The awesome host of Bar Rescue stopped by to chat with Kerry O'Shea Gorgone on the Marketing Smarts podcast. Here are some of the best takeaways from this exciting episode!

1. Business
from
Bar Rescue ’s
Jon
Taffer
Lessons
.com/Podcasts

2. Jon Taffer is a
bar consultant,
TV personality,
and author
(Raise the Bar),
who is best
known as host
of the Spike TV
reality series
Bar Rescue.

3. The following is excerpted from an
interview Jon did with MarketingProfs
Marketing Smarts podcast host
Kerry O’Shea Gorgone.
Listen to the full interview here:
http://mprofs.com/taffer

4. LESSON 1
Marketing is the
business of creating
reactions.

5. We don’t market, we create
reactions... If marketing
doesn’t create a reaction,
it’s meaningless.
“
” JON TAFFER

6. Whether we’re
marketers, promoters,
food developers,
beverage developers,
business owners… he or
she who creates the
best reactions wins.
“
JON TAFFER

7. LESSON 2
If at first you don't
succeed in creating the
reaction you want, try
again (and again and
again).

8. Let’s say I design a plate
and it hits the table and you
don’t sit up. I will design it
until you do. It’s not the
plate, it’s whether you sit
up or not that’s going to
make me money.
“
” JON TAFFER

9. LESSON 3
To drive revenue,
make people laugh.
(Seriously.)

10. You never walk out of a room
in the middle of a laugh.
In a bar environment my job
is to take you somewhere
that is more fun than you
would normally have.
“
”JON TAFFER

11. LESSON 4
You get three steps to
create a positive
reaction in people. If you
fail, they're out the door.

12. “
”
JON TAFFER
Everything happens the
first three steps in.
Creating the right branding
and expectation on the
outside so people aren’t
disappointed when they
come inside is very
important.

13. LESSON 5
There’s nothing wrong
with running a dive bar,
as long as that works for
your audience.

14. Dive bars can be very cool
even though they’re worn
and have holes in the seats.
It takes really hip music
and a hip crowd to make a
dive bar cool. You have to
know who you are.
“
”
JON TAFFER

15. LESSON 6
Don’t embrace
excuses: Embrace
solutions.

16. “
” JON TAFFER
The #1 reason why bars fail
or don’t achieve potential is
because of excuses. People
saying ‘the recession is bad’
– false, somebody is making
money... People have
excuses every day.

17. LESSON 7
If business is
consistently bad,
you might be the
problem.

18. I challenge everything and I start
to hold [owners] accountable
for everything. ‘You did this.
Why did you do this? Why did
you do that?’ The moment they
doubt themselves, their ego
gets crushed, their brain opens a
crack, and then I can walk in.
That’s the process.
“
JON TAFFER

19. LESSON 8
What’s in a name?
Quite a bit, as it
turns out.

20. I find it remarkable that [owners
of a failing bar] feel ingratiated or
emotionally connected to
something that caused them to
lose their homes, their fortunes,
their cars, writing checks for
$6,000 every month, but that
name ‘Joe’s Bar’ is coveted to
them. To me it’s a cancer.
“
JON TAFFER

21. LESSON 9
Success isn’t about
pleasing only the
customers you have.
It’s about appealing to
people who aren’t
customers yet.

22. When you’re losing money,
your business is not about
the people who come, it’s
about the people who
don’t come. It’s not about
who is there, it’s about
who is not there or you
wouldn’t be losing money.
“
”JON TAFFER

23. Listen to the full interview here:
http://mprofs.com/taffer

24. Subscribe to hear more
Marketing Smarts
at
.com/Podcasts