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With over 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry—including running his own personal chef business, Perfect Little Bites—Chris is dedicated to helping chefs and food entrepreneurs navigate their own unconventional paths in the industry.
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Do you want to get more reviews for your business? If so, this is the episode for you. I’ll tell you step-by-step how I started to get at least one review from almost every customer. This tactic uses printable QR codes, takes less than 15 minutes of work, and costs nothing. Listen to learn how you can employ this technique.
SPONSOR INFO United States Personal Chef Association This episode is sponsored by the Unites States Personal Chef Association. Visit their website and use code "EarlyBlackFriday23" to save $100 on premier, provisional, and preparatory memberships.
To learn more about membership, advertising, or partnership opportunities, call Angela at 800-995-2138 ext. 705 or email aprather@uspca.com.
Do you want to get more reviews for your business? If so, I'll teach you how I 10xd myreviews. This episode is short and to the point, what I'll teach, you will only take a few minutes to implement and won't cost you anything. This is Chris spear. And you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants, the show where I usually speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. I have 31 years of working in kitchens, but not restaurants and currently operate a personal chef business throwing dinner parties in the Washington DC area. So if you're still listening, I assume you're interested in learning how to get more reviews. I'll say that this tactic works for in person businesses, as opposed to online businesses. So if you're a personal chef, like me, or have a food truck, or work in catering, or really any business, whether you're a plumber, or someone who deals with customers in the real world, I think this tactic is going to work for you. I don't think anyone would debate that reviews are important. When I ask people how they found me, most people simply say Google, if you go to a restaurant, you expect that dinner was going to be good. And many people only write a review if they had a bad experience. Previously, I thought it was making it super easy for my customers. I always followed up after an event with a thank you email. In the email, I'd leave links to my Google site, my Yelp site and my Facebook site, people could choose which site they wanted to leave a review on. First of all, that's probably too many options anyway. So for the past year, I've been focusing solely on Google reviews, I have a whole thing about Yelp, maybe that'll be an episode in the future. But this tactic also works if you want to send people to your Yelp or Facebook page, or anywhere else, you have reviews on the Internet. This review technique focuses on the use of a QR code. Whether you love them or hate them, I think QR codes are here to stay. Well, they're not my favorite thing to see on restaurant menus, though I am warming to them a bit. I think people are used to them, and for the most part, know how to use them. So the first thing you have to do is decide what website you want to send people to leave a review on. Once you have that website, build a QR code that goes directly to that site. There are a lot of free QR code generators on the internet, a quick Google search will send you to one of them. So what I ended up doing was printing that QR code, along with a note that says, Thank you so much for having me cook for your dinner, I hope you had a great time, reviews really helped me get more business. And I'd appreciate it if you took a minute to leave a rating and review. So you can probably fit three or four of these notes on one sheet of paper, print off a dozen of them, and then you're ready to go when you need them for dinner. I know I always get caught up day of trying to do things. So this is not something I would want to do last minute, which is why having 48 of them in a drawer ready to go was really important for me. And I think in addition to that, an actual thank you note is really nice, I found some pretty basic ones on Amazon, they run maybe 60 cents apiece, I'll try to link them in the show notes if you're interested. And you also don't have to bring a thank you gift for your host or guests. But I do think that's a nice touch as well. You know, if you're doing an event making, let's say 800 to $3,000. I think a little something goes a long way. What I focused on is making a signature cookie for all of my guests. I bring one cookie for each person and I have them individually bagged before I go, I make sure I staple a business card to every bag. You could also make a fun little sticker with your logo or maybe put a QR code on it that goes to your website or social media. If you have any interesting ideas or something you're doing let me know. Okay, so you have the thank you paper that has the QR code with the info on leaving the review. You have an actual thank you card, and maybe a gift for either the host or all the guests. And you have your business cards. So after I've taken my last load of stuff out to my car, I put all of this somewhere in the kitchen. As I'm leaving, and I go to say goodbye to everyone. I say, Hey, thanks for having me tonight. I hope you had a great time. I'd really appreciate it if you left me a review. On the counter in the kitchen, I left some of my signature cookies along with business cards and how to leave me a review. This has literally at least 10 axed my reviews, it makes it so easy to get a review from people. As guests are leaving and they're taking a cookie, they pull out their phone, they leave a review. And what's nice is it would previously only be the host who leave your review if they left one at all. So now you have a dinner party of 12 people, maybe the host leaves you on but you also have the opportunity for 11 other people to leave your review. Now I have to say I've never had every guest at a party leave one but I have had a number of parties where multiple people left a positive review. So that's it. I wanted to share this. I want to make it short and sweet. I wanted to give you something that I think would be beneficial for you. One of the things I wanted to do with this podcast Awesome community was teach people how to grow their businesses and provide tactical information. I think this is really low hanging fruit here and easy to execute. There's literally no downside to doing this. Well, I mean, I guess if you do a terrible job, you could potentially get a dozen one star reviews, but I'm gonna assume that you're out there doing a great job. And I'd love your feedback. What have you done to get more reviews? Do you think reviews matter? Do you have a more streamlined process than this? As always, you can find me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants or send me an email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com. And as far as these short tactical episodes go, what would you like to learn? If there's something you think I should do a show about? Let me know. And if I can't personally provide you that information, I'll try and find someone who can come on the show and teach you. Now go out there and crush it. Thanks so much for listening and have a great week.
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Chris Spear:
You're still here, the podcasts over if you are indeed still here. Thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place and that's chefs without restaurants.org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter. Get connected in our free Facebook group and join our personal chef catering and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links. But I may get a small commission which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links. As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants or send me an email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much
