
Lessons From The Red-Light District
Years ago, I was in Amsterdam, where I was responsible for the local office of the global staffing company, Aquent.
Venturing out from my hotel, which was in the very centre, I was overwhelmed by the swarm of tourists and locals that plied the streets wandering, seemingly, without purpose.
I sat at a café and pondered the mass of humanity. It was a hungry crowd because every second person was munching on a takeaway snack or slipping into the hundreds of eateries that line the streets and the canals.
I marvelled at what an incredible market this was for food sellers, and I started to think about the best way to capture the lion’s share of such a potential bonanza.
And trust me, everyone was trying. Restaurants of every variety line the streets, from Argentinean Grill houses to Mexican takeaways and everything else. Burgers sold from street stalls, sandwiches from sidewalk tables, and the coffee shop chains sat cheek by jowl with those other Dutch coffee shops, where they sell what will put you in jail in other countries.
But one food outlet rose above all the rest in popularity.
A modest-looking hole-in-the-wall called the ‘Chipsy King’. Seriously. ‘Chipsy King’! This place had a line of people out the street and down the block, and as I sat at my café, I saw that the multitude of customers simply never dwindled.
(UPDATE: I have been back in Amsterdam several times since then. And the Chipsy King has multiplied! Now several outlets. It’s working, baby!)
And what gourmet delights does the Chipsy King sell? As the name suggests, the Chipsy King sells only one product and one product alone.
Fried potato chips. Or French fries, as they are called elsewhere.
That’s it. ***
You order your hot chips at one end of the counter and collect them at the other. The only choice you have is the topping, which ranges from ketchup to mustard and that Dutch favourite on fries, mayonnaise.
I started to think about the economics.
One raw material. No variations on the menu. No waste. No real quality control issues. No cutlery or dishes. No special skills are needed really by the ‘fryer’. There is no seating for customers. And huge volumes are being sold from dawn until well after midnight.
And the customers never dried up. The Chipsy King is just off the Dam Square, where every tourist passes through at some stage. It’s just a stone’s throw from the Red-Light District, which attracts millions of people. It is surrounded by bars spewing out revellers needing sustenance and by coffee shops that sell no coffee – but do sell marijuana – a product not unknown to produce hunger pangs.
What a perfect business, perfectly positioned!
You may not fancy a paper cup of hot chips as you sit behind your computer right now, but the Chipsy King knows us better than we know ourselves because, in that environment, we all want hot chips! The customers ranged from impecunious backpackers to suited businesspeople, to jovial family groups, to hordes of Japanese tourists juggling cameras, phones and … chips.
What a classic example – the greatest of all marketing mantras.
Give the people what they want, when they want it.
Specialised. Easy to understand. Consistent. Meeting a need as it happens. Meeting expectations every time. Predictable costs and demand rhythms
The parallels with recruitment, or any business, are clear for us all.
All hail the Chipsy King!
I hope the Chipsy King owner reads this blog from their yacht in the Caribbean.
(*** To be fair, in recent years it looks as though they have diversified. Slightly.)
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- Posted by Greg Savage
- On September 16, 2024
- 0 Comment