// the leak

"DM me for booking"
is how you lose
the $3k gig.

instagram finds you. the site books you. here's the gap in between, and why it's where your money's leaking.

why a site1/5
// the problem

a DM is discovery.
not a booking system.

hi! do you do corporate lunches? what's pricing for 60 people? 🙂11:40 AM
hey!! yes we do! let me send you some info4:15 PM · seen
no worries, we went with another truck that had packages on their site. thanks tho!4:32 PM

you're on the cart. phone's in your apron. she messaged at 11:40, you saw it at 4:15. she'd already booked the truck that had a page.

no calendar. no deposit. no packages she can forward to her boss. half the info missing. and the lead lives in an app whose algorithm decides if you even see it.

presenter notes2/5
// the numbers

what the data says
(no lab coat)

FACTS.TXT — read only

nobody's run the perfect study on "booking page vs DMs" for coffee carts. but conversion, catering and vendor-ops numbers all point the same direction. so, plainly:

  • 2×people coming to a site convert about twice as often as people coming from social (~2.7% vs ~1.5% in published channel data). social is scrolling. a site visit is "can i hire this."
  • 2–5%what event booking pages typically convert. catering sites average ~3.8%; dedicated landing pages closer to ~5.5%.
  • 5 minspeed is the whole game. in restaurant catering data, inquiries answered in ~5 minutes converted around 34%. after an hour, ~8%. minutes vs next-day is roughly 3×. you're on the cart; your DMs sit unread. a page answers in zero minutes.
  • 30→67%let people lock a date right after the form and the rate that qualified people actually book roughly doubles (B2B scheduling data). same logic for you: date + details + deposit beats "i'll get back to you."
  • 30–45%more events, and ~30% more catering revenue, when availability + intake live online instead of texts — according to the booking-tool companies. vendor-reported, not gospel. but not nothing.
  • $2k–6kwhat weddings, corporate lunches and office parties pay a truck. planners don't close those in an instagram thread. they need something to forward: packages, photos, minimums, radius, insurance, deposit.
  • google"coffee cart for wedding [your city]" is a google search, not an IG search. link-in-bio-only doesn't exist there. and a lot of people won't hire a business with no website at all.
presenter notes3/5
// the fix

not pretty.
a booking machine.

✓packages with real numbers, or real ranges
✓photos from actual past events, not the cart in the driveway
✓the FAQ planners always ask: power, water, radius, minimum, deposit, insurance
✓a short form or a calendar. not both. not neither.
✓a way to pay to hold the date
✓your instagram plugged in, so the feed still does the flexing

instagram is the megaphone. keep posting. just stop making it the front desk.

presenter notes4/5

the leak is the gap between
"i want you" and "you're on the calendar."

close it.

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why a site5/5