[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey there. It's Thursday, so this must be a marketing conversation. As we said, this new format has operations conversations on Mondays, marketing conversations on Thursdays. Today I want to talk about agencies because agencies can be incredible. Obviously, the biggest organizations out there use agencies, multiple agencies, to help them accomplish their goals because you get unique expertise and the relationships that they bring. But for me, I know so many independent restaurant owners who use agencies and don't use them right. And the agencies have gotten really good at snowing us. And I want to teach you on today's episode how to work with them better and really how to get better at your job so that they can get better at theirs. Today we're going to talk about the pitfalls and the way to get out of the pit for how to work with agencies. Don't go anywhere.
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.
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close and this is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast dedicated to helping you build a more profitable and sustainable business. Each week I leverage my 25 years in the industry to help you do just that. Build a business that can support you, can support your family for many, many years to come. I wrote a book, it's called the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. You can get that anywhere where books are. I take the stage all over the world, give talks from time to time on marketing, on operations, on profitability. I also run some something called the P3 mastermind. This is a group coaching program dedicated to helping independent owners and operators increase the profitability in their restaurants. All you need, right beyond good food, good service, you know you need a plan for targeting profitability and a system to help your team get you consistently profitable every single single month. If you want to learn more about that, if profitability is something you are, you're thinking about, that's top of mind. As we come to the end of the year into the new year, then I want to chat with you. The best way to get started is to set up a free call with me or someone from my team. You go to restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule, you'll see a calendar there. You grab some time on the calendar, 30 minute call, absolutely free. No pressure to join us, but we get to ask questions of you and learn more about what you're going through. And you get to Ask all of the questions you want so you better understand the program. Do that. The link is in the show notes. But again, restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule. Set up that call and I'll see you on the other side.
Avi, you love to go out to eat. So as a guest, what's your biggest pet peeve when you're trying to choose a place to eat?
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah, as the father of two children, I can't leave the house for less than $30 an hour. My wife has celiac. So when we're going to make a dining decision, I live and die by that menu. I'm in there researching what's available. What can my wife eat, what can we share, what do I get to eat off of her plate?
And so that menu is just a crucial part of all decision making for me as a consumer. It's why at Marquee, we focus so much on our menus, our menu integration, so that as operators, your menu that lives in your point of sale that you want customers to see is available and up to date everywhere.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: To learn more about Marquee, go to marquee.com m a r q I I.com to learn more about this and all of the incredible features. Features they have.
Okay, so today I want to talk about how we work with outside agencies. Certainly a lot of you guys probably work with marketing agencies, ad agencies, PR agencies, and it's a big deal, especially when there are areas that they excel at, things that they do really well that you don't do really well. Right. So if they know how to really run Google Ads or, or meta ads, or if they know how to put out press releases and things like that, I get it. Why waste your time doing it when they excel at it? And that's exactly right. As a leader, we know that you should focus on the highest value tasks possible. And then you delegate or outsource everything else so that you are literally doing the things that only you can do or the things that you desperately love to do. Because if you're building a business for yourself, you might as well build a business that you want to be in so everything else that somebody else enjoys doing or can do better than you, you're right. You delegate it or you outsource it. And, and that reason, that's why a lot of restaurant owners turn to outside agencies. And outside agencies drive me absolutely crazy. And I'll tell you why. Because they are always too quick to tell you the 22 tasks that their 22 year old intern did on your Behalf. Well, we did this and this and this and this and this and this and this. I don't care and nor should you care about all the stuff they did for you. It is not about the tasks, the activity they did, it's about what they made happen. It's very clear, right? Seth Godin, public speaker, best selling author, says marketing is about making change happen. If the change happened, the marketing worked. If the change didn't happen, then the marketing didn't work. And you go figure out marketing that will work. You have to make change happen, meaning you have to make something happen. You have to make the consumer do something, right? If they didn't do the thing, it doesn't matter how much activity you did, it didn't work. So for me, I care deeply on our goals, what we're trying to accomplish, and I don't give a crap what you have to do on the agency side to make that thing happen. I care about the results. So over the course of today's episode, I want to share five different areas, five things that you need to safeguard that there are areas, pitfalls that you'll fall into. Where I see a lot of other restaurant owners fall into. I've worked for organizations that have fallen into here and they're very easy to solve, they're very easy to get, right? You just have to be aware of them. So there are plenty of you out there that outsource and delegate and that's exactly what you should be doing. But let's be able to do it now with greater focus and intention. Five areas I want you to focus on. Let's dive right in. One of the first things that we really get wrong or that we often get wrong as independent operators when we work with outside agencies. So an ad agency, a PR company, a marketing agency is misalignment of vision and goals, right? And I'll remind you what we talked about on last week's episode or on Monday's episode, I should say the last episode was all about the difference between leadership and management, right? Leadership is about setting vision, management is about executing it, right? So this misalignment of vision and goals, right? So pitfall is that marketing agency, the marketing agency may not fully understand what the restaurant is trying to accomplish, right? Their vision, their brand identity, their overall business goals. Or there might be a misalignment there, right? Which is, you know, this is what we're all about as a restaurant. And maybe the marketing agency isn't interested in that. You have to make sure that the agency you work with Sees the world the way you see the world and can help execute in the direction that you want to go. Now, that ties back to last week's episode, or again, last episode. Your job is to properly articulate your vision for where you going. And if you don't properly articulate it, then you got no one to blame but yourself. But assuming you can, you have to make sure that the agency understands it and can execute it, right? So again, simple example of this, right, Is that an agency develops a campaign that doesn't truly reflect the restaurant's unique atmosphere or doesn't properly target the audience that everybody said we should be targeting, right? Which leads to ineffective promotions that that failed to resonate with customers. So meaning it doesn't accomplish the stated goal. So again, making sure we clearly understand where we're going and then the stated goals, we have to be really clear. And I said this just a second ago. I don't care what an agency does for me. I don't care if they spend 30 minutes a week on my account or 30 hours a week on my account. What I care is that the things happened that I said needed to happen. We're going to get more into that as we go along. But it's your job as a restaurant owner to properly communicate vision, properly communicate the goals, what you want to happen, right? Second pitfall, the second way that we often stumble with outside agencies is that there's lack of communication and really lack of transparency and listen on both sides, right? So the pitfall is poor communication, transparency. What happens is often results in misunderstandings, missed deadlines, which drives me crazy. Or like we just said a minute ago, in effect, ineffective marketing strategies, right? That we're trying to accomplish something, but we didn't properly communicate it, we didn't articulate it, and we didn't set clear expectations and deadlines on it so that the agency doesn't deliver something they'll actually work. Again, here's the example, right? That maybe the agency doesn't provide regular reporting or updates on different campaign performances, leaving the restaurant owner sort of like in left field, unaware of how or whether the marketing efforts are working, right? So understanding that you need to be in alignment, that we need to understand what we're trying to accomplish, and that there's constant communication back and forth. And what drives me crazy often about marketing agencies is they say, well, we did this and this and this and this and this. And I don't know why it didn't work. I mean, it must be something on your end happened. It's Totally reasonable that the marketing agency put something into the field that just didn't work. That's fine. That's business. We try things. If it didn't work, we try something else, we try new things until we find something that works. And if we understand what we're trying to accomplish right, then we can just try again. Try again, try again. So I hate this where everyone's got to cover their ass because they're so afraid of being, they're so afraid of being fired. Hopefully there's complete alignment between the owner and the agency and there's a commitment on both ends to get it right. Sometimes it takes a couple tries to get it right. And so poor communication on both sides. If you can't properly articulate and they are not forthcoming with the actual results of what they're doing, that drives me crazy. And that will sink a relationship almost right out of the gate. Right? Here's a, here's a big one. So the third point here, and it has to be stated, one of the pitfalls that can happen from working with an outside agency is if they do not properly understand your industry or your market. The restaurant industry, I don't have to tell you guys, but the restaurant industry is very unique and they have to understand it. Likewise, they can't be penned in, right? So on the opposite end of things, they can't say, oh, we work with all these restaurant clients and there's a cookie cutter approach.
Sometimes there can be a systemization to it, sometimes there can be basic principles or strategies. We know these strategies work and we use them on 30 different clients. That's different.
That's different than just a flat cookie cutter approach of saying, well, this is just what we do, right? So either they feel like they know it too well and not willing to rethink things or evolve, or they don't understand it at all. Again, the, the pitfall here is that agencies with limited experience in our industry may not grasp the nuances of what we need to do, what we actually struggle with on a day to day basis. And that is huge. Right? So again, the example here is that, I don't know, your agency maybe again puts out this cookie cutter approach. They do the same thing they do for their other 30 clients. So your stuff looks the same as the sushi place, the pizza place, the salad shop, on and on, right? It's generic, it's cookie cutter. And it doesn't actually address the desires, the needs, the wants of your target market of the things that you're actually trying to accomplish. So I think there's, there's pitfalls on either side either if they feel like they know it too well and you get a cookie cutter, everything's the same, or they don't know it at all. And you need a company that knows it or is willing to learn it right? So you can have somebody green to the industry. They've got a lot of experience with marketing, sometimes having an outside perspective, say, well, we never work in this field, but we do a lot of work in this industry. This industry, this industry. Because maybe they'll bring new ideas, hey, here are some things that work over there. Let's try to apply them to this industry. But they have to be willing to learn. There has to be a curiosity and a drive to know better. If they don't properly understand or they're not willing to come to an understanding about the industry, you are sunk right from the start. We get two others that I want to share with you. Two other ways, key ways, probably the most important ways that these, that these relationships with agencies can fall apart. Talk about that in a second after a word from another one of our sponsors.
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Okay, so we're talking about working with outside agencies and as a restaurant owner you can't do it all. You have to focus on doing the High value tasks, the things that only you can do or the things that you do better than anyone else. And you delegate or outsource everything else. So five areas that I think I want to be focused, that I think you want to be focused on. Here are the last two. Right? Number four, unrealistic expectations and over promising. I see this all the time. Agencies might promise really quick results or guaranteed outcomes that are not reasonably achievable. Setting you up for disappointment right out of the gate. Gate. You have to make sure, you have to make sure that the expectations that what you're trying to accomplish and what they're promising is absolutely possible. Right? And the example is that maybe an agency promises a significant increase in foot traffic within 30 days but then fails to deliver. Or they lie or they blame, right? Leading to frustration all the way around. Wasted time, wasted marketing, investment. It drives me crazy. Make sure we're really clear. Now this all goes back to setting a vision and proper communication. Unrealistic expectations and over promising can absolutely sink you. Here is the fifth one, the fifth and final point. I can't state this enough.
The biggest pitfall, the biggest one that befalls any restaurant and any agency they choose to work with when it falls apart is insufficient performance tracking and insufficient ROI measurement. Now I'm gonna pause here and just say a lot of people ask me how much should I be spending on marketing, right? And they want a number. You should be spending 4% of your budget on marketing, which is absolute crap. You shouldn't be spending anything on marketing. You should be investing in marketing. So if you've got a restaurant that's been open a year, 2, 3, 5, 10, you've got business coming in. Whatever you're doing is certainly succeeding by some measure. You are getting people in the front door. They are coming, they're eating, they're telling people they're coming back, new people are coming in. Something about what you're doing is working. If you're going to do something new. Meaning if you're going to put, put new meta ads in there, you're going to do a new radio spot, you're going to put a billboard, you're going to run a direct mail campaign, whatever it is, you have to properly measure that. I don't care how much you spend, I don't want you to spend anything. I want you to invest. And I want you to understand that what you're going for is clear roi, return on investment, right? Or roas, roas return on ad spend. That whatever you spend has a clear return that we are watching, that we can prove it. We can measure and prove that it's coming back. Right?
One of the things that drives me most crazy, it's why I saved it for last, is that we don't properly track the performance of anything we do. Right? And then agencies will come back and say, well, it's difficult to assess the effectiveness of this thing we did. And they can't quite justify the expenditure. But they're like, well, but everyone else is doing it. Or this is just what you have to do. Or, you know, they tell you whatever they're gonna tell you, it's absolute bs. The first three, five, eight things you do with a marketing agency or as a marketing agency. And I know because we now run an agency as part of restaurant strategy, right? Everything is measurable. I can show you because I want to be able to show you. This is what you spent on the agency, this is what you spent on your ad spend, and here is the return. I can show you the dollars that were spent that we can attribute to this ad campaign. Because me, selfishly as the agency owner, as the business owner, I want to be able to look a restaurant owner in the face and say, yeah, man, my stuff works. Look, there is the proof. And that's why you should continue working with us. That's how you get happy clients, right? So if there's any agency owners out there listening to it, that's how you get happy clients, by being able to, to prove that what you're doing works.
Anything else is just bs. So is there stuff you're going to do as a restaurant owner that you may not be able to prove, that you may not be able to measure? Yeah, sure, of course.
But the first 3, 5, 8, 10 things you should absolutely be able to measure, you absolutely want to be able to understand it. So if somebody's not properly tracking it, can't tell you that. Huge red flag. Huge red flag. Because again, to go back to the very first thing I said, marketing agencies, ad agencies love to tell you the 22 things that their 22 year old intern did on behalf of your account.
I don't care about all the stuff they did. I care about what they made happen.
I don't care if you spend 30 minutes or 30 hours on my account, as long as I get the results we defined, as long as we get the results we need. And if you're not thinking in terms of roi, you're doing it wrong. And run away from that agency. If you haven't hired them, go interview new ones if you have hired them, void the contract because it's total bs. You need to be able to point to the activities and show how they drove business metrics. Business metrics meaning first time visits, repeat visits, online reviews, greater spend.
Those are the things that help your business.
So that's it. If you are going to work with an outside agency, which you probably should in certain areas because you are not an expert in all the areas. Maybe you've got people on staff who can do some of the stuff, but I imagine some of the more technical aspects of marketing or advertising your restaurant will require you reach out to experts. Not all experts are created equal.
Use these as a rough rule of thumb and again to go over these five again. Number one, one of the pitfalls where this thing falls in the crapper is that there's a misalignment of vision and goals. This is a problem on both sides. Your job to properly articulate their job to make sure they understand and repeat back to you. So that you are in, you are one team. You're moving forward in the same direction. Number two, lack of communication and transparency. As you move forward, the blame game, the sort of misdirection and all that. There's no time for that. This is a business relationship. I'm hiring you to help me accomplish X. You're going to do the following things to help me accomplish X. You either made the change happen or you didn't make the change happen. Number three, this agency has to have an understanding of the restaurant industry and not be stuck in their ways. So an inadequate understanding of the restaurant industry is a pitfall. Number four. Right. These unrealistic expectations and over promising, there's no room for it. Make sure you have really clear alignment on what you're actually trying to accomplish. Make sure that it is attainable. And then finally. Right. Insufficient ROI measurement. You have to be able to track what you're doing. That there are some things you're going to do where maybe you can't prove that it's working or not. Those should not be the first five, ten things that you do. The first five or ten campaigns or activities that you put into practice should be measurable. And again from an agency perspective, because I now run an agency Restaurant strategy runs a coaching program called the P3 mastermind. And we now run an agency. More of that and more on that in just a second. We run an agency for clients who work with, I don't know, 30 some different restaurants all over the country to help them with customer acquisition. That's specifically what our agency is focused on lots of other areas to advertising or marketing restaurants. We just focus on customer acquisition. But we absolutely want to be able to prove absolutely want to be able to prove that what we are doing is working and we can show a positive roi, that return on investment. This is how much you're spending and this is how much was generated. Cool. Those are the five things. Before I let you go, I want to let you know. So this is. We'll call this coming out party of sorts. Restaurant Strategy is a podcast, right? So I am the host of the restaurant Strategy podcast.
There's also. We've extended that. It is now the company I run, so we run a coaching program called the P3 mastermind. We work with established restaurant owners and operators to help them increase the profitability of their restaurants. We've got more than 150 people currently enrolled in the program, spread across four different mastermind groups. The program works. It's exceptional. The community is incredible. If you struggle with profitability, I want you to reach out and have a conversation about that. The way you do that is by going to restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule. That link is going to be in the show notes. You do that, grab some time on the calendar and we'll see if you're a good fit. The other side of our business, right? The other side of my business, which we launched quietly at the very beginning of this year, we've been running it quietly now for nine months or so. So we knew we could get the systems in place. We knew that we could do what we said we would be able to do. We launched an agency. The agency runs Google Search ads and Meta ads. So Meta meaning the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. We run Google Search ads and Facebook and Instagram ads for our clients. We're working with like 30 some clients all over the country. And what we are doing works. We feel really confident in the results now. We have priced ourselves much cheaper than the competition. We have done all of that research because we don't really need to make a billion dollars on this. Right. We need to pay for the people that help us execute the team we have on staff. Um, we, of course, it's a business. We need to make some money on it. But we are offering this at a very reasonable rate. Certainly much more reasonable than a lot of the competitors out there. I promise you this stuff works. So if you are focused on customer acquisition, then I want you to get in touch. Right now. The best way to do that is just send me an email and say you'd like to talk to us about our ad services. Right. So the ad agency at Restaurant Strategy, you're going to, you're going to send me an email. Email goes to me directly. Chip c h I p@ chip close.com C-H-I p k l o s e.com chipclose.com Just tell me you're interested in the ad services at Restaurant Strategy and I will connect you with my business partner, Monica Hammond, who runs the agency side of that business.
That's what I want to talk to you guys about today. Now, you don't have, you don't have to work with us. This is again, not something we really pitch, not something we've really advertised. It's just something we're doing for a lot of the members of the P3 mastermind. And now we're finally at a place to be able to open it up to people on the outside, to people who aren't Mastermind members. So that's what we are doing here. Whether you work with me or anyone else, this is the set of standards. This is. This is the bar you need to hold them to. That's true. Whether it's us or anybody else, I promise you, you will have a better relationship if you get really clear on these five points. This is a dense episode. Go back and listen to it, by all means. And if you want to chat about our ad agency services, then do that. Reach out to me,
[email protected] I'll put that in the show notes as well, so you have a quick link that you can just tap on. Thank you guys very much for being here. Really appreciate everything you guys do for this, for this industry, everything you do for your communities. I really appreciate you taking time out of your week, every week to be here and listen to me. Hopefully this stuff helps, hopefully get some value out of this. Thank you and I will see you next time.