christopher ming lee

There’s a restaurant/cafe in Clarksville, NY called Jake Moon.
It doesn’t look like much.
The drive takes you into the hills area of upstate NY, with great expanses of farm land - and people call grocery runs, “going into town.”
The parking lot is a gravel pit. It’s usually littered with old pick-ups and the occasional odd piece [...]

With everyone and their baby’s momma with a Twitter, Facebook, and blog, personal branding has never played such an important role in standing out from the faceless masses. I understand that. I appreciate it.
But when we get caught up in personal branding, we lose sight of our execution.
“How should I brand myself?”
“What is my MO? [...]

Brand image is no long who you say you are.
Brand image is what you do.
Manipulating brand image is about control.
And what can you actually control these days?
Can you control those thousands of external factors, thousands of people telling others about your brand?
Can you control what they write or say, or whom they write or say [...]

A saleswoman from a certain culinary magazine stopped into the restaurant the other day.
What did she do right?
She came in, with her photographer, and started taking pictures right away. She didn’t provide us with the opportunity to say “no.”
She spoke from the side position, instead of head-on (which is a more confrontational approach.)
When she [...]

Substitute “marines” or “navy” or any of the armed forces for the word “army.” The fact doesn’t change: these recruiters are the world’s greatest salesmen.
Army recruiters learn sales techniques to recruit young men and women into the armed forces.
Call it what you want. Advertisements, incentives, outreach efforts, etc. They learn to target specific audiences. They [...]

Quiznos launched their $4 “Tasty Torpedos” campaign, taking direct aim at Subway’s “$5 Footlongs.” The effect of undercutting the largest subway chain has yet to be seen, but Quiznos hopes the campaign will help regain some of their market share.
But where does price differentiation ultimately take you?
Take (Americanized) Chinese food as a case study.
When [...]

Imitation is the highest form of flattery - when done properly.
How does anything become better? We take existing solutions, and we imitate them.
After, we innovate - we conceive ideas that’ll make the solution better, or ideas that’ll push the solution on a larger audience.
Then, we’ve improved our product or service
We don’t improve without [...]

…to not do what we want to do.
I don’t know how doesn’t cut it anymore. The information to do anything is out there, at your finger tips. Want to start your own business? Learn to knit? How about grow a bonsai tree? Then do it.
If you don’t want to put in the labor, and [...]

Put money into your packaging.
One customer bought $80 worth of take-out, including a Filet Mignon/Lobster Tail Hibachi. For lunch. That entrée alone was $30. They made the investment in us - where can we invest to make it a better experience for them?
Invest in the packaging. Don’t put the $80 order into a cheap plastic [...]

Lindsay and I were in Quincy Market a few weeks ago, and this street performer - a kid really, he couldn’t have been older than 16 - was starting his show. In front of him, he lined up three or four empty buckets (faces down), a steel grate, and various-sized tin dishes. In his hands, [...]