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In 2001 Craig Skiptunis opened Bistro Ten 18 on the upper West Side of Manhattan near
Columbia University in New York City. Two years later, he was still struggling to attract the critical
mass of business necessary to become profitable, when he hired Winsby to market his restaurant.
"Two years ago, I would have said marketing was advertising," begins Craig Skiptunis,
owner of Bistro Ten 18 in New York City. "Now, it would take me five minutes to tell you
what marketing is. Marketing is building a business, and Winsby does it very well. They build
every aspect of our business well. They work as fast as we want to. We have wanted to be
aggressive, and they've kept up with us."
"It takes a leap of faith to pay for marketing services. Winsby understands about budgets
and the need to get results with a bang. I understood that I had an excellent product with my
restaurant, but I didn't understand marketing. I can't afford to pay for something without
results; Winsby got the results. They understand what I do."
"We are profitable for a number of reasons, and Winsby is a big part of it. By the end of
this year, we'll have increased our revenues by almost twice what we were a couple of years ago
when we started with them."
"During my first phone conversation with Winsby, before we hired them, they gave us
a few ideas right away that weren't overly complex to test. We tried them out and started
seeing results immediately. Winsby came up with easy ways to increase revenues."
"Winsby is run by experienced business people with all sorts of different talents. They've
dealt with numerous businesses, and their suggestions make sense on how to get to where I
want to be. They really took the time to research the restaurant business— what sort of profit
a restaurant like mine should make, what I should expect. They probably know more about
restaurants then most professional restaurant people."
"They look at our business as a whole, and they don't limit themselves but get involved
in more than strictly marketing. They do the research and form a program. They look at what
we do internally to meet the expectations of our guests, including our catering and delivery
service. There's no limitation on what they will do to help us, in my opinion."
"When you're in the restaurant business, you're about providing food and drink. That's
your business. You have an 18-hour workday and then at the end of it, to think with the right
side of your brain on how you might sell your product—well, that doesn't happen. You sell a
real good product, you're good in the kitchen, the bar, with customers, and it's difficult to
know what you need for marketing. We spend about one hour every week on marketing with
Winsby. It's virtually no time on our part."
"Winsby has a number of great specialties and talents for all aspects of my business,"
continues Skiptunis.
Publicity – "Winsby gets a lot of placements for us. This restaurant has been in several major
New York periodicals at least a couple of times a month. Last month, Time Out New York, a
major periodical, had a center page spread with my picture. Plus, we were also in the New
York Times, the New York Post, one local neighborhood paper and another major paper—we were in the paper last month five or six times. And we've been in two or three times this
month. Most of the major restaurants in New York don't see this sort of coverage.
"We have an event, like a wine tasting, and then we're in the paper, and we're sold out
for the next two days. We see really big results."
Research – "Winsby helps us make a lot of sound decisions. They use the money wisely.
They've done a lot of research for us, for our catering service, our delivery, about the
restaurant itself. They took the time to find out what customers were feeling about us, and it's
improved our business."
"The research was very insightful; it was probably the most important thing we've ever
done. We did it right away. They talked to our customers and potential customers, and we
found out that the neighborhood thought we looked too fancy, and that our pricing was good
but it could go higher. We don't need to spend money on ads. We concentrate on mailings
and emails; we have an email list of hundreds of people that we've built with Winsby's
programs.
"For our delivery service, they did in-depth research and found out what our customers'
favorite foods were, what they considered a decent time for delivery and what they were
willing to pay. We switched our delivery to meet that information, and it really took off. We
just gave our customers what they asked for."
Special menus – "Winsby pushed us to start seasonal dishes and to offer special menus for
holidays. We had a huge Mardi Gras week, which was mentioned in two papers. Winsby came
up with something to make us special. They send out the information on the specials, help
give us ideas about it, do the postcards, the email and get everything out to the press. It's the
best thing they've ever done for us."
"The specials are a cooperative effort. I hold meetings with the chefs for some ideas, but
Winsby goes out to restaurants, and they have lots of suggestions, too. We came up with bison
lasagna, for example, with Winsby. One of my chefs suggested a lasagna on Sundays for $15—
that's a really great deal for New York. He said it would be popular, and I was surprised,
because I'd never go out to a local restaurant for lasagna. Winsby understands the people that
we're marketing to. They listened to the lasagna idea and said that they understood that game
meat was really hot right now. What could we do to twist the lasagna for this trend? Bison
lasagna!"
Catering – "Winsby helped us with our catering by organizing and formatting our menus so
it would be easy for customers to decide what menu they wanted for an event. We've had
major growth in our catering department since Winsby adjusted what we were doing. They
researched our customer base and put together materials for them. Now, if we were a midtown
restaurant doing $100,000 weddings, Winsby would probably set it up differently, but we
have what works for our customer. I had a customer today who wanted a party for $1000. I
used our Catering Options package to show him his choices. He selected one, and I said I'd
send him an email with the contract. It took ten minutes."
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