Practitioners Are The Stars – What Consulting Companies Can Learn from McDonalds

Before my metrosexual development career took off, I spent time working in the restaurant industry; four of those years were with McDonald’s.

McDonald’s is a marketing wonder. While we’ve all made jokes about the food quality or service, you can’t argue that they’ve integrated themselves into our culture and our consciousness. But how did they do that? Consider the other competitors that exist: Burger King, Wendy’s, A&W…all sell the same types of products, all have similar offerings. And yet McDonald’s is what pops into our head when we word associate with the term “Fast Food”. The reason is because McDonald’s understood the power that children had to influence their parents, and exploited that.

All quick service restaurants have some kids meal. But McDonalds goes steps further: installing massive play structures, providing free treats-of-the-week, hosting birthday parties, and ensuring that kids have a positive experience. I remember, as a crew member, being trained to ensure that “kids were the stars”: you talked directly to children, you showed interest, you gave the treat of the week directly to the child, etc. You made sure that they felt that they were the most important person in that restaurant, even though their parents were the ones paying. Of course, you also made sure the parents were taken care of as well. But the kids were the key to the success:

Repeat Business and Wins Over Competitors

Kids would pressure their parents to return and eat at McDonalds time and time again, showing loyalty over other fast food options. A screaming kid has much power in the small confines of a mini-van. Eventually, parents may decide not to even suggest another option and go straight to McD’s for their next outing.

Generational Loyalty

As the kids get older they’ll continue having a positive opinion of McDonald’s as they become the next generation of parents. What parent would ever deny their children McDonalds after it was such a huge part of their own childhood?

New Business

Maybe a child had parents that normally wouldn’t go to McDonalds (I know of some). But one visit to McDonalds as a child can mean those parents bend their opinions a bit (note the aforementioned mini-van scenario). Adults who normally wouldn’t eat at the restaurants may find themselves won over by some menu item, resulting in new business.

So what does this have to do with technology consulting? Everything!

When you look at a potential client, there are some companies that will focus on the top level people: executives, CEO’s, CIO’s, CTO’s, etc. Relationships with these people are important, absolutely. But you will have a tough time making inroads with an organization if you don’t invest time into relationships with the practitioners. The developers, the business users, the middle managers…the people that don’t have a three letter acronym starting with ‘C’ as their title; these are the people that you cannot afford to neglect or ignore. In the same way that McDonalds focuses on children (those that don’t have control over the money but do have a sphere of influence with those that do), so too should a technology consulting company focus on those in an organization that have influence over those at the top.

Participating in user groups, community events, sponsorship opportunities, and on-site interaction…all of these give your people the opportunity to build up relationships from a bottom up approach instead of solely a top down (Note I’m talking with the standard hierarchical structure of a business in mind, not suggesting that practitioners are somehow a lower class or sub-standard from those above). You need both to be truly successful.

McDonald’s gets that. They continue to market to the parents and the children, and continue to have success. Pretty good for an organization run by a clown.

D