When I first opened my restaurant in 1992, I wasn't thinking about niche markets.

In fact, back then, I had never even heard of Black Friday. I'm a buyer, not a shopper.

But when a local department store, Dillard's, called my restaurant to order a drop-off catering for approximately two hundred people, it piqued my curiosity.

Infomercials are full of lies.

When I was a kid, I was into advertising marketing before I ever really knew what it was. I would read magazines from the back to the front so that I could look at the ads first.

Sometimes, I would wake up in the middle of the night and watch infomercials. I remember how cool I thought Ronco Pocket Fisherman seemed, that was one of my favorites.

So I was a fan of direct marketing, long before I had any clue what it was or how it worked.

Michael Gerber, author of the amazing book 'The E Myth', was very helpful for me when I was first building my business.

The biggest takeaway a lot of people have gotten from that book is that you should always be working on your business, not in it.

Anyone who’s followed my career knows about my famous x-ray mailer.

In May, there’s a week called "Hospital Week", where hospitals will feed their staff as a sort of reward and thank you for all that they do.

I printed sales letters for Hospital Week on a black background, with white lettering on a transparency film, so they looked like an x-ray.

Don't get bored with the old.

There's a reason why we use the expression 'the tried and true'.

Sure, it's great to try out new ideas and try to think outside the box once in a while.

But when you're planning your marketing strategy for the whole year, the most important thing you should be focusing on is utilizing the things that have already worked for you in the past.

Leonard Bernstein once said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”

Never having quite enough time feels like a prerequisite for owning a catering business. Something always comes up to throw you a curveball. All we can ever do is roll with the punches.

The one thing we do have control over is the plan.

I don’t like to give discounts.

Even though we have couponing features built directly into CaterZen’s software, I learned long ago, when I was still getting my feet wet in the catering business, that it’s always better to add value than to give discounts.

It’s that time of the year again.

That’s right – every company that’s got your email is going to start flooding your email inbox with ads and promotions for every Christmas or holiday sale you could imagine.

Value comes in many forms.

For some people, they find value in hunting down the best discounts or limited time offers. Others look for freebies or buy-one-get-one type deals. There are tons of different kinds of catering rewards program options you can offer.

I grew up in an idyllic neighborhood. Woods, fishing ponds, treehouses, and trails were our domain.