The Good, The Frugal & The Queasy: A Salesperson's Guide.

I do understand the dangers of generalizing. So, please understand that this is merely an observation, and of course, not everyone is always what they appear to be.

Political correctness aside, and journalistic integrity intact, my experience as a Draught Equipment Technician has  taught me that, when approaching any sale, it helped to identify my customer. Knowing who my customer was, in terms of spending appetite, and risk tolerance, was absolutely instrumental in knowing how to approach a sale. And don't you dare recoil at the word sale. We all sell things. Politicians sell ideas and agendas. Religious folks sell "God". Most of my customers sell beer, other alcoholic beverages, not alcoholic craft-beverages, service, or like me, beverage equipment. Just because it is necessary, doesn't mean that it sells itself.

I have found that there are three main personalities types, when it comes to decision makers, in restaurants. I am intentionally leaving out a fourth type, the illustrious White Whale, the Trust Fund Baby. This is that customer which most of us get, once or twice in a career, if at all, for whom money is no object, and everything must be custom, and shiny. If you are lucky, you get this customer near the end of your career. The reason being, you have developed the skill set to deal with them, and you're less likely to waste the money. If done just right, the White Whale is your retirement. If done wrong, well....there is a reason I chose the Moby Dick reference, Captain Ahab. 

White whales aside, the three archetypes are our own version of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  They are The Good, The Frugal, and The Queasy.   

  I'll start with the one that we hope for, the easy one. This is "The Good Operator". This is the person who wants to do it right. Unlike the White Whale, they won't throw money down the toilet. But if you can explain the value added of a particular product, and how it fits within the framework of their vision, they will usually accept it. We should all be so blessed.  And side note: these are the best restaurants to eat at, as they are always clean, and well maintained.

  Our next culprit is The Frugal.  Yes, I really do mean the cheap, but frugal makes me sound more smarter, and is more illiterative, in that it fits the rhythm of the title, to which homage is being paid. This is the guy or gal who is all about price, price, price. (Definitely not the place to eat)  Now, there are lots of reasons why a person might be this way. Often and unfortunately, people in my profession will site cultural background as the reason for frugality. "Yeah those Smulgarianese won't ever spend money." Sometimes it is cultural, but I find it is usually persons from cultures that have experienced extreme hardships. They understand that there will be lean times. They want to ensure that they have the working capital to absorb downturns in business. You may know some of these right now, in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic. They are the places that are still open. You can sell, to this operator. You just have to show them the payoff. I used to carry copies of old invoices, from service calls thatbhad resulted from a customer ignoring advice. I would hand the person to Bill, and while they looked at the charges, I would also talk about how much beer was wasted, or how much damage was done to the bar, or the floor, or food stock in the cooler. And then I explained how little it would have cost to prevent all of that. 

  Another important tool when selling new equipment such as FOB's, or strip curtains, is knowing your ROI (return on investment) numbers.  If you can show The Frugal some credible numbers, on how quickly an item will pay for itself, and how much profit they will gain, over the life of the item, for the investment, they will usually usually bite. Just don't force it all at once, if you don't have to.. 

A method I would often employ to sell FOBs, was to install two to four devices during a scheduled maintenance visit, or line cleaning. This way, they avoided a trip charge, and could spread the overall cost out. I always started with their fastest selling brands. On the second visit, I would do the most expensive brands. Often, upon my second visit, I would end up installing the rest of the system. By then, the value of the device had become self-evident. I would also take time on each visit, to train and retrain staff members on duty, especially managers. I would post and point out the instructions, and tell stories about "other "idiot customers who didn't use the fobs correctly, despite the instructions being right next to the device. Once I started employing this method, the instances of calls due to incorrect fob operation begin to plummet. In essence, with Mr and Mrs Frugal, you have to change the conversation from price, to cost. And when they see you training staff and addressing specific challenges, without being prompted, they also see this added value.  If they don't, point it out in an indirect way.

The final person is The Queasy. These individuals, honestly, probably chose the wrong profession. The fortunate thing about them is that they value cleanliness. I have never been food poisoned at one of these places. I have been chemically poisoned, accidentally, at a few of these places, mainly because the operator overused cleaning chemicals, and also mixed them too strongly. These are the places where you end up with sanitizer flavored salads and beverages. I was never violently ill, but ingestion of sanitizer does affect your gut health. Additionally I am very sensitive to bleach. If I am around strong bleach odors, I will taste bleach for the remainder of the day. It also makes me feel like crap. And honestly, while it is inexpensive, and is very effective in sanitizing and disinfecting, it is also harmful to stainless steel and most plastics. There are many alternatives, which are not that much more expensive, which are less harmful, have little or no odor, and do just as good, or better a job as bleach. But I digress...

  This customer is actually quite easy to sell to. All you had to do is highlight safety, cleanliness, and ease of interaction, for operations, and maintenance.  One time I was able to sell a complete replacement of all gas equipment to a seafood restaurant, because when I arrived, I found a beer system that was pressurized with a 50/50 mix of CO2 and compressed air . Yes, compressed air . And the air compressor was not designed for food service. Thankfully, at least, it was oilless.    When, at first, I explained to this GM that the foul, acrid and metallic taste of the beer was due to this air compressor system, and explained what it would cost to convert them to beer pumps, she said no way. I then climbed into the ceiling, took photographs of the air compressor and the area around it, which included (no bullshit) a rat trap with a dead rat in it, excessive rat and a mouse feces, assorted grime grease and dust, and a pile of used air filters for the compressor. Furthermore, the air compressor currently had no filter on it. I then opened the valve cock on the bottom of the tank, catching the contents in a disposable cup. If you know anything about air compressors, you know that these tanks slowly fill with water from condensation moisture that condenses inside the tank, as compressed air is drawn off, creating a refrigeration effect. These tanks are supposed to be drained regularly. This tank had not been drained in years. It was more than half full of Rusty, fecal dust infested, seafood smelling kitchen greasy water. Imagine a puddle of water so Rusty that it is reminiscent of red clay mud puddles on the baseball diamond, that have just been stirred up by someone stepping in them. Take that water and mix it 50/50 with the puddle one finds behind every restaurant ever. You know the puddle I mean; it is just outside or inside the dumpster area, in a hole, where some of the pavement is missing.  It's full of, frankly, restaurant dumpster juice, cigarette butts, runoff from empty liquor and beer bottles, regret, and crushed dreams.  

  When I showed this cup to the GM,  along with my pics, and it then pointed out the rusty staining in the gas lines that fed the kegs, she literally wretched, and very nearly vomited in the restaurant walk-in cooler. The draft beer system was immediately shut down, a specialty cleaner and exterminator were called for the ceiling, and they set up a pair of jockey boxes in the bar. The following morning I've replaced every bit of tubing and componentry, from the air compressor, to the keg coupler. I also replaced the vinyl beer lines, from the keg coupler to the FOBs, as well as jumpers between the FOBs and the wall brackets. And while it was rare, in that particular market, in Southern California, that I would be doing any line cleaning, this was a special case. Not only did I twice clean the beer lines with a 6% solution a TM desana Max powder, and a 2% acid solution, while I was affecting the repairs, I packed the lines with a baking soda slurry, and allowed them to soak, for the four hours I spent in the cooler. I also opened and deep cleaned all of the FOBs, replacing their soft seals in the process. I did the same for the faucets, and thankfully the towers they had made it easy for me to also replace the choke lines. While it still took several weeks for the off flavors to completely disappear from the Coors light and Bud light lines, the improvement in the draft was so drastic and immediate that we were contacted, after 3 weeks, to affect the same change throughout the entire chain.

   The real lesson here is not as sinister as it seems. The lesson is about standing beside your customer; trying to see it from their point of view. And we needn't do it in a sneaky way. We talk about it with them. I always explain that I use the "if it were my bar "approach. I also give a range of options, where possible, and break down my recommendations by "need to have" vs "nice to have".  Always tell the truth. Just don't be a dick about it. Tell the truth like a concerned friend would. I have been doing this job for 16 years. There was a brief time that I was forced to sell a product I did not believe in.  What it was, and why I was uncomfortable with selling it, is a topic for another article. It will be a controversial article within my sphere. But with that single exception, I can honestly say I have never sold anything to anyone that was not beneficial, even if it was the shiny thing . Because while the shiny thing might have been overly expensive, and unnecessary, the customer wanted it, and enjoyed it. And I also explained to them any difficulties or unnecessary expense that they were incurring. This way, if things eventually went sideways, I was not in a compromised position. In such an instance, resist the urge to say "i told you so",except in those instances that a particular customer deserves a little egg on their face.  By approaching each delicate situation with professionalism and empathy, we are still likely to be called upon to keep the beer flowing, even in these "I told you so. " moments, and we will still be greeted with a smile, and a sigh of relief. That's a pretty good way to be greeted.

Keep fighting the fight . Cheers.

Dan Broaddus.

Technical Advisor Extraordinaire.

Master Draft Beer Equipment Technician.

Canadian Beverage Supply Inc.