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Chilango

Dear Entrepreneur,

Despite the recent recession our company sales have grown rapidly since our first restaurant opened on Upper Street in August 2007. I wish I could say that we had planned that type of growth and that the road has been easy. Neither is true, but we do believe our success to date has been a by-product of focusing on a few key things.

Define your brand, then seek to continually improve it

The Chilango brand and its future evolution is our most vital asset. We’ve evolved our brand a few times since inception, and will unleash the next batch of improvements in our new site. When starting out there’s a natural temptation to mimic the brand of a bigger player. Resist. You certainly don’t have to reinvent every aspect of your business, but if your total proposition isn’t unique then your success will be short-lived.

Our guiding light has been the feeling we want to create with every guest that walks through our doors. As we’ve grown and spoken with guests so has our thinking about what this feeling should be, and ultimately how the brand should reflect and support it.

We define our brand across Food, People and Place, and have a set of promises, or benefits, we aim to provide our guests within each area. The sum of these promises create our proposition: We like to think we brighten up people’s day.

The best people create the best companies, EVERYTHING else is secondary

People means crew, management, suppliers, creatives, investors…anyone that may have a part in or touch Chilango. Taking the time to find, attract, and reward highly competent, like-minded people means the trust runs high, while the need or want to look over shoulders runs low, and everyone can focus completely on the road ahead.

Our company vision has always been our best currency, whether it’s persuading a supplier to work with us sooner rather than later, or getting that highly experienced and talented person to forego the high salary and focus on the equity upside instead.

The best people will always weather the worst storms.

Ignore the naysayers

Quality and value are key words within our brand, and despite the recession we haven’t budged on either. Every time we’ve been able to pocket some additional margin through purchasing scale, we’ve chosen to share some of the profit back with the customer by upgrading our raw material supply as well. Despite the recessionary marketing tactics of other players, we’ve generally avoided discounting as we think it will only cheapen the Chilango brand.

Lots of people along the way have strongly advised us against such a strategy. We’ve certainly looked at ways to save money and cut costs, but cheapening the guest experience is by no means the right way to finance these savings. Ignore anyone who thinks otherwise.

Don’t get me wrong – the climb to get to where we are today has been a hell of a battle. Most of our new guests have never even had a burrito in their life, or could even accurately describe one. But we’ve stuck to our guns and can without doubt see the dividends ahead and the light shining at the tunnel’s end.

Eric Partaker

Co-Founder and Director, Chilango

www.chilango.co.uk