Flat Iron Steakhouse’s Genius Sales Lesson (and It’s Not About Steak)

Flat Iron steakhouse reminds us all how important it is to think  outside the box. 

What’s the idea?: Affordable ($14), high quality steak.

How does it work?: High volume model. They’re priced competitively with any other fast-casual restaurant, they serve delicious sides that are easy to make in batches and they have a system to cook A LOT of REALLY good steak.

What’s the lesson?: They make sure they keep the volume so high by incentivizing you to leave right after you finish eating by offering free dessert. This free dessert is the brilliant part -it’s an ice cream cone you get on your way out the door! 

What can we learn about our sales process from Flat Iron?: There’s always more space to optimize your sales process.

Time kills all deals -the faster you can close, the higher your close rate.  

If a steak shop can figure out how to move so fast that they can afford to sell their food with an 80%+ discount from the competition without skimping on quality, you can figure out how to cut all the fat off of your sales process (pun intended). 

In case you think you don’t have any fat to trim, consider these questions -how many calls does it take to close? How many weeks do opps sit in commit before closing? How often do you get caught wasting time scheduling a call? How much time do you spend customizing proposals?