There are many of pieces of business advice out there but one of the strongest I've ever found is "To be successful, surround yourself with successful people." When I'm feeling philosophical I'll talk about the deeper meaning behind it, but for now let's look at the hard reality that successful people are probably doing at least one or two things differently than you are, and by working with a group of successful people you can pick and choose the winning techniques. I've done a bit of that for you today pulling ideas to increase sales revenue and profitability from the minds of John Bellini of Bell Foods, and Joe and John Lorenzo of Lorenzo Food Group.
Let's take a moment to look at why we consider two Companies we'll be taking inspiration from this week successful. In common you'll see that they have both successfully increased their businesses revenue (and profits). Both companies have used a number of techniques to accomplish this but we're going to cherry pick one example from each to talk about today.
John Bellini runs Bell Foods, a successful food processing and distribution center in Louisiana that has grown from a center of the plate cutter to a complete food service solution. Under John's leadership Bell Foods earned a spot on Inc. 5000 magazine's top 1000 growing companies.
The Lorenzos operate Lorenzo Food Group out of New Jersey. When their Dad Joe started the business in the 60's they were basically a provision distributor to deli's and pizza shops. As that business started to shrink a get more commoditized (price sensitive) The brothers saw an opportunity to increase their revenue by offering new value added services. These expanded capabilities have allowed them to offer product to new markets where his core product expertise and resources give him an advantage over the competition.
Let's take a look at how they're accomplishing this.
John Bellini uses every opportunity to encourage the upsell. Every time I look at his company he's added a new tactic, or put a new twist on a proven one. Recently I saw a flyer of his cross my fax machine. He uses an automated food fax and email package to send price lists and notifications to his customer base. I asked him to email me the original so I could show it to you.
If you click the image to the right it will open to a more readable size pdf. Oh, and this special deal is from a few weeks ago. If you want to find out what the current deal is just give John a call at (504) 837-2355.
What I want to point out though are a couple of key strategies John employs in his letter:
1) John is offering a rebate if they try new products NOT introducing the new products at a "loss leader" price. I love this idea, it presents your customers with a savings incentive without putting your salespeople at the disadvantage of having to fight prices back up to a profitable level later.
2) John identifies several advantages to his customers for taking advantage of his broad line offerings: Easy to meet his already low minimum order requirements, willingness to add additional products to his inventory for customers.
3) John always presents good looking cover page. He sent this out as the cover sheet to his price list which includes highlighted selections from his boadline offerings. Too often we fall into the habit of just sending out the same price list each week, only adjusting the prices and ignoring the selling opportunity that presents itself every time the fax or email broadcast starts.
Now let's move over to the Lorenzo Brothers
Joe and John were doing a fair amount of business with Foodservice suppliers like Compass and Sodexho when they decided to get in the retail sandwich business with their own stores called "Yella's". Joe took this upscale sandwich idea and convinced one of his customers to let him open kiosks in some of their foodservice accounts of course all the sandwich products would be distributed by Lorenzo Food Group. Then the same account approached them about catering lunches and upscale sandwiches to events they were handling. Venues like the US Open and the Belmont stakes were getting supplied by their new catering group. By the way using even more of the primary products distributed by the boys.
The image to the right is one example of the Yella's line, if you want more info give Joe or John a call at (201) 686-9088.
1) Lorenzo's was able to expand his business while still working in his core competencies. This is one of the genius parts of the plan, by taking another step deeper into his market he avoided the potential pitfalls of going out of his area of expertise. He also carried forward his reputation as a high quality provision provider.
2) John and Joe identify opportunities, evaluate them, and are able to act in a timely fashion. While a few lucky people seem to be able to predict the environment, those that are consistently successful are people who are able to understand and react quickly and appropriately to the changing market. You must have your people, systems and processes ready for change at all times.
3) The Lorenzos have protected and increased their margins by providing Value Added Services not just making sandwiches. They provide Menu ideas, marketing materials, coverage for special events and more. As one Foodservice Manager for a large health care facility said to John, "you take the cost out of my operation by being my labor". At 40% Gross Profit the Lorenzo's will do that everyday.
So there you have six habits of two highly successful people. Food business owners who have, in completely different ways, provided increases in revenue to their companies.
What have you done today to differentiate yourself? What ideas can you create around your core business to protect not only your survival but growth.
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