We wandered around Smorgasburg today. It’s a weekend market in Brooklyn consisting of a broad range of vendors selling all kinds of food, desserts, snacks, sauces, etc. They set up in a park and each vendor gets a 10 x 10 space. Mostly the vendors raise a pop-up canopy to cover their area.
These vendors are competing with one another as well as with neighborhood restaurants. They’re under tremendous pressure to do something interesting and be something different if they’re going to generate revenue. It’s one thing to be the only restaurant on a corner. It’s something totally different to be one of 75 food vendors spaced out in a small park.
You can learn quite a bit by watching a competitive group of businesspeople. Somehow it’s easier to learn the lessons when watching someone else’s business than when acting in our own businesses. I suppose we’re too close to our own issues to see what’s happening.
Here are some of the lessons I learned from watching these vendors at work. Tomorrow I’ll give you five more.
1. Be different. You can’t sell the same thing as everyone else. You’ve got to find a unique twist to stand out. I had a great sticky rice dish with bacon mixed in. It was awesome. It was something I’d never seen before and was truly a unique taste experience. Of course, there was only one vendor offering sticky rice with bacon.
2. Be excellent. If you’re going to sell something fairly common (the beef brisket sandwich, for example), you’ve got to be extraordinary. People want something they know and understand, but they expect it to be something super special if they’re going to eat it balancing themselves and their food on a concrete bench outside in a park. If they wanted ordinary, they’d have gone to the restaurant on the corner where they can get a table and a chair. Based on the length of the line, my guess is that the beef brisket is something special.
3. Be faster. The lines can get long, especially for the really interesting or excellent items. The line was unbelievable for the ramen burger (I didn’t want to wait). Other vendors took the opportunity to grab some of the ramen burger customers by being faster and keeping their lines short. There’s always someone in a hurry and unwilling to wait.
4. Get media attention. The local press writes about the interesting items offered in this market. That publicity generates demand. Of course, the press isn’t going to write much about the routine, boring, or standard items. You’ve got to do something different to draw attention. The media likes telling a good story. Some of the vendors have figured out interesting stories to tell. They post the stories at the front of their booth, and they circulate the links via their social media presence.
5. Build a fan base. We love sharing our interesting finds with others. I just told you about the rice thing (you really need to try it). I could go on and on about the great stuff I tried including the amazing doughnuts, delicious chocolates, and the salted caramel peanut butter. Word of mouth builds the fan base. I’m more likely to tell you about the delicious things and the interesting things. Give the customer a reason to help build your fan base.
6. Have a nice-looking space. First impressions matter when you’re one of dozens competing for the same few dollars budgeted for lunch. While a lunch choice isn’t a matter of life and death, it’s important to us to feel confident about the vendor. A clean, professional look goes a long way toward gaining our trust. As we walk by, we’re making quick decisions, and the vendor needs to grab our attention.
7. Promote on social media. Some customers show up at the market looking for a particular vendor. My wife knew all about a handful of the merchants from having read blog posts she found on social media. In fact, it was social media that made her aware of the market in the first place. We bought a bag full of macaroons because we’d heard on Twitter that they were amazing.
8. Be welcoming and friendly. Even when a booth looks great, we need to be welcomed and treated warmly when we approach. We don’t know the drill, and an uncomfortable greeting can turn us into “just looking” customers. Personality matters, and having a plan for turning us from lookers into buyers is essential. A free sample goes a long way toward making the sale.
9. Educate. Some products aren’t easily understood. We had no previous experience with the sticky rice and bacon combination. The vendor quickly explained it and helped us understand why this might be worth trying. Once we placed our order, he shifted gears to educating us about the ginger soda he makes himself. We bought one of those as well once we understood what he was selling.
10. Price doesn’t matter. These booths are selling at premium prices. The peanut butter spread was $8 for a small bottle (the vendor isn’t competing with Peter Pan). Customers intrigued by the product aren’t worried about price. They’re fascinated by the nature of the product or the recommendation from a friend.
Business lessons surround us every day. Unfortunately, more often than not, we ignore the lessons. We tell ourselves that their business is different from our business. We figure out why the things they’re doing to succeed aren’t things we can do to grow. We come up with all sorts of rationalizations for doing things the same old way, even when they aren’t working for us.
I learned a bunch of lessons at Smorgasburg in Brooklyn. If you’ll open your eyes and your mind, you can learn some things from your experiences as well. We’re all in business. We’re all more or less the same. Look for what’s working for others and incorporate those ideas into your business. Much of what others are doing to succeed will work for you as well.
