Everyone has heard of the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.” The saying can be adapted to just about any situation, and it definitely applies here too. If you read Marketing: The Purpose Of A Food Challenge, you learned that a food challenge can be a very effective and inexpensive way to promote and advertise your restaurant that will get customers in the door to try out your menu. They can be symbolic, fun, and social media worthy, and they will also attract customers simply because people will want to come try the food challenge. I could show you 1000 examples of successful food challenges around the world and “lead you to the water,” but in order for you to want to “take a drink” and create a challenge for your own restaurant, you have to have a meaningful reason to do it. A food challenge will not be successful if you don’t truly want it to be. Here are many reasons that your restaurant should have a food challenge available for your customers:

Your customers are asking for a challenge – This reason is hopefully a “no-brainer” for you because it is the customers that pay your monthly bills and allow you to provide the food on your own family’s table. If 25 different people mention to you or members of your restaurant staff that it would be neat if you hosted a food challenge, you should probably consider having a food challenge. If twenty people actually spoke up and said something, think about how many people have thought about it and just haven’t said anything. Give all your customers what they want rather than “slapping them in the face” by disregarding their positive feedback.

Challenge your customers – There are millions of people around the world who have never done a food challenge, but deep down they really want to try one. Many of those people don’t even know they want to try a challenge yet because they have never been provoked. If you tell a group of people that they can’t climb a particular mountain because it’s too hard, there will most definitely be a few people in that crowd that want to prove you wrong and climb that mountain. This theory works the same for food challenges. Provoke people to come to your restaurant by challenging them, and then let your customers help spread the word and challenge their friends, all leading people into your restaurant which you turned into the focal point by creating a challenge for your customers. Start the challenge and let it grow via the snowball effect. You will be happy with the results!!

Make a bold statement – Nobody likes “boring” and that is a fact. People like excitement and having fun and they want to go places that they think will be fun and exciting. When you last went out to eat, you definitely did not tell your friends or family, “Hey, let’s go somewhere really boring!!” Tell your customers that your restaurant isn’t boring and create a bold challenge, and then “yell” that you aren’t boring by advertising the challenge everywhere. Don’t just throw some meat on a bun and add french fries expecting people to get excited to attempt the challenge. People get excited when they see a 12-patty burger loaded with cheese and bacon, and not a boring double cheeseburger with a medium fry. First impressions are everything in today’s opinionated culture, and people will think your restaurant is exciting if the first thing they see is an exciting challenge.

Provide an event opportunity for your customers – Like I said above, some people want to try a food challenge but they need the right atmosphere in order to really go through with it. People tend to adapt a much more “free spirited” attitude and personality on certain days of the year like their birthday, while on vacation, on certain holidays, and when celebrating certain achievements and milestones they proudly accomplished. One “crazy” thing they may want to do is attempt a food challenge, and that person may just want to do it on his or her birthday. Is that person going to go alone? NO!!! He or she will bring friends and family to watch who will also eat and drink while watching. Give that person the opportunity to celebrate and attempt the food challenge at your restaurant. If you don’t have a challenge, that whole group will be at your competitor’s restaurant down the street that night spending money that could have been your’s. Some guys may want to settle a friendly bet or argument that they started at work through doing a food challenge, so give them that opportunity, and I’m sure they will have friends their watching too. Food challenges can also be turned into charity events. A person may not want to try to eat 4.5lbs (2kg) of food on a normal day, but they are more likely to want to if they are supporting a charity organization by doing it. Opportunities stemming from hosting a challenge are endless

You don’t know what you don’t know – You could have hundreds of potential customers in your area wanting to take your food challenge, and you could be losing out on a lot of customers and revenue simply because you don’t have a challenge. The truth is though, you have no idea whether that is true or not because you don’t know what you don’t know. The only way to know if a food challenge will work for your restaurant and help it become even more successful is to start one. Then you will know, and you won’t have to wonder what “could have been.”

Put your restaurant on the map – My favorite thing to hear when talking to a restaurant owner is “Our challenge pretty much put our restaurant on the map.” There are food challenges around the world that have had over 1000 attempts and there are hundreds of food challenges with over 100 attempts. If your food challenge alone has been ordered over 100 times, how many normal meals have been ordered during that time? Also, how many meals were ordered by people watching one of the challenge attempts? Get your restaurant and food challenge on the FoodChallenges.com map, and if created and marketed correctly, your restaurant will do well. Become one of the many success stories. Like the voice says in Field of Dreams, “If you build it, he (they) will come.”

Thanks for reading about the reasons for hosting a food challenge and using FoodChallenges.com!!

To go back and view other Considering A Challenge articles, click here.