By GARY VAYNERCHUK
Yesterday I started a new content series exclusive to my Snapchat called #snapchatsecrets. Why did I do this? Because I am super excited to get serious about Snapchat in 2016. I’m going to be using #snapchatsecrets as a place to lay out little business tidbits that have helped me and others. It’ll be a wide range of topics, from helping my audience create more compelling content to how to get more people to see it. So here are the first 5 #snapchatsecrets, but be sure to follow me on Snapchat (@garyvee) to hear more in 2016. #1: SNAPCHAT WILL BE HUGE IN 2016 Remember that attention is the number one asset. You always need to be ready to shift, to go where people are spending their time. In 2016, for an enormous number of people, that place will be Snapchat. The platform evolved very quickly in 2015 and showed their full potential. Get to know Snapchat now. #2: YOU DON’T GET ROI Most people who watch my stuff aren’t understanding what ROI really means. ROI comes from the platform you’re using to deliver your message, and figuring out platforms takes time. You all want the ROI without the time. Make time to give it your best effort or you’ll never get the return you want. #3: USE TRENDING HASHTAGS MORE WISELY Many of you want to grow your Twitter accounts, but are approaching it the wrong way. Big tip for you: instead of making a hashtag for yourself, build upon already existing ones. Hashtags are not ownable; but joining conversations in a meaningful way is. #4: GIVING A FUCK MATTERS So many people talk talk and talk and never give back. Someone on Twitter might be tweeting out content multiple times a day and then never respond or talk to anyone. Well let me tell you: engagement matters. Giving a fuck matters. Use these platforms for engagement as well as distribution. I spend hours of my day just responding to tweets, YouTube comments, Facebook comments…and it pays off. #5: YOUTUBE IS THE BEST SEARCH ENGINE TO LEARN A lot of you have told me you don’t understand Snapchat, or don’t get Facebook dark posts. To that I say: YouTube. Right now, YouTube is the greatest place to go to learn for free. There are videos and tutorials on absolutely everything. Whether it’s Snapchat, or Facebook or how to do a proper squat, YouTube has it. Thanks for reading! Expect way more content like this on my Snapchat in 2016. Follow me to get all the latest updates: If you're heading out to dinner with the family this long weekend, order some dessert. That's what we found in this February 10 piece: Economically speaking, you might be getting more bang for your buck. Desserts are not that profitable for restaurants, not only because they can't charge that much, but because it's time for you and your family to linger while each enjoying—or perhaps, more likely, sharing—a single slice of cheesecake or key lime pie. Read on to discover how restaurants are dealing with the bad economics of desserts.
If you think you're doing a restaurant any favors by ordering dessert, you might want to think again. Dessert can be delicious. And it can be profitable, too. But generally speaking, when diners extend their meal with slices of chocolate cake, cups of ice cream, and servings of crème brûlée, it can come at restaurants' expense. "It's hard to make money on desserts in the restaurant business today," said Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University who has written extensively about the economics of eating out. "I don't think many [restaurants] benefit when people order them anymore." There are many problems with dessert, but it all starts with one pretty simple truth: The restaurant industry is a place of razor thin margins, and dessert tends to offer one of the thinnest. Food in general is tough to make money on. Restaurants have long relied on the mark-up they tack onto drinks, not grub, to boost profits. As food costs soar, that reality has only become more true, because there's a limit to how much people are willing to pay for different parts of their meal. For many mid-scale restaurants, that limit is $30 for entrees, no matter the ingredients, Todd Kliman noted recently in the Washingtonian. For desserts the ceiling is much lower, and much less flexible, says Cowen. "Dessert needs good ingredients to taste good, but you can't psychologically convince people to pay even $20 for dessert," Cowen said. "You can't really go cheap on it, but you really can't charge extra either." Forbes, for that very reason, noted in 2011 that dessert is often a great deal — for diners. But it's also made serving it a growing pain for many restaurants. The cost of serving a house-prepared line of desserts includes employing a pastry chef and dedicated space in the kitchen to the craft. Some restaurants, instead of using pastry chefs, have opted to serve simpler desserts made by line cooks, while others "have given up entirely" and outsourced their sweets, according to Kliman. Dessert is also problematic for restaurants because the course creates a bottleneck at the end of meals. At restaurants serving food in some of the country's busier cities, turnover is essential to their bottom line. Time is quite literally money. "The more people they serve, the more revenue they get," Cowen said. "A lot of restaurant costs are fixed. Being able to serve more people, to sell them food, drinks, and especially expensive wine, is what varies." Parties that might have finished their dinner in a little over an hour instead linger for closer to two when they opt for dessert. And they stay the extra 30 minutes while consuming only a fraction of what they did during the first part of the meal. It would be different if people ordered drinks more often alongside cake, but they often don't. It would change things if dessert wines were more popular, finer and more expensive, but they aren't, Cowen said. "A cocktail brings in twice as much money as a dessert, and it doesn't hold up a table at the end of the meal. You have to turn the tables," Mark Bucher, who owns D.C. restaurant Medium Rare, told Kliman. Dessert isn't, of course, problematic for all establishments. Restaurants with slower traffic, where open tables are less of a rarity, would obviously prefer to sell more food than sell no food. Higher-end restaurants, where prices are less elastic and people are willing to spend well over $20 for a dessert, aren't as affected either. It's the popular, mid-priced restaurants that don't benefit as much. Desserts aren't going to disappear from restaurant menus. Too many people like them (rightfully so, I would say, though Cowenbegs to differ). People also expect them, which makes eliminating them a risky endeavor. The price of alienating people is probably too great, especially in the age of Yelp reviews. But the next time a waiter is being coy about showing you the dessert menu, know why: He probably would prefer it if you and your party asked for the check instead. Unless, that is, you might be interested in another round of drinks. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/30/why-many-restaurants-dont-really-want-you-to-order-dessert/ |
Marcus Guiliano
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March 2020
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