What’s Your Catering Legacy? Part II

As discussed in my last post, Mike Roman had a huge influence on my career. In my previous post (which you can find here), I discussed that I set a meeting with Mike to learn more about catering. Here’s what happened.

Armed with our printed menus and brochures, I met Mike in his office. I quickly got to the point of my visit, explained the recent problem with the bad weather day picnic, and asked what we could do to avoid this in the future. Mike immediately told us that our minimal deposit policy was one of the causes of our difficulties, but then he went further.

What are you?

He said that there were three kinds of caterers—shallow, medium, and deep—and frankly, at that point we were shallow caterers.

Mike then explained that with our quality menus and our knowledge of the catering business, we could become deep caterers, and he outlined a strategy for us. After we had mastered picnic catering, we decided to sell our restaurant and become serious corporate caterers.

Mike Roman

Again I contacted Mike, and he provided us with a solid menu and a marketing plan that helped us get beyond the magic $1 million sales mark.

I will never forget that, at our first corporate catering meeting, the first thing Mike said was, “Now I hope neither of you are in love with food. Because if you are, you are in the wrong business. Corporate caterers sell time, not food. Your job is to provide a service and you can never be late.’ This bit of wisdom stayed with me for years.

Sometimes words like Mike’s can be wake-up calls, as we all need to remember the simple goal of our sometimes extremely complicated businesses. I even had a client tell me, “Michael, I’ve come to realize that mediocre food on time is better than good food late.” Think about that the next time you spend hours making a sauce from scratch, and then deliver it late.

Michael Rosman is a member of the Catersource consulting team. If you would like information about him coming to your business to address your specific needs, please email Carl Sacks at [email protected]. His book, Lessons Learned From Our Mistakes – and other war stories from the catering battlefield is available through the Catersource store. You can visit Michael’s website at www.TheCorporateCaterer.com email [email protected].