What's Your Hook?

While eating in San Diego’s Gas Lamp District recently with two friends who are both in the restaurant industry, the conversation naturally turned to the secrets of success in food service. (Between them, they own over 400 restaurant locations.) “It’s simple,” one of them said. “You have to have a hook.”

A “hook” is something for which you are known, that your customers love, that keeps them coming back for more. Without it, you are just another place to eat. With a hook, you are one of the most talked about places in town. In my one friend’s case, his restaurant’s hook is “all the peanuts and hot bread you can eat served the moment you sit down.” In the other’s case it is “full plate service” at a high-end steak house chain instead of a la cart like most steak houses.

So what’s your “hook?” What are you known for that your patients love that keeps them coming back for more? What do you do that separates you from every other dentist? Without a hook, you’re just another dentist. But with a hook, you are “The Dentist.”