Get Set for Success with Tabletop Sales
From plates, glasses and flatware to cheese bowls and ramekins, tableware sales require a good eye and creative salesmanship.
By Toby Weber, Associate Editor -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 3/1/2005
Next to the food itself, table settings determine how customers evaluate an operation as much as anything else. Tabletop sales, then, take time and patience, but offer salespeople lasting rewards.
• Dinnerware can be made from a variety of materials, including china, porcelain, glass, stoneware and plastic. China and porcelain are ceramic materials — basically baked clay — and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Assorted plates, bowls and platters can be made from stoneware, which additives make nonporous, or from melamine, a plastic resin that resembles china but weighs less and resists chipping and cracking.
• Glassware materials range from plastic to lead crystal. Lead crystal is somewhat porous and typically is used to make wine glasses for fine-dining establishments because its porousness enhances wines’ bouquets and flavors.
• Flatware can be stamped or forged. Most flatware is made from stainless-steel alloys that contain chrome and nickel.
• In addition to glassware, flatware and china, complete table settings can include any number of accessories, including charger plates, cheese bowls or shakers, napkin rings or dispensers, oil/vinegar cruets, salt-and-pepper mills or shakers, ramekins, sauce cups or boats, serving trays, sign holders, syrup dispensers, thermal beverage servers, wine buckets or stands, creamers, sugar holders, votives or candlesticks, electric table lamps, carafes and decanters.
• Before presenting a table setting to an operation, DSRs should do their homework. In order to offer an operator the most appropriate options, salespeople should know the restaurant’s quality level, menu style, price point, and its current tabletop. In addition, DSRs should find out who will help make the purchasing decisions and be aware that often a restaurant’s owner is heavily involved in evaluating potential tabletops.
• Tabletops, of course, must match the décor of their operations. When first discussing a new tabletop, therefore, DSRs should take pictures of the restaurant’s front of the house and use them to ensure the proposed tableware options match the facility’s design and color scheme.
• DSRs should understand that a tabletop can support and advance their clients’ business strategies, as well. For example, if a restaurant wants to push its wine offerings, DSRs should present and recommend eye-catching wine glasses that encourage patrons to order wine.
• Selling a tabletop can take a lot of time and patience, often requiring multiple visits and meetings with an operation’s management before they make a decision. This hard work can pay off, though. While selling a single piece of equipment brings DSRs one large payout, the constant replacements required by tabletop elements because of breakage and shrinkage can result in a steady income that some in the industry compare to an annuity.
• Because operators need to replace tabletop items regularly, total cost of ownership should play a big role in the selection of a table setting. This does not mean, however, that operators should purchase the least expensive options. Rather, DSRs should recommend items with warranties against chipping and cracking, as they offer a significant value to end-users.
• Replacing an operation’s entire tabletop is a costly proposition. If a manager wants to update a restaurant’s look without incurring a major expense, DSRs should suggest replacing a single element. New flatware or glassware, for example, can change a tabletop’s look with a minimal outlay.
• Even if an operation is looking to replace only one element of its tabletop, DSRs should nonetheless set up entire tables, complete with non-essential items such as lamps and bud vases, for operators to evaluate. This will increase the odds that operators will find some element that they will want to incorporate into their current table settings.
• Don’t hesitate to throw in unusual, “funky” items into a tabletop presentation. Often, such items can fit well with a particular dish that a restaurant wants to feature, or at least can give operators ideas about what they want or need.
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