What does a great plate of charcuterie have to do with the arts?

Recently my wife and I ordered a charcuterie plate a local restaurant; we love charcuterie and often begin meals with an order, taking our time to savor the flavors as we enjoy a wonderful glass of wine. We even fancy ourselves connoisseurs of these delicious meats, often served with toasted bread, mustards, fruit spreads. It’s heaven.

Well. It normally is. But on this recent visit, the portions were exceedingly small, the meat was sliced razor thin – so thin that they could be placed on a slide for study with a microscope. The restaurant served the charcuterie on a stunningly beautiful wooden board, and the chef had swirled the mustard into something beautiful like a Picasso.

But we were so very disappointed. We had expected and were so looking forward to a delicious plate of charcuterie. We wanted something bountiful and instead we were left hungry. We thought we were paying for charcuturie, not a fancy serving board and a mustard Picasso painting.

And what does this tale have to do with the arts?

Everything – if you care about exceeding expectations. In the arts, we only have a brief moment to not just meet, but to exceed the expectations of our patrons.

And we must understand that our audience wants the “charcuterie” or art to exceed expectations – our patrons paid for a full plat of delicious bountiful charcuturie- read ART.

So what can you do?

    • Talk to our patrons and understand what motivates them
    • Provide top level customer service
    • Deliver on every promise
    • Exceed expectations
    • Repeat the Above

And if we continue to exceed expectations our patrons will keep coming back for more.

Pass the toasted bread please.

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