Could personality be the fifth P?

I spent many hours recently doing some research on pubs and restaurants. In a nutshell, all of them either rely on food or booze or a combination of the two.

Pick a spot, choose your product (or vice versa), set a price and promote it. Sounds easy, but many fail or start off well and then lose momentum.

What struck me about the successful places was the simple common denominator - hands-on management by owners. This doesn't mean that absentee owners can't make money, but the places that really pull customers have that constant stamp of approval from the owner.

Many customers go to their favourite bar or restaurant and spend time in chitchat with the owner. Some go so far as to ask his/her recommendation without even looking at the menu.

The attentive reader will now be asking why I am letting slip with knowledge gained through costly research. Well, the answer is that most people in the industry already know about this fifth P.

It's the new people on the block who often miss the point. They think it means being on the premises 24/7 but that would be obsession, not personality.

Watch any mob movie and all the customers know the owner of the Italian place or night club. Go to a shebeen and everybody knows the owner.

There is a Kwik Spar down the road from me that recently changed hands. The old owner ran a shop on that site for about 30 years, so the new guy was really taking on a reputation.

He moved in and changed the layout, the specials, increased some prices and never once tried to get to know his customers. The place is quieter and more subdued than ever and there is also a faint hint of desperation.

The essence of personality is really being approachable. That means when things go wrong as well as when the plan is working out exactly.

People have suggested that the fifth P could be precision, others have talked about the perspective of the market and how customers see it from their position.

The possible fifth P in this article is simply my opinion based on one sector of the market. What is most critical about the P's is the combination and the balance as there is no one P more important than the rest.

Maybe the lesson about the hands-on owner is that they have thought through the first four P's and are constantly looking for opportunities to make the mix even stronger.