Your Attitude Dish

I spent twenty minutes R&R last night reading the always entertaining AA Gill review a recently opened London foodie haunt. It was partly because a friend had recommended it to me, and also due to a reverence for the author’s review ethos.

Years of dining out has led me to identify meals that give you an unspun, naked insight into any eaterie. Fish ‘n Chips in a London gastropub, Eggs Benedict in a Cape Town brunch bar. That sort of thing. And now I learn that,

“This is what they call in the catering trade an attitude dish. You may not want to eat it, but it tells you something about the restaurant, about where the kitchen is coming from, how they want to be perceived.”

The extra angle here that also interests me is the concept of not necessarily wanting to eat it, but if you do then you really uncover what’s going on in their heads.

Of course, it’s not a giant leap in logic to think of all those things that we as salespeople must do (in the form of both deed and document) and wonder what “attitude” they betray.

What does, for instance, your Proposal say about you? Does it truly represent you as you want it to? How do your customers think it matches up? What do they feel it reveals?

Knowing the attitude dishes that you can serve up, and nailing their impact, indeed seems a worthwhile pursuit.