How to get the edge in vending

dellecampbells

 Hi,
 My firm is a very new firm in washington DC and we are a "street restaurant", what this is of course is a fancy hot dog stand. Alot of new vvendors are going to show up around the same time as us making vying for our market share much more of a challenge to us. Our menu is fresh with alternative foods from hotdogs etc and we have a website and a load of fresh ideas. I wanted advice and strategies on how to make our little operation a home town favorate and household name without overhauling our budget in addition to just great foods. Any restaurantuer or food service experts help in this matter would be great.
                     

davenny

Ok, here are a couple quick tips that will go a long long way.First memorize the name of every one of your customers and their usual order.  I know this is a bit of work but people will come back to you day after day to continue their conversation with you that they were having the day before if you remember them.  A good trick is just start writing down people name and order on slips of paper, you can even do it in front of people they normally dont mind.Second, get a cheap camera and takes pictures with your customers and you could post them on the side or you "cart" or get a digital cameria and create a myspace page around your business and post all the picture of your costumers on that....It depends on your demographics in regards to the internet...i think have the picture of your customers on the side of your cart would work better.Third; start naming menu items and specials after some of your customers.  Like " the number 1 is the Sally Special" you could even name condiment options after you customers...if someone wants ketchup and mustered on their hotdog you could call it "a Billy Bob smoothy" have some fun with it.Well I hope these ideas helped...good luck!

OilGuru

whats your web site?

dellecampbells

 brilliant. I love the my space idea. My real problem aside from that level of marketing is gathering reliable statistics on the market and sales factor in my industry analysis. Because its a cash business ( until we come in and introduce credit and debit card wireless processing to the scene) I have no exact idea of how much area vendors even make in profit and sales and how much we can exceed them with our new techniques and innovation. Any ideas it would help in convincing my bank that the business is very profitable

dellecampbells

www.delleandcampbells.com</A> its nothing more than a page that we needed to have a web presence, but we are working on the full site

InactiveMember

Differentiating yourself is a good idea. Yet I imagine it`s quite easy for your competitors to copy your ideas, which will quickly erase your competitive advantage. If you`re successfully selling healthier foods, your competition will quickly follow suit. Perhaps you could line up some exclusive contracts with local food suppliers for certain items?
Brand-wise, making yourself a household name involves simplicity, clarity, and consistency in the long-term. If you sell lots of different products, it`ll be difficult to initially establish a strong brand position. You might choose to sell a specific line of products and focus there. Could you have a salad cart for example? People will remember a salad cart more easily than a salad-sandwich-soup-cookies-newspaper cart.
Also, assuming you are successful, do you know how to scale your operations? Finance-wise, staff-wise, and operations-wise?