This is 3Bits & Change, an email about building a service and retail business with an internet twist. This one was written to the Apple Airpods dampening the overhead music of a Starbucks.
Good day,
I’ve been avoiding it. Cold calling is hard.
I’ve spent summers selling snowmobile sleighs (you read that right) across America’s snowbelt via cold phone calls. Ew. I’ve generated business in residential areas for window washing via fliers. Being really good at both lead to referrals and the job got easier. I’ve… well, you get the idea. Cold calling and sales goes way back. But not I’ve never done this kind.
Imagine cold calling in person. Make it worse by doing so ONLY when the front door is locked! You literally need to walk through the backdoor. It’s not cute like Europe through the backdoor like good TV brought to you by PBS and Rick Steves. It is my new pastime - cold calling on chefs during their prep-hours, in person.
And the best part, it’s working.
Serve those who serve //no.1
In NYC, they used to come in and just rollout rolls of knives for us to pick from and buy on the spot. -Chef
I’ve worked in kitchens. It’s a special blend of physical and mental work. There is a presence of mind that needs to always be focused in a different way than a desk job. And, I remember needing to intentionally rest after kitchen shifts in different ways than resting after white collar work. And, I only worked two days a week at the time. I don’t know what it’s like to work 40 hours a week. But, I can imagine.
My guess is that days off are best spent intentionally filled with rest. I hear many fill days off out with friends, recovering and enjoying all things not kitchen. That’s what I’d do.
There used to be a guy that came around but I think he died during covid. -Chef
So, we’ve opened a kitchen store, not on a bus line, a long way from most of our city’s cooks and chefs in a suburb. Ha. The rent was cheaper. It was available. It’s a good thing it’s a test store, because it’s in the wrong spot to serve chefs before their shifts or on their days off. Home cooks like our concept, a lot, but in different ways than chefs do.
I’m experiencing very different exchanges with chefs than I had imagined experiencing when I set out on this cold calling sales adventure.
Happy to see you //no.2
In most restaurants the front door is locked while the team works to prepare for service. Distractions are not welcomed. Yet, this is the best time to talk to chefs about servicing their knife needs - in their kitchens before customers arrive.
In second previous life selling to shopping malls and hotels the people I aimed to partner with would reply to emails. Maybe it was that they they had desk jobs. Or at min they had time in their work day spent at a desk. In restaurants and grocery stores, based on nearly 1000 outbound emails and physical letters, the key people I’m looking to partner with don’t reply to emails, letters or phone calls.
They do reply when you walk in the back door.
I’m double taking myself while I’m typing this. It seems crazy to aim to grow a national org this way. Yet, I’m reminded of Paul Graham’s “Do things that don’t scale” post here. So, I’ll keep going.
I grew afraid of these cold calls. Ew. It’s in person. It’s interruption. It’s all new names, new faces, and all you can dream up for why this would be a terrible thing to do. Did I know enough to talk to experts about their tools? However, I have also come to believe that not doing this yields zero results, zero chef’s knives sharpened and zero new relationships. And, relationships are what I’m after.
Turns out… chefs have been happy to seem me. They invite me back again and again. Turns out few chefs and/or line cooks have been called on by a knife shop at work. The produce team comes. The food service equipment team, the fish and protein teams, the facility and software teams all come to call on restaurants. But, the knife teams… not so much.
How can we help //no.3
I want to sharpen knives. Turns out chefs are more interested in buying knives in the restaurants I’ve been in so far. I shouldn’t be surprised. I was. Finding pro tools is hard in a city without a big knife shop.
Also, if you ask customers what they want and get it they’ll like you. Imagine that.
Very quickly I switched from “can we sharpen…” to “I’m from a knife shop, how can we help with your knives?”
Sum
Turns out chefs love it when a knife shop guy interrupts them, at work and offers services. It’s even better if that person comes through the back door during hours. There is way less to be afraid of in this adventure than the story I had built in my mind.
Change
The TikTok algo has created a very different activity volume for our account in the last few weeks. 5 likes a day used to be more like 5 likes every 10 mins - and less. Seems changes come every 4-6 weeks for our account. We’ll see what it does in a few weeks again.
YouTube shorts are more active right now than TikTok.
Vermont became the 6th state to provide school lunch to all. The “Governor allowed to become law without signature on June 14, 2023.”
On Your Way
Happy preparation for the 4th of July! Stay safe out there! Last year we gave the kids double sided smoke bombs. We’ll go with single sided this year. How about you?
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Order kitchen knives sharpened or give the gift of sharp at Vivront.com.