Talking with a friend the other day, it occurred to me that there are two types of business.

Will call the 1st "a restaurant" & the 2nd "a shoe store."

There are other archetypes of course.

But I'll use (1) resto & (2) shoe store for short.

A Nike store and a McDonald's, for example.

They seem roughly similar at first glance. Both require getting folks to walk in the door for the math to work. You could argue that average order size is roughly the same (shoes can be expensive these days)!

This breaks down when you look at the % of people who buy SOMETHING.

At McDonald's, CLOSE TO 100% of walk-ins buy SOMETHING. Maybe it's cheap. But SOMETHING.

The trick's to get folks in the door. Discounts. Coupons. Giveaways. Loss-leaders. Get existing customers to come back.

Not so with a shoe store. I can't tell you the number of times I've walked into a store, yet walked right out without buying something.

And I'm not your typical shopper. If I walk into a shoe store, it's because I want a pair of shoes. Say, running shoes. Like, REALLY want them.

Let's take a Nike store. I love Nike, pretty much everything the brand stands for. I have very positive associations. I've worn & loved Nike shoes for years. I have great friends who work at Nike.

Back to the example. I need some shoes. I'll walk into Nike because I like Nike.

To buy shoes: They have to fit. They need to be comfortable. They need to be affordable (have you seen the cost these days?!) And I need to like how they look on me.

I'll try on many shoes. If I made it all the way into the store, I am going to do my best to be exhaustive.

But still, if I try on many shoes & don't find shoes that fit, are comfortable, are in my price range, AND look good on me, I'm going to march right back out of that store.

So, anyway, two types of businesses - the shoe store and the restaurant. I'll play around with this idea tomorrow. Just wanted it to get it out there.

Any thoughts?