Talking Points
Meet Alberta Russo. She works at Steve’s Diner in Titusville, Florida, near Cape Canaveral.
She knows her talking points.
She also knows her customer base the way a seasoned development officer knows their prospect pool. I’m pretty sure she had me pegged as a first timer before I was in the chair.
“Where are you coming from?”
Before I could answer, I learned that Steve’s is best known for its fried chicken and that people drive a long way to get it. But it’s also famous for its spinach pies, homemade bread, and a few things you just can’t get in every diner like frog legs and ham and bean stew.
With a flag in every booth and a rocket on its private label hot sauce, the diner’s allegiance to America and the Space Coast is clear. Equally clear was Alberta’s ability to articulate the indisputable fun that can be had here on Thursdays, when the co-owners host Greek nights and the ouzo flows as freely as the conversation.
The oh-so-famous fried chicken is apparently in such demand that even when the diner had to close at the start of the pandemic, they sometimes served upwards of 75 chickens a day to customers who called their orders in. You can get it regular or dark.
I was thinking about Alberta today while agreeing to work up some talking points on a funding priority for a client’s major gifts team. It’s funny how often we find ourselves looking for just the facts in a sea of stuff that’s already been created — case statements, power points, appeals, speeches, proposals — and then trying to distill it down, trying to do what Alberta Russo does every day.
Because, like a good development officer, she knows that not everyone wants the fried chicken. She figured that out about me. I didn’t have the 15 minutes to wait while it cooked. Not this time. So, she gave me an alternative.
“The spinach pie is amazing. It’s $8.99. You can get it to go. It’s ready now.”
I did. It was.