So, we did this coupon....

Marketing is my thing. Advertising, is as critical to a business, as breathing is to living. And over the years I have become more and more in tune with the patterns of my restaurant. We are very busy in May and June, when little league soccer and baseball is in full swing. This is our prime time.

August, on the other hand, is more quiet. Things level out. This gives my staff an opportunity to take holidays and I include myself in that. We rotate. It's a team thing we do. We work hard, we play hard and for many of my teen staffers, it seems we shop pretty hard too!

The third week of August is typically one of our slowest weeks of the year. Families are away from home taking their last blast at the lake, or their last road trip before school starts again. Other families are feeling the pinch of school supply shopping and have less dining out money to spend. So.... I thought I'd do a coupon (to try to kick up the pace a little).

We have done plenty of coupons in the past. But nothing prepared us for the onslaught of hungry seniors and bargain hunters that marched in with outstretched, hands, waving their coupons this time.  These were new customers. We were excited! As any business person knows, you can either sell more (of whatever you sell) to existing customers, or you can recruit new customers.  And when you recruit new customers, you work to dazzle them so they become repeat customers. Win - win, right?

We did dazzle them! But they kept coming & coming & coming. It seems that the ad in the local FREE newspaper got a lot of attention and instant repeat business. And the unrestricted public distribution of the paper made some folks clip out 10, 20 or more copies. We were pretty much powerless to stop people from using multiple coupons even though it clearly stated "one per family."

Incidentally, the coupon was BOGO (buy one, get one free) complete cheeseburger meal.

Social media contributed to this too. I did announce on our facebook page, to our more than 500 fans, that there was a coupon in the Journal that they should look for.

My failing in this, was my inability to predict the number of coupons we would receive or when. There was a 10 day window of redemption and it seems, the busiest of those days were the 2 that I had off. Murphy's Law!! Right? Who would guess that staff would be overwhelmed on a Tuesday and Wednesday. (Typically the slowest restaurant days of the week.)  So, as they say... "My bad."

We had a few laughs. Mostly the folks who took to using disguises or making up excuses why they wanted to receive some product the coupon wasn't valid for.  Guys who thought they could wink and get a shake instead of a coke. (Not happening!) Or women who would go on and on about their diets and "couldn't we just substitute this or that" for the same price.  Again, the coupon clearly stated, in bold print, no substitutions.

Ultimately, we gave away more than $2000 in free food. Nope, we weren't expecting that! And those of us who weren't on holidays, worked our asses off every single day.  We did our very best to impress all new customers and sincerely hope they return. But know, that tonight when the doors locked and all coupons had expired we all did the happy dance. I think I'm going to have to take the staff out for pizza and thank them for their extra hard work. It was NOT the low key August week were were used to.

What did we learn? Advertising is a magical thing. A weapon of sorts, to be used cautiously. Maybe next time I'll see if I can call a psychic hotline and look into the future so I can predict (and prepare) more effectively. Hey.... I wonder if there's a coupon for THAT?

At what cost?

We don’t watch a great deal of television as a family. The television shows we do watch are generally either news shows, sports events or conversation starters. Such was the case the other night when we stumbled upon a show about extreme “couponing.” It started some great conversations at my house. 

Essentially the show documented 4 specific people and how they used coupons. It followed them through collection, to the redemption at the store and home with their “haul”. 

(Sorry for so many quotation marks. They had all kinds of new terms that they were using in this arena that made it seem like it was some sort of sport or scientific endeavour specific to their activity )

It was an American program and the stores they portrayed were in the United States as well. These couponing folks would “stack” coupons so that their items were free. It didn’t seems particularly likely that the same could be applied in Canadian stores. Most things I’ve seen say “1 coupon per purchase” or something to that effect.  Never-the-less it was one of those train-wreck-type shows where you want to look away (change the channel) but for curiosity sake you can’t. The people the show featured would cut down their grocery bill from $230 to $6, using coupons. It was fascinating, but yet unrealistic. 

The best thing that came out of watching that show was the conversations initiated by my sons since. Our youngest, who is five-years-old, said that “it was crazy how many toothbrushes and deodorant the guy got for free and that the guy should really be donating it to a homeless shelter.”  The fact that he would think about donating makes me happy and I therefore know we are modelling good behaviours for him. 

Our oldest, who is eight, brought up the subject in the car just tonight. He was still mildly disturbed by the “way the people were ripping off the stores” and thought it was a waste to have 80 boxes of cereal. His thoughts were that you would be bored of one type, it would expire and the company who produced the cereal would be losing their money for no reason. 

Moreover, he was stuck on one point. His words were “I hope that guy doesn’t have kids. He would be teaching them to be greedy and wasters.” Further he noted that it would be “so embarrassing” to shop with that guy. He gave me an off-handed compliment in his next sentence. “I know you would never embarrass me like that, Mom. You find good deals and stuff, but you’re not embarrassing.” 

And he’s right. I do love a good deal. But it has to be a good deal for everyone. I buy products we can use, at prices I feel are good value, while bringing that business and more to the stores I respect and value. If people take advantage of stores, and abuse special offers and do everything they can to cheat the system, we all lose. 

A discount at the cost of your personal values or the respect of your family,  is no bargain.