Field Visit: Marquees and Farmhouses

Field Visit: Marquees and farmhouses

After the brochures were ready we went on the practical work of going to potential prospects in order to pitch in our catering business. We covered mostly the Bedian and airport road area where there were quite number of marquee’s and marriage halls. We covered halls such as Zafar Sons, Moj events,Blessed farmhouse, Rex events etc. and we devised the following analysis from our visits:

• While most of the marquees and farmhouses had their own catering business or associated with catering business. They all agreed of having shortages at certain times when they either had over-booked or there was some sort of delay. This is where we can in and offered collaboration with attractive discounts as well as incentives.

• Catering business is mostly handed by event managers rather than owners so pitching incentive of 10% was quite vital in our potential client hunting. And it proved to be our selling point to some managers who seemed interested in doing business in future with shah Jahan grill.

• Outsourcing and taking their share of the profit is one other aspect that we observed in these places. So when orders came that were scheduled at a time or place where it was not possible from them to get to the client, they would out-source the catering part.

• Almost all of them were interested in knowing the quality of food that this catering business was offering therefore those who requested were invited to taste the food at the very restaurant.

• Capacity was the main issue that concerned most of the managers and we assured them that the credibility of Shah Jahan Catering by describing the successful events held in Lahore that catered to the capacity of 400-500 people.

• They didn’t wanted any discrepancies between the arrangements so we assured them that all the tables and sitting arrangements were our own including the chef and the staff. So the event goes as smooth as possible.

• In this fragmented market we observed that the only way to differentiate our-selves was through food price and quality. We have advantage in both of these aspects.

• Many of the managers were also interested in knowing whether the menu was further flexible and we assured them that it was due to vast experience od Shah Jahan Grill.

• Some managers seemed to believe that there was a difference between food that tasted like a restaurant and food that was made for marriages. We cleared their doubts by specifying that indeed there is a difference and that Shah Jahan didn’t mix them at all rather they made in the traditional bulk daigh and their famous live cooking tarka style.

• Word-of-Mouth was the key factor that would have further played a role in getting leads. So we requested them to refer potential clients to our catering in case of getting orders out of their reach.

• Our aim is to develop functional relationships with these vendors and converting these prospects into strategic partnerships with the passage of time. These included not only the Farmhouses and Banquet halls, but also numerous event management companies that were contacted. These alliances are extremely necessary in order to arrogate this fragmented market.

• Our group was assiduous in presenting the 10% incentive to the event management company which turned out to fruitful. Since most of the events were booked for the next 2 months, our efforts will result in increased sales in the long term. All the event management companies showed keen interest and were beguiled by the offer. The event management companies visited are listed in the exhibit.

Conclusion

The cornerstone of this project was to get the word out among the corporate clients and the end consumers. Corporate clients such as Banquet Halls, farmhouses, event managers were cajoled through personal selling by visiting them and presenting our offering. End consumers and residents, on the other hand, were contacted through brochures and Social Media. We believe that in order to position Shahjahan grill as the best and cogent caterer in town, there is still room for aggressive marketing. Facebook can still be manipulated to reach a wider target audience. The corporate prospects still need to be contacted on a regular basis in order to squeeze every opportunity out. Therefore, it is recommended that ShahJahan’s sales personnel is in continual contact with all the corporate clients mentioned in the exhibit. The key here is persistence and perseverance.