Four ways to improve your next executive dinner that cost nothing
There are lots of expensive ways to elevate your dinner: opt for the caviar course, order expensive wine, hire a professional florist. Here are four ways to elevate your dinner that don’t cost a dime.
1. Map out the entire Dinner Journey
This is both easier and harder than sounds. Easy because Will Guidara of Unreasonable Hospitality fame has created a neat, little, FREE web app that you can use to visually map out your whole dinner. Hard because he wants you to really think about every single touchpoint you might have with the guest and then think about how/if you can make it better. Everything from how you invite guests to the event, their arrival at the restaurant, a potential trip to the restroom (likely in a 2+ hour dinner), and their walk to their car after the event. The exercise does NOT mean you need to do something special for every step in the journey, but you should have at least thought about if there’s something you should do.
Assuming you’ve internalized the table stakes of a great executive dinner I consider non-negotiable, you could also note at which steps you have true interactivity, personalization, and souvenirs.
The three additional free ideas below all spun out of this process. Check-in at the event can often feel cold, like you’re checking in for a doctor’s appointment. Surely there’s a warmer way. Waiting for that first drink to put you at ease can feel like an eternity at a busy restaurant. Guests whispering their entrée choice to a server while the host is talking, or worse, while guests are introducing themselves to the room, is an easily avoidable nuisance.
Feel free to borrow as much from my Journey Map as makes sense for your event. Instead of re-typing it all into the app, you can download the Markdown file for my Map and upload it straight into the app and edit from there!
2. Memorize the names and faces of your guests
This is “free“ but it does take time and effort. Have at least one person representing your company memorize the names and faces of each guest that’s coming, and greet them by name when they arrive before they have a chance to introduce themselves.
The best way to operationalize this is to have someone—a field marketer, usually—create a Look Book that includes the photos of everyone that’s coming. Typically, salespeople will be asked to include any notes about the person, the account, and the opportunity. Not everyone representing your company needs to know every guest by name, but one person should, and they should try to greet every guest as they arrive. I speak from experience: this makes a HUGE first impression, signaling that this is a professional operation.
I am not suggesting you need to memorize the names and faces of the 50 people registered for your next webinar. Or the 38 people that said they’d try to stop by your trade show booth. Or the 500 people coming to your customer conference. I am saying that for a small, intimate event like an executive dinner, it’s reasonable, it’s feasible, and its impact will be outsized.
Once you learn the story about how Eleven Madison Park got rid of their reception stand, and instead implemented this gesture of hospitality, you will be embarrassed that you ever had someone checking in guests with a laptop as they walked in the door.
3. Have glasses of Champagne ready to serve
I know not everyone wants to start with Champagne, that’s OK. If you 20 people coming, I’m not suggesting 20 glasses of Champagne (4-5 bottles) standing by; instead, have 8-10 glasses ready to go. If most people are accepting it, open another bottle.
One of the metrics we never officially tracked at Wingtip, but spoke about often, was “time to first drink.“ For guests coming to a dinner with total strangers, I would argue that getting someone that wants a drink, a drink quickly, is even more important. The alternative? Your guest arrives, waits for the server to come by and take their drink order, take others’ drink orders, go to the Point of Sale and enter them, wait for the bartender to make them, wait for the server to have a chance to retrieve them and bring them back to the room…it can very easily be 10 minutes of waiting for their first drink. If they accept the glass of bubbles? Less than 1 minute.
Technically, this one costs money, but your guests are going to order a first drink when they get there regardless; you’re just substituting that order with something that they can start sipping sooner.
4. Call guests the day-of to get their order
Having a human being call each confirmed guest the day-of the dinner serves two purposes:
It significantly reduces your risk of a No-Call No-Show, and
It eliminates some awkwardness around ordering at the dinner.
Here is a script you can use for the call:
You: “Hi, this is Ami from Acme Corp, the host of the dinner at Hot New Restaurant tonight at 6:30. If you don’t mind, I was hoping to find out if you have dietary restrictions the kitchen should know about?
Them: “Oh thank you so much for calling, no restrictions.”
You: “Great, noted. The restaurant is offering entree options of a bone-in ribeye, a roasted chicken, or a pasta. Do you know which you’d prefer? I have information about how they’re prepared if that would help.”
Them: “Oh, I’ll do the pasta, thanks.”
You: “Great, we look forward to seeing you tonight. You can come straight to the private dining room when you arrive.”
You can imagine other ways this call might go. They might have dietary restrictions, in which case, they’ll be a little thankful they don’t have to share those with the whole room. They might ask questions about the menu which gives you the chance to show how prepared you are with details about how the dishes are prepared. Or they might thank you for calling because they had a change in plans and they won’t be able to attend after all. What might have been a No-Call No-Show is now something you can prepare for, notify someone on the wait list you have room, re-organize the seating chart, tell the restaurant you need one less setting. This is the real reason for calling, but while you’ve got them on the phone, it’s also an opportunity to demonstrate hospitality around allergies or dietary restrictions, and to eliminate the need for the servers to take orders from every guest during the dinner.
I am NOT saying there’s anything wrong with guests choosing their entrée course or their appetizer or dessert at the restaurant. However, what I have found, having done dinners now at 30+ restaurants in 20+ cities, is that many restaurants want the guests’ orders early in the dinner so the kitchen can plan. The servers will just go around the room and take guests’ orders, right?
The only right way to do this is to have them take orders while no one is speaking or presenting. For a room of 20, it will take about 7 minutes unless there are two servers working the room, and then it might take just 5 minutes.
Since I like to start some of my dinners with a Champagne toast after having taught everyone how to saber Champagne,
The issue either while your main presenter is speaking or while guests are introducing themselves to each other. I believe it is disrespectful to both of those groups for the order-taking to happen while others are speaking. One solution is just to power out 5 to 7 minutes where no one is speaking to have the servers take orders. An alternative solution, is to have a human being call the attendee during the late morning the day of the event. You’ll probably get a voicemail where you should introduce yourself, explain that you were calling to confirm their attendance for that evening and to see if they can give you their order now so you can have it for the restaurant.
When wouldn’t I do this? I would always call day-of to confirm attendance, the entrée order is just a good excuse to call without making it sound like you’re trying to nag them. But if the private event menu allows guests to choose their appetizer course, entrée, and dessert, I’d let them order at the restaurant.
Summary
These are not simple things, but they all cost nothing other than a little time and attention. I promise they will have an outsized impact on the guests’ impressions of the evening. Start with your own Journey Map for the event you envision, and scrutinize every touchpoint to see if there’s a way to make it more hospitable. At the end of the night, to paraphrase Maya Angelou, they won’t remember what you said, or what you did, but they will remember how you made them feel.