The Social Media Dilemma

Q.  I notice that you are on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you believe that engaging my customers through social media is important to my new business?

For those of us who didn’t grow up with an iPhone as a pacifier, this presents a big dilemma.  And that dilemma is whether we spend our precious time focusing on doing what we think is core to our business or generating traffic on sites like Facebook and Twitter. 

The goal of FoodProductLaunch.com is to get to as many foodies, food hobbiests, restauranteurs, executive chefs and restaurant owners as possible in order to gain a major market share of those people who want to take their product from The Kitchen to the Marketplace.  For me Community Management On-Line or Social Media Marketing is extremely important to what I want to do.  Therefore, it was not that much of a question.

If you think about it, in general it’s not that big of a dilemma.  It’s really a no-brainer.  You have to establish your brand and what’s a better way to do that than through an advertising campaign that if you handle it by yourself costs you little to no money?   Back in the day if you were a startup and you wanted to get your product out there (wherever out there was), you relied on word of mouth marketing through your friends and family.  Essentially, that’s what you could use Facebook for. You don’t have to be web-savvy, you just have to know how to use Facebook and twitter and be able to provide status updates.

But…and I like big buts and I cannot lie…There is more work to be done than if you are just blasting away without knowing what you’re doing.  You have to know what makes those sites work for you and what doesn’t.  You have to experiment and determine what kinds of updates, tweets, blog entries are driving traffic to your site and more importantly you have to determine whether this is bringing you business.  And if you don’t know what you’re doing you could be doing it all wrong. 

This graphic drives me nuts, because of the word like in quotes, and it represents the shameless way that people manipulate their friends and family into driving traffic to their Facebook.  I’m not a big fan of these kinds of campaigns.  I believe you have to take a personal approach and somehow telling people to like you is just wrong.  You want to get people to subscribe to your tweets and Facebook status without going all Sally Field on everyone.

My advice?  Strike a balance between what you love to do and what you have to do.  Go to the experts if you have questions and subscribe to blogs such as HootSuite, which has got a wealth of knowledge for newbies and Kommein, which is Deb Ng’s blog – she’s the lady who literally wrote the book on Community Management.

FoodProductLaunch.com is here for you when you’re ready to make the next step to go from Your Kitchen to the Marketplace.  We specialize in helping startups start up with their condiments, dressings, jams, salsas and sauces. 

We take the scary out of the process!

TJ Gallivan

© foodproductlaunch.com 2014 All Rights Reserved.  We encourage you to repost this blog in its entirety.  If you choose to use portions of it…give credit where credit is due.

Restaurant Menu Nutritional Analysis Pilot Project

Q.  What does Obamacare have to do with the food industry?

The recently passed Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare has had a huge effect on our country in the short period of its existence.  Not only for healthcare, but also in how restaurants run their day to day operations. 

The naysayers people over at Forbes magazine had this to say about it:

The calorie label clause, buried deep within the ACA’s 10,000 pages, seems harmless enough at first glance. Each restaurant chain with over 20 locations is required to display the calorie content of each food and drink item it serves on signs and printed menus–with vending machine distributors subjected to the same rules.

With the obesity problems that we have in this country and the health care costs associated with it I think that there needs to be some things in place to help us consumers make wise decisions.

Part of our lives is going to the grocery store and buying our food.  In many cases, we study the labels and inspect the products and we make our choices depending on what is good or bad for us.

Well, this type of labeling, at least from a calorie perspective, is what the ACA is calling out for in restaurant chains of over 20 locations.  I’ll pull out my crystal ball and predict that this is going to become mandatory for restaurants of all sizes in the not too distant future.

What’s that got to do with FoodProductLaunch.com and helping people go from The Kitchen to the Marketplace?  Well, nothing really, except that as part of that process, I have the ability to perform nutritional analysis.  What I’d like to do is to offer that service to restaurant owners who would like to provide that information to their customers. 

I’m launching a Pilot Project for Restaurant Menu Nutritional Analysis.  I’m going to work with one or two restaurants (local and distant) who want to have their menu analyzed for nutritional labeling.

This will be a FREE project.  It will cost the chosen restaurant nothing at all.  The only cost would be time! 

Criteria:

1. Willingness to participate – I’m looking for someone who would be committed to this project.
2. Vision – I’m looking for a restaurant owner who sees the value of providing their customers with the nutritional information related to their menu items.
3. Location Location Location – I’d prefer a local restaurant to start (Sarasota area) and would expand it to other locales if necessary.
4. Trust – you will have to trust that I am doing this just for the analysis.  I don’t ever want to run my own restaurant, so stealing your recipes is not on my agenda.
5. Data Analysis – At the end of the program, I would like feedback on whether or not this was a valuable exercise.

Have I mentioned that this would not cost you anything?

The benefit to you as the restaurant owner is that, like Subway, you could offer your customers healthy programs and know EXACTLY what is in the offering.  You could tailor your menu for those healthy items and promote them to your health minded clients.  You could make that part of your advertising campaign to bring in more customers.

If you are interested in participating in this project, please email me at foodproductlaunch@gmail.com with the subject line “Pilot Project.”  Let me know some information about your restaurant and yourself and how you meet the above criteria.

Thanks for your interest in the project. 

TJ Gallivan

© foodproductlaunch.com 2014 All Rights Reserved.  We encourage you to repost this blog in its entirety.  If you choose to use portions of it…give credit where credit is due.

More on Living Happy

Q. Doing what you love..being happy…and then we had that big apocalyptic moon…all of these things are great and all, but what’s that got to do with launching my product?

Yeah, it seems like I got off track a little and maybe you can indulge me just a bit longer on these personal things as I think of a dear friend who has pancreatic cancer. 

Paul Bowles in The Sheltering Sky wrote, “But because we don’t know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”

We view each day as just another one of our seemingly limitless days and we feel we always have time to do the things we love. We believe that after we’ve started doing the things that we love, then we’ll really be happy. There’s still time to take that skydiving class.  There’s still time to take up ballroom dancing.  There’s still time to get that recipe out to TJ at FoodProductLaunch.com so I can get on with the next phase of my life.  The one I’ve been wanting to live.  The life of making/producing/selling my own creation to Make You Feel My Love. 

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  I’ve been where you are right now.  I’ve waited.  I’ve procrastinated.  I’ve put it off to another one of my limited days.  It took me years to get my a$$ in gear and start. 

What I am telling you is that if you’re thinking of doing something different with your life, if you’re thinking of radically changing the thing you do, if you’re thinking of how much happier you’d be doing that thing, then the time to do that is now. 

If that thing that you want to do is to get your creation to the marketplace and you’re ready right now then let’s go! 

FoodProductLaunch.com specializes in helping people with all the steps required in taking their recipes from the Kitchen to the Marketplace, helping to make you happy by making others happy!

TJ Gallivan

© foodproductlaunch.com 2014 All Rights Reserved.  We encourage you to repost this blog in its entirety.  If you choose to use portions of it…give credit where credit is due.

Doing What Makes You Happy

Q.    I love to cook, I’ve got some great creations and I’m about ready to start my own food biz.  Do you believe in the adage, “do what you love and the money will follow?”

I’ll have to answer with the words, that depends, and a quote - “I am a writer, but I love sex more than I love writing,” author Penelope Trunk observed a few years ago.  I agree with Penelope about sex, writing and cooking!  There’s not much of a chance that I’d be able to make much of a living in any of those fields except for cooking.  Therefore, I stick with something that I’m skilled at and that I love. 

You’ll be happier starting off doing something that you love than starting off with something that is horrible and you’re only doing it for the money.  So, it depends on if you’re willing to do something you love and work at making sure that whatever it is that you do does not become a drudgery.  Also, you’ll have to check your ego at the door. So, when you first start out with whatever food product (sauces, salsas, dressings or condiments) you’re going to produce, be prepared to have people try it and then call your baby ugly.  If you can take that, then you’ll be great. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not good with criticism, especially when someone calls my baby ugly. 

In the case of starting your own business based on sauces, salsas, dressings and condiments, then make sure that you’re working with someone who shares your passion for cooking and knows the ins and outs of how to help you go from your kitchen to the marketplace.  I’ve been there before and I’ve worked with people who didn’t really care about my creations.  It was a job/drudgery to them.

I love to help people.  I love cooking.  I love perfecting a process.  I love seeing a finished product.  So, for me, this is what I have a passion for and I believe the money will follow.  So far, so good.  And I’m happy. So, clap along if you feel like that’s what you want to do.  

For a counter argument, check out Rob Asghar’s article in Forbes magazine, five reasons to ignore the advice!

FoodProductLaunch.com specializes in helping people with all the steps required in taking their recipes from the Kitchen to the Marketplace.

TJ Gallivan

© foodproductlaunch.com 2014 All Rights Reserved.  We encourage you to repost this blog in its entirety.  If you choose to use portions of it…give credit where credit is due.

I Lost My Hat!

If you know stuff about me you may know that I am a big fan of hats, especially what are commonly referred to as baseball hats.  Maybe it’s because I don’t have much hair left and need to protect my noggin from the effects of the hot Florida sun or maybe it’s that I like to make statements about my allegiances.   Or maybe it’s because I love my dog, Gunner, so much that I like to give him expensive chew toys that smell a lot like me. 

Anyway…like most who have an affinity for their fashion accessories, I do become attached to certain hats and they for one reason or another become a favorite.  There are a number of factors that play into a hat becoming a top hat in the rotation:

1. Comfort – it must be comfortable.  That’s first and foremost.  To paraphrase OJ’s Dream Team lawyers, “If it don’t fit, it ain’t sh**.”
2. Style – it has to have some sort of style.  To me, that means color, logo or team, embroidery, and size of the cap itself.  None of us want to look like Fred McGriff in that famous informercial of a bunch of years ago.
3. Appropriateness – it has to be appropriate for the occasion.  I like the woolen fitted baseball caps a lot, but it is too hot to wear to a spring training game. 
4. Coordinated – it has to be coordinated with whatever you are wearing.  I like green hats, especially the well-worn cotton ones, but putting a green hat on with a red shirt makes me look like Christmas.  It just doesn’t work.

So, what does all this have to do with FoodProductLaunch.com.  Well, everything and nothing at all. 

The hat in question was a Nike Featherlight, not the most expensive hat I’ve ever had and definitely not the least expensive.  As far as the above criteria go, I would give it a 10 for comfort – they don’t call it featherlight for nothing, a 7 for style – it’s actually kind of fugly, a 9.5 for appropriateness - I was wearing it on a cruise and needed something exactly like this hat, and a 10 for coordinated - because it matched everything that I wore or would be wearing on a tropical vacation.

What made this particular cap so special? 

See those vents in the cap?  One day a few years ago, I decided to take a few knick-nacky pins that I had lying around the house and pin them to the vents on either side of the hat.  There were about 6 or 7 small pins including: a Norge pin that I had gotten in Norway (there’s a joke there having do with plumber’s crack), a Buffalo pin, an insignia pin for the unit my father served in during WWII - the 14th Armored Division (AD) - and last, but certainly not least, a service pin that I had gotten from a three letter acronym agency I had worked at for over 20 years. 

I have not worked there for a long time and I’ve had recurring dreams that I am stuck inside that Agency’s more than four walls and I cannot get out because I no longer have an identification badge.  How I get in, I never know, and in my dream it’s like the Hotel California.

I was on a cruise to Mexico with my wife and my sister and my brother-in-law a little bit of time ago and I took to wearing that hat every day. As luck would have it I had taken the 14th AD insignia pin off the hat and had given it to my sister that morning at breakfast.   The only pin with any other real significance left on the hat was the 20 year service pin, which I was very proud of.

We got off the ship and went into town (town is a loose term meaning a place consisting of only tourist traps) and had a nice time avoiding all the people trying to sell us stuff.  (Where is that sarcasm font?)  On the way back, we hopped into a cab and were left off at the docks where our cruise ship was.  The cab then vanished amidst all the other yellow colored sedans.

On the way to the ship, I realized that in my search for my cruise card to get back on the ship, I had not only lost it, but I had lost my hat.

My hat!  My f***ing hat with all my cool f***ing pins.  Dagnabbit.

I was so mad.  I was spitting fire and smoke was coming out of my ears.  I ranted all the way in to the ship.  I was snapping at my wife and my sister, but not my brother-in-law because he’s still a weightlifter. 

After I calmed down about 3 weeks later, I realized that there was a reason that I lost THAT hat.  It was meant to be lost.  It was supposed to be gone.  It had tangible evidence of my former life.  One that I am no longer even loosely affiliated it with.  I am a foodie.  I’m an entrepreneur.  I like to help people get through the process of going from Kitchen to Market.  I’m not that three letter agency guy anymore and I never will be again. 

Maybe it took me losing that hat to realize that important fact.

TJ Gallivan

© foodproductlaunch.com 2014 All Rights Reserved.  We encourage you to repost this blog in its entirety.  If you choose to use portions of it…give credit where credit is due.