Showcase your skills

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Write an article that demonstrates your expertise as hospitality professional.

Write an interesting, relevant and accurate article and send it to a newspaper, trade magazine or a website. Be sure that your name, venue address and phone number are included at the end. If the editor can use it, you get your name in print and maybe even your contact details printed for free.

When you do get things published, ask permission from the publisher to re-produce the article for publicity purposes. Scan the article or photographs and use them to market your restaurant. This kind of publicity, like testimonials, has instant impact and gives substance to the claims you make for your venue.

Showcase your skills

Andrew Howarth suggests ways to let everyone know you’re a true professional

Offer to give a talk about your work.

Catering Colleges, local interest groups, schools and even online forums often need speakers for meetings and lessons. If you’re a chef, sommelier, restaurant manager or similar and have some public speaking experience (and let’s face it, we do it every day in the restaurant), consider making yourself available. It’s a great opportunity to market yourself as a professional who knows what he’s talking about and you might even get paid for doing it.

Demonstrate your skill to whoever might be interested

Offer to teach groups how to do what you do, either in your restaurant or at their chosen meeting place.

I once got a slot demonstrating appliances in a kitchen equipment shop. Every month I’d use a one of their appliances to make a simple dish which I’d then get people to taste. Behind me was a poster advertising my restaurant and a table with my business cards and menus. It worked well for all concerned.

Get involved in local activities

Make yourself known as a supporter of charities, sports & social clubs, schools & colleges, community centres or any other organisation that involves local people. These groups, often the cornerstone of society, are where people interact, where local issues are discussed, plans made and ideas and opinions exchanged. The emphasis is usually on helping others and if your restaurant is seen to support such activities it stands to enhance its goodwill whilst helping good causes.

Approach the organisers and see how you can help. For example, you could offer a free meal or money-off voucher for your restaurant as a raffle prize, giving away a flyer for your restaurant with every ticket sold. A few years ago, my local fire station held an open day to raise money for their widows & orphans fund and I made a cake for a ‘guess the weight’ competition.The cake (shaped to resemble a fire engine with some of my menus on the table beside it!) attracted a lot of attention and was even featured in the local press. As raising £125 for the fund, I gained some very positive publicity for my restaurant.

Let people know what facilities you have and what you can offer. Think of all those group socials, celebration dinners, award ceremonies, committee lunches etc that your venue could be hosting, not to mention the potential custom of the individual parties involved. See also cultivating local interest groups for more ideas about getting involved in the local community.

Get samples of your food into as many mouths as possible.

Frequently featured in Gordon Ramsays’ Kitchen Nightmare series, this attention-grabbing tactic is based on the principle that if you want customers to come to you, sometimes you have to go to them first. Select a few of your most presentable staff, including your chef (in his whites). Put together a selection of food samples that transport and present well and, above all, are tasty. Have a pocket-full of business cards and some mini-menus at hand. Go wherever there are people - in the street by your restaurant, in the business district of the city when the suits are on lunch break, outside the theatre when people are leaving, at school fetes, even at the beach. Persuade passers-by to sample your offer and slip a menu into their hand at afterwards. It’s an exercise that takes guts but it does get you noticed!