It’s all a matter of packaging!

When I was 18 years old, my father secured me a summer job at an Italian seafood restaurant in Brooklyn. In truth it was not because of any special culinary skill I possessed, but rather he happened to be friends with the owner.

For $2.05 an hour which was minimum wage at the time, I got the privilege of standing on my feet for 10 hours a day, six days a week, opening clams, shucking oysters and slicing scungilli.

Halfway through the summer, the owners decided to upgrade the menu by adding lobster. If they were going to do it, it would be a sizeable investment with a tank and a large display case packed with ice since the lobsters had to be kept alive and fresh until serving time.

So they invited a seafood purveyor to come in and basically sell them on adding lobster. 

Enter one Salvatore Gisondi, a diminutive, stoop-shouldered  man with a pencil thin mustache and black horned rim glasses - a character actor straight out of central casting complete with the Brooklynese parlance of “dem” and “doze.” One by one he queried the owners, the manager and even me what we ate for dinner five nights ago. Each of us struggled to remember and in truth none of us could with any accuracy.

Then he asked “When was ‘da last time any a youze ate lobster?”

This time, no one had any trouble recounting their last lobster dinner. Sal had cleverly packaged lobster as a special occasion meal that most customers would easily remember.

The following day, a 100-gallon tank was installed and lobster soon became the best-selling menu item at the restaurant, which incidentally closed just last October after a 44-year run.

I recall this vignette of superb marketing, because it translates seamlessly to M&A within the accounting profession. More often than not, the seller firm is paralyzed by fears that his or her practice will be lost and forgotten after the contract is signed. But here again, it’s largely a matter of proper packaging.

In nearly every CPE class I teach, I stress to attendees that a merger should never reflect the loss of the seller firm but rather be positioned as the gain of the successor firm – either through improved synergies or a platform of expanded services.

I never did see Sal again after that initial meeting but his presentation made such an impression that I still marvel at its effectiveness nearly 40 years later.

I’m sure he would have done equally well merging in CPA firms as he did upselling seafood.