Charlie Hopper

“List: Ten Demoralizing Facts to Accept when Dealing With an Ornery Public 1.  You can’t tell them what to think. 2.  You have to work hard to lead them to a conclusion. 3.  You have to be careful, though, because while drawing a conclusion, they will use incriminating evidence you give them inadvertently, instead of only the information you want them to consider. Depending what you show them, they may perceive you as dopey, inauthentic, typical, low-rent, desperate, or unhip and therefore clueless. 4.  They have a built-in Bullshit Detector. Don’t even try to fool them. 5.  In the end, they don’t care about you. 6.  They really don’t want to know what you have to say. Even if they’re briefly interested, they’ll soon get distracted and forget you. 7.  All they want to know is, “What’s in it for me?” If it’s not enough, they move on. 8.  They’re so selfish and disinterested, they’ll forget everything good about you but hold onto bad stuff practically forever. 9.  Unfortunately, because you care about your restaurant very, very much, you overestimate how much other people care. 10.  They lie to you in focus groups.”
― Charlie Hopper, Selling Eating: Restaurant Marketing Beyond the Word “Delicious”