Should You Be Working with Restaurant Influencers?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Do influencers work? Should I be paying influencers? What's the best way to get started? Find influencers and start building relationships with them. I get those questions all the time. We are going to put them all to rest on today's episode of Restaurant Strategy. There's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown. This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers for anyone who's looking foreign. Thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close. This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast dedicated to helping you build a more profitable and therefore a more sustainable business. I wrote a book, I'm on social media. I've got this podcast. I give talks all over the world. I also run a group coaching program for independent restaurant owners ready to level up and grow their business. Today, currently, we've got over 150 members of the program spread across four different groups. We are laser focused on profitability, helping you implement a couple of simple systems so that you can dial in and make money no matter what revenue level. And if you're ready to grow revenue, we can, we can do that as well. The way to get started, if you are curious, you, I'm sure, have heard me talking about this for a while now. The best way to get started is to just Visit our website. RestaurantStrategyPodcast.com Schedule Grab some time on the calendar. You will talk directly with me or someone from my team. You just get to ask a bunch of questions about the program. Let's see if we're a good fit. If you jive with us, we jive with you. We'd love to be able to help you out again. Restaurantstrategypodcast.com Schedule to learn more about the coaching program, we run 30 minutes totally free, zero pressure. We bring 15 to 20 new members into the program every single month. It's an incredible community. We'd love to talk to you about whether it's a good fit and a good community for you. All right, everyone. My guest on today's show, he's back for, I don't know, the fifth, sixth time. I don't know. You've definitely been on more than anyone else, less than me, more than everyone else. My good friend and colleague, Rev cnc. I'm going to let him give the the proper intro. But Rev, kick it off. Who are you? [00:02:32] Speaker B: I'm the guy that has a skeleton in the back of his video. For those of you on video, that's dead. Rev. Hi. I'm a hospitality marketing consultant. I help restaurants with their marketing. I'm essentially like an outsourced CMO for restaurants, but I'm also an operator. I'm the co owner and co founder of a quick service hamburger joint in New York City called Handcraft Burgers and Brew. This is my second go around as an operator. I owned a bar in the East Village in the, in the early aughts I think they say is what they say the odds and failed miserably. I actually still, as of March 31, 2025, the day we recorded this, I actually still am paying the debt from that from a sale in 2020 or 2018, whatever. Such a nightmare. Anyway, I help restaurants with their marketing for living. That's what I do. Some people who follow me on TikTok or Instagram might think of me as a content creator or an influencer because I, I do that as well. And if you ask my mom what I do, she would probably tell you that I put pictures of pizza on the Internet. And she's not entirely wrong. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Rev is here because we're going to talk about influencers, right? Like I said at the very, very top, Rev is, I think the smartest restaurant marketer I know. I. No, thank you. I've learned tons from you. I continue to learn tons from you. Even when I'm sharing stages with you, I feel like I'm still like taking notes even while we're talking together. You're really thoughtful. [00:03:50] Speaker B: There's a two way street, my friend. Thank you. [00:03:52] Speaker A: Thanks, man. You're really thoughtful about the way you approach it and your philosophy aligns very, very closely with mine, which is why I think your talks and what you believe resonated so deeply with me. But like you said, you do marketing for restaurants and I think you go wide and deep. You're. You're sort of driven by curiosity. You're always trying to level up. You're way better at that than most people I know, myself included. And so I love that you're always got your thumb on the pulse. And then on the other side, like you said, you got a ton of TikTok followers. You've got, I don't know, over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. It's because you are a content creator, you are an influencer and so you work with brands, for brands and show them how to work with influencers, among many other things. And then you also do it yourself. So you can really speak to this on both sides. We have talked about a Whole lot on the show. We continue to talk about a whole lot. I have always felt that influencers were important not because of the capital I influence that they carry, but that. That anybody with influence, right, Anybody who sways, like, oh, my God, you're going to that city. You got to go try this, right? We hear that from friends, roommates, you know, family members, all of that. I think anybody with influence, lowercase I or capital I is worthy of our attention, and it's where so many of us figure out where we're gonna eat next. So I always think it's important, and it just seems to be, like, more and more and more in the forefront. I feel like I'm getting asked about it more. So I wanted to have you on the show to talk about it. So can we talk about it? Talk to me. Start this conversation by you talking about Rev, the content creator, Rev, the influencer. So specifically, what is your account all about? Because that'll help give some context for the listeners. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Sure. Just a quick follow on thought to what you just said. I. I have typically, to this point in time, preached that, like, the head of the PTA is an influencer. Right. Like the person that owns the nail salon in your town is an influencer. Like the fourth grade. Like anybody who has influence is an influencer. But I think what we're talking about today is people more like content creators. Right. So that's sort of what we're getting after. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Yep. [00:06:01] Speaker B: How could I kick off this very large conversation? What would be the most helpful thing? [00:06:07] Speaker A: So talk to me about your account, because your account is fairly specific. So start there. Talk to me about what you do in your account, literally as an influencer. And then I want you to talk about how you find new places to cover. Do you reach out? Do they reach out? How does that relationship work? I think that'll get us started. [00:06:27] Speaker B: Okay. Permission to be dead on honest with your audience here? Okay. [00:06:32] Speaker A: I'm going to hope you will be. [00:06:33] Speaker B: I'm going to give super real talk, like, super real talk, because I'm on both sides of the conversation. Right. So first of all, my account, my main account is just my name. It's repcnseo. I create what I call go eat here content, which is me saying, you should go eat here. So you call it what you want, but that's what I call it, go eat here content. I also have a couple of other accounts I will run. I have similar content, but I have one page that's just about steak in the New York area. So if you like steak? We talk about steak restaurants. I have another one that's just about hot chicken. We just talk about hot chicken. I have another one that's just about hamburgers from restaurants in the tri State area. Amen. And the last one is I run the world's largest French fry themed Instagram account. The only content on that account, it's called Fun with Fries, is french fries. So I basically create go eat here content, right? The other ones, the steak, the chicken, the fry, the burger, they're all mostly repost accounts where I'm reposting other members of the community. But revcnc of mine is go eat here content. Okay? And I see my voice, my vehicle, my channel as a great opportunity for restaurants to gain the awareness of local foodies. Like people who are interested in restaurant. Again, I'm going to use that, that term again, gain awareness. And I look at my account for foodies to use me as a guide to say, you should go check out this place. Okay, here's what it's not. It's not an acquisition channel. And so when restaurants reach out to me or brands reach out to me and say, hey, I'll pay you a commission for every sale you make, like, stop, stop in your tracks. I'm not going to sell your thing. I'm going to create a really great commercial for you that's going to be earnest and fun and a little silly and it's going to make you look good so that people will consider your restaurant. But I am not interested in being your salesperson. And I actually think it's a mistake for people to look at influencers and think they're going to sell for them. With an exception if you go check out the influencer's account and it's not mine, and you see that they're always saying, click the link in my bio to buy to do this thing, to take call to action. Then, yeah, affiliate sales or, you know, blah, blah, that's what they built their account on. But that's not what I built my account on. I built my account on. I want people to follow and trust Rev. And so if I happen to share content about a restaurant that looks appealing to you, I've established trust with you as a follower that this is as good as I say it is. And if it looks interesting to you, you'll probably be happy if you try it. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Talk to me. So you mentioned real quickly it's an awareness channel, not an acquisition channel. Do you see other influencers able to bridge that gap? Because that, that's sort of the Holy Grail, right? Like, can I have somebody come in? Somebody that will get, you know, here in the New York area you've got sister snacking. Sister snacking. They come and cover your thing. It's as close to. It's as close to like this a list, Kardashian celebrity, they go in somewhere, there's lines out the door for the next two weeks. [00:09:34] Speaker B: Let's speak in our genre, they're as close as to getting Guy Fieri to come by, right? [00:09:37] Speaker A: Sure. [00:09:38] Speaker B: Okay. [00:09:38] Speaker A: Yeah, they're a big deal. [00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they're a big deal. And the other thing I do put a little for everybody that's listening to the show. I also do create a little bit of B2B content. So how to market your restaurant. So if you want some of that, that's also on there as well. It's about 5 to 10% of the content, but it's mostly going here. So is there a way to have convert direct conversions from influencers? [00:10:01] Speaker A: Do you see it? Are there accounts that you've seen or do you see it working? Are there instances where it does work or can work? [00:10:07] Speaker B: So there's less of those than there are more of those. So yeah, there's a few sister snackings and there's probably one of those in every major metro or whatever that really has that sort of like instant impact type of thing. Okay. But I will caution this to restaurant operators and marketers. Anything that has an instant impact is temporary. Okay. And it's not a marketing plan and it's certainly not a long term marketing plan. So if you're going to go do something with instant impact, right, you need to make sure you also have the fishnet around there to catch all those fish so that when the ins. The instant and the impact are gone, you can still carry with the momentum. And I think that's actually where a lot of people get tripped up. You know what I mean? [00:10:51] Speaker A: So explain further. I think I know where you're going to go with this, but explain further. [00:10:54] Speaker B: Okay, so look, you've heard me say this. We've said this almost in unison on stage, right? Marketing efforts without the ability to capture guest contact information is a waste, right? So like I want a follower is great. An email is 10 times more awesome than a follower, right? And so what happens with a lot of influencer marketing is you get awareness, you might get some followers, you might get a couple people in the door. But like, then what? Like how do you get that person to come back is really the, the mystery to solve. And so with influencer marketing, if you realize it's an awareness play, not an acquisition play, you. It's your job to convert from awareness to acquisition, and it's your job to keep that momentum going. And there's a number of ways to do that, but the number one way is get somebody's email address, you know? [00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So is there a way, as an owner, right, where I say, hey, I'm going to build a landing page? You build a unique landing page for every influencer I work with. And I'm going to make sure my influencer knows, hey, listen, your call to action is to drive people to this landing page. So as part of the caption, as part of the video, it says, you know, and hey, listen, anybody, you know, all of my followers get to enjoy 20% off their next visit. You just have to click the link in bio. They'll send you the promo to get 20% off. Should definitely go there and take advantage of this. Like, this is a unique value that I get to provide for you. Like, it's, it's not worth it. Just go to the restaurant. Like, take advantage of my thing that I had heard years ago. And I don't think this influencer is still working. I think it was down in Miami or it was down somewhere down in Florida. I feel like that's how they operate at the. Basically, the influencer said, I create unique landing pages for everybody. It was an easy duplication process. And she was like, the only way I'll feature you is if my people get something in exchange. And I always recommend a 15 or 20% off. Right. That my people just come to expect it. That that's what they're, that's what they're going for. And I just thought, huh, that's interesting. This person, this woman was trying to prove her worth because then what happens is she features 50 restaurants. And she could say, well, over the last 50 restaurants, I've helped capture, you know, I've done a data capture for X number of people. And she shares the context with the, the establishment. But she can prove, well, here's the value of what I'm bringing you. I'm bringing you 50 new visitors, 50 people who downloaded the thing and however many redemptions they got. Do you know what I mean? [00:13:15] Speaker B: Yep. Okay, so you asked me if have I seen it? So I'm going to answer that question first. Yes, I've seen it. And in fact, I've done it, but I've done it with the restaurant, not with me. So at Handcraft Burgers and Brew by example. So we don't bring in influencers unless there's something for them to talk about. And we use influencer marketing as an always on channel. Okay, so I have influencers every single week coming there every single week. Every single week. Same with Crazy PETA, the other brand. If an influencer is coming, there's a call to action. It might not be sign up for something, but there's always a call to action. At Handcraft Burgers and Brew, we released a new menu on the 1st of the year, January 21st, 2025. And I thought it was going to be a game changer to our business. It actually was. And what we did is we put a link in our bio that said sign up, put your name and email address, you get a free burger. Rather than creating a unique code for every single influencer that we brought in to talk about that promotion, which honestly is a ton of manual work. Like it's a ton. And I'll get into measurements here in a second. I didn't care which influencer told you about it. I only cared that I got your email address. Right. Because knowing which influencer brought it to me, it would be good to know, but it wouldn't. I'd still get what I needed. So I just did one link that we did on the 1st of January this year, like Friday night business on like hangover day. And we launched a brand new menu on the 1st of January that by the 3rd and the 4th of January were our number two and three high selling items. So yes, I saw. In a very different way. Right. [00:14:51] Speaker A: Yep. [00:14:52] Speaker B: I believe, you know, you and I have talked about this, but the magic circle of I want to do the least amount of work for the highest amount of return. Right. And that's not stupid or lazy, that's smart. Okay. And so like, if I had to create a different landing page and a different code for every single influencer, that's all I would do all day long. And do I care that this influencer brought me five and that brought me seven and this brought me eight and this brought me 20? I mean, it would be good to know, but like, as an independent operator, I don't have that much time in my day. [00:15:18] Speaker A: Sure. Okay, talk to me. You said this is an always on channel, so in your burger concept, it's an always on channel, which is how I've seen it work best. You're not the, you're not the first person to say this to me, so explain to me how you do it and how you systematize it so this doesn't become an owner's entire job for sure. [00:15:40] Speaker B: So I will say that if you're going to do influencer marketing, it should be an always on channel, right? And it doesn't have to be every day or every week, but like every month or something like, but like that kind of like boost of awareness that you get is, it's good for engagement, it's good for your followers, it's good for local awareness, it's good for stay top of mind. Like, it's just a really good way to keep energy moving towards your business. Unfortunately, if you're going to do it yourself, it's a manual process. So you got to know who to reach out to. You got to go reach out to them, you got to follow up with them. It's very, very manual. And that's why I tell every single restaurant operator out there, if you're going to turn it on and you don't have the time to do it the right way, make it somebody else's job. Whether that's somebody who works for you internally or it's an agency or you go use software. Like if it's, I say if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing, right? And in this case, like it is manual and there's a lot of back and forth and it's, it's one of the most manual processes other than creating Mirepoix. Right. Like it's, it's a ton of work. So if you're not going to have the time to dedicate it, to do it the way it should be done, make it somebody else's job. Right? [00:16:51] Speaker A: So there are agencies now, I mean there are, there are companies now that will do this for you. There's a couple that come to mind that have just come to market in the last little bit. Do you, are those good? Are those worthwhile? Worth exploring? [00:17:00] Speaker B: I mean, is it all right if I talk about the one I like? [00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:03] Speaker B: So we use Mustard and I think mustard is amazing. And I kind of like thumb my nose at it first. And David, if you're listening, don't take that as he knows. I'm a fan, David, from, from Mustard. But I thumbed my nose at it because I saw it as an influencer, I didn't experience it as a business. And then I went and tried it as a business. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. It's software, back influencer management. So you work with Mustard, you create an offer, you know, like a thing that you want. They send it out to their network of influencers and then influencers apply. You go to your dashboard, you get three or four influencers a month, whatever you pay for. And literally, if you like them, you just hit accept and boom, they're booked. It's that simple. There's no negotiation. There's no back and forth. There's no how much do you want to get paid? There's, it's literally like just like on demand booking. Now they do cancel and sometimes you got to rebook, but for the most part, like, it's ridiculously easy to manage. And that's why I like it because it's removed the manual process. [00:17:58] Speaker A: Now, Sterling Douglas is the co founder and CEO of a company called Chowli. Chowley does so much for this industry. And I want you to hear a little bit from Sterling. [00:18:09] Speaker C: In the last few years, restaurants have faced massive changes. Labor costs, food costs, rent, even payment processing costs are up so much that price increases alone can't cover it. And at the same time, their customers are demanding a whole new way to interact digitally. And that's now a requirement to survive, let alone thrive. To their credit, restaurant operators have been resilient. They've survived pandemics, inflation, regulatory environments, and more. They've added the tablets, put out the QR codes, took reviews seriously, and their reward? A disjointed collection of tech that doesn't talk to each other and is impossible to manage. I've listened to hundreds of operators tell me the same story with the same problems. And that's why we came out with the Chale platform. One place to manage everything outside of your four walls. Just like everything built at Chale for our 17,000 restaurants, integrations and connections are at the heart of everything we do. It starts with your digital storefront. Your website has two jobs, more traffic, more orders. By connecting to Google business profile and your point of sale, we get that done for you. Digital marketing. We'll manage your paid ads, emails and social posts. We'll help you win the hyperlocal knife fight to maximize your sales. We measure everything so you know exactly where your orders are coming from. Marketplace, email, website, ads, app, all in one place. Chowley gives you more orders by ensuring your entire digital storefront is optimized with the data. You already have more time by using our knowledge and a done for you experience and more control by managing it all in one place. The Chowi platform isn't just a tool. It's a partner in running a more successful and profitable restaurant. [00:20:02] Speaker A: If you want to learn more about Chowley, go find the link in the show notes. Okay. So I love that I did want to talk about Mustard. I'm glad you brought them up. That it is a little bit of the easy button. And I think they've made their terms better. I think they've addressed their pricing. This is like hot off the presses. I sort of talked to somebody who knows something. So I'll put the link to mustard in the show notes as well. So you can go check them out if you want the easy button. That is an easy button. [00:20:29] Speaker B: Tell them we say it for sure. David will be ecstatic. By the way, if you. If you reach out to mustard and say, I heard about it from Chip and Rev, you'll go to the front of line. [00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So I love it. So then, now let's talk, though, about manual, because this is one of those things that can very be easily be outsourced, but doesn't have to be. So how do you begin? There's a way that I think about this, but I want. I want you to weigh in first. How do you begin to do this manually? [00:20:54] Speaker B: Okay. I'm going to insert a conversation piece before this. I'm going to address the elephant in the room. Should you or should you not pay influencers? Because it dovetails into where you want to go. And at this point, you should just prepare to pay for influencers, okay? Everybody's time is worth something, and everybody's effort is worth something. And if you look at an influencer of like, oh, I'm not going to pay, because this amount of followers of that amount of engagement, everybody's time is time, and everybody's effort is effort, okay? And so I agree that if an influencer has a bigger impact, like a sister snacking, they're probably worth more. Okay? But you should be preparing to pay influencers, okay? And that doesn't mean they gotta make all 10 grand each. You could offer 50 bucks. Offer what you're comfortable, okay? But you should be prepared to pay people for their time. You're asking somebody to leave their house, leave their apartment, leave their family, leave their job, leave whatever they're doing to come to your place and do you a favor, okay? You wouldn't tell a locksmith to come work for free if your dishwasher breaks down. You wouldn't ask the plumber to come do it for free. These are people who make money doing this. You should be prepared to pay. And there's nothing wrong with that. [00:22:07] Speaker A: Yep. [00:22:08] Speaker B: So how do you get started now is the question Number one, at this point, most influencers are expecting some sort of compensation. It's, it's kind of how the game works, especially around here, New York, New Jersey, and every influencer is like, how much is it worth to you? Okay. You're probably actually already getting reached out to by influencers, which means you could just go into your DMs and start responding. That's probably the easiest way. Okay, that's probably the easiest way. And I guarantee like once you start getting influencers, you're start going to get more. The minute we started using mustard at handcraft, all of a sudden like my DMs are full. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:22:44] Speaker B: Because people smell money. [00:22:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:46] Speaker B: But you know, easy step one, check your dm, see if other influencers are reaching out to you. That's probably the easiest way. You know, Number two, if there's a, this is what I tell everybody. If you just want to get started and try it out. If there's a restaurant in your town or near your location that you know is like blowing up. Right. Or you see other influencers posting about it, go to that, go to the followers tab on your competitors, find the influencer and send them a dm. [00:23:13] Speaker A: I love it. So one of the other hacks is that you go and you literally, I mean, if you're in a big market, it's easy. We say best food influencers in New York City, best restaurant influencers in New York City. It's easy to, it's easy to do that. You do that for Nashville, Chicago, Los Angeles, you know, in most cities, in a smaller town it's going to be harder. But go to the Internet and just, just Google it, you'll, you'll find some stuff. Realize that we're not necessarily always looking. I want to get your opinion on this, but for me it's not just restaurant influencers, it is travel influencers, it's lifestyle influencers. So perfect example is like somebody who doesn't necessarily do food, food content exclusively but does like cool places to go with the kids. Right. So like Rev is a four minute walk from Time Square and a six minute walk from the New York Public Library. Very famous, two very famous locations, Bryant park, you know, it's, they're all right there. So if somebody's trying to fill a day in midtown Manhattan with two kids, like, I, I don't know, but like burgers aren't a bad thing. Place to, you know, aren't a bad thing to shove in their faces. So it would make sense to work with, you know, travel Influencers or these lifestyle, these mommy bloggers, things like that. There are all kinds of different things that you can, that you can do that that might not immediately make sense. There might be theater influencers that Rev is working with because all these stage hands are there, all these actors there, all these, like, theatergoers are in that area that if they want something again, like, hey, here's a place that you don't know about off the beaten path, you know, this tiny little place that pumps out, you know, a really great meal pre theater, and it's not going to take you, you know, 200 bucks in an hour and a half. Like, like there's other sort of content creators that it makes sense for. Yeah. [00:25:01] Speaker B: I'll give you another example. And this is, this is a good, this is a good, like, you got to know who the ideal customer is for your business. I work with Salad house. We're a 2020 unit, fast, casual, you know, health brand. We like food influencers and we will work with them and we're happy to have them in and we're grateful for their intention, but that's not who we look for. We know enough about our customer database that we really have a heavy amount of people who are fitness into fitness, and that's why they love Salad House, because they can go to the gym and then have this huge meal afterwards and not blow their calorie load. So for us, our target is actually fitness influencers. Right. And so we know that that has a higher impact on our icp. So those are the influences, but that's just me knowing our business. You know what I mean? [00:25:45] Speaker A: Yep. I love it. So you're gonna look, right? You're gonna Google it, you're gonna look at other restaurants in your market and see who they've worked with. Check your DMs, you're gonna check your DMs, all these are ways to do it. I always like. So if, again, if you're gonna do this manually, create a spreadsheet so you can keep. So you do the homework once, because as Rev said, this is manual and you want one place where it's all collected. Like, what's the handle, what's the URL, what's their name, what's the phone number, the email, what's. To get in touch with them, what do they offer, you know, what do you have to pay them, what's their lead time, etc. Like, put all those details in a spreadsheet because eventually you're going to come to the time where you're going to work through your entire. You're going to build a list of 50 or 60. You're going to work with two or three every single month, let's say. And you're going to get to the end of the list and you're going to go, okay, what do we do now? You're going to look to see if there are any new ones, but you're also going to go back to the beginning of the list and say, okay, who is. Who's a real joy to work with? Who's. Who's fun to work? Who put out really great content? [00:26:40] Speaker B: Oh, man, you bring up such a good point. I'm going to give two hacks here. Okay? Number one, I want to come back to that point in a second. So again, if you're doing this yourself and you're a limited bandwidth and blah, blah, blah, blah. So hack number one, instead of reaching out to like 10 influencers to come 10 different times, find an influencer who seems kind of active and has influencer friends and pay them to organize a dinner, right? So if you find an influencer, seems like a nice person, has great content, Most influencers know 10 to 15 other influencers. Pay them, go, hey, can I give you X amount of dollars and you bring four other influencers and we'll host a dinner next Monday? Yeah, great. Awesome. Super easy way to get a bunch all at once, right? It's also operationally easy. Bring them on a day you're not busy. We just butterfish this new sushi place in Rutherford that's blowing up. When, when they reached out to me, they were like, yeah, can you just bring a bunch of influencers? I was like, here's the price. Like, great, no problem. Like, pay one influencer to do the work for you. So that's that, that, that, that's a super good hack. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Love it. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Okay, so few people do this. And you. This, this is the suit. This is a influencer marketing superpower. Okay? This is a, as my buddy Wes says, this is a writer downer. Okay? Over the course of 3, 6, 9, 12 months, you're going to have influencers coming in, coming in, coming in. They're going to filter themselves down. There will be like five to seven who are awesome. That, like, totally got your concept, that, like, love the food, that, like, their content totally resonated with your brand. That, like, they were just the key influencer. Develop a relationship, get them to come back quarterly. Like, literally treat them like brand ambassadors. Okay? We've done this at Handcraft. There's Six or seven influencers who, like, just really liked it. We were happy to pay them. They did great content, you know, and our audience liked it. And I'm like, do you want to come back monthly? Oh, this is too much. Okay, do you want to come back every month? Let's do it. Do you want to come back quarterly? Like, find five to 10 influencers that just nailed it and get them to come back over and over again, even if you have to pay for them? Because here's the thing, it was good. It worked. And the more you talk to their audience, the more your brand's in front of their audience, the more know, like, and trust you get with their followers. [00:28:50] Speaker A: I love it. I love it when we have influencers in the restaurant. I'm a big proponent of this. I want to know how you feel it. They don't get to. They're not coming in for a meal. They're working right to your point. Like, pay them because their. Their time has value to it, but they're there to accomplish a specific goal for you. You said, hey, we bring them in because we want to feature something. We have a new menu, we have a new signature, we have whatever. I would be really clear with the influencers and say, here's the thing. We really want to try to promote X, Y, and Z. What we're going to do is just send you a lot of food. Is there anything as you look that you definitely want to try as well, because we'll make sure we get all the stuff we want and there's all the stuff that you want. Other things you won't eat, or are there allergies or whatever things that we have to be aware of. But otherwise me, the owner, the operator, is going to dictate the flow in terms of this evening. Is that. Is that fair to do? [00:29:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So in general, you kind of want to let content creators create the content they want to create in the way they want to create it. Okay. You. I do suggest guiding it. Right. And so, like, for me, we have a burger of the month every month at Handcraft Burgers and Brews. So, like, if I don't have some other big thing like the launch of a new menu, I would at least have them come in and talk about my burger of the month. Right. So I kind of have that. If you don't have that, you should give direction. Now I'm literally going to read this verbatim. Okay. When I confirm an influencer manually, not through mustard. Like, when somebody reaches out. Dm. When I've we've agreed upon the time and whatever. I literally send them this exact script. Hey, you're all set. Just announce yourself when you arrive. Please try one of our ultimate smash burgers. You come single, double, or spicy? I suggest one other item, like a chicken sandwich or deep fried hot dogs. An order of fries plus an order of our loaded tots. Everybody loves that. You can spend up to $75. Trust me, that's a lot of food. Now, there's a couple things to note. All of our burgers are made from fresh, never frozen, smashed Angus beef patties. Our fries are cut in house and made with fresh chipping potatoes. They're the same potatoes used to make your favorite potato chips. The fries are going to feel like french fries, but they're going to taste like potato chips. That's exactly what we were going for. All of our sauces other than ketchup are made in house. We're almost 100% digital, so our guests are encouraged to use their phone to order ahead if they choose, or on our kiosk. Please be sure to make us a collaborator on your reel and tag us in three to five stories. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you, Rev. Like, even if I don't have an initiative to push, I'm telling them these are the things that you need to know. So at least when they're scripting their story, they get my story. [00:31:15] Speaker A: Right? [00:31:16] Speaker B: Right. And so if you go look at Burgers and Brew and you click, like, who's tagged us? And you go look at all the influencers, it shows them. They walk up, they order from the kiosk. I tell them about our secret menu. That, like, it's like they're following the script that I wrote without me telling them what to say. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:32] Speaker B: So be prescriptive about what it is. Now, do I tell the influencers you have to order item A, B, C and D? No. I suggest some menu categories or some items, and I tell my staff, hey, if they also ask for this or that, like, it's totally fine. Like, I want them to feel free. You know what I mean? And so, yes, you should guide as much of this as possible. [00:31:53] Speaker A: Great. I want to. So I want to put a little asterisk here. And this is where I come from. Full service fine dining world. And Rev now spends a lot of his time in fast, casual, quick service. And this is where I think we're seeing the same thing. And we're just. And we're saying the same thing but from different lenses here. His menu is small. There are Categories. There are kinds of things you can get, but there aren't a lot of things. So for anybody who's listening from the full service, maybe upscale or fine dining, that's my perspective. That's where I'm coming in, right? That. My lobster, my striped bass, my lamb, my chicken, my steak. They're all very, very different. He's got smash burgers and deep fried hot dogs, right. Maybe a chicken sandwich. Like, there are categories of what you can get, but like, smash burger looks like a smash burger looks like a smash burger when you're, when you're featuring it. Which is why he goes out of his way to talk about the fries, because they're different. Talks about the loaded tots, they are different. If there are specific things. If, you know, hey, our lobster presentation is lights out, and we do. I think it shows well and everybody loves it and it's really unique and different. Then that becomes your job to tell them what to do. We were, my brother and I were in Los Angeles, so I was visiting my brother in LA last week, and we went to the girl and the goat out there, right? So the original ones in Chicago, they got one out in la and there are stuff. And I was looking at that. There was stuff that tasted great but looked weird on the, on the plate. Like, their stripe ass is awesome. They're sort of known for it and it sort of like looks like a nothing burger. So if I'm an, if I'm an influencer, like, it's a tough thing to shoot and show really well. The, the goat belly, like, it's just sort of covered with a whole lot of stuff that's not the stuff that's really going to show. Meanwhile, there are, there were other things that hit the table that really are. That really do wow for not only the palette, but, or the lens as well. So. But they don't know this. Like, if I was coming in to, you know, to create content for this, I don't know when I'm ordering it. So a little bit of guidance, you know, from a menu that's got 24 different items on it. Like, I, I sort of want to. I sort of want to know. Now as a content creator, I would know to do a little bit of research ahead of time. I would look around the dining room, but I also do need guidance from the, from the restaurant. And so they're, they're relying on you as much as you're relying on them. [00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. In those cases, you know, I might tell either the restaurant, like, hey, we're going to send out dish A, B and C. You can also order whatever else you want. Or, you know, I'll use an example. You know, if I ran a David Burke kitchen, right, Every single influencer would get the bacon on a closed string because it's the thing, you know what I mean? Like, I would make sure it got out. And look, if you're. If you're coat, right? If you're. We talk about coat, New York City, if you're coat, I would make sure every single influencer got the A5W. Like it's the thing people talk about. You know what I mean? [00:34:32] Speaker A: Yep, absolutely. Okay, so just to recap, outsource it. If this is not something you're good at or you're learning, outsource it. Company like Mustard does it really, really well. They're getting better every day. If you're going to be manual, it's pretty affordable. It really is affordable. And they just, like I said, they just changed their pricing. And I don't know if it's officially gone live or it's going live, but when I found out the sort of the new pricing model, I was like, oh, that's, that's going to be really great. [00:34:59] Speaker B: So, and, and they automatically pay all the influencers, which is why the influencers like it. [00:35:03] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I love it. So outsource it to a company like that, basically an agency who's going to curate that or start building your own relationships. [00:35:12] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:12] Speaker A: And do that deep research. Right. So check your DMs, you're going to Google, you're going to look up other restaurants in your market and see what they're doing, branch out beyond just food influencers, so food and travel and lifestyle. And I want to go back real quick because I can't close the episode until we talk about this. You had said a minute ago, right, like, the nail salon is an influencer, the fire department is an influencer. The, you know, the barbershop is an influencer. The barber has 20 minutes with nothing to talk about with every person who walks in. Most these guys work eight to ten hours a day. They're long days. And they cut two to three people an hour. Right. There's a lot of guys that they have contact with. And if you said, hey, man, I'd love to take you guys out, like, like when you guys close, okay, barbershop, there's six chairs. Can I get you six top on Tuesday night, after you close tonight, you're dead. And when you. And when you blow it out for these Guys, like, they are going to spend the next two weeks talking about this place. They're gonna be like, oh, my God. And not. Not even because you told them to tell the people in their chairs about the place. But when you blow it out and you send the. You know, the. The tomahawk chop and you send the rack of lamb and you send the Etc, they're gonna be like, whoa, check on my phone. Do you guys. Have you guys been here? Like, they're gonna. Like, they're part of the community already. Like, I just think of my small town here, seven minutes away. Like, man, the places that take care of those guys. Or again, the girls at the nail salon. Like, they see so many people every single week. [00:36:47] Speaker B: I got one for you. Yeah, the physical therapy office. Because people go to the doctor when they're sick, but they go to physical therapy three times a week, right? And, like, those people get 20 minutes to manually fix your ankle. Like, what else are you going to talk about? 3, like, send food to the physical therapy office. I can't recommend it enough. [00:37:07] Speaker A: Dude, I love that. So when you bring them in, whether they feature you or not, like, just making friends with them, treating them like the concierge, right? So we all know we're going to build a concierge program. We're going to take care of the concierge. As the idea being, hey, man, you got, you know, 100, 200 people, you know, new people coming and checking in every day. Like, if they're looking for a place to eat, like, I'm a pretty good place to eat. So, like, that's okay. It's the same thing with all of these individuals in your town. And people are always looking for. I mean, I've lived here. I moved out of the city. I moved to North Jersey three years ago. I'm still asking people, like, what's a. What's a good place to eat? Because, like, I don't. I still don't know enough places. And so when people are like, oh, we were out with a couple the other night. They asked me. They're like, oh, we should ask you, because you're in restaurants. Like, where's a good place to eat? And I said, I don't go nearly enough places. And I'm going to ask you, where should I go to eat? Eight places came out of their mouth in the next three minutes. And literally, my wife and I were like, okay, hang on. We have to get our phone. We got to write these down. They were. Because they just started giving us tons of good Places. [00:38:09] Speaker B: Here's how many restaurants I've eaten at near me. Last night, for a content creation piece, I started googling worst pizza near me. I've had all the best ones. [00:38:21] Speaker A: It's true. Okay, the other thing that I would say, right? So then you said like the, the fire department, the police department. Like, these end up being like, just invite him in one day and say, hey, listen, can we tell everybody? Like, fire department's gonna be here. Like, do you guys mind bringing a truck? Like, I'm sorry, you bring a truck outside and you keep gear outside and the kids can like go put their feet in the gear or can climb on the truck. Like they will come down to your pizza place, your sub shop, your salad joint or whatever because you do it on a Saturday, right? After all, little leagues let out and everything. It's a no brainer. [00:38:54] Speaker B: I got a, I got a good one from our pal Mehdi at Crazy PETA last week. He told this to me. I was like, damn, that's smart. You know who he invites to come eat at crazy Pitas? The 911 dispatch office. So the people that take all the phone calls. Yeah, he calls them and he's like, so every new store opening he finds where the local dispatch or the police dispatch, and he calls the dispatch, he's like, I don't have an emergency, but can I invite you in to come eat petas? Like, he makes friends with the dispatch people. I was like, oh my God, that's so smart. And I was there. I was at his new location last week in Vegas when all the dispatch people came with, they brought their canines. And like, I was like, this is so cool. [00:39:32] Speaker A: So we talk a lot about this. So Rev and I, for all the time, we talk about like the digital pieces, right? Which influencer marketing is a digital marketing tactic that was not available to us 20 years ago, right? So we're talking about something very current now. But notice what we did over the course of this 20 minute conversation is that we, we wound it back to this other thing, which is like, how can we be more human? How can we embed ourselves deeper into the community? How can we use this sort of hand to hand engagement tactics to just, to just become a bigger part of the market that we're in. And I think the more we can do that, the better off we end up being. [00:40:10] Speaker B: Totally agree. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Rev, what's the last thing? What haven't I thought to ask? When it comes to influencer marketing, I think we have a good idea that it works. It's worth paying for. This is how to prop yourself up either the easy way or the hard way. What else would you final notes about that? [00:40:25] Speaker B: I mean this, this world goes deep. But here's another thing I would think about the value of a content creator. We talked all about awareness say, but we totally didn't talk about one thing. And I don't want to go super long here, but content creators can also be a relief to your content creation program. So I look at every day that I have a content creator come and create content from my restaurants is a day I didn't have to create content. So for that alone, like the relief of me having to create content is worth the price in gold. And I won't go deep here, but somebody else talking about your business is way more valuable than you talking about your business. So like, just from the content creation piece alone, content creators are worth the weight in gold. Now like I said, I always have a hack. I always have an additional here's how to win. You should ask every single influencer that comes in, regardless of following size, to take three to five raw videos and photos and add them to your Google Business profile. You will probably get more out of great photos that they took on your on your Google page than you will for the 48 hours their content's live on social media. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Love it. Rev, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to sit and chat with me. I told you before we hit record I was going to cap this at 30 minutes and we're at like 38 minutes because you're just so much fun to talk to and we literally could do this for hours. We have done this for hours. Any last words of wisdom? Where can we send people obviously and keep all your links in the show notes. Where else should we send people to? [00:41:52] Speaker B: I mean look, you can follow me on every social media platform. I'm Revc Anzio if you want this sort of like go eat here content, that's TikTok and Instagram. But if you're really trying to figure out your restaurant marketing, follow me on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn I post lots of marketing tips and tricks and tactics like this and the easiest way to find me on LinkedIn is RestaurantSgrow TV will take you right to my free newsletter where I update almost weekly with literally tips, tricks, tactics, how to's nuggets and probably about a year ago I wrote the Ultimate Influencer Marketing Plan. It's on that blog. So if you want how to do content restaurantsgrow tv if you want to see me point at Pizza Rev cnc. [00:42:30] Speaker A: Love it. All those links will be in the show notes. See, this is why we have this guy on so much. Rev. I appreciate it. Thank you very much for taking time out of your day. [00:42:37] Speaker B: My pleasure. Thank you. [00:42:39] Speaker A: Once again, I got to thank Rev for taking time out of his day to share his wisdom with us. If you wanted to learn more about Rev, if you want to connect with him, all of those links are in the show notes. So the Instagram, the TikTok, his LinkedIn goes connect with him. He literally is the smartest restaurant marketer I know. And I gotta thank all of you guys for taking time out of your week. Giving it to me, listening to what I have to say, I hope I don't waste your time. My goal is to help give you this short, sweet, action packed content so you can apply this directly to your business. If you have not worked with influencers, I hope I made it a little less scary today. I hope you have a path forward for how to begin building those relationships. And again, we answered all those key questions. Do they work? Should we pay them? How do we get started? All of that is on this episode. If you think anybody, anybody you know would get something out of this episode, please just share it with them, send it on, text it to them, forward it. An email that helps us grow this community more than you can possibly imagine. Appreciate you guys being here. Appreciate all of you guys being a part of this community. Thank you very much and I'll see you next time.