9 Things to Avoid in Restaurant Hiring

Hey there restaurant pros. It’s David Scott Peters and Welcome to Episode 79 of the restaurant prosperity formula. I’ve been coaching restaurant owners since 2003. And the restaurant prosperity formula is based on what the most successful restaurant owners I’ve worked with doing a daily basis to achieve their success.

The basic premise of the formula centers around achieving prosperity, Freedom your restaurant and financial freedom you deserve to achieve prosperity you have to follow a very specific formula made up of leadership systems training, accountability and taking action. Now I want to tell you about our guest today. He’s a repeat Matt Plapp, avid marketer crossfitter author, speaker, consultant and business coach. Matt is a serial entrepreneur among his businesses.

He is the owner of America’s best restaurants, a restaurant marketing firm with clients nationwide. listen in as Matt and I talked about how he learned the hard way the nine lessons to avoid making hiring mistakes. This is a must listen for any entrepreneur but especially restaurant owners. Let’s get started.

Man I’m so excited to have you as a guest again, you’re becoming a go to but you and I talk all the time and the reason why I brought you on today is because of a Facebook post you put out there and you put it everywhere. In fact, you put it in my non member, Facebook group, and I think it is really profound. In today’s day and age when everybody feels like they’re short staffed. They may be making bad hiring decisions because they gotta have somebody and all too often I talk about I’d rather be short staffed and have the wrong people on my team.

But you’ve had a similar experience. However, a more recent, dare I say inconvenient or unhappy experience with a little turnover from somebody who really goes out of his way to make sure somebody matches the company. Culture. You had a couple of swings and misses.

And I was hoping you could share that experience with people and we’ll just have a very loose back and forth on this. But I thought it was a great message. Can you tell people a little bit about your company and the explosive growth you’ve had and why hiring has become well. Kind of a big deal for you now.

Yeah, yes, I appreciate having me on and I love love your content, love what you’re doing love your community and I am proud to be a part of it. You know, our company. I started this company in 2008. And ironically, my whole goal when I started it was to be a mobile marketing director and at large marketing director for small businesses.

And one of our first clients was a mom and pop burger joint here in Northern Kentucky. And I wanted no employees. One of my mission statements I have no employees. I don’t want to be in charge of people.

I had 40 employees in a prior life. I was a terrible boss everybody I ever hired got fired. So I said no employees. Well, that changed and here we are 2023 or I don’t know the number.

I guess we’re about 65 people right now. And we’ve had very I’ll say luck. We’ve had very good luck in hiring people. You know, the post I made that we’ve had two people fired and two people with the past 60 days, and that’s the most turnover we’ve had combined over 15 years.

And so been really fortunate to have a lot of Ride or Die employees, people that fit our core values that believe in our vision. But the past six months you know we’ve brought a couple of people into the world and one of them was quit when I was on vacation. I was in Europe the past two weeks and no notice was on the road supposed to be on the road this week. As we record this filming as airfare was bought his hotel was bought out at 10 grand to train him in the month of May and just say I’m out no notice I got another job they didn’t need me to start Sunday.

I have your 10 grand and camera equipment and Dallas Texas with me also. Just caused a headache we fixed it. You know why say we my team fixed it. I didn’t do anything with it.

But it got me thinking I was like I got what how? How does this guy this guy’s know me since 2018 He’s following me online digital marketing guy knew those our culture came in here sat down with me. And I remember the minute I thought How did this happen? I’m like, man, you’re an idiot, Matt, because two of the things that in the interview, I thought like he worked for two people that I looked up to a lot in the business world, Alex Hermoza and Grant Cardone people that have built very hardcore companies.

And he had short sense there and part of me was like, Oh my God, that’s pretty cool. He was in that flow, and maybe he saw something not. He got there and he’s gone. So it got me thinking about that mistake.

And then the other recent mistakes we’ve had in the last two the last month, because it was literally I fired the one guy Memorial the Friday before Memorial Day I fired the next guy on Monday and then two people quit in the past month and so got me thinking why because I was watching something recently have a couple of CEOs I read a lot I watched like content I watched last year content. And a couple of people I watched recently talked about when something in your business goes wrong look in the mirror. It’s you it you can blame all your one on everybody else. You can can say this guy was a flake this guy but there’s something deeper and I was on a crowd was on this vacation.

I was actually on a cruise in the middle of the ocean near Greece. And I go on travel. I typically spend two or three hours a day just, you know, I guess dumping my brain on paper and I spent a couple hours thinking about this and I came up with nine reasons that those four people were or aren’t mistake.

So in 15 years time, even with explosive growth 65 or so employees, you’ve had incredible luck and well Dare I say you, you’ve got people who match your culture. You’ve done a good job of, of people understanding who you are, and you’re going to kind of talk about that at the end of your nine things. But you had four mistakes, to quit to get fired in the last 90 days. Which to an entrepreneur with the success of you the way you’ve hired, feels like a dagger in the heart because like you said you looked in a mirror I often say to people the rest on the restaurant side of things they go oh my people are idiots and this that the other and you’ve been in my seminar and you know that I go wait a second.

I tell the whole audience I said wait, you selected them. You hired them. You train them, you manage them on a daily basis. I don’t believe that we hire idiots.

I believe we create idiots. So that derogatory thought that it’s somebody else’s fault is not true. It’s our fault and in this case, you made an error in the selection process. This all because everywhere else is is the decisions you’ve made.

The selection process was congruent true to who you are, but you may have gotten yourself a little too excited. So talk about the nine different lessons you learned in this experience.

So I’ve got my screen opened up and I look at these so the first one, if it looks too good to be true with this. If you find a what should be a $400,000 Lamborghini for 50 grand you know we all have that common sense like okay, so wrong here. Others an engine does it no wonder Well, we had a hire that we made last summer. And I remember when this guy applied I’ve just got to be kidding me.

This guy’s applying to work with us. He’s going to be one of our people. This guy is legit like his his credentials. Door foot we were looking for this job How the hell can we afford him and then when he came in, he lived up to it was just dynamic interviewed.

And even then when I thought that two weeks we can’t afford you. You you check off every box we need except for the fact that I think for better quality than we need for that word we probably deserve at the point that we’re at with this particular product. I can’t afford it. I can’t fathom what you were making with this other company because I won’t say where it was at what it was was a big deal.

And he ended up we could afford it and like in my brain it should have been triggered why can you get a $4,000 Lamborghini with regard like this person was making three times what they were gonna make with us and I just thought okay guys down slog he’s, he’s looking for a change he’s the stress of the other place we offer the opposite the culture that’s that yeah, that I sold myself when I should have been like, Okay, what’s missing here? Now I did you hear about the thing that beer goggles, you know, you got a man crush on somebody. I overlook stuff because I literally had a crush really quick on this guy’s towel. Right?

And it means yes, because we found out within number two on the list was Don’t let those beer goggles cause you to be lazy ass because that’s what it would be. All I had to simply do is use this website we all know called Google a

lot. There’s there’s a lot

all I had to do is because literally if I put it in right now the chips go that is this guy’s past is there on Twitter, on your name and and he worked for a pretty large organization. I mean a major one in the media world and I would have easily see Oh, shit, no wonder he’s available. And I’ll pass but I didn’t know. And it’s funny because I’m a digital marketing guy.

I know how to use search engines pretty pretty easily. I always make fun of my wife like we’re on the we’re on Europe this past week. And I’m like, hey, look this up and like for her to use Google is like a 10 minute process. And I’m like, Christie seriously?

Did not. But I didn’t do it. And so I got enamored with this person’s talent. Got what I’ll call up a man crush on this person to have and this could be on my team.

Right and didn’t do my research. And this one, trust me. Do I say it wasn’t hard? It the it’s literally like somebody said, Hey, I didn’t kill the person.

They’re laying in front of you dead and they got the gun in their hand. The guy might have tripped and hit the gun, you know? And so those are the two of our first two. That in this day and age it’s pretty simple.

I tell my kids all the time my son his 19 going into college and other forget a couple years ago he tweeted something and i i Do you think you’re right? Like that is your digital footprint delete what you just tweeted. My wife was like stocks everything my kids do. And the disciplinarian that is like my band I’m like that’s your digital footprint.

What you put online exists forever. And this guy was a good example that I got an avid with a tablet with the value of getting that you know $500,000 Lamborghini for 15 grand and take a look under the hood and see the engine was calling them the wheels were fake. And the tires were made of papers and rubber and just didn’t Google and that’s one thing that’s tough.

Even with that said you know it will go to the first lesson that you couldn’t afford them in the in that respect and you fell in love and it magically work. It’s that sometimes people take a job to look for another job. They just need income now and my good friend Darren den can service with style who you know, he talks often about making the offer face to face because when he gets the bad experience and you go Oh it’s you know, call it $45,000 year but this is 75,000 Telling your candidate and they go Yeah, yeah, I can do that where you like immediately retract the offer because you know that it’s not enough but they’re gonna if they say yes to the job they’re working for you’re temporarily you’re just a stopgap until they get another job. So, you know, again, you’re talking about being enamored, that red flag of why would you accept so much less money?

You know, unless it is truly like you know, you I want to be a part of this and I know in five years I’m just gonna make four times what I was gonna make, which may or may not have been the case in your case, but just wanted to throw that in first when people are starting to think how often do you get somebody go? Why would they take that?

And that’s what happened here. And that’s literally what in my mind, I was thinking, Okay, I was selling myself. Yeah. And that’s one thing I found is that I’m excited for what we do.

We all want every restaurant owner when you get you love what you do, and you will sell yourself on something. That’s why we run across so many clients that open up a second location when they shouldn’t because they fix the first location up there. They sell in my physical space. Expensive they’re doing the build out like next they know in six months.

Like Oh shut up and do that lead the three because number three on the list was I still listen to the people I trust because actually on my team that you’ve met, came to me about three weeks and and she was my OG she was my first ever hire in 2011. This is her 12th year with the company and she came to me she’s my director of ops. She’s a freaking genius. And she came to me and she said they met despite just google him.

I might wonder why what she’s like, here’s what I found. And I was like, oh, that’s on the internet. And I was looking at it. And then I was like, Okay, well, your paper the two sides of the story.

And then I started kind of like I wasn’t pumped in and I was like, I can’t fire the guy. He’s a good talent. He really beat him. I already made plans around him.

I should have listened to her because she’s like, there’s no way this guy fits in.

But our ego our ego as entrepreneurs make it like I couldn’t have made a wrong decision. I couldn’t miss read this.

And I for me, it was it was part of that that like okay, what Ashley found is bad, but I know better. That there’s a reason for that happening. And I was justifying it and then at the same time not having the guts to say okay, I made a mistake, rip the band aid off get the guy out of here because, you know, this was last August I think July August, we hired him and problem started creeping up within a cup. I mean, this guy one of his big issues, not to get too deep but one of his big issues was drunk texting.

Like first couple of times I got laid off by what must have sent this wrong person this makes no sense and then I realized what the wrong person and then it got angry and then it got other employees and then nobody told each other and three months later, there’s 20 people in our company that have gotten strange as text from this dude. And so then we started trying to fix it, fix and fix and then we eventually fired him but we put a trail in place tried to give him counseling and tried to help them and this guy apparently was just way beyond repair. But I should have fired and like none of this like I couldn’t blame anything that happened in the last six months that this guy did stupidly because it was microphone. I didn’t interview him correct but it research correctly.

I didn’t fire him when I heard all of the crap that came with him.

So that’s 123 Yeah, in right there. We could stop and go oh my gosh, everybody, everybody listening can relate. We’ve all made that hire. We’ve all made that decision to go I just gotta make work.

And again, the reason why I really wanted to bring you on is as restaurant entrepreneurs, owners are often keeping an eye on hiring the first manager walks in the door, keeping them when they become the biggest challenge in the world. And it could have been avoided by selecting properly doing some of the things that you didn’t do. And then we get stuck. We’re like, I can’t get rid of him.

What do I do? I don’t have time I don’t want to you know, forget about the ego side. It’s just I got this person and sometimes the phrase is the devil I know is better than the one I don’t. And it really can bite you in the ass.

So talk about the the next piece of your nine things. Well.

Number four is I put on here piggyback with three other people interview the people for the job, like one thing we’re putting in place here is, you know, let’s just say for example, this exact scenario, Ashley doesn’t care about this person’s talent. It’s not even heard to a patient but she can look at a person Listen, come up with her own conclusion and say, Hey, man, based on our core values, based on what we believe and based on the people that are here right now that our rider dies the last 567 years. Ain’t no way in hell you hired this person. Because now she doesn’t have the computer goggles on.

She doesn’t have all these old things. And so, I believe by for me, having other people in the company that like for example, if two of us or three of us interviewed this person, and we’re all in the same division looking to fill that void. We might make a bad decision but if I go to the other side of the company because we have two divisions, I go the other side of the company the Marketing Service decides, hey, I got a person I want you to interview. Give me your thoughts.

And they know that I trust their decision and they say this versus a shitshow. That’s a key element. If actually comes to me and next time we do this and says there’s no way I still hire the person. I’m going to lose faith.

Right. So in our world, we’re going to come up we came up with a solution today. We’re going to let a round robin effect. We’re going to have other people involved in this.

And that’s what’s also funny about these things. I know this already, when we had our boat dealership, we had a guy named John Kiefer, come in and do a management evaluation on our nine managers and he also evaluated every firing every issue we had had because we were having a lot of turnover in the dealership. And he literally made a chart with all of our employees and found that every single person that had been fired me or my dad hired nobody else. So that became the first rule of what we call the plaques role was that we might find somebody that we think’s a good fit, but there’s going to be a three step interview process and other people besides you interview them because all you guys do is keep hiring yourself.

And then you wonder why you’re a headache in two months. So I should have already known this. That’s what’s that’s why I always say I always tell people like our company and friends like people get down on mistakes. I’m like, I love mistakes.

I give me something every day. Yes, it can beat on your ego. But if you don’t make these mistakes, you can’t fix in the future. You can’t understand what you were.

And so like this is a good good thing that remember like this is what got me in the problem back in 2006 by boat dealership was I just forgot at the last whatever that is 20 something years.

And I think in general that that’s a process in general doesn’t happen every restaurant. That’s kind of the process if you’ve got a good general manager and they’re doing the hiring you get to be the last the often the owners thought that just the blessing like you don’t bring me a candidate unless you’re already there. And it creates that that level of of doesn’t fit our culture. Yeah, I think you made a good choice, that extra safeguard or safety valve whatever you want to want to talk about.

So in your case, it’s the opposite direction. But either way, it’s the same process. You don’t want to hire in a bubble. You don’t want to get so excited.

It’s almost a completely different topic. In my group coaching call this week. One of the members was talking about lease lease spaces and Steve eller on my team, you know, it was an ex real estate guy and gave him this incredible advice. And at the very end of that I go, Oh, by the way, when you’re in linear lease negotiations, you got to be willing to walk away Don’t get so enamored with the location that you’re like, ah, there’s never come up again and you get bent over into a really bad lease because you just wanted it so bad.

This is the same part. Don’t sell yourself get so excited about the person because there is another person out there. Like don’t bend contort yourself to make that person work. That’s dangerous.

And here’s what’s kind of scary about all this also is we’re in the exact opposite position that I hear from a lot of businesses. The restaurants will say nobody wants to work and hire anybody but I’ve got restaurant clients that have applications flying in well in the market will same thing. I go to a mastermind in Miami next week with 350 marketing companies and we’ll be 70 of us there on the final day that are the higher end ones. And every one literally 90% of the room will say Man, I can’t find anybody we get I see on a bad week 15 to 20 applications, and we don’t mark it for hiring while people see what we’re doing.

They want to be a part of it. And so that’s what hurt like what makes me smack myself even more is that I’m spoiled. Like I saw three applications come in today. And you know, I’m spoiled with people wanting to be a polymerization.

So it’s, it’s even on a more of a worst level when we make these stupid mistakes because while I’ve mentioned so far pretty easily avoidable mistakes. And there’s people that we passed on that we shut down because of mistakes.

All right, and that burns you. There was somebody else who really wanted that and I think you’re going to talk about that. So getting number five, I think we’re on number five.

Number five is is read deep into the work history. So we had a guy that can work. Like I mentioned, the Grant Cardone and ultra mosey. This guy passed the test of all the skill set the qualifications and I was looking I don’t I always brag out look too deep and resumes.

I’m not worried college. Well, I guess my domestics are doing because, you know, there there is. A chance to see Pat never forget back we had the boat dealership. This lady comes she applies for an accounting position we have and I looked at her resume and I had taken a course oddly enough on how to find tracks.

I looked this lady’s resume I looked at literally every September. Every two years in September, the prior 20 years. She switched jobs. And she’s interviewing with me and like I think it was like April.

Look at it. I said, Hey, I have a question. And September rolls around next year. Where are you going to go work?

Excuse me. So look at your resume. Every two years, like clockwork in September, he started a new place. She was in the eye care bins.

She was like LensCrafters places. And it was funny. Everyone was the exact position. She’s like, holy crap.

I’ve never noticed that. And so that, to me was a sign that you know, this was a lady she took the exact same job. Every two years for 20 years in a row. The same love that’s a gavel pad.

I don’t want to be part of that pattern. Well, same thing here. I looked at this guy. I was kind of like oh man, this is pretty cool.

He worked for CARDONE worked for Mozi these guys are ballers they saw something but I didn’t think about what they saw on the other side of it. Like, why isn’t he there? Like, how could you screw that opportunity? Because especially Alex and Mozi if you guys haven’t seen him heard of and stuff like that guy is, in my opinion, the best business plan on the internet right now.

And he’s legit. He’s the real deal. So I should have been like oh, okay, now for me also I was looking for the for me there’s always positive comes out negative I told my team I’m like hey, think about this guy worked for CARDONE or Mozi. Now plan Let’s go baby, when things weren’t good company was somebody that failed.

So that was my number five was looked deeper into the work history to find those patterns or maybe things that you should find concerning versus kind of ignored.

So I’m going to add to that. For my listeners. I’m going to tell you that especially in a management side, because management people that’s where we’re getting a resume, I always advise you that you have to have your applicants actually fill out an application and sign it because nowhere on the resume does it attest that anything I wrote down here is true. So they could lie on the resume and you’ll learn about it after you’re hired.

You can’t fire him based on lying on the resume. However, if they put it on the application and they sign that everything is true, you have an out it’s also going to show the jobs they didn’t list on the on the resume there may be in you know a period of gap that they explain the way that there was actually another job. And so just on a side note, again, this is more restaurant specific, especially for management. I would add that one extra piece to that process.

I just wrote that down. We have people that do apply on the look and see it and they do sign something that’s that’s a valid point. That takes you back to the boat dealership days ago I had a guy literally membership night is the rapper. You have seen him Yep.

I hired a guy looked identical. I thought it was shut down. We walked in. I thought the deal was ginormous.

I thought it was him. Like comes into the applies for a position working on our lot cleaning boats. And he’s doing the application. He’s like a Mr.

plaque which was funny because I was in my 20s this time and I’m like, oh, what’s up man? He’s like, Hey, I got to this part of the application that says Have I ever been connect convicted of a criminal offense and I want to be truthful with you? Well, you guys I just got out of prison for seven years dealing code I was done crack dealer. What a suburban kid that grew up in the suburbs and a pretty privileged life.

Then I got a guy that looks like Suge Knight that was in prison. So I said tell him your story. He told me a story and it’s actually pretty cool story how, how he kind of evolved in life. And but it was he got to that point and said I didn’t want to put my name on this and not tell you the truth.

Because like I wasn’t starting this new chapter of my life is a lie. I’m like, hey, I can respect that. Yeah, so I, I feel you there. So number six, is trust your gut.

You know, the picture on the posts was McCauley from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and you know me like my vibe is a very particular vibe and people either really disliked me on the front end and and get to like get to like because they see I’m sincere and I’m a genuine person or they actually love because I’m so damn truthful. Like you like you, to me are very similar data that you don’t hide, you get what you get. Yeah. And so this guy that applied that we hired just hit the wrong vibe.

Like to me was literally was like, I was like I was talking to some coal. He was like, hey bruh like, just not who are not who people in our building are. And that was a red flag to me. And I know, I well this guy.

This guy was funny. So this guy worked for us for a week to go hire. And then we ended up firing the guy on Monday that I talked about who was the first person the first domino to fall? Well, this guy had known that guy we hired for three days and somehow felt the need to text him our internal communications because the guy we fired we knew comm dark was going to be a shit show online.

He was going to go on Facebook and Instagram and destroy us when he started drinking and he did too. I mean literally predicted it. I said guys, this is coming. I didn’t say why I just said Pay attention to social media.

This is gonna happen please report you see what he texts this guy. And I found a way to figure out who texted me because I kind of caught poker. Call the guy’s blog. Well, we fired this guy because within a couple days he’s texting this other guy This moron that we fired for valid reasons.

And so we fired him but when I when I did that, I told John one more guidance to do. We should never hire the guy he didn’t like he was literally like he was the complete opposite of every single person built in this building. But because he knew how to use a camera because he knew how to edit because he was there was less of a training curve for him to come on board as one of our video and editing guys. It was an easier decision.

I would rather have a harder decision spend three months training the right person to Evans because they come in here and screw things up. And he did

because you can train the skill you can’t train culture. They’re either fit or they’re not and I and I think it’s the number one thing in hiring. Does that person fit your company culture because if not, they become a thorn. In your site. They chew up 80% of your time they’re that pain in the ass employee versus and you ignore the good ones because this one’s sucking up all your time because it’s creating conflict in the in the business or rumors or just like why is this person get away with murder and I’m working twice as hard and got it yeah, it just bad, just bad.

And this one was trying I mean, it was so obvious like this guy. I remember first time I didn’t like this kids. Like, I mean it’s just it was apparent, and it would turn out to be completely true, but I didn’t trust my gut. And I went with the easy route of okay, we can put this guy on the road filming and he actually his skill set was it was a 10 out of 10 on skills.

But you know what, you gotta trust your gut feel for values. And number seven was interesting because I’ve never had this here and like it caught me by surprise the first day like we hired this guy. And the first day he’s on social media just sing our praises. And it’s kind of like the friend that we’ve all had that like start selling life insurance or starts working for a company and they’re calling you they want to get rolling to talk about what we’re doing what you’re doing.

Like I remember a friend of mine started selling digital marketing like seven or eight years ago, and he was the complete opposite. Like he could barely use a cell phone. And he called me the first day and I said hey, man, I love you. You’re a buddy of mine.

I trust that the company you’re working for is the chip. I can’t take you to my clients yet with what you have because you have no clue what you’re doing. Why don’t you get some? Get some you get get from being green.

get to where you understand exactly what you’re selling. And then let’s have a conversation in six months and that exactly happened and we had a conversation that we end up working together. Great. Well, this guy was on Facebook like that day like you thought I was the next covenant Jesus.

And I was like, Oh yeah, man, this guy knows our stuff. I love it. Hey, like thank you. And I should have been like, Okay, why is this guy so high?

Because it made me think that we had a trainer in our gym that I own that that saying this is bad because I mean, I’ve been married 24 years next month. What is this this giant next month like four years. So I love my wife obviously and we’ve been together for 28 years but I’m not on Facebook every five minutes saying how awesome she is and how we’re and that’s just not me like we had this trade or gym that would do that. I always thought it was weird because it was just it was beyond overboard.

Well that turns out like three months later we find out he’s got eight girlfriends. Not one but two like eight women that he was having intimate affairs with and that became a shitshow one of them was one of our other trainers on the desk in the office that I was different. But that made me think of that, that this guy was so an on our company so early without really even having a visa to and so I was just to me it was like he’s the instant Homer like how can you be a homer that much for matte black and AVR when you started an hour ago, and this guy was literally I’m talking it take the most intense person you’ve seen David it’s that guy times 10 So that that one was there. The next one has been we’ve grown our company.

And we’re gonna get more to this because I’ve got so many people that come to us that are referrals by high level folks. And I’ve also got we had one recently where somebody applied that one a not want to have our employees table means Hey, by the way, this has to be private they each one of the donations came to me this person that I know and by the way so and so that works here and I was also applied for a job they’re going to use our name do not hire. They will not be here in three months. And we didn’t for that exact reason.

And on the other side of that is that we’ve got I mean, I didn’t account but for example, there’s five people that work here right now that are very high level that Doug Smith brought in one of our CEOs that it came referred from Doug and Doug said I put my name behind this person they are legit they are solving bring a b and c and that’s something that I think we’ve we’ve got to get back to is we’ve got so many people in our world that work here that are very high value not only because what they do but also the relationship I mean, Max, you’ve met Max about one video guy he was it was a referral from his dad. His dad I went to high school with his dad referred him to our company because he said Max, I’ve been following Matt for 10 years online. The guy’s doing what you need to do go work for him, you know, log in, I call office one of our sales guys here. And he was two and a half years old.

When I first met him. He lived across the street, his dad with high school. And so I watched him grow up I got to see who he was and he came on board. So there’s all those instances where I’m like, Hey, look who your best people come from and this is where this goes back to the restaurant space.

I’ve told clients this numerous times, if you’re a shitty boss, and employees are going home to their roommates, their friends, their mom, their dad, their siblings, and go on man, that place sucks. That was terrible shift today that so instead of that, you ain’t getting any referrals from home. Right? But if that server goes home and like man, kind of blasted today, hey, we did this.

And man we got a we went to the s&p had a fun time. By the way. We did the $20 bill contest and I won the 20 bucks. It was so fun.

Their friends are like man, I want to do that. I want to come home smiling. Yeah, so that to me was a big thing that that’s where I looked at our staff when I was writing these down. I got to number eight and I thought what’s the common thread amongst our best people?

And it’s because they came from having a very deep relationship with somebody in the company or myself.

And that only happens or I did a whole podcast on becoming an employer of choice. And it only it only happens when you’re an employer of choice and on the restaurant space I talked about how do you know if you’re an employer of choice? Well, in restaurants if you asked an employee that was serving your table at a restaurant or cashier taking the order, hey, like working here, they frickin tell the truth. They’ll be like, I hate this frickin place.

I’m only here until like you’re serving your table and they’re telling you how frickin bad the places that’s in your restaurant to your guests. in earshot. Like they will share. And then you know if they’re doing that, imagine like you said, they’re going to all their friends this like sucks.

I’m only here until blah, blah, blah. They’re just bitching and moaning. And that should spreads. And all of a sudden in the marketplace, you’re a bad place to work.

You got bad leadership, you got bad managers. It’s just shitty. To be vice versa. Ad you like working here.

Oh my Lord. I love these people. I had a tooth problem. I have money for it.

They fix my tooth like they care about us done. And then they become protective. They will tell everybody how wonderful it is. But the only recommend that people that aren’t going to make them look bad and aren’t going to make their life worse, who are only going to match what the culture you’ve created in your business.

And I think that’s a really important lesson. So if you’re chasing that squirrel further, if you’re not getting a lot of referrals, we probably have a culture issue. We probably are not an employer of choice and and the sad reality is your employer of choice as is competitive pay and proper supervision and good training. It is an opportunity for advancement it is understanding that in buying into the why what your company does, and so a bunch of other things.

That’s a six month to a year journey. You know, what’s interesting about our discussion is you don’t have a culture problem. You made a hiring mistake, because you didn’t technically match your culture. Right?

You’re right. I didn’t I didn’t live up to our standard. And I’ll say this the one thing we’ve done a good job of creating a culture here like i i stopped come up recently where we had and this is the pat myself on the back. This is just making the right decision.

We had an employee recently that was doing a review, an annual review and we do an annual raise. And it was like seven months liked and it was because I don’t have my shit together on Twitter reviews and we now got a better process with that. And also they were scared to come over and go hey, like been here a year in seven months oh, specific review a year. And so when we finally hear this, I might end up being like holy crap, like, this should have happened in January.

And she’s like, Yeah, I know. And I’m like, Okay, I understand. This is my mistake. This is your race.

And by the way, your next check is going to have this raise the last 26 weeks. She’s like, Mike, this is my mistake. Like we did the math on like 26 weeks ago, whatever the one you should have had to raise right? Yeah.

Okay, you’re getting a check for that. Plus 26 weeks in this this girl was one way. After they left. The manager looked at me and said, Do I’ve never seen that?

And I’m like, Well, I was as I’m sitting there was the first time I ever had that happen. I think even if I’m that person. I’m thinking shit. I would have had $100 more a week, six months ago, right?

So what’s the right thing to do? And that’s the stuff like you talk about being the employer of choice. I’ve seen things happen in the restaurant space that I’m like, seriously, dude, that’s how you treat people. Like, how would you feel?

And that’s a big thing. And then that goes to the last thing and this is something that Avery and I actually did a podcast on a few weeks ago. I actually published it today. And those

who don’t know every word is went through my program discovered me through you and is now a member mentor for me. So this dude is Rockstar status like he is kicking ass just an FYI. So go.

So I talked about this because for the first year that I knew Avery as a client, he listened to about 25% of what we talked about. And we in our defense, we weren’t hardcore enough on a few things we shouldn’t. And so one thing that’s happened with me with my company is I get a lot of people that are like we’re doubling and tripling in size every three to four months. We are growing very, very high and we’ve done it somewhat efficiently.

And people always ask me, how, how are you growing like that? I’m like, it’s pretty simple. It’s marketing. It’s every single day.

I’m on Facebook, I am on Instagram. I am on Tik Tok. I am on LinkedIn. I’m on YouTube, I am on Twitter.

I am on email. I want to I am everywhere telling our story but it’s not how great we are in marketing restaurants. It’s tips its tricks, its failure today. I did I do a Thursday podcast My dad called firewood day where we just talk about stupid crap.

And he loves it. And I have so many clients that come to me and go, Hey, I can really relate to that because I wish I had my relationship with my dad. So he’s passed away. So it’s a part of me that’s genuine.

It’s nothing about restaurant marketing. But people watch it. And so he and I were talking about this because Avery’s first year of working with this, if you go back and look at his Facebook, every day was Pizza Pizza outdo pizza lil has meatballs like it was all this stuff about the restaurants and you’ve got to make social media social. And if you make social media social and you put your brand outward versus advertising people will be attracted to your brand and the people that are attracted to your brand are the people you want to hire.

Well, if you look at Avery social media, since I’d say it was right around when he started launching the new stores I’ll never forget he put up a picture and he I said do I want you to write like five paragraphs on that picture? Yeah, that is really cool stuff. And it was about his family and the change of the old location now. And he did it and he’s like, man, that worked really well.

And then he kept doing it. He kept doing it. And that genuine exposure of you and your brand on social media attracts people who want to be affordable. And so I 100% I always talk about your Grant Cardone says money follows attention.

And if you get enough attention for your brand, it’s going to the money’s going to follow well in this case, if you put your brand out there, and don’t just talk about pizza, highlight your employees, highlight your door to community highlight your personality, like I say some stupid shit on social media. Guess what? It’s who I am. Yeah, I’m not a genius, a sales guy.

And so that attracts people. And so that’s been one of the big things too. We had a guy that started next Thursday started this past month that came to us a month and a half ago. By way overqualified for what he’s doing here.

But we just hired a creative director from the History Channel a huge hire force and a huge I can’t wait couldn’t meet him. And this guy would have been a good fit for that position, but not we hired this other guy. And I submit your talent like I I’m going to keep you in the role that seems like now I’ll let you know what that will be wherever the hell you want to put me. I want to be a part of what I’ve been watching.

I know what you’re doing. I know what you’re about. I know what the company is about. I know where you’re going to be in 24 months.

Put me anywhere because I’ll work here and when the position or the opportunity comes up to get into my lane within your company. Maybe I already found a different lane or maybe I go there is a good example one of our success coaches Chad regular Chad applied for a job. Last July Himalayan a book applied for a success coach position we hired Roshi had been in the restaurant business work in marketing for like seven restaurants. Chad had, they both had equal skills on social media and Brooke had the restaurant he didn’t.

So if I’m going to align I say Brooke is a very success coach. I’m going to align bring somebody out and bring the person that’s gotten that experience. She passed everything and she’s killing it. But che it really impressed me.

And I said, dude, let me ask you a question. Like, I don’t have this position. You’re not ready for that position yet. Wouldn’t you be What if you’re my sister, I got two ideas.

But you read my system the next couple months, maybe if something comes along, he’s like, let’s do it. And he literally was my assistant for two months. He called experimented with calling for birthdays with calling restaurant catering clients for a couple restaurant clients. And he did whatever I asked him to do.

And then he eventually learned exactly what it need to be a success coach. Now he’s one of our top people. But he he came here for a job with our company in our brand, not the specific job and I think that was the biggest thing I look at a lot of our key employees is they weren’t here to like in your life to be a manager be a waiter. They were there to be a part of the church.

And I think that’s that’s the best part of the nine lessons is we talked about we went through all the challenges and the mistakes you made but you finished it with the the overarching question in all these years, how is it that this was the worst night you know, 60 days that you’ve ever had when it’s only for people when a lot of restaurant people are gonna shit I go through for people and day, you know, and it goes back to what the advice you gave Avery. In fact, if those you listened to my podcast on a regular basis, several episodes ago now I don’t know how many every night Did you know podcasts on this hiring process from group interviewing but it all started with that post and a series of posts of telling the story telling the story telling the story talking about the new restaurant talking about how excited the future looks like and then like post number 10 was a by the way if you’re if you’re looking to join a team like ours, we’d love for you to come interview and son of a bitch those applications came flooding in because people bought into the story, the direction you know where he was going the core values of the company all the things and I want to be a part of that.

And that’s kind of what you’ve done with America’s best restaurants. You’re talking about the people that say, I’m willing to jump on board, I’ll do take anything. I’ll take the trash out, because I want to be a part of this, which is very different than the first guy the Hey, I got all this experience and well, you know, I can make work, you know, wasn’t knocking on the door to go, I’ll do anything. It was, I could take that money.

Yeah, I could do that. And you the opposite was there. The people are working out for you chase you versus you kind of chased this other guy.

And I think that was one of the things I didn’t mention in there. But when I talked to my team internally, is that we’ve got to be farther ahead of the game. And not looking to hire that person now, but looking okay, is this a good fit? I was at a pizza place four or five months ago in our neighborhood.

And I saw this guy was given to pay the bill and I saw this guy come in and like wasn’t an app like it was like 1980s application for a job and I did it was kind of common Of course my smart I says something like the New Jersey All right, do it. It’s like oh, well, doesn’t matter. We’ll hire anybody. Excuse me.

Good all that we hire anyway. And the guy was shelf Barbie shows up more is higher. And I’m like pick up my head like, okay, that’s, that’s good philosophy. Good luck with that one.

That might serve your short term purpose, but long term, you’re screwed. And that wasn’t the case with us. But I put our team in a situation where we felt a crunch to make a couple of decisions. quicker than we normally get.

And so you’ve got to be willing to have longer term relationships and conversations and not jump on people like the guy that started this past Monday. He was a conversation a month ago, that I just kind of listed out there and build a relationship and find out and I would much rather hire him to this week than a month ago because I saw kind of how things like they say take up. You take a wagyu steak off the grill. You don’t eat it instantly.

Let’s sit there for seven or eight minutes, let it do its thing.

Or Fred Baron games and we talked about earlier. He always talks about in his speeches that he hire slow and fire. Like you just got to make sure you got the right person you got we just got to make sure it happened. And again, for many restaurants, you know, they’re being short staffed because God is making bad decisions like that pizzeria I’ll just show up.

I’ll bring them bring them in. But how many times have we hired someone on that quick notice man, I need somebody come on and put an apron on or in your case sit in front of a desk and the fact that matter is within three to six months we go Oh shit, I did it again. I hired somebody I’m gonna have to fire because oh my gosh, now it doesn’t happen for you that often. That’s why we have this damn conversation going.

But the restaurant people do it over and over and over again. And I always have a phrase it’s easier to say than it is to live by. I’d rather be short staffed and have the wrong people on my team. Because it is so important.

Either I can remove tables. I can reduce my menu, I can do things to operate. I can even close a couple days if I have to. And COVID gave us permission to do that.

And it’s become now a part of what I’m enough people. I can’t be open on a Monday. That’s not unusual. But you want to take care of the people you have be an employer of choice, develop that story.

Get them involved in wanting to be a part of who you are and where you’re going. And I think that’s the special part of of why I love what you do and and I want to shift gears a little bit. Tell people a little bit about what America is best restaurants. That’s because I guess you and I have known each other for two years now.

Maybe even longer, almost three years. And I think you’ve evolved tremendously in what you offer and what you started out doing just that went on and you are already years in to what you’ve become now. share with people what America is best restaurant is what when I look at you and I say marketing what does that mean? What are you What are you who are you?

So our our core philosophy is we want to help restaurants and dependent restaurants find more frequent customers. I’ve got a term I like to say is the new infrequent despots on your damn bills. Like I just got back from Europe. And some of these tourist cities and frequent customers do pay the bills events because that’s the only thing they have.

But if you’re an independent restaurant in the suburbs of Florence, Kentucky, you better have a very good following a loyal customer base that comes back over and over spends more money consistently buys whatever upsells you put out there where you’re not going to survive, or at least you’re not going to get to the promised land. Right? That’s what I’ve seen, and I’ve heard you talk about this below. I’ve seen too.

I never forget the CEO of a franchise. We worked with a Franchise Group A while back and 100 other restaurants. They said that all I need you to do is is help these franchises get 500 to $1,000 a week in sales, because most of them are at this breakeven. If they get 1000 a week in sales that’s incremental profit, they actually can finally pay themselves what they need to.

So I realize a lot of customers are just that close. These restaurants and it’s to me, it’s the inability to cultivate enough frequent customers. And so within our company, there’s two divisions. One of the divisions is what I created called the America’s best restaurants roadshow where next year we will film at 2000 restaurants and we will help tell the story of that restaurants journey on social media so that they can excite their customer base.

Something different kinda like you know, the TV food shows you see, these are social media shows. the other side of our company is that we help restaurants create the ultimate marketing It’s our company 2008 2015 him actually came on board in 2012 and 1011, and then we had that team met her a couple part time for a long time. Back then, I was the marketing director will say like hey we I would have been Avery’s marketing director, and we ran all this.

I’m a very good salesperson, but also very good at selling what my clients need sold. And I, oddly enough learn how to do digital stuff which I’m not a tech person I know enough to be dangerous. And I learned a way before anybody else. So, up until 2015, every client we had had a full marketing plan in place that I have my hands on.

I got the bright idea. When we did a promotion with this brand off warehouse. We came up with a really cool way to give away 2500 growlers at their restaurant, collect customer data and then see the digital sales and the sales that came through digital trackable promotions. From that free Growler.

Like oh, great idea. Let’s pull that one little thing out of the marketing plan and go nationwide. So we did so 2016 1718 19 I scaled up our company to be not a local company, but nationwide work with restaurants doing that acquisition. We mentioned Steve Hello earlier.

Steve was a client of that part of our company. One of the things I found as a problem was when I looked a say a year or two into that was the end of just 19 a lot doesn’t 20 Like why are some of our clients who were really well some sucking and some do an average? Well, it was because I took a product like you know fitness like you can eat well you got to eat well sleep or a workout hard. Manage your stress, go to the gym have intensity.

There’s all these factors. You can’t just you know, go to the gym, right? Because if you go to the gym is to be like shit, it doesn’t matter. Right?

Well, I found that what I had created was kind of a monster of growing in Barstow and I pluck out what worked awesome for Hofbrauhaus and plug it into a lot of marketing plans that sucked. So the last two years we’ve been recreated rewrite what we call a word I guess reimagining the experience our company is that we want to help restaurants create Delta marketing I know that there are eight things that your mark your restaurant needs to do to dominate your marketing. It’s yeah, this acquisition program we have awesome Yes. But if it’s surrounded by a terrible website, a terrible social media presence and inadequate installed market experience.

Owner that’s not actually the community that there’s no video marketing involved in your there’s so many things that have to happen. Yeah. And so what we’ve kind of reimagined our company the last two years is that now the marketing side of our company is that there’s three levels of the goal of that all three of those is to help you based on the size of your company. Create the ultimate marketing plan.

How can we get you and your customer suppose every day because I always like to say, if you’re at a stoplight, and your hall can reverse them funny. What are they on there if you can’t get the ordered place quick enough in the restaurant. They’re all different. I heard a guy that he was mad.

The thing that pissed me off the boat. So I look out and see this great food that we just worked our ass off sitting there for five minutes because they’re working on the angle of the histogram pitcher, ate your food. Gary Vee said the most articulate way I heard recently he said, Matt, are you talking about he’s like he was talking to me. Said nobody’s confused and 2023 where your customers attention is on a pub.

So when you ask that, I guess the short answer to that long winded explanation there is that we help restaurants created a marketing plan that’s going to dominate their customers attention on that device, because that’s where you’ve got to be in 2023 24 Mia

if somebody wanted to learn more about your services, and I’m gonna say, you know, I put my name on you. We’ve had you and a guest here. I have you speak at my seminar. We’re doing a lot of things together.

Now. I just I buy into your core values I buy into what you’re doing. I’ve seen the explosive growth and more importantly like you said, the reimagination of your company, how you’ve really said I’ve got a good thing to be coming a great thing for restaurants. How would they contact you?

Because there’s not a lot of marketing people that I put my name on you are one. So how would they learn more about what you do?

Yeah, the easiest way honestly, I don’t deal much in the one to one conversations. But when someone like you, I well. And so the easiest way honestly, it sounds weird. My cell phone number to be a text 859-743-2408.

That’s my personal cell. I’ll respond. I’ll get you with one of my team. They’ll set up a conversation.

I’ll get involved in the conversation and we’ll see what you need. Because the one thing we screwed up on three years ago, especially in 2019 and 21. We we thought everybody should have workbooks. And you would get on a call.

He would sell you what we wanted to say I’m good at selling shit. And I realized that we were a lot of these people shouldn’t be buying what we’re selling. You’re not the right fit for us. You’re not a good opera.

You’re not a good person. You don’t have the stomach to spend the money that you need to spin. In order to do like I was joking this morning. Today’s as been for our company that David is running is 20 to $50 today, Matt plans today, not flat five years ago with a vomiting.

If I spent two grand a month on our marketing with regard to what we do, but we’ve grown and I’ve become more tolerant of risk. That’s a big element is when we have these conversations I tell my team the first conversation needs to be what I’ve set out there. Who are they what are they doing? Why are they doing it?

What are they looking to accomplish? Nothing about us because it doesn’t matter. Right. And the second conversation is based on what we learned and based on what we found out on our own of giving them a diagnosis like hey, here’s what I see.

Is this accurate? And you think this this, this would help you get to where you want to go? Yeah, it was cool. Okay, let’s have a third conversation.

And let’s look at the options, the one of three journeys that we think should be your path. And that was one thing we changed also our tbsps commission sales but that’s how they make a living. They get paid the exact commission now no matter what program our customers because I saw where all I when I sell the $10,000 program, I can sell that 30 So we changed our structure to where are people that are marked because, you know, marketing efforts she needed it and who is going to be at your event is 40 year restaurant owner was a client of mine for seven years retire if the business came up or as a consult with us and he gets paid whether somebody signs up a package a or Package C and packages 10 pack of seeds don’t he gets paid the exact way for the reason that I want an honest assessment and an honest opinion given even if it means saying hey you don’t need this, or hey, you need Package A versus Package C for these reasons. com look at a bunch of crap on there.

Or you can just go right to them where they say go right to the horse’s mouth.

Well the crazy part is that’s how he communicated with you. He got his cell phone number and I think I like my text you like can you look at my website and you’re like, all of a sudden the conversation started and I think he dropped his jaw like holy shit. That’s too good. It’s actually texting me back.

So I think you’re nuts to give your cell phone out especially on the internet that way we’re just talking now but that’s who you are. And that’s that’s what people got to understand. You are genuinely, genuinely interested in helping people. And what I love about it is you and I come from the same school of thought.

We’re not right for everybody. We like to think we are but we’re not and you’re willing and your team are willing to tell somebody, it’s not a right fit. But if it is, you know, get ready, you can get ready and decide that this is now the time to up your marketing. I’m ops I don’t do sales.

But the truth of matter is people say to me, You know what comes first I’ve worked on my marketing plan and working my operations, the answer’s yes. Like you can’t wait there’s no chicken egg it is yes. And so both all the systems that I teach that journey that managers and have a life and make more money and all those things translate and are possible, because because your operation is better makes your marketing that much better. Because now it’s effective.

When they come in, they get the greatest experience. You don’t just waste money drive people in and you suck and they tell 9000 people on the internet you drive people in and you’re good and better yet. If I can get that frequency up, you know, I think about it this way. And I’m sure you and I have talked about it in the past and you teaching me more and more marketing stuff.

If you get the customer to come back just one more time a month. The customers you already have that alone will explode your sales. Forget about the new person, just getting that that customer that hasn’t come in to come back they get the product will come in come in one more time. While I’ve said that that world of your customer base just exploded your sales.

You got to have good operations. You got to have good marketing. It all goes hand in hand. Matt, is there anything else you want to share with people before before we finish?

No, I just whatever the hill David Scott Peters says listen to it because I can tell you if you saw the other side of my screen, there’s a bookshop there. And I met you David in 2020. The summer of 2020 I hired Gabe Meyers is an intern he was a college kid and said hey, I want you to find every podcast every book every person on the internet that is restaurant oriented, that I can create a conversation with because I want to tell their story to our audience. I want to get it up and I went through a lot of people and I can say DSP is number one.

There’s 128 books on that shelf last I counted and there’s a handful that shouldn’t be on the shelf. The rest of them it’s like, I mean, I wrote three books that doesn’t doesn’t mean shit. And I would say to your audience that if you haven’t signed up to work with David Scott Peters, I think you’re absolutely insane. If you’re not listening to every word, he’s doing reading every word he puts on paper, and then sharing it with your team to get buy in from them then then you’re crazy because you are my friend the best I’ve ever seen.

And I appreciate you having me on here and let me talk about my woes and the dumbass hiring situation that Matt was in.

Well, I You’re too kind and I appreciate you coming on to the moment I saw the post I think it took me 24 hours to go hey, let’s do this. Because I think everybody can learn we’re all a restaurant owners and entrepreneur, you’re an entrepreneur, I’m an entrepreneur, people are people and these are these are just thought you put it in such a succinct way to get everybody to think about how they’re hiring. Extremely good stuff. I appreciate you and I hope everybody gives you a call and learn more about how you can be the ultimate marketing plan for their restaurants.

Thanks, brother. Appreciate you. Learn more about controlling your labor costs and ask me questions directly. Be sure to join me live every Friday at 8am pacific time on YouTube travel schedule permitting, where I’ll get you pumped about the upcoming we can get you excited about crushing your goals and finding the motivation to be the best you possible.

Love. I’ll answer your burning questions live. He that was an awesome episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to take action on building a better more prosperous restaurant.

Before you go. I want to give you these three thoughts. One by combining leadership and taking action with systems and training being checked by accountability. You are on your way to creating prosperity for you and your restaurant.

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does wonders for me and drink. If you find any of the discussions helpful share them, the more restaurant pros who have access to them, the better we become as an industry. For more restaurant resources or to get in contact with me. com Be passionate about what you’re doing.

Be persistent, but more importantly become better and help everyone around you become better and your restaurant is going to kick some ass.