some of these customers could (if they wanted) order starters and desserts. You just have to figure out ways to create a more affordable meal. Or better yet, making them think they’re not spending a lot of money.
- Because they are not very hungry. This is an important reason. But contrary to what may seem, there are solutions so this is not an excuse.
- Because they are on a diet. And desserts are seen as diet killer dishes.
- Because they didn’t find anything that pleases them. In fact, many customers can’t find anything they like because the menu didn’t convince them. But there is also a solution to this problem.
What to do?
Simple. We have to create solutions that make clients no longer have reasons not to order starters or desserts.
And there are many solutions that good restaurants already use. It can be:
- The famous mini-portions to share (they are super easy to make, and have great success).
- Sometimes just adding a word to the name of the dish is enough.
- Changing the way menu is designed.
- Creating special sub-categories (it’s very simple to create)
- Making the customer pay more attention to the dishes we want to sell.
- Among others.
“How to increase sales of desserts and starters”
I created a book called “How to increase sales of desserts and starters”. In this book I explain the 10 best techniques to make customers order more starters and desserts.
And the best part – the book is Free – for anyone who buys the book “The Secrets of Menus That Sell”.
Stop insisting on your waiters to suggest starters and desserts
It’s not worth insisting on your employees to suggest dishes if customers don’t order starters or desserts. Most solutions to increase sales of desserts and starters don’t even need the help of your employees. Customers will order with no help – except the help of the menu, of course.
And besides, it costs almost no money (or none at all)