Meet a Shining Example of a Great Restaurant Systems Implementer

Hey there restaurant pros. It’s Dave Scott Peters and welcome to episode 89 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, the 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, Brandon Anderson, with 12 plus years of restaurant experience working his way up from line employee shift lead assistant manager to General Manager Brandon has experienced a lot his restaurant life. He’s worked for several corporate restaurants until ultimately landing at the original blacks barbecue in New Braunfels, Texas, where he found his passion for his this high volume 93 year old family owned and operated barbecue business.

As a part of my program, you must have an implementer someone who will learn with you but implement and actually do the work. Brandon was that exact person and I can only tell you his future is bright.

Listen in our conversation is Brandon shares his implementation journey, the challenges faced and lessons learned, but also what a great implementer looks like.

I want to welcome Brandon Anderson to the show today. Brandon, I want to thank you so much for doing this with me today.

No, absolutely. Thank you for having me. On.

It’s a pleasure. I’m excited to have you. We just spent some time together in Vegas at my two day seminar and we’ve spent damn near six months together on group coaching calls on a weekly basis. So I’m really excited to bring you on because you’re bringing the implementer perspective to the program and the changes that you make in your restaurant.

Do me a favor, tell people a little bit about your background yourself and the restaurant you’re working at.

So I started out in the restaurant industry in at Starbucks, everybody laughs at me, but that was my first introduction to the restaurant industry.

moved from there went to a I would call it and it was a fast food chain, but it was a barbecue restaurant in San Antonio that had at some stores worked my way up from a staff member to Assistant General Manager left the restaurant industry for about a year tried something else didn’t like it. ended up coming back and that’s where I landed at blacks barbecue.

Been here for about three years going on four years in January and loving it ever since I’ve started working for them. And

blacks barbecue is not small. You’ve got Is it four locations now? I’ll work on the fifth.

Yeah, we’ve got four locations. We’re in talks on a fifth but not sure yet. And you know, they’ve been around for 90 plus years. So they’ve got the name recognition behind them. I mean, that’s probably one of the coolest parts. About people.

That’s awesome. And really high volume like you guys kick ass. I mean, a lot of people think high volume you guys are crushing it on a daily basis which brings all of its own other challenges. How do you keep up with product and purchasing and all the people and the cleanliness and all these things? It’s it’s a regular restaurant on steroids. It would be the best way for me to describe it to someone.

Do me a favor.

Talk to me a little bit about what life was like for you your role and what you did on a daily basis.

Before Barrett brought you into the program Barrett is Barrett black is the is one of the owners of the business and brought you into this program when he made the decision to do so. So you didn’t have a choice. Your choice was either to become the implementer or not talk about your life. What did it look like as you as a restaurant manager before the program

so being a restaurant manager for blacks whenever, before we started this program, I hate to say it this way, but it was really easy. Like I would come in and it would feel kind of just like I was an overpaid shift lead because we were just basically just babysitting the employees. I mean, we’ve got a 90 years worth of experience in the restaurant industry. And we had like our way that customers were order our staff was trained properly. The hot food hot, cold food cold store was clean. You know, we’d get great scores on our health inspections.

But other than that we weren’t really doing anything as managers

my background I was used to doing. You know, p&l is profit and losses per month per week per day. We would take inventories at 1030 to five and seven. So when I transitioned to be a restaurant manager here, it was almost to the point where I was like bored. And I would try to come up with things where I was like, man, how are we doing this month? What are we looking at? I don’t know, they don’t it’s not that they wouldn’t tell me if we were doing good or if we were doing bad. It’s just they didn’t want to bother us with that information because they felt they had to do it all themselves which I wasn’t used to.

So you know, before the program, that’s what I would say is I was kind of just a glorified shift lead and where I watch everybody put in my manager code for discounts and that’s about it.

Did you find that other managers felt the same way or because you came from a background of doing more like the the long term managers kind of like hey, don’t rock the boat. Leave it alone. Don’t try and add more work. This is just fine. Or were they in the same spot man. I wish we knew a little bit more. I wish we did more. What was that culture like?

Um, a few of them were like that. I will say we went through a few managers of the store that I’m currently the general manager of. But the sentiment for those who had been in the restaurant industry before was we’re kind of bored. We know that we’re kind of just glorified shift leads, the ones that maybe came through that didn’t have any restaurant experience and maybe came from retail or, you know, came from a different industry altogether. They were like, Man, this is kind of cool. I’ve never worked for somewhere that was so relaxed and so chill. But they didn’t typically last very long or whatever the case was.

But for those of us that had grown up in the restaurant industry, it was kind of the same sentiment where it was like, man, you know, we’re not really doing this. We’re not really doing that. And I wonder how much better we could be doing if we were doing this. We had those conversations. That’s

an interesting perspective. Because a lot of times we you you heard, you know owners on the group coaching calls where they talk about I’m worried about pushing my management team or asking to do more. We’re in some respects. You just came from today’s seminar and so you know that I told all the manager types in the in the room, that you have an incredible opportunity to learn how to run a business versus babysit the idiots. Like by while I suck, I create work by the time you’re done, you’re more valuable personally, you’re more valuable to the restaurant you’re working for. You’re more valuable to your career path, whether it’s with the current place or a different place or your own place, or a completely different industry.

And it’s it’s really a mindset thing to say how do I frame this work that’s going to come my way, and now it’s nice that you wanted to and it’s nice that Barrett recognized that in you but you became a very specific person in my program we call the implementer. Somebody I say who gets shit done and it really is to the to the basics.

But I’m going to describe a little bit about who an implementer is and how you exemplify that because I’m going to brag a little bit about you, because that’s the reason why I brought you on here. And that this is an implementer loves the company and believes in the direction they’re going they fit core values and implementer wants to learn and implement and wants to do more and implementer can start and finish a damn project. Like if you watch most of the the the entrepreneurs, the restaurant owners on the group coaching calls, it’s shiny objects. Next thing I want to work on marketing or the next menu idea and so on. But you do the same thing every single day, let alone start and finish your project can be a challenge. Well implementers go straight down the straight line get it done.

More importantly, they’re able to train others and with help hold people accountable.

So here we are. Bear it brings you into this, this program. You’ve been chosen as the implementer and I think we had a second implementer didn’t didn’t quite take it on quite as strongly as you I think it’d be a reasonable thing to say. But you really took the ball and ran with it. You believed in the concept you believe that? You know you want to be a part of it. You want to learn you kicked ass started and finished projects. It didn’t mean that you didn’t get behind at certain times. But I remember Barrett went on vacation and you stayed on the program stayed moving forward. Like it was like okay honors gone, but I got shit to do, which was impressive because nobody made you stay up with the program because you’re your boss technically was gone.

And the results you’ve gotten in the company are amazing.

So

talk a little bit about what it means to be the role of implementer anything that I left out because I need restaurant owners who really want to make change in their business understand that they’re not the ones who are going to do it. They need to lead it, but you need somebody who gets shit done. Talk a little bit about that.

Well, first of all, the way that I run at least the store in New Braunfels because that’s the one that I have the most control over is I run that store as if it were my own. I’ve told Barrett that I’ve told Kent that which he’s the main owner, he’s the father. And then Eric, who’s usually my direct supervisor. He’s one of the owner operators and the Director of Operations. You know, I’ve told them that before, hopefully they see that based off of the actions that I take in the store on a daily basis, but I think that’s probably one of the biggest things is I try to take ownership and the responsibilities that I have in the day to day operations of that store.

So if something goes wrong, it’s a reflection on me. If something goes right, it’s a reflection on me if my staff isn’t trained properly is a reflection on me.

So I think that’s probably the biggest thing that was my driver is I want to see how our store is doing. I want to make sure that, you know, we’re the best that we could possibly possibly be. That’s the way that I kind of approached it. So I didn’t need somebody standing over my shoulder telling me like, hey, we need to make sure that we’re doing this it’s no I want to know I want to know that this is where we need to be. I want to know that I can do these numbers. I want to know that. You know I’m as profitable as we can be because if I am then there’s there’s more that I can strive for to do you know helping the other stores or, or getting things in line to where our store is just functioning word. Even I don’t have to look at it sometimes.

You know, a well run store should kind of run on its own at a certain point where you don’t have to stand over everybody’s shoulders and make sure that they’re portioning things properly or that they’re helping the guests as soon as they walk in, you know, a well function store should at a certain point, you know, function with minimal oversight. I mean, you still need to double check and make sure things are doing what they need to do. But that was my main goal is I want to make sure that all these things are done.

And now that we’ve been through your program like I got to go to Vegas for a week and hang out with you guys do the two days seminar and I come back and I’ve literally just have to copy and paste what I need into our our checkbook guardian. You know, everything was in the the DSR was filled out the restaurant invoice tribal was filled out. I don’t have to worry about it because I’ve got those habits in place now for the the other members of my management team.

So I think we can agree on this, that you’re not a typical restaurant manager. Like you’re you would be what I call cream of the crop I often said, you know, when I came up the career I thought it was God’s gift to restaurant management. I truly did. I’m like nobody can outwork me so on and so forth. But it took me a long time to learn to delegate. It took me a long time to learn that. It doesn’t matter how good I am if I’m everybody’s bitch if I’m the one bussing tables, and I’m the one doing all the different things just to make sure that the restaurant ran properly.

You learned that lesson a lot earlier than I did.

And

talk a little bit about sharing this the systems and the information that you learned in the program with your management team. And now with other stores because you’ve been given the opportunity to go play with the other stores and say what I’ve done in this store we’re doing in yours and yours and yours. Talk a little bit about that.

Right? So delegating is probably one of the biggest things that you need to learn as a restaurant owner and a restaurant manager. It hands down that’s going to probably free up 90% of your time. And I guarantee you that any of the member mentors that I’ve talked to, would probably say the exact same thing. If you can delegate other tasks as specific people that you think are going to do a good job, it’s going to take 100 Different things off your plate.

I know I had a manager that came to me recently, within the last three months, he was like man, I just feel like like I had said in the beginning of the interview that I kind of feel like I’m not doing anything. Is there anything I can help you with? Because you’re doing this program? You’re you’re implementing all these changes? Is there anything I can do? And I said your schedule change that you’re you’re going to take over the employee schedule and your training starts tomorrow. So let’s get it done. Let’s go.

And that freed me up you know, that gives me time to focus on implementing these these changes that we’re making to each and every store.

I’ve gotten to go to a couple different festivals that I haven’t gotten to go to before granted I was working the pit but you know I was having a blast doing it and I get to do that now because my team back at the store that supports me they are on board with the entire program.

It’s a we need to make sure this is inputted right hey, we need to make sure that everything’s filled out on the DSR. What’s going on with you know, why are we over short why are we why are we this? Why are we that and there’s a line of communication that you know, we’ve always kind of had that line of communication but now we’re going in a direction with it. It’s not just like oh, okay, well, I don’t know why there was $5 missing from that drawer. Let’s figure it out. Now it’s we know it was here. It was there. You know we had a paid out that got put in and we can we can track all that stuff.

And being able to take things off of my plate has allowed me to go help our supermarket store or law card store. I mean, I’m in Lockhart right now. So I don’t have to worry about my store. Because everybody knows what they’re supposed to be doing.

And that’s powerful. And I think here’s kind of thing. I believe that this worked for you so well. A part of it goes all the way back to Ken. So Ken stad Ken is a third generation third party to think the third generation in this restaurant with the fourth generation being Barrett but from handed down from one generation to the other starting now with Kent. The care of caring about your employees becoming an employer of choice the care about the guest the care about the the product quality far outweighed any the numbers far outweighed any of the systems or anything like that. And really came from a position of we’re going to run a gosh darn good business. We’re going to take care of our people. And we’re all going to we’re all going to do well with it.

And what’s interesting is now with Barrett coming in following the same set of core values, which translates to the two of them over you and what you’re, you know, your business that you’re running, you didn’t get a lot of pushback where a lot of restaurants get pushback. Oh, I can’t believe we got to do this work. That didn’t mean you didn’t have some people with a little you know, healthy skepticism of why we need to do this why so on and so forth. But you really got everybody on board. They embraced it and made the change.

Share with us a little bit what I might be missing. But I mean, that really is it’s about the company culture starting with Ken then bear with you, continuing that your culture is really strong. Yes.

Yeah, no are our culture is probably when I walked into when I walked into the company it was it was definitely a breath of fresh air. Working for a family owned restaurant, especially one that’s been around for a very long time versus working for a chain restaurant like I’ve come from in the past. That corporate style structure was very different. Yes, there was a little bit of change because I was so used to having to check in with an area manager all the time to you know, we would check in with Eric or Barrett or Kent every couple of days, we’d have a weekly management conference call. But really other than that you were kind of left to your own devices on just making sure that you are taking care of the staff the customers in the store. I know when can’t talk to me his first five rules were just don’t burn the store down. If that was his first time.

All right. Yes, there was a little bit of change because I was so used to having to check in with an area manager all the time to you know, we would check in with Eric or Barrett or tent every couple days, we’d have a weekly management conference call. But really other than that you were kind of left to your own devices on just making sure that you are taking care of the staff, the customers in the store. I know when Ken talk to me his first five rules were just don’t burn the store down. 

that was his first five rules.

And other than that, it was like, just make sure you’re taking care of the guests. Make sure you’re taking care of the employees, and they’re still like that, you know, I can’t tell you how many times he’s walking through the dining room and he sees a customer that celebrating a special occasion. It gives them a shirt, it gives them a hat.

That’s great. We had all that stuff taken care of, you know, the culture was was fantastic.

And now that we’re starting to implement these, these policies, and these procedures for the management stuff, you know, the management culture changing a little bit because there’s a little bit more ownership in in how your store is doing. You know, you talked about pushed back a little bit. And there was some pushback with some of the some of the stuff we’ve implemented. I know Joel was probably one of the biggest ones that I got pushback from the staff. But at the same time, you know, the way we went about implementing job was kind of the way you talk about in your program where it’s like, you know, give give the checklist to one of your top employees that opens make them make the checklist for the closing but the closing staff, which whatever position it is, yeah, and then do the same thing for your best closer give them a list that, you know, the mid shift needs to take care of before they leave for the day. So when they would come to me and they would complain and you’re like, Well, why don’t we have to do this on this checklist? And it’s like, I don’t know you created it. You tell me why did you put it on there? But I think that’s the biggest thing is, you know, making sure that everybody has some sort of ownership in the program, whether it’s the staff or whether it’s the management team. That’s your biggest kicker. I will say I have had to had a couple of conversations that weren’t so fun, but so far everybody’s hung on you know, we had a we had a cashier that was just like, I’m not going to do it. And I was like, well, you can either not do it, or I don’t need you. It’s that simple. Like we will function without you just fine. I don’t know why you’re having such an attitude you haven’t even tried to yet. Just try it. And now she does all of her checklists. I mean, she decided that her job was more important than standing up for whatever she thought these checklists were going to be.

You know, we did have one manager push back on these these software’s that we’re implementing with you, you know, these checklists and these, the DSR and the checkbook guardian. And he was like, Well, you know, why are we doing this? Don’t we have an accounting team don’t have this don’t have that. And it’s like, well, by the time you get your p&l is for the month, it’s already too late. So instead of being reactive, you need to be proactive and that’s what this program is going to help us do.

I just made my heart sing, but your significant my language brother, through my favorite, talk a little bit about what it’s like to go through the program from the group coaching calls to getting homework in and meeting with a member mentor. Wow, how did that help? What were the things you’d liked about it?

So the program is pretty easy. One of the things I forgot to tell you whenever we were going through background is I actually have a business degree from the Texas State University. So I do have a four year bachelor’s degree and it was basically like I was in school again.

But it was like I was taking a class specifically for restaurant majors. That’s how I looked at you know, you would click on your click on your videos go through the presentation, which was basically a lecture.

Of course it had, you know, Hey, these are how tos on how to do these spreadsheets. So it was nice to be able to refer back to those ones we were starting to implement and be like, Okay, well, this isn’t quite adding up, right. What am I doing wrong? Let’s go back. Let’s watch the video. Let’s see. Let’s troubleshoot. And that really helped me.

One of the things. I’m kind of a reader. I’m also more of a hands on learner. Yep. So me being able to go through actually play with the spreadsheets and then go back and reference what questions I did have from the videos was extremely helpful.

Getting to meet the member mentors was actually really cool.

Ours was John Dempster. Shout out to John. You know, him being able to help get us through the program was beneficial in a sense where I can help keep Barrett on track.

Because he does get into the Hey, shiny look over here. Let’s go do that, which is great. That’s how you come up with some of the coolest things that you do in your restaurant, but it’s not very good for finishing projects, right.

So I would be able to tell John and log in a few minutes early tell John what we were working on for the week, tell him where I’m at for the week. And then when Barrett would hop on, he’s like, Hey, where are you doing? You need to catch up. Where are we at? You know, what are we doing? And I know you know, John very well, and you know, he’s, he’s able to keep people on track. Yeah, I think that was probably one of the most helpful parts of having the member mentor.

What do you think rather than Jim coaching Yeah.

Yeah, as far as the coaching calls go. That is actually pretty neat. To see and I I can see that being really important from an owner standpoint, because, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know. But at the same time, there’s other people that are going through exactly what you thought you’ve just went. Yeah, you know, granted aside from some of the employee issues, because everybody’s labor laws are different in each state. When it comes to actually functioning in the restaurant, that’s really helpful because everybody’s kind of going through the same thing.

You know, we just had a call with toast. Actually, that’s why I’m hearing Lockhart right now is we’re actually looking at some of the toasts hardware. And we’re going through that right now.

And every just about everybody on the member, mentor calls or the coaching calls, I’m sorry, have toast and that was probably one of the things that we pulled from is everybody talked about how awesome it was. And we’re using a system where it’s kind of not being utilized at its fullest potential because the user interface isn’t really that great. Yeah, you know, so we were able to listen, hear what everybody else was saying about their systems. Hear the pros here, the cons and we were able to make a decision on you know, what we wanted to do moving forward. So that was actually really cool.

That’s awesome. And it is amazing. I think toast is the fastest growing restaurant technology company I’ve ever seen in my life. Like they are ruling the world is probably eight out of 10 members. Use toast or switch to test it is just amazing. Talk to me a little bit about what some of the first changes that you put in place and what the results you saw, like when did it start to click and and you go, Oh, man, this shit works.

So the first one that we implemented was Joel, and I hit my staff and my other management team was an absolute sledgehammer. Because I was like, Hey, I just got my hands on this system. Starting tomorrow we’re doing it like there was no dipping your toe into it. We jumped right in. Which that’s probably why I got a little bit of pushback from my staff is because they were like, Whoa, what the hell is this? Like? We’ve never done this before. What’s going on?

But we went into it running with Joel.

The one thing that I noticed right off the bat was the store was cleaner. Things were getting done. I didn’t have to remind people to do specific things in the way that I did Joel was I did just the opposite. So I know a lot of people especially on the coaching call, they do like the check marks first. And then if you’re not doing the check marks, then they start adding the photos and if you’re not doing the photos, then they start adding QR codes. I did the opposite. I was like prove to me that you can do these take your photos, scan your QR codes and then I’ll start reducing it to just checkmarks because I know that you’re gonna do it. But I’m gonna go gung ho on it first and you’re gonna prove to me that you can actually do it.

And it worked like we got a we got a health inspection ended up scoring of 100 out of 100 on it, which was awesome. Yeah. But the store is clean. Eric, who is our direct supervisor over in New Braunfels. He comes in, and he hardly has to tell us like, hey, you know, why aren’t they scrubbing the front porches? Why aren’t they doing this? Why aren’t they doing that? And it’s like, well, it’s already done. It’s on their checklists. They should be doing it. Automatically. And, you know, that’s one of the things that I’m trying to get implemented and some of the other stores so that way they can start seeing like, oh, okay, this works. Oh, okay. This is good.

So what’s the benefit? Let’s say it’s all clean and whatever. But what does it mean to you and your managers that this is all getting done?

Well, it’s less than I don’t have to babysit. It’s it’s getting done. Like I don’t have to go around and hold somebody’s hand. I can sit there and talk to a vendor on the phone. I can go there and, you know, make sure that everything came in came in on my Cisco order. I don’t have to sit there and listen to one of the owners bitching, complain because something didn’t get done. And I know that it’s getting done. And guess what, if it didn’t get done, I know who I can hold accountable for it. And that’s probably our biggest thing is like, Hey, if you’re not doing this, we know who’s not doing it. We can see we’re not stupid. Like I know who’s doing the checklists. I know who’s not doing the checklists. So if you’re not doing it, guess what, you’re going to be having a conversation with me at some point.

What’s it like now with the extra work like you said in the beginning, you kind of came in and well felt like you needed you wanted to do more. You try to invent some things that you weren’t quite as engaged to paraphrase, engage with the business you were engaged with the employees were engaged with the day to day operations, but the business side of things you weren’t quite there. Now, putting these systems in place, have created work for you and your team like work that was never done before. I’ve made it so that you guys know your numbers. What is that been like? Like, does it feel overwhelming now or does it become second nature? It was just when it was new. It was a little challenging, a little uncomfortable, and now it’s just like breathing or, or is it still Holy shit, I’ve got all this work.

So I will say at first once we were setting all these systems up is a lot of legwork in the beginning. Yeah, like there’s a lot of stuff, especially when, you know, you mentioned our other implementer Jacob, you know, bless his heart. He had to deal with staff shortages at the very beginning, right. He was running around crazy because he was the one that had to run that store day in and day out because he didn’t have staff. I was lucky that I had a management team already behind me the Oh allow me to go to the bathroom, but it was a lot of legwork in the beginning. You have to make sure that you know how to make sure you’re putting in the proper information.

One of the things that really set us back was our point of sale system if things just weren’t categorized properly, instead of having you know food in a bed of bottled beer merchandise, it was brisket, beef, ribs, sausage, chicken, like each thing was its own individual classification and category so you weren’t going to get the proper numbers you were going to have to do a lot of math with it.

So I had to go through, change all of that stuff, classify it properly, get everything set up to where the accounting codes match. So it was a lot of legwork and but now that I know what I’m looking for. Once I go to these next stores, it’s like okay, I’ve done this before, this is this, this is that this is this. I can pull those reports, see what’s classified improperly, fix them, and then plug them into the DSR and they work.

So once you get past that initial stage of Jeez, this is a lot of legwork to get this up and running. It becomes second nature. It becomes a habit. It’s like okay, this was done. This was done. This was the cool now I just need to copy and paste into my checkbook guardian and we’re good to go. I think that was probably that was probably the hardest part was getting started. But then once you get past that it gets way easier.

That’s awesome. And as your as your management team think about it any more either. Or is it just kind of the way you do things?

No, it’s just the way we do things. Now. It’s, you know, we we bring our checklists or we bring our invoices in, put them into the system. We stamp them, put them in our box that goes to the accounting department, plug all the numbers into the DSR and it’s done. Right. It’s either done that night when you leave or it’s done that morning when you come in. It’s it’s just second nature. Like I said, I went to Vegas for a week and I didn’t have to worry about it. It was all done when I got back well and

what’s really awesome about that is Barrett was with you and so you know you sit there I know cans around and and what have you and but nobody has to babysit because you’ve got the systems you’re imposing your will without without being there. You could go on your phone, see where the job checklists on you could go online and see that the SR tracker was done. If you needed to double check like it’s, it’s having that, that awareness to know that people know what they’re doing, and I don’t have to be there to hold their hand. I can be there to answer a question, but they know what they’re doing and I can count on them.

And I think for the most part again, it takes you from being a babysitter of the idiots and I don’t mean our employees are idiots but it’s often what people say is like I can’t believe I can’t believe because they didn’t spend the time training and they don’t have the systems in place. They don’t have a good, you know, culture, in their business and so on. So they create idiots. They’re not they didn’t come to you that way. But that’s where we feel like I’m just babysitting. I’m just telling people what to do every single day.

Well, you go from 80 times a day telling them to when you have the systems in place to 10 But you’re always gonna have to tell them that’s our job.

And it just, it should become more rewarding because now you can sit at a meeting and look at where your prime cost is. And you can say I know why my labor cost was high. And this is what I’m going to do to change it next three weeks. I know I food costs was was high. This is what we’re doing to combat it. Like you’re learning how to run a business. And I think it becomes so much more fulfilling than just showing up every day and being a glorified line employee, if you will.

Oh, no. 100% I agree with that completely.

What were some of the unexpected changes for you personally, you come through the program like I didn’t expect that to be a you know, a change or a benefit that was there anything like that for you?

An unexpected change or benefit. One thing that I guess change for me personally is I’ve actually gotten to tag along on a lot of different projects now. That I don’t know if I would have gotten the opportunity to be a part of head Barrett and Kent and Eric not seen the way that I work during, you know, these kinds of situations.

You know, I’ve gotten to be privy to some information that most management members don’t really get to know about. I’ve gotten to see some projects that we’ve got coming down the pipeline that are actually really cool. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about them or not. Yeah. Yeah, don’t need to.

But that was probably one of the coolest things for me is you know, I’ve always wanted to be that guy. That guy that the ownership is able to go to ask an opinion and you know, they actually value what it is that I’m telling them.

And now I’ve gotten to see that hey, that’s that’s where I’m at right now. You know,

I’ve gotten to go to these things I’ve gotten to go to Vegas to meet you and go to that seminar. I’ve gotten to go see some projects we got to work in. And that’s what I’ve always wanted. That’s where I’m at right now, and hopefully there’s a lot more to come. So we’ll see.

And you’re have been given more responsibility like you’re literally taking what you learned here and you’re going to other stores and helping implement there which is a positive and negative the positive is man you’re you’re you’re valuable the company has done a great job, high expectations and you do it there.

The negative is for that you know that store to go Why does somebody from another store come into my store? And you know, in meeting you all at a Vegas or a group of them from the other store. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. But it can be it can breathe, it can bruise egos, like when I’ve been running the store for a long time. Why is this other guy coming in and telling me what to do when it’s really to make your life easier. And again, that goes back to culture

100% But you know, if you’re going to be in that situation as an implementer you just have to let them know like, Hey, I’m just here in a training room. Like I’m just here to help you which I’ve had to do that.

I’ve had to have that conversation, which I’m just here to help. I’m not here to get anybody in trouble. Yeah, like we’re just here to make things easier. We’re here to make sure that you know where the money’s going. Not like to deposit money. But like just the money that the business brings in. I mean, you’re constantly bringing money in and sending money out with your invoices, so and it’s important to know where that stuff’s going.

Yep. You know, and, and I think that was probably that was probably the biggest thing is letting people know that I’m just here to help. Like, I’m not trying to I’m not trying to get anybody in trouble. I’m just here to help.

And that’s what makes you a good leader. It’s you don’t look to bring people down and say look, I know how to do this. You’re gonna listen it’s you’ve everything that I’ve observed is you bring everybody up around you. You

Your goal is not to be the guy it’s to be have a team around you that kicks ass. And I think that translates and everything that you do.

do me favor. What is life like for you now? Your your end of the program. You’ve spent a good six months implementing you still have years of work to do as you learned at the seminar. What’s life like for you now?

Well, at work, it’s real easy. I mean, I’m back to that easy stage. I mean, we’ve got a lot more projects that I’m working on. So it’s difficult in some aspects with time management because I’ve got things that I’m cooking over here and things that I’m cooking over there, like I’ve got to start helping get these other stores up and running.

But when it comes to my store, I don’t have to worry about everything’s there I can see where my food costs are at. I can see where my beverage costs are at. I know that I’m working within the parameters that I’ve been given, and I’m doing everything that I can as long as hot foods hot, cold foods cold the store looks great customers are being taken care of. I know that the management staff is doing what they’re supposed to and it’s easy.

Life is good again, at home. Now I don’t have to worry about as many text messages. I don’t have to worry about the emails. I don’t have to worry about that. That’s all stuff that I can get to tomorrow, because chances are it’s a small question that can be looked up on one of these systems or, you know, it’s a one off situation where it’s like, hey, somebody called him for a donation and we just haven’t talked to this person before. You know, that’s that’s the only thing that I’m looking at now. So it’s a lot of work up front. Eventually it gets easier and then it translated into your home life where it just gets easier. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.

That’s awesome because often you know I talked about restaurant prosperity which is freedom for your restaurant, the financial freedom you deserve. It is geared 99% towards an owner in that message, but I always talk about it translates to you as a manager.

Because you get to have a life to you. When you’ve got other people who can do when you’ve delegated tasks when they’ve learned the system. They don’t have to text you where’s the plunger, you’ve enabled them to empower them if you will, to think that you don’t answer every question and I think that’s that’s really a powerful benefit.

For anybody listening. Doesn’t matter if you’re an owner or you’re a manager, you got to have a life and by putting the systems in place doing the hard work, you get a life do me a favor. What would you tell somebody thinking about joining my program?

That’s that’s a hard one. Because it’s there’s a lot of benefits to joining your program. If you have very little or limited experience in the restaurant industry.

You know, one of the things that we were fortunate as a company was that we’ve been around for 20 plus years. So we already had the foundations of hot food hot, cold food cold, good food. Customers knew we were we’ve got the volume now is let’s tighten it up.

But I can understand where people who just now come into your program or just now learn about who you are hesitant. And they may think that hey, we’ve survived this long do what we’re doing. We we could probably survive another, you know, six months to a year. Or you know, hey, this guy probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s probably a fly by night dude.

But you’re not yet all these systems that you have are systems that a lot of these very successful chain restaurants use.

And what I would tell a mom and pop restaurant that is looking to join your program is you know, do you want to be successful? Do you want to do the same things that those larger restaurants do that make them successful?

Because I know you know as well as I do that those chain restaurants can go through people like nobody’s business, but the systems stay the same, right? You know, if you’re a mom and pop restaurant, that manager that you have maybe your downfall if they leave if they stay who knows.

But if you put those systems in place where you can get rid of that person, or if they leave or if they find something better because it’s not always a bad thing that they leave. You know, you still have the capability to show somebody else the exact same systems and they continue in perpetuity.

That’s probably the biggest thing that I would tell somebody is if you want your legacy to live on, you need to have these systems in place so that way he can.

Very well said that is I’m gonna have to I’m gonna steal that I’m gonna listen to us afterwards. I’m gonna steal it. That’s got to come out of my mouth. That’s good shit. All right ahead. You’re more than welcome to have it branded. I

appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today and share the story. Do me a favor. Last thing is there. You know, anything that you want to that we didn’t talk about? You want to share a favorite quote a book or something or anything about the program? This is your time? What would that be?

Absolutely. So one of the things that I think we we need to touch on is because I’m sure this happens quite a bit and I’m sure you’ve seen this happen quite a bit is implementers and owners need to have an open line of communication.

One of the things that I’ve always said when I first started working for any company was that not every time I’m going to tell you something that you want to hear. I may tell you something that you need to hear.

And owners and implementers need to have those sometimes hard conversations, but implementers especially need to know how to have those conversations properly without sounding disrespectful or without sounding critical. And owners need to be able to be receptive to those conversations.

You know, one of the things that I’ll give you a perfect example Barrett and I had a conversation the other day about you know, well what do we do now that we have these programs in place like what does the end of the month look like?

Because without him asking me to I’ve been sending him a monthly report on our DSR and our checkbook guardian. I copy them, put them in a separate Excel sheet and I send them to him and he wanted to implement that as like a monthly thing that we do, which I’m like, Fine, that’s great.

And he’s like, Well, now how do you send that to me on a weekly basis? And I said, Whoa, hang on now.

You need to learn how to log in and look at those things. So that way you know what’s going on on a weekly basis. That needs to be something that you do Yeah, but I know that not all implementers are going to be able to have those conversations because maybe they’re scared of how their owners are going to react.

Maybe they do have a reactionary owner, or maybe they just never tried and that owner would really appreciate somebody telling them sometimes something that they need to hear versus something that they want to hear.

You know, as long as all of your restaurant stuff is good, maybe maybe there are some policies and procedures that can change. You just need to know that they need to change. Like we always say you don’t know what you don’t know. Yeah.

And, you know, one of the things that stuck with me the most through school was I had this professor and I forget his name.

But he said once you finish graduating with your bachelor’s degree, don’t be afraid to speak up. Because there’s going to be people that have been in the industry for years that don’t know some of the newer things that are coming out. So something that may be common knowledge to you may be something revolutionary to somebody else.

Yep. And it’s important to let people know like, hey, this may be a better way of doing things or this may be the direction that we need to go. And maybe they’ve never thought of that before. So that’s what that’s one of the things I think we we might need. To spend a little bit of time on. This is the conversations between implementers and owners.

That’s great. I think it’s great advice. I like to think that because the owners who joined my program or growth mindset that it shouldn’t be that scary, but it is a brand new skill that for many of them, they don’t have that right hand person to begin with, to have that open communication. So I think that’s excellent, excellent advice. And whether you’re in my program or not, if you’re a restaurant manager, you need to have that confidence you need to be able to talk with with the owner.

With that said I want to give one piece of advice on that is if at some point in time you get enough pushback from the owner, we got to learn to go it’s their restaurant, they make the call. I made my case, but don’t push it any further.

high percent there’s that time in place you got to learn. You got to be able to know where that time in place is. Well, I’m not gonna push on that one more.

I always that guy. I know. I’m just like you, brother. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this brand. And I think it’s great stuff and I know this is going to help people and I look forward to seeing what what goes on your next chapter with black barbecue.

Absolutely, man. I’m looking forward to it.

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. One by combining leadership and taking action to systems and training being checked by accountability. You are on your way to creating prosperity for you and your restaurant to something I need for you. Please leave a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you happen to listen to podcast. By leaving us a review other restaurants from seeking out this information are able to find it. I read the reviews and hearing how this information has benefited you. does wonders for me. 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.

For more restaurant resources or to get in contact with me. Connect with me at David Scott peters.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.