Your lunch counter can be an endless source of free catering leads, and most restaurants never tap it. Office workers come in for lunch and leave, and you never learn where they work or who buys the food for their meetings.

With a catering giveaway, a sign by the register invites customers to scan a QR code and enter to win catering for their office. The short entry form asks where they work, how big the office is, who orders the catering and how often.

Then the follow-up has to happen, for every entry. A sequence in CRM Sales Pro is a saved follow-up plan that runs on each new lead: emails from your rep's own Gmail and reminders to call, spaced out over the days that follow.

Want to see how this works? We created a CaterZen Café giveaway so you can experience the entire process yourself! Scan the QR code below, enter your information, and see exactly what your customers receive.

You sent the quote. Then what?

If you're like most caterers, nothing. Somebody meant to call and got busy, and the quote sat in an inbox until the event went to the other guy.

When I ask a business for a quote, conservatively, three times out of four nobody calls or emails me back. Not once. Owners blame their advertising when the follow-up is to blame.

A catering follow-up sequence makes the follow-up happen. It is a saved plan for one contact: which email goes out, when your rep should call, and what to check before the next message. CRM Sales Pro now has Sequences, along with Email Templates for one-to-one Gmail messages, and for campaigns.

Before CaterZen, Brian Burnett sent catering invoices out of Excel spreadsheets. "It really wasn't really professional looking," says Brian, Director of Catering at The Flying Biscuit Café in Atlanta, Georgia. The restaurant's catering has run on CaterZen's catering software since 2017, and the system now covers four restaurants.

"Everything was written on paper." That is how Gary Mulé, Co-Owner of Doris Italian Market & Bakery, describes catering before his stores moved to CaterZen's catering software. Doris's South Florida stores have run on CaterZen since 2021, and they now handle holiday packages and large events from one system.

Quick question: who was your best customer two years ago, and when did they last order from you?

If you had to dig through a spreadsheet to answer that, this post is for you.

Two kinds of catering operators are reading this. One's already running Google Ads or Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram) and has no real idea which ones are turning into orders - that's who most of this is for. The other hasn't touched paid ads yet. Stick with me - I'll get to you before we're done.

I've heard some version of this from operators for years: "I'm running ads, but I have no idea which ones are actually turning into booked orders." They know what they spent. They know how many people clicked. Past that? Nobody could tell them - including us. Not until now.

As of today, that changes. CaterZen now plugs directly into Google Ads and Meta conversion tracking. No developer, no support ticket, no third-party tag manager to babysit. You put in a few IDs, we handle the rest.

Let me tell you something - every extra click your team makes on an order is a click they didn't need to make. And during a busy catering week, those clicks add up to real minutes you don't have.

That's why, starting Wednesday, September 16, we're rolling out three new payment enhancements - exclusive to our CaterPay customers - built to strip out the busywork around getting paid.

At CaterZen, we believe BBQ catering can become a powerful profit center when operators combine great food with smart marketing, strong relationships, and a willingness to actively pursue new opportunities. That’s why we created Barbecue Catering Smarts.

Hosted by me, Michael Attias, founder of CaterZen Catering Software, this podcast is built for BBQ operators who want actionable insights, expert advice, and real-world strategies to grow a more profitable catering operation.

We’re excited to announce Episode 42 of Barbecue Catering Smarts, featuring Kendal Handy, Co-Owner of Hambone’s BBQ Smokehouse!

Think about the last five catering leads you didn't win.

Odds are, most of them didn't go to a competitor. They went nowhere. Somebody called, got told "call me back after the holidays," and that note landed on a legal pad that got buried under lunch tickets. Three months later, somebody remembers. By then the planner already booked whoever called them back.

That's not a sales talent problem. That's a system problem.

At CaterZen, we're passionate about helping BBQ restaurant operators build stronger, more profitable catering businesses. And Barbecue Catering Smarts is your go-to podcast for actionable insights, expert advice, and real-world strategies to grow your restaurant's catering profit center.

Hosted by me, Michael Attias, founder of CaterZen Catering Software, each episode features conversations with pitmasters, smokehouse owners, and catering leaders who share the systems, lessons, and strategies behind successful BBQ catering operations.

We're excited to announce Episode 41 of Barbecue Catering Smarts, featuring Kersten Grigg, Owner of Big Daddy's BBQ in Boise, Idaho!