Running a food truck is an inherently creative endeavor, from the crafting of the recipes, to creating a visual brand for the truck, and especially to conjuring money for truck repairs out of thin air. Creativity, as we’ve all experienced from time to time, can be exhausting. We spin our creative wheels, but like a truck stuck in mud, we just can’t seem to get anywhere.
How do you find creative traction when you get stuck?
As I prepared to write this post—and as my own creative wheels were spinning a bit—it occurred to me that it can be hard to find new ideas in an insulated environment. I think about food trucks a lot, and so do you—and consequently some of my ideas for you may have a certain sameness about them. (Or perhaps I’m just ready for enough snow to melt so that my favorite trucks will come back to my street.)
In an effort to bring you new ideas, I conducted an informal poll of a group of my friends who don’t think about food trucks all day, to get their impressions on food trucks. The hard part about leading a focus group, formal or informal, is learning to be quiet and listen. It’s challenging, when you’re the group “expert” on a topic, to have the humility to let other people talk, too.
I’ll admit to you—I nearly blew it. My friend Katie brought up event catering (Did I know that food trucks can cater events?), and immediately I launched into a bunch of facts about the catering side of a food truck business.
“This is a dead end,” I thought after five minutes. “I don’t have any new ideas.” Of course I didn’t have any new ideas! I was the only one talking! I needed to hear Katie’s opinion, not my own, and so I asked her to tell me about the wedding she had been to, and then I shut up and listened.
Over the next fifteen minutes, my friends gave me great insights into how they, as casual consumers, view food trucks. I learned about:
And then, right at the end, Kristin gave me the gem I was looking for. “When it comes to weddings, food trucks are the new photo booth.” That statement, right there, is marketing gold—and I never would have come up with it on my own.
Now go forth and get unstuck!
(Oh, and you can use that line about photo booths.)
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Image from SteveInTheUK
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