Zone Merchandising Boot Camp
Learn What It Takes to Maximize Restaurant Revenue by
Optimizing Customer Communications and In-Store Merchandising

An Intense One-Day Workshop Conducted at Your Facility by King-Casey

Fact: better Zone Merchandising Increases Sales
Every one of your restaurants consists of a series of customer zones. By developing merchandising and communications strategies that are responsive to how your customers use each zone, you will increase sales. And that is a fact. When you get it right, sales increases of 5-15 percent are typical.

During this lively Zone Merchandising Boot Camp, your managers will learn how to increase sales by optimizing and continually improving customer communications and in-store merchandising.

Boot Camp Overview and Objectives
This interactive one-day event is conducted on-site (at a facility of your choice) and customized using actual zone merchandising examples from your brand. Your managers will learn the logistics of how to assess your restaurant’s current zone merchandising, and how to take positive, corrective action that will drive sales, increase profitability, improve guest satisfaction, and out-flank your competitors.

Participants Learn Critical Skills

• Recognize what are the key customer zones in your restaurants
• Develop the knowledge and skill-sets for self-assessing and continually improving zone merchandising
• Discover what research has revealed about how consumers behave and interact within each of these zones
• See what kind of communication elements and designs work best in each zone
• Identify where is the most effective placement of these messages
• Understand how to prioritize making changes in each zone (where to get the biggest bang for the buck)
• Learn about innovative best-practices for each customer zone
• Determine if effective zone-tactics are being used in your restaurant
• Know the critical “do’s and don’ts” for each zone (what works, what doesn’t, and why)

Get Down & Dirty Participation
During the afternoon session, the group will break-out into teams to “virtually” assess a typical restaurant in your system. Using actual photos of merchandising in a variety of interior and drive-thru customer zones, teams will use what they have learned (and the workshop materials) to evaluate the restaurant’s zone merchandising and to strategize a corrective action plan. Each team will report on their findings and recommendations. The boot camp leader will then lead a group critique and discussion.

Before the day is done, participants will develop a zone merchandising “attack plan” (what specific steps must be taken following the workshop).

Who Should enlist?

• Managers responsible for the strategy, design and implementation of store-level merchandising and communications.
• Those responsible for designing in-store communications for your brand

Boot Camp Merchandising Tool Kit
Each participant is provided with a copy Assessor™, King-Casey’s “Merchandising Assessment Toolkit”.  These “how-to” materials allow participants solve real-life zone merchandising problems once back on the front line. This toolkit will also be used during the sessions when the break-out teams virtually assess a “typical” restaurant in your system.

Assessor™ consists of a collection of modules (there is one module for each customer zone – inside and at the drive-thru).  Each zone module includes the following:

• Zone Tactic Checklist (how effectively are you achieving best-practice strategies & tactics for this zone?)
• Zone Definition (what area of the restaurant does this zone include?)
• Communication Elements (what kind of merchandising most effectively delivers messages in this zone?)
• Prioritization Tool (how easy or difficult it is to make changes in this zone). Use this to prioritize which zones to assess first.
• Research Findings (how do customers use this zone; what results are possible when we improve strategies in this zone?)
• Optimized Placement (where is the most effective placement of merchandising messages in this zone?)

The Logistics
Prior to the conduct of the zone merchandising boot camp, King-Casey will visit a “typical” restaurant within your system.  We will conduct a photo-audit of each customer zone and incorporate these illustrative examples in the workshop’s hand-on exercise. The cost of this audit is included in the workshop fee (however travel and out-of pocket expenses are additional).

There is no pre-determined minimum or maximum number of attendees.  The cost of the session is the same regardless of the number of participants. As a guideline, consider more than 6 and less than 50.

You will be responsible for arranging the meeting room space, set-up and food services.

Your company is given limited reproduction rights to the Assessor™ toolkit, providing these copies are only used within your organization.

Consider this one-day boot camp as a valuable, interactive learning session during a meeting of your franchisees and restaurant operators.

Zone Merchandising Boot Camp
(click image to enlarge)

Each participant is provided with a copy Assessor™, King-Casey’s “Merchandising Assessment Toolkit”.

The sessions are led by Howland Blackiston, Principal of King-Casey.