Debunk Restaurant Marketing Myths with Josh Kopel

Hey, there restaurant pros. It’s David Scott Peters and welcome to episode 83 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 do on a daily basis to achieve their success.

The basic premise of the formula centers around cheeping prosperity, Freedom your restaurant that 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. Today, our guest is Josh Kopel for a second time, Josh is a restaurant tour and tech pioneer throughout his 20 year career he managed venues ranging from casual concepts to Hollywood nightclubs, bars and ultra lounges. He also opened his own Michelin rated fine dining concept. Josh is a real restaurant Pro.

Listen in our conversation Well, Josh walks us through what marketing really means for your restaurant. I want to welcome Josh Kopel to the show today. But first, a word from our sponsor. We all know managing costs is one of the most important parts of running a profitable restaurant especially now, but between fluctuating vendor prices, waste labor, and the never ending list of tasks that demand your attention on a daily basis.

It can be challenging for even the most experienced of us to manage costs well, that’s where margin edge comes in. Margin edge is a complete restaurant management software that automatically uses data from your POS and invoices to show you food and labor costs in real time. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Margin edge gives you tools to make decisions in the moment like a daily p&l price alerts on key ingredients, and real time plate costs all without ever having to touch a spreadsheet.

Take control of your costs work more efficiently and be more profitable. com Ford slash DSP to learn more and schedule your demo today. Josh, I am thrilled to have you back on my podcast. I really appreciate it.

I hope things are going awesome for you. Again, really excited about what we’re going to talk about today. Are you ready?

I was born for this. I am so excited to be here again. You know, I love you and thank you for the kind words you know, I’m a glutton for flattery.

Okay, the two of us were kind of in two peas in a pod but I wanted to bring you back because you and I have talked a little bit I brought you out to my mastery plus meeting. I had my members my mastery plus members today meeting just we’re on fire with the things that you share. We’ve covered a lot of stuff over a very long day. And certainly we can’t do all that here.

But I did want to kind of kind of bring you in to disperse the myth or the misunderstanding of what the hell marketing really is. And that’s kind of what what I want to talk about because I know every restaurant owner in the world thinks man if I can get more butts in seats, I will make more money. Now as an operations person I go, Hey, you you’re losing money and lose money faster. Yeah, some point in time.

You could have this really great campaign and bring in more butts and seats and outpace your breakeven point which is horrible, but you’re gonna work your ass off for nothing. So we’re gonna make an assumption when we’re talking here that people listening to us right now they have their shit together. They’ve got they’ve got the restaurant one on one right hot food hot, cold food cold, clean, safe work environment for the guests and employees. Wow, customer service, incredible product.

It just wow. Right? And they take care of all the other little things that they just give great hospitality. With that said.

Now, if your operations all together, we know that volumes cure all ills, because when we’re more efficient, we bring that breakeven point down lower. We make money faster. In fact, we make make it at a 30% profit margin or 35% profit margin because we’re past all of our fixed expenses. So now this is where you have it in my brain.

It’s like okay, we’re gonna make an assumption. They’re rockin and rollin, but let’s make some money. But what is what is marketing? Like?

Is it some magic pill? Or is it hard work?

I think we all struggle at some point in our careers to wrap our minds around what this marketing thing is and why we pay people such big dollars to do it for us. I mean, to go ahead and break probably the biggest myth out there. It’s not like a box with technology on it like a button on the top, and you just press it and then all of a sudden, you’re busier. Marketing, in its simplest form, is a text message.

It’s in email. Marketing is something that can be done in five minutes a day. Ultimately, it’s about relationship building, which I know in saying that, it probably doesn’t clear things up for people. Once we know who our audience is.

We can just speak to them one on one in a way that resonates and that gets them through the door and that gets them back. That gives them the language that they need to tell their friends. It’s a beautiful thing. And to go back to something you just said because I think it’s super valid.

I hope that everybody listening does in fact have their shit together. But it’s not a requirement. I mean, look around your community. How many mediocre restaurants do you know with decent food and mediocre service that are busier than Chet?

Yeah, are so mad. Marketing is independent of operations. And people think if I do a great job, people will come. But I’m here to tell you right now that the folks like me that are out there focused on marketing will eat your lunch every day of the week, no matter how good a restaurant Yeah,

well, let’s key on one thing you just said. You got to know who your your customers, your demographic. How how do I if I really have no idea, you know, let’s go backwards. If I talk to a restaurant, I’m gonna say you know, what’s your demographic there?

You know, they’re thinking of who they see in their restaurant, which is not necessarily the time you know that they’re in there is the main demographic, it’s just who they they might feel familiar with and miss a whole group of people. How do I find out who might my customer is what the demographic is, so I can market to them and know the message that I’ve got to give them?

That’s a great question. So let’s go through the lifecycle of a restaurant and then we can clearly define so the first demographic you go after is you I think, I think that the barriers that we see outside of our industry entrepreneurially generally, is willing to build something for someone else, when we’re trying to scratch someone else’s edge, because, you know, fully understand the issue. So I didn’t tell you that when I opened my bar in Hollywood, and it was in get out, get out the gate that was only serving me and I fortunately I am mediocre and always I am average. And so when I like everyone else lights, what a miracle.

When I opened the fine dining restaurant opened it for rich people for fancy people. And it failed. It failed miserably for the first 18 months until eventually I had enough and I said, if I’m gonna close a restaurant, let me close one that I love instead of one that I hate, and we changed everything about it and it became this extension of self. And that authenticity resonated, because when I said what I felt the people that felt the same way as me.

They began to come in. So before you open, I think it’s great to choose yourself and the avatar. So once you’re open, ultimately and it’s no different than children, right? You have all these intentions for a restaurant and then as soon as it comes to life, it begins to tell you what it is.

Anyone that’s coming to your restaurant once a week. That’s your demographic. So whatever you think it is, you’re wrong. That’s exactly who it is.

And here’s like one of the foundational things in marketing is communication. And you think it’s this megaphone style communication, but it’s not. It’s sitting with the people that you know, come to your restaurant once a month and saying, Hey, what would it take to get you in twice a month? It’s as simple as that.

You know, we sit in these dark rooms huddled with our leadership teams and go what’s it going to take to get these people to do what we want when our best customers are more than happy to tell us what they need?

And that goes back to that restaurant one on one great hospitality I mean, our my managers are you as owners. Touching tables, truly listening actively listening to your table? You know, we’re not talking about the corporate. How’s everything?

How’s everything? How’s everything? How’s everything? Oh, my God, I want to die when that happens.

You know, I used to do a figure eight, and I touch a table and I’d walk around the restaurant, touch table and I touch table and I knew I was coming back to a table three stops ago next to it, but I wasn’t gonna go one in a row in a row and truly trying to stop and listen and actively understand if they’ve been there before their routine regulars, whatever it may be, and kind of again, that’s a part of the experience part. But what you’re telling me is, hey, the demographic information is under your nose if you simply take the time to listen to your guest. And and I do really love I think you’ve made great strides with many of my members with it. Make your restaurant the restaurant you want to be at make it for sure we can submit that you identify with you’re proud of you know all those things.

And I think that that’s fantastic. So let’s say you know my person is is me is is my once a week, once a month people I know who they are. What do I do with them? Again, what’s marketing?

So great questions. And then the next thing we ask is What do people like us do when we’re not here? Right. Do we go to church?

Do we go to community events? Are we at the local farmers market? Where do you find more people like you? Can you do that by figuring out where you are when you’re not in the restaurant?

Right? Do people like you live within one square mile of the restaurant? Because if you do mailers right, like they’re all of these different things that will link us together these community events is community activation, these intramural clubs, these church groups, is it you know, Are you a parent? Right?

So maybe we market to the PTA in the local schools, right, maybe we sponsor a local baseball like they’re all of these opportunities to find more people like us. Now, the next part of that is, what are you going to tell them? And I think this is the big marketing mistake that people make. I think that everyone is trying to compete in food binge and it’s a losing game, because everyone out there has better food than you or worse food than you.

Everybody out there has more expensive food or less expensive and they’re always new entrants into the market. So you’re constantly competing in what is arguably a commodity business. So you dropped it. We had great food, we have great service.

Those are table stakes these days, right? You begin to market ideas. Are you opening this restaurant because I wanted to invest in this community and ignore what I believe and use to get your money that quote started a long time ago, David, that has always resonated with me. People vote with everyone.

So if a restaurant closes, it’s because the community voted for them to go out of business. And it’s a harsh reality, but you need to convince people to vote for you and the best way to do that is by sharing what you believe. Like nobody cares about companies and businesses. Nobody hopes or aspires to support businesses, they support individuals.

And so when you can put yourself out there with your ideas with your beliefs, it resonates with the market.

I think that’s the two very powerful ideas. You know, it’s the one is when we’re when I teach service at the table, you know, you can hate a company, you can hate the restaurant, but it’s harder to hate a person when you’ve connected with a guest. When you have taken care of a needs then after you know you sit and take an order and so when you say you come back to the table you turn away come back go hey, by the way, my name is David. Now we have a personal connection you know, I find a way to get there because again, this corporate restaurant this sob place, you know this call it any brand you want.

They are so cold and sterile. It’s just rote. Where we as independents can truly flip that switch and go where people were part of the community and I think that’s the part that really blows my mind. I talk to people I say if you’re competing in the food business, you’re competing with a gas station, I get a hot dog in a gas station, I get pizza at some of these.

These high end gas stations are putting out pretty decent food anymore. And that’s not who I want to compete with. I want to create an experience. Now you took it one step further.

It’s not just about the experience. It’s about your messaging. It’s about who you are, can can you just go down that path is a little deeper to say okay, I’m open. I need to start to tell people that because I’ve been doing all the Instagram photos on food and I’ve got on Facebook and say come in we’ve got half off drinks and things like this.

All I’ve done is market food and beverage and you’re saying they kick back to the curb. Come back and say tell me why the hell you’re in business. What who you are and how. Basically you touch me your average customer.

My hearing that right?

You are and before we get into newsletters and social media, which is where everybody goes to write, it starts within the four walls of your restaurant. The goal is to explain your why organically through the course of that experience using the tools at your disposal. And at the end of the meal. The goal is to do two things.

Number one, make sure that they clearly understand and number two, that you have supplied them with the language that they will use to describe your business to someone else. And so how does that manifest I’ll tell you how it manifested for me when my hostess would walk people through their table. She would ask if you’ve been here. Here’s what you should know about us.

You know, we started five years ago and the vision was to become a community table. And so the goal here is that we’re able to celebrate big and small occasions with you and so on so forth. And then she would drop them off at the table. And the server would walk up and say I just wanted to welcome you to the restaurant and no it’s your first time.

The big idea here is Southern classics reimagined. We do can we do conventional cultural food in a new way in an elevated fashion. So I am sure that you love Gumbo and add to Fe and we’ve done it in a really interesting way that I think you’ll connect with and then they get the menu right and at the bottom of the menu instead of listing like all of our local vendors that we use and all that which everybody does on their menu. We listed all of the employees that work in the back of house from the Executive Sous Chef and executive chef all the way down in the dishwasher.

That’s and these are the individuals that have been here since 730. This morning, to craft the meal that you’re having this evening. And it creates a human dynamic. It shows them the effort that goes into creating an effortless experience.

And when they go tell other people what do they say, Oh my God, you’ve got to go to this restaurant. It’s It’s amazing content, new southern classics reimagined. And like this plate of food in front of you not only was it amazing? Do you know 22 People had been there since 730 In the morning, working to craft that meal for me.

You’ve gotta go check it out.

That’s, that’s powerful. It also in my as an operations person goes, Man, that means you got to have training. Like that doesn’t happen automatically. We don’t send people to table follow me for three days and good luck.

That is solid training on exactly what your message is. And it starts with again where are we kind of glanced over it I’ve talked about it my podcasts I’ve talked about in my lives. I talked about it my meetings and seminars and you and I’ve talked about it, you talked about it. You got to know your why.

Like if you’re listening to this it’s going to be very difficult to mark it’s gonna be difficult to train skills and and techniques like you just talked about your team. You don’t know your why. Like if you truly have to, on a side note, we could talk about it if we had time but you got to know why you went into business. It is so important because that is your driving force and everything that you do take us on a marketing journey a little further.

Let’s do it. So let’s talk about menus. So I know this is one of your favorite topics. And I look at the you know you’re very focused on the margin and making sure the math works on the main.

For me it’s a different perspective. I agree with absolutely everything you say. But when I say when I look at so many restaurants for is that their menus are a competence, not a roadmap. They’re not sales tools.

This is everything that we offer. Pick what you want, instead of saying this is the best imaginable experience you can have within the four walls. It should be a tool for your service staff, whether whether you’re doing table service or calendar stuff. People should be able to look at your menu and know exactly what they should be on and know I’m talking.

First thing we do is we cut the fat. There are many lessons that you don’t love their menu items that are great. They’re menu items that don’t sell. And we have them on there for no particular reason.

Right. Most of us don’t do benchmarking audits, so we don’t even know how our prices stand up relative to our competitors on an item by item basis. Wow. Is it menus that are small, focused and mighty?

do really really well. And when when you do that it’s marketing because you’re telling a story. This is the best imaginable version of this restaurant, and it eliminates the need to pre shift your staff and say Hey, could you sell more? Could you do this?

Could you do that? And could you really focus on selling this because they mean you can do the work for them and fine dining chef recommends you choose one from each section. And they’re like five sections, right? There desserts that you serve instead of having 10 You have two ones in a box, and that’s the best one they should get and the other ones for people with dietary restrictions.

You know, there are all of these things you can do. I was actually I was working with one of your clients yesterday afternoon. And I said what’s the best thing on your menu and she has a fish and chips to do so a lot of that she’s not gonna say well, then maybe we should do something about that. Maybe if we strip out all the stuff you don’t even want to sell and we just sell that we’ll be in a really good place.

The last thing that I’ll say as it relates to marketing is this. When it comes to restaurant tours, we get together and talk about innovation. We love innovation. The best restaurant herds in the world are innovators.

But that’s from the perspective of a restaurant tour. Customers love consistency. They want to sit in the same chair on the same day and eat the same meal and have everything be exactly the same. So when you look at marketing, are you trying to sell the hips?

Are you trying to innovate? Is it all about specials when you’re forgetting your core products? What is your core business in and as it relates to that and then I promise I’ll take a breath, David, I swear. But the other thing I want to talk about because I think it’s super important is what is your core business?

What is it that you are trying to sell at the end of the day? You can only have one call to action. Right? How many times have you gone to a restaurants website, maybe look at your own restaurants website, and all you want is for people to come in for dinner.

And then the website look and it says sign up for our mailing list. Have a private event with us. You know all of these different things by gift card order online. In a mail launching Bronx we have a new event next week.

When all you want is for people to come in for dinner. It’s what should the homepage of your website say? Come in for dinner tonight. And then in the next section.

It gives them a reason to come in for dinner that night with a call that come in for dinner. It’s right at the end of the day. Every service that we have. The goal is that we’ll make more money not realizing that the business on tours.

So service is like your business with them. We’re based in marketing strategy. And when you launch launch, when you launch bronze, you’re now telling the people you’re cannibalizing your own market and you’re saying the same people that you want to just come in for dinner. Hey, come in for this too.

In this to win, like as restaurant tours were diners. You’re not gonna get me six times a week. So you have to be maniacal, your focus as it relates to what you’re asking people to do and I need to directly relate to the way that you’re making money today.

Saying the two things you just talked about are truly the same. You’re telling your guests the experience you want them to have you’re telling your guests the one action you want them to take. So the menu and your menus are too big and it was quite interesting. You know, I had my mastery plus meeting just a couple of weeks ago.

The time if you and I talking right now. And you and I have a lot of the same members. They come through my program. I send them your way.

And they go well Josh said about menu and here I am beating the crap out of their menu and I got Josh’s right. What they do is they get half the information. I’m going yes, we’re going to trim it down and yes, you need to have the I love the idea of you know putting the perfect menu in but hey, you have a single panel menu which means the middle up sells most What the hell’s that doing at the bottom? That’s to get that atop your frickin logo goes to the bottom like it’s it’s both the marketing approach and the will eye movement marketing side of things or how to make money with your manual approach to the kind of multi melts together.

Well, same thing translates to as you’re talking about with websites, so many restaurant owners, their websites suck. They’re just absolutely horrible. And you know, marketing 101 and I break into my site all too often, but you want them to do one thing like you know, this is where many of you listening to us now have you know fallen or had an ad draw you somewhere and there’s only one thing you do give me your name and your email address you write or whatever it may be, because why? If you have do the one action, we can get the one action to happen.

So if you’re doing a catering campaign that with catering, give me your name and your email address and your phone number. Well, if that’s all you want, versus Hey, you can come in and we do all these wonderful things we do always it’s like, just give me your data. And I’ll mark it to you. I’ll give you what you want.

And so that focus focused menu, focused approach to the table focused idea of your wife focused menu. I mean, all these things drive together and I think I think it’s really really powerful because too many restaurant owners want to be all things to all people. And worse than that. They see another restaurant maybe a chain, do something you think that’s what I’m going to do.

They must know what they’re talking about. And it’s not the case you’ve got to learn. You’ve got to know what you’ve got to do. And that’s where this conversation is really, really powerful.

So, I got a menu. I focused it. I’ve gotten rid of the fat and I’ve laid it out in a way that it will sell. I’ve trained my people.

I’ve got my website driving people in what’s next.

So we did all of that because you know, everybody wants talked about new customers and increasing customer frequency. But all you’re doing is packing people into a broken machine. So like that’s why First things first, we fixed the model and doing everything we need to discuss a couple of things should happen number one should have increased your profit margin. Number two, we should have increased your per customer average.

And number three, if we’re really selling if we’re really doing a good job. We should also be making the ancillary revenue.

All right, by booking events by selling guitars, for sale machine in place. And so the next thing we want to do the scale customer frequency, why not new customers that’s coming down the road. There’s always an associated cost of getting a new customer. It’s going to be time it’s going to be effort, it’s going to be money.

So the low hanging fruit are the customers that already know you that already like you that have already had the experience. And I think that’s where we focus next. I always start with this question, because I think that it’s it’s one of those inflection points in the lives of a restaurant tour and it’s, what would your business look like? If everyone that comes then comes in twice a month?

Holy shit, right? It’s amazing. It’s revolutionary. It is a paradigm shift in the nature of your business.

So how do we do it? Well, it starts by asking, you know, first of all, how often do you think about your favorite restaurant? The one that you don’t know, the one that you look forward to go into? And the answer is never.

You’re busy. You have your own business, you have your own family, you have your own life. So we spent all of this time and effort to let people know we exist. It did get behind customer frequency isn’t we can pelvic come in.

It’s not that we bribe people to come back. It’s just we remind them that they exist. And there was this book it’s like a foundational marketing book called influence. And one of the things that that is in the book is this Harvard study, where this woman this is back in the days of Kinkos and Xerox, and she would try to skip the line to get to the front of a really long line of people trying to make copies and what they found was 50% of the time, the person at the front of the line would allow her to get in.

And they found that 80% of the time she was allowed to get in if she supplied a reason. Now, what they found was the reason itself didn’t matter. Any reason we’re hanging my dogs in the car. Hey, I’m running really late, was just as effective as hey, I need to make a lot of copies do you mind if I skip the line?

And so that being the case, what we know about human psychology is any reason will work. So when we mark it, it’s a singular call to action. Right? Come in for dinner.

This weekend. And so when we’re on social when we put out our newsletter texting our guests, it’s always a singular call to action and a reason to come in. That’s how we scale customer frequency. Neighbor restaurant have to do to compel you to come back.

Just remind you. They don’t need gift cards and discounts and BOGOs and all of that stuff that just kills our profitability. They just need to be reminded that you exist because they’re very busy people. And they need a reason.

And the reason could be this is the special this evening or come by and try our signature ditch or you know, we just launched a new cocktail program, whatever it is, just need a reason. And so that is how we scale customer frequently. Do it in a methodical way. And the way we do that is a monthly newsletter, a monthly text message and it’s somewhat time sensitive because it serves two very different purposes.

And then also, at the conclusion of a meeting, when somebody is sitting in front of you, you need to spend a wonderful time and give them a reason to come back. It’s as simple as saying everything was great. And they say yes, everything was wonderful. It always says, Hey, you should come back next week and we’re doing this thing.

Hey, you should come back on Wednesday. We’re launching a new happy hour. Hey, have you been in for apiary should come in and check it out. Just give them a reason to come back.

And they will.

Yeah, I think that’s powerful. You know, I I try and break it down as simple as possible. When it comes to training your team. I use an acronym called guests.

That’s when I was taught. And so we take guest it’s great. Understood, understand, educate, satisfy thank so we greet him. Hey, welcome.

Everybody is going to make sure that people feel welcome, right. We’re going through the not standings are too long to not to sitting at a table too long without having a server Kumbaya and so on and for full service, but it’s understand why they’re there. So it was a business meeting. Is it an anniversary is it they’re just trying to the tourists and walk around just want to be off their feet.

Because if you understand why they’re there you can give them the experience they truly need. They anticipate their needs while they’re there and and make it a great experience. Well, then we satisfy right we we know we understand. So we satisfy that need and then we think that a part of thanking is making sure that you understand they had a choice to be somewhere else.

But the other is a part of the thing because like you talk about inviting them back. You all you’re doing is inserting that give them a damn reason to come back. You know, I would tell you that sometimes. You’ve got to know the demographic Like for instance, if you’ve got a business, business lunch, and people live in the area that come to lunch, they may not be so interested in about your Thursday night prime rib, but they might be really interested in that you’ve got another lunchtime feature.

Coming next week that is you know, XYZ that is phenomenal. So I think it correct me if I’m wrong. The invite back with the Hey, did you know we still need to understand our guests understand what they would be triggered on that we’re not just wasting our time and throwing something at them or or is it truly like the copier AMI message?

Any message works as long as it’s specific. Like that whole you know Y’all come back now you hear that? Doesn’t that doesn’t work that was a dated reference. I am sure on this.

No one got that but it doesn’t work because it’s abstract. It has to it has to be concrete. Right? You should come back next Sunday for brunch.

You should come back. We’re launching lunch service. We’re launching a special blog this that you have to give them a day and they’re not going to remember but then they’re gonna get your newsletter then they’re gonna get the text message. And everything we’ve done reinforces the same message you will come back on this day.

it this time. Think about the hurdle and how low it is. There are 30 days in a month. And we’re just trying to take you from once to twice.

It is It is that simple. And so once we know what it is we can start at the top of the month and that that’s what we say hey, you know we’re doing this event, it’s in three weeks to Chef collaboration or whatever you’re doing. And then that’s all talks about the conclusion of the meal.

So look, let me drill this down to something on the operational side. of things. I want to make sure to make sure our listeners people understand. It’s not making that great experience.

means you have a clean restaurant. Remember the restaurant one one, your food comes out. Tables marked with steak knives and spoons and all of these things. We anticipate needs.

They’re meant for them instead of can I get you another sort of premium other sort of making sure the guests keep their connection, because what we’re talking about is delivering that wild customer services, making sure we think of nothing than the people we’re sitting with that everything comes to us. We have a fantastic time that we go man. This was unbelievable experience. It wasn’t that we did jazz hands.

It wasn’t that we did some corporate Hi my name is it is truly making sure guests have been engaged with each other that their needs have been anticipated and met for them. Which means you gotta give great service you’ve got to have great food you got to have a clean restaurant, you got to train people you got to have management on your your your floor. All these things it’s about getting your customers to come back is delivering on the damn promise your Why Am I blowing that out? of proportion, proportion or is it really driven down to be a great restaurant?

You’re going to drive people back?

Absolutely, min. Again. I think that messaging is important. And I think that I don’t know doing a great job.

Is enough today. And I’ll tell you why. One we already see great restaurants with great food, great service, great beverage programs. They go out of business every day.

But I’d also say that the restaurants who are today which I used to talk about the restaurants are tomorrow, and they they’re sad here. I think they get it I think they got something that I intuitively understood 10 years ago, which is being the best restaurant during the world is super subjective and necessarily what’s important. Marketing always gets pushed to the backburner. There’s always a reason to not touch the tables.

There’s always a reason to not send out that text message campaign or to wait another month to do the newsletter. Marketing is always like the option of last resort when what we’ve seen collectively, all of us is that when marketing works, it works and immediately. Immediately, you launched a successful campaign. You’ve got a promo that work, you launched an event that sold out in 24 hours.

Like you know what works. You put a special on the menu that ultimately becomes a staple pay up disable BS because people bought it and sold out the first night. What works works, and it is incredibly important that we begin to become focused on the message as well as the medium.

And hence why we’re having this discussion. It’s again, you’ve said that kind of thing. Yeah, well, you know, people used to come find me to go Oh, should I’ve done marketing we weren’t found you know, you’ve got to do both. I’m gonna I’m gonna do marketing first I’m gonna compute.

No, you got to do both like their hand in hand. What I really love about this message and I hope people are truly understanding is here I am giving the operational side of things Hey, give great service, Hey, have a clean restaurant, so on and so forth. Then you’re going Yes, but no market. Make sure you are delivering the message you want.

Stop waiting for them to assume that they’re going to get the message or that they’re going to want to come back, invite him back. Give them a reason to come back. Make sure every table knows you want them back and give them a damn reason. Because every interaction you have with a table is marketing.

Yeah,

absolutely. I can learn and learn because here’s the problem and I’m sitting, you’re sitting there with some of your clients. Some of them don’t make enough money because their margins are their product and they’re paying too much in rent and they’re all of these issues, right? Some of them are making enough money because they’re not making enough money.

Some of them plain and simple, are pushing the top line numbers that they need to to make the restaurant viable. Right look at my fine dining restaurant. My fine dining restaurant took 18 months actually a little bit longer, like 20 months for our lease to make sense. 1 million to have an average lease costs as a percentage of sales, right?

You had to grow into that. So no matter what we did before that right it was like paying on a forest because we had to say that first and foremost. And so for the people that work with you and get these amazing results, is still able to put enough money into their pocket.

It’s a

dynamite message so I broke into shame that still needs fuel. Yeah.

I just literally recorded a YouTube tip last week that hasn’t hit yet. That is literally at some point time for some of you. It’s you have a revenue issue. You don’t have a cost control and operational.

Like you’ve got to build revenue. I’ve had conversations with people like you’d be a great member with me but you don’t have the revenues. Your goal is to get sales up before you even because you can control costs all day long work your ass off and still make nothing because you didn’t pass your your your breakeven point getting it passed covering rent it as covering, you know those fixed costs. And even if your labor costs out of control, your cost of goods sold is out of control.

There is a point in time that you need revenue to drive your business. And I think that that is an excellent point. Take us down the path of the most expensive form of marketing for many, and that is getting a brand new customer and that last leg of the stool, if you will.

Absolutely. So I think what we need to do first is to hurdle this and the first hurdle with the new acquisition is awareness. So everybody thinks social media, right? And a lot of people are on social media.

But it’s also important to understand that a critical element of marketing, especially as it relates to conversion is intent. No one that sees your restaurant on social media is intending to go to a restaurant in that moment. They just aren’t and so when we look at new customer acquisition, where do I see the biggest opportunities? I see it where customer intent is the highest.

So I would ask like, Is your website set up for conversion? When somebody goes through and is given the information they want? In the reasons they shouldn’t go there? And doesn’t do it in like an expedient way?

Come in for dinner tonight. Right? Is it food and beverage or is it people eating and drinking? Because if you are not a fast food location, people aren’t going to eat they’re going to die.

They’re looking for regardless of tear, some stemmed experience. And so all you’re showing is beer in a glass. Right untouched sandwich. It’s not going to resonate in the same way that somebody’s eating and drinking when you’re selling revelry when you’re selling an experience it’s powerful.

So we’ll look at the pages where people are converting the highest that’s going to be your Yelp page. Right? Nobody peruses Yelp like they’re looking to decide. And then the same with your Google listing.

Right. What are those images look like? Is it all like customer focus, like flip phone half eaten and poor light imagery? Or is it like the best imaginable version of your restaurant?

Because the latter is what it should be. And go to your website and then either they make a reservation, or they decide to come in and the directions are super easy. So when we talk about awareness, it’s about being where they are and it goes back to the beginning of the conversation, right? Where are they when they’re not in your restaurant, or the PTA meeting, or the church on Sundays?

Are they at the farmers market on Saturday? Where are they and then up there too, in a really authentic way. The other thing that I’ll say about new customer acquisition beat a guy for my show. His name is TK Pilant.

He owns a restaurant called Veggie Grill, which is a very, very successful fast casual vegetarian food chain. But not the very exciting concept at all, even permitted tear. So how did this guy build a prolific business? He said I had a food in mouth strategy.

Sampling works. Sampling works incredibly well. If you wanted to know what I would do at a farmers market events where my target customers are, I would bring a bunch of food and bring beverages and I would give all that shit away for free. Because if they try it, and they like it, you’ve given them the tools that they need to come in.

They will for me, all customer acquisition begins and ends in person with sampling.

That’s that’s the guerilla marketing stuff that most restaurant tours forget about doing. Like I talked about it if you’re trying to build catering wounds. When did you sell you send yourself or your catering person out to all the doctor’s offices with some freaking cookies that you you have in the flyers or lunch going to the old school things that when everybody listened to radio wasn’t good wasn’t satellite radio, you’d actually go to the DJs and bring them lunch at breakfast. So that the person driving in is thinking about what am I gonna do with lunch is hearing the DJ talk about how it is but you’re going out there for wall marketing and you’re saying you’re breaking it down even to the further basics you your damn food, make sure you get it in their hands. And if it’s great, which it should be, they’re gonna want to come check you out.

For one there’s another big thing that people do. Get the right intention executed is like you know, tell everyone like you should go to the console here to get all the details on the IRS department managers and like, reach out and they’re like, and bring them coupons and gift cards and I’m like, No, introduce yourself. Invite them to your restaurant. Like nobody wants to help you but nobody’s gonna turn down a free meal.

Right? And then they’re not really helping you. They’re just sharing their experience. Hey, we want to go to dinner night.

Where should we go? We should go to prom proper. I was just there the other night. I knew the owner is a really nice guy.

I know he wants to do a lot of business with us. And so like you should definitely go there. Here’s what I was great. is way different than than saying Here’s a coupon from some jackass that dropped off a ton of these.

It was just looking to make money off of us. Just it’s a very, very different dynamic. You know, building culture around community engagement is massive. And so if you invite these people in, I feel the same way about press.

Another great way to build awareness is to get burned media. And the easiest way to do it in your community is to simply make a list of everyone that’s written about you, everyone that’s written about your competitors, all their information is available online easily because they’re looking for things to write about. With a 24 hour news cycle. People are desperate for content to publish.

You just say Hey, David, I read that article that you wrote on the guy down the street. I think he’s doing a great job too. And I think what we’re doing here is pretty interesting. Why don’t you come in with a friend had dinner on me or some other people for no more than two minutes and just let you know what we’re working on.

But I think it’s special and I think you should try it. That kind of one to one works. Well, good. Dara talks about it all the time he goes, we are in an industry where one size fits one.

You must market to the individual, not to the group. And so if you know that your people read either or they read thrill lists or they read some local blogger. You make a one to one connection with them and then they will make a one to one connection with their audience on your behalf. Simply sharing the experience that they had.

It’s really powerful. You know, my message for anybody who’s been listening to me for any length of time know that I say as a restaurant owner. I want your role to be working on budgets marketing lead the team, develop your managers, hold them accountable. work strategically on your business, move it forward.

And notice like go budgets marketing because I’m a ops guy budget first, but marketing is a part of what your role is. It’s not to say $15 an hour and host your restaurant unless you want to be there and you’re not needed. It’s not to jump on a line and save $25 an hour because on a grill cook because you’re short staffed because you don’t have great culture in your business. All these things that go on and you’re you’re doing you’re working down instead of working up.

What you’re delivering is that piece that I talked about even further, you got to work on marketing. Your role as a restaurant owner is you must work on marketing. And so it because we’re kind of running along here and I want to make sure people understand what you do. I have people come through my restaurant transformation intensive group coaching program, 30 weeks, weekly group coaching calls, we change their world on operational things company culture, operating on a budget controlling your food costs, your labor costs, having a life by the time they get through the program.

They’ve got two days off in a row. They are working strategically on the business they got managers Right. Which teasing them up. Perfect time for Josh because why?

They’ve got a market and most restaurant owners don’t know dork about marketing. I learned every single is every single day as an entrepreneur always trying new things and what’s hot, what’s not in marketing, and you’ve got to do that. Talk a little bit about you’ve shared a ton of great things but I’m sure people like I want more of Josh I want to be able to learn those things. And I am and I’m going to plug you in this in this way and you can tell me I’m wrong.

One of the things that I love that you do is you operate like I do. You teach somebody how to fish, you’re not fishing for him. You’re not going let me I only handle your marketing. It’s like let me show you how you take care of every one of the things we talked about in about 1000 other points to make sure you are in control of your marketing.

And then if you decide to outsource anything you know exactly what you’re doing. You’re not throwing bad money to you know against the wall and hoping something sticks you know your message you know your why you know your demographic. You go I know what messages I want and I want somebody else to take some of this off my shoulder but I’m not advocating I’m not giving it up. I’m telling you what the hell I want you to do.

Is is that uh Am I framing you properly?

Absolutely. i So the whole point of this show and any any interactions that I have with a client before they sign up. The goal is to brainwash them. Because marketing is not complicated.

It’s very simple, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s easy. So like when you look at the structure of my program, it’s a six month program. And there are these five minute modules that they do and these five minute modules are just saying this is what you’re going to do this week. This is what it looks like, use the templates to get it done.

And then we meet every Thursday in a momentum call to go over any obstacles that they have as it relates to implementing that. You know, what I found is, is it the three elements of success are going to be curriculum, community and coaching so what does that look like? What it looks like is that when people join the program, they’re surrounded by the best restaurant tours in the country. And you know, that’s the case because we share a lot of the same clients and then also coaching, it’s about accountability.

And at the end of the day, when you say that you’re going to do something suddenly needs to be there to make sure that you do it. And it’s done enough. Now I wouldn’t say a warm way, but it is done in a way that it inspires accountability that you get done what you need to get done. Because, you know, my program is unique in the way that offering unconditional money back guarantee, a guarantee everyone that all 10x Your investment or you get your money back.

So I’m working for you, but you still do all the stuff. So I need to make sure that you’re working for you, too. And so, as a result, we’re trying to make as much money as quickly as possible because as you know, we knew just a couple of these levers in the right direction as it relates to scaling your product customer average selling more of it selling gift cards, increasing awareness within your community, and increasing customer frequency. Like these things scale revenue overnight, and if they built a great system with you that scales profitability, they’re golden.

So let’s kind of go real quick. Who is the ideal person that should contact you to learn more about marketing to 10x their their revenue? What does that person look like?

So we work with restaurant owners and operators that do one to $3 million a year in business per unit and have no more than five units. That’s exactly who they are. These are people that are looking to scale and they’re looking to scale in a major way.

So how do they contact you if they want to learn more about your program and because they’re ready to make a change?

Well, because of the guarantee, it’s not right for everybody, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t help everybody to a certain degree. So if they go to plan with josh.com they can sign up for a session. It’s complimentary session. It’s one hour long. We look at your business I supply any any critical feedback, any tools that they could possibly need, so that if I can help them and enroll them in the course I’m happy to do it but if not nine times out of 10 I can offer actionable advice and point them in the right direction.

And if I don’t fit your demographic, but I want to learn more, what other ways can I find content that you put out there and learn?

So I host the full comp podcast full comp as in for free. We put out two episodes a week, and we feature everyone so it is it the idea was to bring in the best ideas from all industries. So Wolfgang Puck, Rick Bayless, you know, we’ll go there have all been on the show. We’ve also had on Grant Cardone and Seth Godin and Robert Greene, the author of the 48 Laws of Power, so that we can explore all of the big ideas out there so that hopefully you don’t just feel better at the end of the episode. You are better.

I love it. That’s why I That’s why you and I keep getting back together doing things together because I put I’m willing to put my name on you Josh because you are your core values lineup. I’ve seen what you deliver for my members. It is truly life changing for many, because most people like ops if you don’t know your what you don’t know it’s tough to do.

Once you learn it, it’s easy. The same thing is true. Most people go I’m not a marketer, I don’t know where to start, so on and so forth. You give them all the tools they need.

It is not a magic pill like me, you create work for people, but it’s life changing. And I hope that anybody who’s looking to say hey, I need to market that before you waste Money, just throwing it against the wall but every salesperson that comes in goes I can put you on my map and I can put you on coupons and I can put you on all this stuff that you know your why you know what you’re doing. You know your demographic, you know the message you’re trying to promote you know that all your other things are working from menu to website and so on. And that’s where I tell you to reach out to Josh if you’re falling into that one to $3 million.

I think you said one to five unit range. Reach out to Josh, learn it’s it’s a program that will help you change your life. And for those of you who are don’t fit that demographic doesn’t mean you can’t get a piece of Josh for free by going to full comp fu LLC Omp full comp is his podcast. And I mean he’s putting out a ton of fantastic content.

You can learn just like you’re listening to me so you know add it to your Spotify your your iTunes, your whatever where you’re listening to your favorite podcast. Just before we wrap up, is there anything you wish you could have told people a piece of advice, something you want to share with people before we go?

Yeah, the thought that I would leave everyone with is this is there’s an inflection point in our careers a paradigm shift, where we begin to see the differences between an expense and an investment. And what we must do is begin to see investments in ourselves as valuable as some of the expenses we absorbed by, you know, immediately fixing the walk in cooler. The problems that we see in ourselves. The improvements that need to be made in ourselves are as important if not more important than the ones that we see within our business because we are the engines that drive our business.

I like it powerful. We’re going to do this again. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us again today. Share your thoughts, your knowledge, I hope.

I hope you get a lot of people reach out to you because again, Josh what you do our industry needs and I know you’re a spectacular individual and what you provide has changed people’s lives. So again, I hope people reach out. Thank you so much for joining me again today.

Hey, 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.

What 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 to like something I need for please leave a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you happen to listen to podcast by leaving us where each other restaurant pros seek me out this information are able to find that I read the reviews and hearing how this information has benefited you does wonders for and three. If you find any discussions helpful share them, the more restaurant pros who have access to them, the better we become as an industry, the 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.