webmaster's diary

Marketing Secrets: Got Any?

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I make it a point to have a walk every day. My favorite place for this is Beirut downtown. It’s a beautiful place fully restored after long civil war. It was restored to look exactly the way it did before it was turned to ugly ruins. Beautiful traditional buildings, arches and of course Arabic lamps!

beirut arches and lamps

More arches…

Marketing Secrets: Got Any?

There are many lovely restaurants typically located all in one line. There is basically no difference in quality or level of comfort. Because people prefer to sit outside anyway, the interior doesn’t really matter. This is how it looks…

beirut downtown

But for some reason people flock to one particular restaurant. It looks really weird. A long street, empty restaurants on both sides and then you have one restaurant that seems to work like a magnet. I have no idea why. It’s not better. Maybe reputation? But they are all good. Location is certainly not the reason. Advertising is not involved either. Prices are same sky-high like everywhere in Beirut. It’s a real mystery to me.

This reminds me of my frustration with all marketing lessons I have taken. You have one guru telling you one thing and then you have another guru telling you exactly opposite. The only one who made money is the guru who sold you his course. While people like you and me are trying to make sense of all this, little restaurants like this one are thriving. They just can’t afford wasting time.

Comments

  1. That’s really amusing situation. Didn’t you make a bit more study on that restaurant? May be the people there are more friendly? Or, at least there should be something to cause such unusual scene.

    “The only one who made money is the guru who sold you his course.” – very true. We’ve really weird experience with some of the courses.

    • Hi Suresh,
      that’s why I am so intrigued. It seems like there should be an explanation but I can’t find any. People sit pretty much by themselves, but the staff is friendly everywhere. They must be! I passed by yesterday and saw the same thing. I don’t know how the restaurants around it manage to survive, because the rent in Beirut is VERY expensive, and downtown must be the most expensive. I also noticed that some restaurants visible in this picture are already closed, but there are still some who stayed and keep struggling.