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Jon Taffer is a bar consultant, TV personality, and author (Raise the Bar), who is best known as host of the Spike TV reality series Bar Rescue.

The following is excerpted from an interview Jon did with MarketingProfs

Marketing Smarts podcast host Kerry O’Shea Gorgone.

Listen to the full interview here: http://mprofs.com/taffer

LESSON 1

Marketing is the business of creating

reactions.

We don’t market, we create reactions... If marketing doesn’t create a reaction, it’s meaningless.

“

” JON TAFFER

Whether we’re marketers, promoters,

food developers, beverage developers,

business owners… he or she who creates the best reactions wins.

“

”JON TAFFER

LESSON 2

If at first you don't succeed in creating the reaction you want, try again (and again and

again).

Let’s say I design a plate and it hits the table and you don’t sit up. I will design it until you do. It’s not the plate, it’s whether you sit up or not that’s going to make me money.

“

” JON TAFFER

LESSON 3

To drive revenue, make people laugh.

(Seriously.)

You never walk out of a room in the middle of a laugh.

In a bar environment my job is to take you somewhere that is more fun than you

would normally have.

“

”JON TAFFER

LESSON 4

You get three steps to create a positive

reaction in people. If you fail, they're out the door.

“

”JON TAFFER

Everything happens the first three steps in. Creating the right branding and expectation on the outside so people aren’t disappointed when they come inside is very important.

LESSON 5

There’s nothing wrong with running a dive bar, as long as that works for

your audience.

Dive bars can be very cool even though they’re worn

and have holes in the seats. It takes really hip music

and a hip crowd to make a dive bar cool. You have to

know who you are.

“

”JON TAFFER

LESSON 6

Don’t embraceexcuses: Embrace

solutions.

“

” JON TAFFER

The #1 reason why bars fail or don’t achieve potential is because of excuses. People saying ‘the recession is bad’ – false, somebody is making money... People have excuses every day.

LESSON 7

If business is consistently bad, you might be the

problem.

I challenge everything and I start to hold [owners] accountable

for everything. ‘You did this. Why did you do this? Why did

you do that?’ The moment they doubt themselves, their ego

gets crushed, their brain opens a crack, and then I can walk in.

That’s the process.

“

”JON TAFFER

LESSON 8

What’s in a name? Quite a bit, as it

turns out.

I find it remarkable that [owners of a failing bar] feel ingratiated or emotionally connected to something that caused them to lose their homes, their fortunes, their cars, writing checks for $6,000 every month, but that name ‘Joe’s Bar’ is coveted to them. To me it’s a cancer.

“

”JON TAFFER

LESSON 9Success isn’t about

pleasing only the customers you have.

It’s about appealing to people who aren’t

customers yet.

When you’re losing money, your business is not about the people who come, it’s

about the people who don’t come. It’s not about

who is there, it’s about who is not there or you

wouldn’t be losing money.

“

”JON TAFFER

Listen to the full interview here:

http://mprofs.com/taffer

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