Understand the market:
The old adage “location, location, location” is just that, old fashioned. In today’s crowded and highly competitive marketplace, focusing exclusively on the location of your new or expanding concept would be, to put it mildly, a blunder. Not to say that location isn’t important, but we think the old axiom should sound like this: “brand development, market strategy, location.” We know, it doesn’t have exactly the same timbre.
brand development
Branding goes beyond creating concepts, as your brand will represent something in the mind of the consumer. While your concept will define your business model, your brand will define everything about your business, from your logo and location to your servers and bosses. The brand you have built for your concept, whether consciously or unconsciously, drives the decisions of your potential customers. With so many options available, our decision process goes beyond mere concept distinctions to variables that identify individual brands. These are the things that set you apart from your competition and make up what your concept is all about in your customer’s mind. These differentiators are the conversations that happen when your prospects are making a decision: “The service is horrible”, “There’s a band playing tonight”, “It’s too cold in there”, “It’s too loud”, “they have the best city steak”, “bartenders are hot”, “drinks are cheap”, “everyone there is too old”, etc. All of these nuances may seem small to the owner in the grand scheme of running a business, but they are the difference between success and failure.
Market strategy
A go-to-market strategy is essential for any concept to be successful and a strong go-to-market strategy incorporates the brand of the concept to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the concept. The biggest mistake concepts make from a strategic perspective is trying to be something they are not. We have found that owners spend more time trying to strengthen their weaknesses than exploiting their strengths. A concept will meet an early death trying to turn an “F” into a “C” instead of turning an “A” into an “A+”. Differentiating yourself from your competition is crucial and will give you an edge in your customer’s decision process, and if you’re having trouble differentiating yourself, we’ve got a trick: find a market leader and do the opposite. This is a simple market strategy that never fails. If your market leader is slow, be fast, if they are expensive, offer a lower price, if they are formal, be casual. This strategy has been used by the most successful companies out there.
Rental
It goes without saying that if you build a strong brand and develop a strong market strategy, the location or types of locations will be easy to come by. However, location selection can be tricky because the opposite may be true. For example, if you find a great location, it might make more sense to base your concept, brand, and market strategy on that location. Demographics, unique geographic features, competitor analysis, and more can easily make the other planning elements fit together. However, this is not always easy, in fact, you have to have a little luck. One trick we’ve used to help increase our luck is to look for locations that aren’t available. It’s not the usual thing to do, but we’ve had great success approaching owners of locations we’ve identified as ideal properties and found they’d be happy to hand over the keys. Doing this correctly is extremely difficult and we have found that it is much more successful when done by an outside consultant rather than being done personally by the new owner or real estate agent.
With the success rate of food and beverage concepts constantly falling, understanding the market and how it thinks about your concept is crucial to establishing your concept.