[00:00:00] Speaker A: There are a bunch of brands that I work with and I know there are a bunch of you out there listening that, that you feel like you're ready to expand, that business is going well. You've got maybe two, three, five locations and you're going, man, it's time to blow this up. The new year is when we do this, and I love it. I'm incredibly supportive of that. A lot of the work we do on this show is getting you ready for that, making sure you have the systems in place, profitability is dialed in, that your operation is tight. But let's say you do that. What comes next? My guest today is going to talk all about business development, about expansion, the do's, the don'ts, the pitfalls, all of that. On today's episode of Restaurant Strategy.
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Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close. This is the Restaurant Strategy Podcast. Two episodes every single week. If you don't know me, I wrote a book. It's called the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. I run a coaching program, it's called the P3 mastermind, where I work with hundreds of restaurant owners all over the country to help them dial in profitability. But I also have a membership site, it's called Restaurant Foundations. It's totally free if you wanna dive in one month, absolutely free. After that, it charges $97 a month. Obviously, I hope you stay for a long time. There's a ton of video content, there's spreadsheets, there's templates, there's ebooks. We do masterclasses. We do ask me anything sessions every single month. We do tons of, tons of stuff available there for you. It's an incredible resource, not to mention, of course, the community. You get to connect with hundreds and hundreds of restaurant owners from all over the world. Restaurant foundations. The link is in the show notes. I would urge you to go grab that totally free for a month and you cancel whenever you want. So at the end of the month, if you want to cancel, you don't want to get charged, it's totally fine. Just do that. It's very easy to do that right when you log in, it's right there on the homepage again, right? Restaurant Foundations. You can find that link in the show notes.
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So my guest on today's show is Edie Weintraub. She is a retail and restaurant strategist. She's the founder of Terra Alma, which is a boutique advisory firm that mostly helps independent restaurants and emerging retail brands choose the right locations and be able to grow with intention and confidence in Edie. Welcome to the show.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Chip, for having me.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: I am glad to be having this conversation. I'm thinking a lot about this over the last certainly 18 months because it seems like it feels like a lot of my clients. So I work with a lot of independent restaurant owners that are probably in that one to eight location place. And when they get to three, four, five, that's about as far as they can go on their own. And then they need capital, then they need legal, then they need really business development help. And I find that a bunch of brands that I've been working with are now at that place. Like, oh man, we've got this figured out. We've got five places that are killing it and we really want to grow. So you and I met at the right time through a mutual friend and I think he knew that this was going to be a good conversation.
Give me the quick overview, like what is it you do? When would someone engage you? How does that relationship work? Start there and then I've got a whole bunch of questions I'm going to ask based on how you answer that question.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: So I love to meet entrepreneurs and business owners. I mean, there's nothing more magnetic than their desire to Put people to work, to share with people, their food, their culture, etc. So I love being able to amplify that. So I like to scout up restaurants, and I'm sure you do this as well as I do. I walk into a restaurant and I look at, you know, is it clean? Is everything aligned? Is everything set up for the day, whether that's lunch or dinner? And I talk to the team. I asked the bartender, hey, is this a normal Tuesday night, or is this kind of quiet? It's Friday busy. Do you enjoy working here? Tell me a little bit more about your. Your boss.
And it's really in those conversations that, I mean, the layers of the onion unfold, and you really are able to see if the team is happy and the restaurant's performing. And your meal is delicious. There is definitely something to open up a dialogue with that founder and say, hey, I really think you've got something special here, and we should. If you're interested, I'd love to help you grow it.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: So, like, how does this begin? So you specifically work on development, which is strategically, like, literally, where, what space, what neighborhoods, what blocks? How do they think about that? How should they be looking at that as people start expanding outside of the primary market into other markets or, God forbid, man, across state lines? I've got a couple of clients who've done this in the last, I say, 24 months. And it just brings all. All kinds of, you know, all kinds of wrenches to the works. But.
But that, I mean, I guess nuts and bolts. Like, what is it you, like, literally do?
[00:06:16] Speaker B: That's a great question. So I.
I like to find, going back to their. Why their North Star, why they started this in the first place. And a lot of the times these folks are, you know, just deeply embedded in hospitality and taking care of others and caring for their customers, for their regulars. When I worked in food and beverage, I thought I wanted to be a dentist, and I had extra hours and I needed to socialize. So what am I going to do? I'm going to work in a restaurant. I was every role except for a chef and a bartender. And what I really loved, beyond doing expo and running food, was having a good time with the chefs in the back and really just swapping all sorts of stories. But for me, being a host was my favorite because I'd welcome people into my kitchen. I'd be the last person they see as they left. And I had a family for a year and a half as I was working in a restaurant. Every Sunday, they would come in and every Sunday, I'd say, hi, so, and so, family. It's so great to see you. How was church today? Because I knew they always came in after church, and I just love that consistency and seeing those people because I knew they were going to come in every day.
Beyond that, it's the people that you get to interact with. I mean, of course I've been watching the bear. I'm a little bit late, but I am enjoying the scene where they talk about, you know, people in the restaurant, they become your family. You are, you know, going through a massive, chaotic moment with them during the heat of service, and then it dies down, and then you're prepping again. I just love the circle of life. So I'm helping them realize, where's my customer base? How do I position myself for success?
Where am I going to find the people that made these first five locations work beyond the team and the chef and the staff? But where are my regulars going to come from? And how do I continue to translate that message as I continue to grow? How does that the ethos of the company maintain?
[00:08:08] Speaker A: So there's something that happens, and it's somewhere around three, four, five locations.
So we've got a concept. I think we can muscle it.
We can will the first one into existence. I think we can muscle number two or three.
Somewhere around four and five is where I find a lot of people start bringing outside help.
That's where they figure out that there's a lot of the wrong people that are around them.
And then at that point, hopefully they take that year or so to get all the right people around them to help them actually just run the operation, right? The right cfo, the right director of operations or regional manager, whoever, whatever you want to call them. You know, the operations are in place, the marketing is getting into place, all of that. And then there's something that happens after five, in my experience, that it's like jumping off a cliff. You cannot. You can no longer do it the way you've been doing it. So when you come to a brand and you've done all that research, right, and they say, yep, they're solid. Good food, good experience, they feel like they know who they are. People seem to like to work for them, all of that. You feel like they're differentiated. Maybe we'll get into that. But as they're thinking about expansion, right, like. Like, what are the things that they should. Like, like, what are the first things you analyze before you sign that lease for number 3, 4, 5, 10, 15? Like. Like, how do you like, how do you see that? Like, what's, what's the first things that they should be doing?
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, for me, it's all about the right positioning. I had a client who was a phenomenal barbecue restaurant and he opened the first two locations fairly scrappy in a strip center. I think it was like $12 a square foot. It was really nothing in terms of being able to get open and operating. And as we were searching number three, I said, okay, we've got two options in the market. I mean, we have many more, but for now we've got two that you really like. One is on a main corridor. You get great lunchtime, you get great dinner time, you get great exposure, you've got strong daytime population and you also have strong residential. The other corridor was more of an industrial corridor. Great lunch with all the businesses surrounding it, but people that are on their way home are cruising through. They're not stopping to pick up dinner or have dinner with their family.
And I said, you have these two options. The first one that you knew is a grand slam for lunch and dinner, twice the rent.
And so client opted with the one that was cheaper. And I said, okay, again, I'm here to be your guide to help you see all of the opportunities. I said, we're going to opt for this one, but you're going to have to do more marketing and more outreach to build those catering orders, let people know that you're there. Whereas this other location, just where you're positioned, is so much of a flagship and signage for you that you really probably won't have to sit, spend a lot of money in marketing. And so now, five years later, my client says, okay, Edie, I realized that you were right and we should have opted for the one that had immediate success at the forefront. And so it's really helping them see the differences between those two options and understanding why they should perhaps lean into one versus the other. In many instances, a lot of restaurateurs are going into mixed use environments where you have built in residential, you have built in office, and those developers know that they're providing all of that foot traffic to you. So you're going to pay more for that space, but you're going to probably have to advertise much, much less. So it's just a matter of what you enjoy doing. If you just want to come in and crush it and operate a really great restaurant, I would say lean into the one that's more expensive and realize that your sales will be amplified because of all the foot Traffic that's happening.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Talk to me.
I always think of terms of, and I guess this is advice that I've given and I'd wonder if you would fortify this, if you agree with this or if you feel differently about it.
Especially in the first three, four, five locations. I find it's really important for an operator to really understand their footprint and really understand their operation. Meaning, does this work in an industrial zone? Does it only work in high traffic areas? Does this only mixed use? Is this better in a suburban venue, an urban venue? Is this better for a vacation town? There was a fried chicken concept I was working with and they had three locations in and around the Philadelphia area. One was Center City, one was over in University City, over by all of the universities and colleges, LaSalle, Drexel, Penn, all of that. And then the third one was down the Shore, so down the Jersey Shore. And they made more money, more profit in those four months, June, July, August, September, than they did with the other two locations combined. And I said, I think you're learning something really, really valuable here. It was like you could just crush it four months a year. And they wanted to expand again to another location in.
They wanted to go up to North Philly, they wanted to go up to Temple University. And I said, why you're learning something so valuable here? Luckily there are like 40 shore points all up and down the coast, you know, from Cape May all the way up to like Asbury Park. You could put one of these in every single town. Even if they're not all home runs, I bet you they're all going to be pretty good. And I watched them and they just, they didn't want to see it and they didn't want to hear it. I said, this isn't my opinion. This is the, like, this is the, the data talking. So I think those first three, four, five locations are about figuring out what kind of personnel we need, what kind of menu kills, what kind of area is right, so that you can go forward. Whether you're going to expand, you're going to have to get access to capital. You're not going to be able to expand on your own. So you're going to have to be able to tell what you've learned. This is what we know works, this is how we're going to continue our, you know, expansion and all of this. And then you could be more efficient with, you don't have to do so much trial and error. Trial and error happens 3, 4, 5. That's why most Taco Bells look the same most McDonald's look the same. Most Burger Kings look the same as friend friends with a woman who is the head of business development for Taco Bell for years. And she's like, my job is so stupid, easy. Like, we just know what's inside the box and what's outside the box. And we, at this point in the life cycle of Taco Bell, we do not go outside the box. We know what inside the box looks like. So tell me how you think about that.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think that really those first couple of locations are a test case, right? Because you should have operations just cranking and processes flowing. And to your point, if they're most successful, most profitable stores at the shore, I'm scratching my head to understand why they wouldn't lean into that, especially if they're looking to raise capital or to potentially franchise. What I love seeing about concepts that want to franchise is I say you can't do it unless you have three to five locations. Because future franchisees, investors, they want to understand that you tested all the different opportunities and that you leaned into what you know works. I mean, here you are talking about Taco Bell. They know their model, they know where they can position themselves.
I would argue, though, that some brands in the fast food space maybe don't pick the best franchisees and let the franchisees choose the real estate. And oftentimes it's cheap real estate, not what they know is going to be successful to them. I had a franchisee for a fried chicken concept once and they said, oh, well, we want to be in this market, in this market, in this market. And I said, well, your budget to acquire land to build this particular franchise, is this because you need to be in a certain ratio of what you can afford in order to buy the land or ground, lease the land and then build it. And unfortunately, you have a champagne taste, but you have a beer budget. And so it works initially for someone like Zaxby's. When Zaxby's came into the market and they were just pushing the brand and looking to grow, they took a lot of like third tier real estate. And that was a matter of just getting the brand out there. They've now kind of repositioned and looked at moving within markets and upgrading and elevating to get better presence. But their, you know, initial strategy was like, let's just grow. And I think that served them well because now we've got, in the Southeast, we've got the addition of raising canes. Meanwhile, Zaxby's has been a proven chicken Finger concept for many years and already has very loyal fans. But of course, you know, people are always going to check out the new.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Kit on the back as well and. And tell me if I'm wrong. But that's almost the exception that proves the rule. Right?
So when we talk about locations and all of that, do you feel like when you come in and you're like, oh, I mean, you look at the numbers and all that, I assume you do a lot of the same things that I do and you say, this is the thing. Like, this is. Like, this is the thing that works. And as we're expanding the corporate footprint, this is what it should be. Or you want to be able to look a franchisee in the face and say, yeah, man, we've tried them all. We made a whole bunch of mistakes. And now we know you don't have to make the mistakes. We're saving you all of that. That's why we did all this work for the first five, eight years, whatever it is. And now we know. This is the footprint. This is the demographic makeup that you're going to need. This is the kind of foot traffic or passersby that you're going to need.
Now you know all that, and you can go into it, Right? Am I understanding that right?
[00:16:56] Speaker B: That's correct, yeah.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: All right, so talk about bad locations. Let's talk about. Right, so, like, great concepts, wrong locations, how it drains the future.
So what are the biggest location mistakes that you think independent operators can make? And how do you help or have. How have you helped your clients avoid them?
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, going back to the. The barbecue group I was just telling you about, it's not that it was a bad location. It just didn't end up being as bad profitable as soon as the other one would have been. I think also not understanding, you know, falling in love with a space. I tell my clients, hey, this is all about the numbers. You want to make sure that it feels right, but at the same time, you got to make sure that there's natural demand. Are our customers in that corridor? Are the complimentary neighbors there? I mean, most restaurants want to be next to complimentary. They don't want to be next to ones who are immediately competitive. Unless, of course, you're in certain corridors in Atlanta, because as any bubble tea shop is coming into the market, they're all going to be over highway. It's like survival of the fittest, but for the most part, you want to just be aware of the competition, but also be aware of other cuisines. That are in the market but may not be your competition. I think competition is very healthy, and I think oftentimes people scoot away from it. But if you are confident in your product and you know you can be successful, let's do it.
The other things are parking, visibility, accessibility. So you might have a spot that's highly, highly visible, but it takes you four turns to get into it.
It's very difficult for someone to get comfortable with making all of those different turns to get into the spot, but then also realizing, hey, I want to come here, but like, you don't have parking.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Or I see that you're in the shopping center, but I don't know exactly where. And it's really hard to find. Find you. You might be in what we call the armpit of a center because you want a cheap rent, but nobody can see your storefront because it's basically non existent.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny, there's a. My in laws lived in Tampa for eight years, and it's sprawling suburbs, you know, on and on and on, and there are all these subdivisions. And I was talking to a restaurant owner out there in that area. It was funny because I was very familiar with the area. And he says, you know, everybody loves to tell you how many, you know, how much the residential makeup within a, you know, square mile or three square miles. He's like. And I just disregarded all of that. All I wanted to look for was who's to my left. And I didn't understand it until I went down there. And there are these massive, massive, like three lanes in each direction. Not highways, but like corridors in between towns because again, sprawling subway, sprawling suburbs. And they said, and I remember that it was like to make a left turn out of the subdivision sometimes it was like seven, eight minutes. And he's like, I need to be a right turn away from the most amount of people. He's like. So I had subdivisions that were. They were gonna have to go out of the subdivision and make a left to get to me. And I knew what was gonna happen.
After three months of that, six months of that, they're gonna get tired of it and just start falling in love with everything to the right. Because when you're then coming back home, you're willing to go a little bit out of, you know, you're willing to be inconvenienced on the way home, but not to get there. And I was like, that's. That's my exact experience. And he's like, yep, nobody thinks that way. And he said, He' mentor taught me that in the Atlanta suburbs, as they were explaining, and in Houston suburbs, it was the same sort of thing. He's like, when Tampa started blowing up about 15 years ago, 10 years ago, I watched it happening and he's like, I know exactly what to do. I'm looking at the num. The. The. The largest number of people that can get to me with just a single right turn. So you make a right turn, you go two miles down the road and you make a right turn into the shopping center. And he's like, that's where I was going to put my thing. He's like, and that's how I would work with developers and all that. It was. So it's to your point, right, that the accessibility piece of it is strange to think of it that way. And then in practice he's like, what's the worst part about being down here? Having to make a left turn out.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Of your subdivision or you're in a development that, you know, takes 15 minutes to get in and out of and by the time you actually have to go out, you want to do all your errands in one fell swoop rather than have to point to point. The other thing I think is important to pay attention to is most demographic studies, psychographics, value graphics, etc, they all look at radius. Well, just because you live in this three mile surface circle doesn't mean that you're going to be able to get to me. So my team and I lean on walk scores as well as drive times because that's much more telling about how people will be able to access your space.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: I love it. I worked with a guy once who told me, he's like, I always try to be between the subdivisions in the high school or I try to be between, I mean like these major, major things. He's like, I know they're going to go to. He's like, back in the day, it used to be like, you know, the residential communities, the mall, the high school, the, you know, wherever the big fields are. He's like, center of gravity. That's where they're going all the time. They're going back and forth from dance to home, to dance to home to karate home to school to. He's like, that's where they're doing. And they're gonna just start looking left and right and say, let's just grab a bite to eat here. And so I thought that was really, that was really telling as well. Talk to me. So again, I'm really fascinated, probably just asking questions Selfishly, when they go from one to multiples.
So what are the systems that you see in operators who do scale successfully and then how do you come in and guide them successfully? The people who don't necessarily have them in, how do you step in and do it? Or is that just they're not ready yet and you say you got to do X, Y and Z. And I guess what are the ones who succeed have that the others don't have?
[00:22:33] Speaker B: I mean, to your point, it's systems and the right team, right? And the ones that are smart enough to realize, hey, for example, I love business development.
I maybe don't love ops so much. And so making sure the team is performing might be someone else that you need to add to your team. So I think early on, very soon is realizing what you're strong at and what you need to bring in to help balance out and make you successful. I think all too often a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners are like, I got this, I'm going to do it myself. I'm just going to muscle through. And unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. You need to really balance your team and make sure that you're all heading in the right direction and really setting the tone and the strategy, but making sure that you've got the right people on the bus with you.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: I always say, we can't have, you can't expand as an operator, right? So a lot of people start off as operators. They become owner operators. I say you firmly have to become the owner, the CEO, if you want to do it. I had a guy who came to me to work in my program and he was trying to dial in profitability. We did that. First thing he said to me, he's like, oh, now I get it. Now I know how to make money. I should. I need to put five of these, you know, in the surrounding towns. I said, great. I love it. I'm supportive of that because you're right, you're generating 35, $40,000 to the bottom line just from this one location every single month. It's go time. Except talk to me about your day, about your day today. And he says, oh, yeah, yeah, no, I'm coming. And I said, great. What I need you to do is be able to take 90 days off.
90 days off, and you only have four hours worth of phone calls with the people in the store. I don't care what you do for 90 days, you cannot walk in the store. And he's like, that's crazy. I was like, what the hell do you think's going to happen when you go two towns over and try to open this same concept down there? And he like all of a sudden got it. And he was like, so 90 days. I was like, I will not help you expand. I will not, I cannot recommend it until you can tell me that you spent 90 days away from your location and did no more than four hours of phone calls with the key team members who are on the ground actually doing it. Everything they need you for should be able to be done in four hours. And there's no, you know, there's no firefighting going on. Nobody's coming to you. They, they have the authority to take care of the things that you are leaving them responsible for. And it took him, it took him about a year to get to that point. And he told me, he was like, hey, I just want to let you know I'm open at my second location. I was like, dude. He's like, I took my 90 days off. You're absolutely right. Couldn't have done it without that. And so amazing. How do you. I mean, that's got to be, it's got to be there. It's not just me who sees that, right?
[00:25:10] Speaker B: No, no, that's a great formula. But also just to step out of it, I mean, I had a client who I loved and at one point they got up to 14 locations. Some of them were in colleges and universities, but they were serving, you know, breakfast and pastries and different coffees and juices and smoothies and acai bowls. And they moved in the direction of franchising. And I don't think that they were very attentive to bring on the franchisees that were chefs. They said, oh, we're going to hire for that. But at the same time they let. Well, their franchisees started bringing in competitors products and they were not really paying attention to that. And I think that overall the brand started to degrade from the beauty that made it special to begin with. But at the same time, the founder, the chef would call out and she's jumping back in the kitchen to work the line. And as much as it's beautiful that your team gets to see you doing that every once in a while, it ended up becoming so constant and frequent that it didn't allow the company to grow. It actually made the company shrink because yeah, they just were not taking the time to build their team and realizing what was needed.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: I find that when a restaurant's in that place where the owner is really playing the role of the fill in operator has to jump in and all that, that will keep it stagnant. But if that happens while they're trying to grow, I think it will damage the brand. And I've seen it happen where we're opening up location 5, but location 2 and 3 are really going under. Sales really dip.
Tons of churn and turnover that while we're trying to muscle the fifth one into existence, we're also trying to keep number two and three alive. And then we're relying on all the profits from number one because number one was lightning in a bottle. That it's not just stagnant, it actually becomes a step in.
In the wrong direction. It can really. It can really sink. It can really sink a brand.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really tough. I mean, I've worked with a couple of private equity groups and they typically don't look at brands until they have 10, 20 locations because they want to make sure that they've gone through all of the challenges of growing pains. And as they bring in capital, which is really a large part of what they do, they might do some advisory and they might help lift it to additional expansion. But if those first 10 or 20 have any form of crack or weak links, then they're not going to be able to push it to the 50, the hundred that they really need to.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I just sat through, through a PE presentation and it was, you know, they're so.
It's just all math. They do not care if your food's good. They do not. Like, they look at the math and the math tells them whether the food's good. The math tells them whether the hospitality is there.
It was very, very. It confirmed what I already knew, but it was so cold and they were really warm and generous and all that. Said, listen, there's things we do and there's things we don't do, and you're coming to us to take you from 50 to 500. That's what we do really well because we have access to massive amounts of capital. We can bring more efficiencies in and relocate locations that aren't as good. That's what you get with us. And you get sort of a more strategic approach than, than a smaller organization can get. But, like, yeah, I can't. We can't fix the recipe. Like, we can't tell you how to, like, make people feel valued at the individual store. Like, that stuff has to be there.
And he sort of talked about. He talked about brands that they're dying to get their hands on that they. That they can.
And which, of course I don't have to say them out loud, but you guys all know the brands that are, that are expansion ready and yet are famously held as just private companies and not, and not going to sell. And he said, that's like, that's what we're looking for. Like we're. Because then we get to come in and do the thing that we do so well.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Well, that's where you step in, right? You could be their advocate to get them teed up.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: That's what I do.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Moving into private equity, that, that is.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Very much what I do, is that I, I work again with the brands that are pretty much 10 and under and we dial in profitability because I beg them, I said, please don't work out your FTD stuff. Like, just don't like the, the whole franchising process, for example, is going to be very, very, very, very expensive. And why do all that work and then not be able to sell franchises or to sell stores and, and have them all fall flat simply because you don't have everything in place for them. So whether you're going to grow as a corporate group or you're going to try to franchise doesn't change it. You guys need to be insanely, insanely profitable and way more EBITDA than I think anybody ever realizes. I mean, the number I was told was anywhere between 22 and 27 before anybody should have a conversation. And now I've owned it. Now I pitch most people on 24 to 28. That's just what I think is the number. And we've gotten our brands to 25, 30, 33. We had one. I mean, it was like awesome.
But that you have to be able to look a bank in the eye and say, yeah, man, we're dialed in, we're ready to grow.
And you've got to be able to look a franchisee in the face and say, yeah, I mean, you're going to look a franchisee and say, hey, yeah, we clear about 12 to 14% a year. And of course we take, you know, 6 and 2 off the top, 6% royalty, 2% for marketing, then you'll probably make 5 or 6. Like, how do you look somebody in the eye? You can't. And so it's much easier if you say, yeah, we generate between 28 and 31 each of the last three years, minus our 8%. Like, we're all going to be doing really, really well here. So that's where it needs to go.
Okay, So I want to be really respectful of your time as so somebody's listening to this and they say, I really want to, you know, I'm 20, 26 is the year to do it. I really want to do it. What are the first steps they take? How do you recommend it? Part of this wrapped up is how do people know whether to engage you or someone like you? What is it you do that they might not have on their team? Give me the full scope there.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, as emerging brands from, you know, 0 to 10, you're not going to have the salary for an internal real estate department. I think most folks don't have that until they get to 30 locations and then they're back by private equity and then they can build their team in order to scale and expand. So for me, I don't currently represent properties. I am solely focused on the tenants and making sure that they're scaling and expanding. So I think it's important for them to know there are people out there that will be your advocates who will be negotiating for you. It's very similar to residential. So you have buyer's rep, you have a seller's rep. I am your buyer's rep. More often than not, we're not buying because we need to maintain our capital for additional expansion. So we're looking to lease and being aware of who is your customer. Where are we going to be most successful? I mean, I would love to work with the brand that's there along the Jersey Shore, because coming in and doing, you know, four months of work and just being able to cruise for the rest of the year, that sounds pretty appealing.
But there's along with that, there's many other markets beyond just the shore that they could consider in other states.
Looking along, I mean, I just came back from Florida where I was visiting my in laws and there is snowbird season and so basically from October to March you have this like influx of so many more people in the state that you don't have for the rest of the year. And so very similarly, can you make your money during that time.
And that's where a lot of restaurants in Florida, you know, are just printing money, but at the same time they have to remember to staff up for that. And so that's probably where you would come in because staffing for those tourist environments is somewhat challenging. And we got to make sure to build their team so that they hopefully can stay year round rather than just for that six month period.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
All right, words of wisdom. You got a captive audience. This is an audience all made up of independent owners and Operators, words of wisdom for them.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: You know, just be smart about building your team and realizing that you have folks like me out there as your advocate to negotiate the best deal and find the right spot for you and your growing brand.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: One of the things we were talking about before we hit record is you said, you said, I'm not a broker. You know, I'm not the one responsible for the space, but I end up being a collaborator for the broker. And I want you to repeat the conversation we had had before, because this idea that the broker works on commission and so they're interested in closing deals.
And you're sometimes the brake to the gas of, like, sometimes deals need to be stalled because it's just not the right thing. So talk to me a little bit about that collaboration.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Well, let me remind you for a second. I am a licensed real estate agent. I am a broker, and I think the term has gotten butchered because of how we're compensated via commission only.
There are many folks out there that just try to push a deal forward, and I think oftentimes independent brands because they don't realize that someone like me is out there. They're working with the landlord's agent or the property's agent, and they have no fiduciary duty to you. And so they're just trying to get the deal done.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: And it might actually not be the right deal for that particular space or they might be taking advantage of you. And so I think it's important to realize that I think folks like me are far and few between, because I will kill a deal if it doesn't feel right. And I will make sure that the client says, hey, you know, well, let's look at it this way. Let's look at this. Let's look at this. Are you sure that this feels good?
And in many instances, they opt to move forward despite my suggestion. And that's fine. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm here to basically be your guide and let you see all that's out there. And I will let you know if you ask me what my opinion is on it. But at the end of the day, you move forward, I'm going to come celebrate you, promote you, etc. So I think, you know, making sure that folks understand that I come in early. I want to look underneath the covers. I want to make sure that everything's good. I am here for the, the marathon. I am not here for the sprints. And I want to see 10, 20, 50 locations. I don't want to just do one deal and you realize, oh, that didn't feel right. I don't want to do again. So I want that longstanding relationship. I believe in the long term.
Great.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: I appreciate you clarifying. I just think that was.
It was a cool conversation before we hit record. And as this conversation went on, I was like, we just have to loop back around to that one. I think it's not. We don't talk about it enough. And I think it's like when a guy goes to buy an engagement ring, it's like one of the biggest chunks of money you ever spend, and you're spending it on something you know very little about. So you have to learn a lot about cut and clarity and color and, you know, all of this stuff. And forgetting the fact that you've got to figure out what your potential future fiance would like, you just have to figure out, like, what can I afford and how do I get the most for my money? You gotta do all this work and you don't do it a lot of times. So this is very much not the regular day to day. And I think not a lot of people's area of expertise. I think most of the areas of expertise are in the kitchen, in the dining room, shaking hands, kissing babies, like building something great. And so I think having somebody in your corner who you can really trust to tell you when it doesn't feel good to tell you when you should walk away from something, I think that's incredibly valuable.
All right, Edie, I have appreciated your time.
Where can people go to connect with you, to learn more about you? They say, hey, I'd love to have a conversation. How does that go?
[00:36:33] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Our advisory firm is Terra Alma. That's T E R R A A R lma dot com. So all the services that we offer are listed up there. And then I have a handful of musings that I like to talk about all over LinkedIn. And so you can find me at LinkedIn@edie, last name Winetrop. W E I N T R A U B.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: Perfect. So we'll obviously include those links in the show notes as well. So if you're driving, if you're chopping onions, you don't have to stress. You will. When you hit pause, you can find those links very, very easily. Edie, I appreciate you taking the time. I think we're probably going to have you back because we didn't even get to half of what I was hoping to talk about. So that's how it's a good conversation. We've got room to do another one. So I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Thank you, sir.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: So once again, I got to thank Edie for taking the time out of her day to sit and chat with me about expansion, about business development, about how to do it the right way. Again, all of the links are in the show notes. I appreciate you guys being here every single week. Two quick notes. Number one, I talked about it at the very beginning of the episode. If you want to join my membership site, it's called Restaurant Foundations. It's totally free for a month. After that it charges $97. You can cancel before it starts charging. It's totally fine. You won't hurt my feelings or what I hope is that you'll stay for a very, very long time because you'll get tons of value. Tons of videos are being uploaded every single every single week. We get masterclasses. Every quarter you get asked me anything sessions with me where you log on to a zoom call and just get to ask me questions. Two hours every single month. Restaurant Foundations is totally free for the first month. You go sign up using the link in the show notes. One other quick thing. If you get any sort of value from this show, I would appreciate a five star rating and review on Apple Podcast. That's how we continue to grow. The better the ratings are, the more that Apple pushes us out to new people. It's how we grow this community. This is really the center of my entire business universe. So that's how I grow my small business. Go to Apple Podcasts, leave a five star rating and review. Just let everybody know what you get out of the show, why you think it's valuable. That link is also in the show notes. That's it for me, guys. Two quick favors. Thank you very much and I will see you next time.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: Sam, it.
