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Product choice is one of the most important decisions that must be made when starting a food concession business. While many components of the concession business are important, choosing the type of food you will sell is the main component of your money-making potential. Choosing the wrong type of food can be detrimental to your business while choosing the right type of food can make you the talk of the neighborhood. There are several ways to choose food. First, choose a food you are experienced with. Second choose a food that is from your heritage. Third you can choose a food that is not in the area you plan to set up. Fourth you can choose a food to that is popular only if you can make the best of it. Finally, listen to your potential customers and what they want.

First and foremost, a great idea for trying to choose what foods you will sell in your concession business is to choose a food you are comfortable with cooking. If you don’t know how to cook lobster, unless you practice lots and learn how to make it very well, don’t choose to cook lobster. If you are a great burger cook, use that to your advantage. Experience is one of the most important traits you can draw upon in this business. If you have any type of food preparation experience and you choose to sell the type of food you are used to, you already have a leg up on the competition.

Secondly, a good idea to help inspire your food choice is to use your heritage. If you are Mexican, you may choose to sell Mexican foods. If you are Polish, you may choose to serve a fast-food form of Polish food. Using things that are in your background is similar to using food that you are experienced making. Many people who choose to let their heritage be a food guide feel more attached to what they are doing. You may feel like you are paying tribute to your history.

Another way to choose your food type is to choose something that is not currently in the area that you plan to set up in. For example, if the place you are going to set up is known as Hamburger Alley, you may want to pick chicken sandwiches for your signature item. Giving potential customers a choice between what is the norm and something unique is always a good way to get them to stop by. They may enjoy a taco now and then.
Do something that is going to make you stand out. This will help your potential customers remember you more easily.

Conversely, the very bold person can try another tactic. You may choose to do something that is very popular where you set up. However, if you choose to make hamburgers on Hamburger Alley, you MUST be the very best at it. If you can make a phenomenal burger, based on other people’s opinion, by the way, you can make a name for yourself as the best burger from burger alley. This is, I must warn you, much more difficult than figuring out something unique to sell.

A final idea about how to choose your menu is to listen to the people that are going to be your customers. Go to a neighborhood hang out or a local shopping district or business plaza near where you are planning to set up. Ask locals about what they think is needed in the neighborhood. Listening to your potential customers, you will start a relationship before you even open your restaurant.

No matter how you choose the type of food that you will sell, you must remember how truly important it is. Placing the utmost of care and consideration on this type of decision is very important. Above every other piece of advice on how to choose your food, be comfortable with what you choose. Going to work terrified everyday that you won’t turn things out right, or worse, not turning things out right is not the way to make a good impression.

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When you are creating advertising design for the newspaper, magazine or direct mail, what do you think might be one of the most important considerations?

If you answered readability, congratulate yourself! Fancy graphics may get the ad noticed, but readers must be able physically to read the words. This elementary concept sounds simple enough, yet is often ignored. If they can’t read it, they can’t understand enough about your offer to respond.

With todays’ sophisticated and virtually unlimited graphic computer options, it is easy for the graphic design advertising person to get sidetracked into believing what is on the screen looks like a true work of art!

Here are some advertising design questions to ask:

1. Want your ad to look different? Examine a few past issues of the publication where your ad will be appearing. Often publications create ads themselves (“pub-set”) and they can tend to look similar. See if you can spot them. Then try to develop a graphic look different than the other ads. Set your ad apart by using a different type face family that is easily read.

2. Is the advertisement legible? In their desire to be different and stylish, some of todays’ magazines make reading difficult.

Here are some common problems. White type on a light pastel background. Or light pastel type on a slightly darker background of the same color. Or colors that don’t contrast well when viewed in black and white, such as dark forest green type printed on a background of fire engine red.

It is better to go for the headline in big, lighter type against a much darker background.

3. Trying to cram too much information into a small space? One of the big problems is trying to fit too many words and concepts into a small space.

Here is where small space is actually your friend. It forces you (or the writer) to break down your ideas into simple words and simple concepts. Bear in mind that the goal of many advertisements is to solicit an inquiry, not to tell the entire story.

Often readers look to the details to figure out if they want to act. The type showing those details should be large enough to see and comprehend, even for those who have trouble with their vision. Type in color really needs to be 10 point, if not 11 to be read by the entire population.

With black and white newspaper ads, it is possible to use typefaces as small as 8 point because their comprehension is made easier by black type on newsprint. In magazines, black type as small as 4 points (on a white background) has been used. The clarity is astounding, but many people need a magnifying glass!

In conclusion, ignoring these three considerations can spell disaster for the reader who is trying to understand the advertising message. Good advertising design creates graphic effects that enhance the writers’ words and contribute to the overall success of the ad.

2006 Jon Sinish

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