[00:00:00] Hey there, Chip Close here, host of the Restaurant Strategy Podcast. By now I'm sure you've heard the news. I wrote a book. That book comes out on October 3, 2023. So if you're listening to this in real time, we are days away. I'm so excited for this book. It's called the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. You can get this book anywhere you find your books so Amazon, Barnes and Noble, just about anywhere online. You can also go to the book's website therestaurantmarketingmindset.com I'm so proud the content of this book. The book also looks great, it feels great, and it's going to help you market your restaurant with greater efficiency and greater effectiveness. Go pre order that book. I would be eternally grateful anywhere you get your books. I appreciate the continued support and make sure to come back because today it's a special encore presentation of an episode that originally aired back in November of 2022. And I do this every once in a while and I think this one in particular is worth revisiting. It's all about why your marketing is broken and specific how to fix it. Tons of actionable nuggets in this week's episode of Restaurant Strategy.
[00:01:10] 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.
[00:01:41] Hey there. My name is Chip Close and this is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast dedicated solely to helping you build a more profitable restaurant. Each week I leverage my 20 plus years in the industry to help you build a more profitable and a more sustainable business. I also work directly with owners and operators all over the world through my P3 mastermind program. The three Ps stand for profit, Process and Progress. It is all about getting you from where you are to where you want to be. If you've got a successful restaurant, one that's been around for a while, that takes care of people on a regular basis, but you struggle to generate consistent, predictable 20% profits, then this program is for you. Visit restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule grab some time on the calendar. You'll set up a time to chat with me or someone from my team with we'll learn about you and your restaurant. You'll learn more about our program to see if you're a good fit for the program. That call is entirely free. It's just about us getting to know each other and if we figure out it's a good fit, then we can talk about next steps. At the end of that, call again. RestaurantStrategyPodcast.com schedule grab some time on the calendar. That strategy session 30 minutes is absolutely free now. Are you frustrated with managing your catering and private events with pen and paper or using outdated programs? Introducing Triple Seat, the catering sales and event management software built for hospitality professionals by hospitality professionals. With Triple C, you will increase revenue and efficiency, all while streamlining your operation. Let Triple C be your catering and event management assistant. Generate leads, create, tailor beos, facilitate online discussions, obtain electronic signatures, process payments and a whole lot more. Triple Seat has has you covered. Elevate and simplify your event management. Take it to the next level with Triple Seat so you can focus on what truly matters, providing unforgettable experiences for your clients. For more information, visit triple seat.com RestaurantStrategy that's tripleseat.com RestaurantStrategy and yes, that link is in the show notes.
[00:03:51] So now, like I said at the top of the show, today's episode is all about marketing. Specifically, here's my title. Your marketing is broken.
[00:03:59] But most importantly, I'm going to give you actionable way to fix it, right? Your marketing is broken, but I want to show you how to fix it. What I've come up with is 10 bullet points, right? These are 10 bullet points. The 10 most common, the biggest mistakes that I see operators make when it comes to marketing their restaurants. This is what I do day after day, week after week. I talk to, meet with, consult and coach with restaurant owners and operators from all over the country. And there are some common threads that there are some common threads between all of the struggling restaurants that I end up, that I end up seeing, right? So I want to talk about the 10 biggest mistakes and most importantly, some actionable steps you can take after this episode so that you can fix the problems. Hopefully you go through these 10 and it makes you feel a little uncomfortable. Hopefully you, you, you disagree with me. I, I want you to disagree with me. I want you to push back. If you've got any questions, concerns, you want to challenge anything I'm saying, you know where to find me. I always answer every single email I get.
[email protected] C-H-I P K L O S E.com hopefully this episode makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable. We're going to go all the way back. We're going to cover things we covered way back at the very beginning. Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of this show. And then we're going to. We're going to expand from there.
[00:05:18] We got to go all the way back to the beginning because we have to make sure that we define marketing right? So often, so often I find that people just skip to the promotion and advertising piece of marketing without actually marketing, right? So what is marketing? Way back, episode one of this podcast, that's where I started, because I think it's that important. So if you haven't listened to that episode or haven't listened to it in a while, go all the way back. It still holds up. And it's still something that I talk. That I talk about all the time, right? So what is marketing?
[00:05:51] We can come up with all kinds of definitions, and unfortunately, a lot of them are really confusing. That's why I try to make my definition really, really stupid. Simple. It's just three questions. What is marketing? We answer it with three questions. What is your product? Who is it for? And how do you reach them?
[00:06:11] As you'll notice, we have literally put our consumer, the customer, the guest, the whole in the center at the heart of our definition. What's the product? Who is it for?
[00:06:23] Right. That's where we have to start. We have to make sure we understand what the product is, who that product is for. Then, and only then, can we go figure out a way to reach them. And unfortunately, so often when we talk about marketing, we go right to the stuff we do, right?
[00:06:41] But we gotta start at that foundational level.
[00:06:45] So, number one, the very first thing that I see struggling restaurant owners do and what they do wrong is that they don't understand demand.
[00:06:56] They don't understand what their people actually want, and they don't understand what those people are willing to pay for.
[00:07:02] And they don't understand that they are in business to meet that demand.
[00:07:08] That is all business is, right? So now let me go a little bit deeper. So we've got that definition for marketing. Again, we covered that way back in episode one of this restaurant strategy podcast, but now let's build on that a little bit. You might have heard me talk about this in the past. It is worth repeating. There are two ways to do marketing, right? Either we come up with a product and we go find a customer for that product, or we find customers who need something and we build a product that fits, that fills that demand, that fills that need, that answers their problem, solves their problem, right?
[00:07:46] So we can either come up with a product, then find a customer for the product, or figure out what customers need and Then create a product to fill that need.
[00:07:55] Most struggling restaurants that I see do, the first one, they come up with a restaurant, right? They build a restaurant and then they try to find an audience for that restaurant. And they spend every waking minute of every. Every single day trying to find customers.
[00:08:13] And we should. We should spend time finding customers and developing relationships with those customers. But it shouldn't be as hard as we often make it out to me.
[00:08:23] So instead of doing it the first way, I want to urge you to do it the latter. Because the latter is what all the most successful businesses in the world, not just restaurants, but businesses, this is what the most successful businesses in the world do. They figure out who needs something and then they fill that demand.
[00:08:40] So one of the biggest issues that I say, and this is why we're starting with it, one of the biggest issues I see is that restaurant owners, struggling restaurant owners, don't understand demand, and they don't understand that they should be figuring out where there's demand, right? Who needs something that we are uniquely qualified to provide?
[00:09:01] That's the first thing, the biggest thing, right? And I said, everything I bring up is going to have an action item included here. The best thing you can do is, is switch from that, that former way of marketing, right? Come up with a product, then find an audience and switch to the later mindset, right? Figure out an audience, figure out who needs something, and then go give them what they need.
[00:09:25] So what's the product? Who is it for? Once you figure out who needs something, then you create a product for them. It becomes very easy to just walk up to somebody, tap them on the back, and tell them, hey, you know that problem you've got? I got a solution for you. It becomes that easy if you create something that people already need. That's the first thing I want to cover, number one, that restaurant owners, a lot of struggling restaurant owners don't understand demand. And so that's where we have to start this conversation.
[00:09:55] Now, number two, right? How do we build on that? We want to talk about product, market fit and positioning. So number two, most restaurant owners who struggle don't understand how they are meant to fit into their market, right? So this idea of positioning is one that we talk about a lot in marketing. I love this idea of positioning. It basically says this. It's assuming that if you're going to bring a product to market, for example, if you're going to open a restaurant in a neighborhood, the thinking goes that you're probably not the first restaurant in that market. So there's already a market that exists, right? There's a neighborhood with a certain group of people, and there are already restaurants serving that neighborhood, right? Serving that audience.
[00:10:42] So if you come in, you're something new. And the idea being that when you enter a market, you have to explain to your audience, you're the consumer or prospective consumer, how you fit, right? How that they should be thinking about you, right?
[00:11:01] This is one of the biggest things, which is why it's number two. So we start talking about demand, and then we start talking about fit, product, market fit. And to do this, I'm going to introduce you again to this framework I developed years ago called the abcds of marketing. Again, this we went over.
[00:11:19] They were called something different way back when, when I started this podcast, you know, three years ago or so, I called them the five marketing pillars, right? And all I did was evolve that idea. The more I started working with them, the more I started working with clients. And I streamlined them and I made them a bit simpler. So the five marketing pillars became the abcds of marketing. This is a very basic foundational piece. So if you don't understand how you fit into your market, and if you're thinking maybe this is something you struggle with, I want to introduce you to this idea of the abcds of marketing. ABCD stands for audience, brand, competition and differentiation.
[00:11:59] The idea is that we start with our audience. We find an audience, we find a type of person, a group of people that has a problem, that has a need that we can solve.
[00:12:10] B is for brand. Your brand is simply the solution to the problem you've identified.
[00:12:17] So you figure out who has a problem, you create a solution to that problem. That's A and B.
[00:12:23] C stands for competition, right? You look around at your market and you see who is trying to solve the same problem. You are, right? So you identified a problem, you crafted a solution to that problem. Who has crafted other similar solutions to this same problem. That's how you figure out your competition.
[00:12:42] That gives you a category. Category is a very good thing because it validates your idea and it gives your consumers a way to think about you. A shorthand. You become top of mind. If people are going out to get sushi and you run a sushi restaurant, it's easier for them to think about you, right? Because if they say, hey, they're in the mood for sushi, then suddenly they've narrowed it down.
[00:13:08] They've narrowed it down to maybe five or 10 restaurants. They've disregarded all the other dozens and dozens of restaurants in the neighborhood. Because they're in the mood for sushi. So if you have a sushi restaurant, you want to be top of mind, you want to be on that list.
[00:13:22] So A is for audience. You figure out who has a problem. B is the brand, you figure out a solution to that problem. C is for competition. You figure out who else is trying to solve the same problem you are. And then since you're in a category, you have to differentiate yourself. D stands for differentiation. If you're in a category, you've got to figure out how you separate yourself from the competition. This simply means this idea, this age old idea that we're always talking about in marketing called a value proposition. It simply means why does a consumer pick you instead of someone else? Right? Why would they pick one instead of the other? You have to supply a reason. You have to differentiate your product so that people say, oh, I want to go there because of the following reason or the following reasons, right? A, B, C, D, who has a problem? How do you craft a solution to that problem? Who else is trying to solve the same problem you are? And then how do you separate yourself from all of the others out there?
[00:14:24] That is how you understand how to position yourself in the market. You have to differentiate yourself.
[00:14:31] So these first two are super, super important. They are foundational. Number one, struggling operators often don't understand demand. They don't understand what people want and what they're willing to pay for. Right? We market, we're used to marketing one way. I want to urge you to market the other way. Number two is understanding product, market fit and positioning. I want you to go through the ABCD exercise. If you want a really good workbook, I'm happy to send it to you. Email me chipiphipclose.com I love it. I love getting email.
[00:15:01] I will reach back out to each and every one of you. That's how you figure out how you fit into your market. These are foundational pieces. We cannot move forward with anything else we want to do in our marketing until we understand this. Till we understand demand and we understand how we can fill that demand, how we fit within the market. Right? Those are the first two. Number three, this is a problem. I see all the time operators that do lots of stuff, but they lack intention, really, they lack a plan. They lack a marketing plan so we can get to all this stuff. Remember, the definition for marketing is just three questions. What's the product? Who is it for? And how do we reach them? Number three, that third question in the definition for marketing is all the Stuff. How do we reach them? We reach them through our website. We reach them through social media, we reach them through paid advertising. We reach them through in store flyers and other collateral. We reach them through the script that we write for our servers to tell them about. We reach them a variety of ways.
[00:16:03] But until we understand what the product is, who that product is for, only then can we start doing stuff, right? So here's the problem.
[00:16:13] We do stuff, but we lack intention. So I get this all the time. I work with a lot of clients who then have outside agencies and I. And I love having these conversations because the agencies love to show all the stuff they're doing.
[00:16:29] But what the operator, what the owner is interested in is so what all that stuff has gotten us where.
[00:16:38] So we lack intention and we lack a plan. Again, I want to introduce you to another framework that I've developed. I work with my clients on this all the time. It's something called the triangle principle. Three sides to a triangle. I think there are three sides to marketing any product, specifically any restaurant. The three sides to the triangle are attraction, retention and evangelism. Attraction. We need a reliable, consistent way to acquire new customers, right? To bring in first time diners. Retention, we need a reliable way to bring those first time diners back, to bring our regular diners back and let them be more loyal. To bring them back with greater frequency.
[00:17:15] And then evangelism. We need these people to become super fans, to love us so much they can't help but talk about us. They can't help but text about us, take photos and post about us. Go. Leave us rave reviews, right? Really, we're talking about word of mouth. So we need to bring people in, we need to bring people back and we need to get them to go spread the good word about what we do, right? So I say a lot of times we suffer, we struggle because we do lots of stuff. But we lack intention, we lack a plan. So when I build a marketing plan for restaurants, it sort of built on this triangle principle idea. So how do you make your efforts intentional?
[00:17:54] You work it backwards. Right?
[00:17:57] Again, the triangle principle Sundays there are three separate areas that we want to focus on and they require three different, totally different sets of actions.
[00:18:06] So what I want you to do is take a step back and say what are we doing or what can we be doing to bring in more first time diners?
[00:18:16] Then specifically, what are we doing or what can we be doing to bring those first time diners back? To turn those first time diners into repeat customers, to bring those Repeat customers, turn them into loyal superfans.
[00:18:31] And then on evangelism again, specifically, what can we do?
[00:18:35] Or what are we already doing to get people to go talk about us, to get people to go leave us rave reviews to post about us?
[00:18:45] If you want, if you want to bring intention to your business, you bring focus to those three areas. Not what are we doing, but this is something we need to accomplish, meaning we need to acquire new customers. What are we doing to achieve that? Or what can we be doing? What should we be doing to help us achieve that?
[00:19:08] If you bring that sort of focus into your efforts, your head will spin. It will change your restaurant overnight. And it's not that big of a shift.
[00:19:20] Rather than doing all the stuff, just say, what's all this stuff for? And work it backwards. And when you do this, when you hold your agencies accountable, your marketing directors, your marketing managers, when you hold the people accountable, it's going to help force them into being really specific, laser focused with what they do and how they spend their time.
[00:19:42] So those are the first three things. Number four, this is a big one. Struggling restaurants, people who struggle with marketing, their restaurants, people who have struggling restaurants, they don't have a marketing budget.
[00:19:52] It's always just something extra. They have to be talked into it.
[00:19:57] But there's a lot of data that shows your marketing budget should be somewhere around 3 to 4% of your revenue every single month.
[00:20:06] 3 to 4%.
[00:20:09] And Seth Godin, marketing guru, bestselling author, you know what a fan of him I am, he says you should set that budget at the beginning of the year and do not touch it, leave it. Your responsibility is to spend every single cent of your marketing budget every single month. Even on the lean months, even where things are getting a little dicey, spend it. Because again, when you bring intention to the table, when you bring attention to the table, it's going to be for a purpose. You're going to be driving towards a specific result. So if you don't have a budget right now for marketing, I need you to go carve out a budget for marketing, right?
[00:20:54] The experts all say it should be about 4%. If you need to start it at 1 or 2%, fine.
[00:21:01] But make a plan over the next three to six months to ramp up and get it to 3 or 4% of your monthly revenue.
[00:21:09] Set that in your, put that in your budget, in your proform every month and stick to it, right? So again, big problem. People don't have a budget. Make a budget, stick to that budget, Spend every single cent of that budget.
[00:21:23] But again, keep in mind, you're driving towards specific results.
[00:21:28] Make sure this isn't just, you know, you take the extra and do some stuff with it. Make a budget, you are going to spend it. But again, understand that there's an investment and that you're driving towards a result. That's number four. Number five. I talk about this all the time. So many times I sit down and I talk to restaurant owners and I say, hey, tell me about your marketing. And immediately they say, well, we post, you know, four or five times a week on Instagram and we do the stories and, you know, and we do Facebook sometimes and we do have Twitter and we're thinking about doing TikTok and blah, blah, blah.
[00:22:02] I ask about marketing and they start talking to me about social media.
[00:22:06] Social media is not marketing. It is not.
[00:22:10] Social media is a platform, or they are a series of platforms. They are tools at the marketer's disposal. They are tools used by the marketer. But social media is not marketing. In fact, when I build a marketing plan, when I talk about marketing a restaurant, social media is one of the last things I talk about. It truly is because there's so much else we can do that can have a bigger impact, that can have a, you know, a bigger, bigger impact on the results we're trying to get. So don't talk to me about your social media. Talk to me about your marketing. When I ask you about your marketing, talk to me about the demand you fill. Talk to me about who you serve. Talk to me about the problem they have and how your product is this perfect, most compelling solution to that problem. Tell me how you are a more compelling solution to your competitors. Tell me how you differentiate yourself.
[00:23:05] Tell me about what you're doing to be intentional about driving towards results.
[00:23:10] And in there, social media will play a role in getting you results.
[00:23:16] But if you're thinking social media is marketing, it is not. There's so much other stuff we can and should be doing, things that will make a much bigger impact on your business. I absolutely promise you. So I promised you 10 bullet points on today's episode, all about how to fix your marketing. These are the first five. Again, I'm going through each one and giving you actionable, actionable tasks so that you can apply these to your businesses. That's the first five. We're gonna do the second five, the next five after a word from another one of our sponsors.
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[00:25:36] Now like I said, so many operators out there, their marketing is broken. They have no plan, they lack intention. They don't understand demand. They don't understand how they fit within their market and how they serve a specific need. It is all broken. But we're going through all of these. We're pointing out exactly what's broken and some key ways, some easy ways to fix what is broken. I told you this is going to feel uncomfortable today. I hope as you're listening to this that this strikes a nerve, that this is. That this is digging in in kind of deep. I'm guessing that at least two or three of these is resonating with you. And I know it's hard, but you're doing the hard Work of educating yourself, right? I know you read. I know you listen to podcasts. You are trying to get better. You're trying to make your restaurant better. That's why you listen here. You don't listen to me. For me to tell you that you're doing everything right, you come to me, I hope, to help give you ideas, to think outside the box, to help sharpen you so that you can be as good as you can be for your people, your family, your employees, and your guests. So again, we're talking about why your restaurant marketing is broken. But more than that, we're talking about how you can fix it. We already went through the first five. Let's roll through the second five. Right? When it comes to marketing, here's a problem I see all the time. You hire it out so you don't have to worry about it, and I love that. That's not the problem.
[00:27:00] Here's the problem. You hire it out so you don't have to worry about it, but you don't know enough about marketing, so you don't know how to hold those people accountable. Either a person that you hire and bring on or an agency that you start working with, it's okay to hire it out, but you have to understand what they're doing. You have to know the right questions to ask. You have to know what key metrics, right? What KPIs to follow, what to track so that you can hold those people accountable, so you can judge whether they're achieving the stated goals or not.
[00:27:33] How do you do this? Right? This is a key place that I see broken in a lot of restaurants.
[00:27:38] You do this by revisiting the first five things, the things we talked about earlier on in the episode. Understand demand. Understand how you fit in with your market, understand what problem you're trying to solve and get intentional. Again, I talked to you about that triangle principle, right? Attraction, retention, and evangelism. What specifically are you doing? What are the eight things you are doing to try to raise awareness for your brand, build trust for your brand, and get people to come in to try your brand? Right? That's a whole set of actions. What are you doing and are those actions working? What sort of results are you getting then? Same thing with retention. What are you doing to convince those people to come back and to come back quickly?
[00:28:20] And then evangelism. What are you doing to get them to go spread the word? These are quantifiable things. And it goes beyond providing good food and good service. It's not about that. That's A prerequisite. You got to have good food and good service to even enter the market anymore.
[00:28:37] So now it becomes about what specifically are you doing to achieve those goals?
[00:28:44] That's what I would ask my people.
[00:28:47] Your marketing director, your marketing manager, the agency who handles your marketing, whoever it is, so that you can hold them accountable because that's what you care about. I don't care about all the stuff they do. I care about whether that stuff is achieving the goals. Right. And how that's relevant to the success of your business.
[00:29:05] Number seven, again, we're talking about all these bullet points. Big mistakes that I see, ways that I see.
[00:29:11] Restaurant marketing is broken, right? You follow all the latest trends simply because people tell you it's what you should be doing. How many times have we heard this? Hey, are you doing, Are you doing reels? Hey, are you on TikTok? Hey, are you on this, that or the other thing? I don't care if you want to chase those latest trends. If you think that's where the attention is, the awareness, fine.
[00:29:32] But don't do it because somebody tells you you should be doing it.
[00:29:36] You can listen, you can then go do more research, you can ask questions, but you also then have to go back with what we talked about. How can you be intentional? Can any of those new platforms help you achieve the stated goals that you have?
[00:29:52] If so, then yes. Pursue them, explore them. If they are not helping you achieve a goal, don't just do it to do it. Who cares? It's going to be using up your, what are limited resources and it's going to get you further from where you need to be.
[00:30:08] So again, how are you raising awareness to your brand? If you think being on TikTok can help you raise awareness to a key demographic you're looking to reach, then great. I love it. Explore it, do it. Do it really, really well. It is a fun platform and it can be very good for your business.
[00:30:23] But don't just do it because someone told you to do it. Do it because it will help you achieve a goal you have. So that's the. That's the problem. That's the fix, right? You can do anything but make sure it goes through your lens. You're looking at, through the lens of results right now. Number eight, the eighth bullet. The eighth bullet point here. You don't know how to tell a marketing story.
[00:30:48] Telling a regular story, right? Once upon a time, blah, blah, blah, this happened. They went and they achieved their goals. They lived happily ever after. That's a story.
[00:30:56] But a marketing Story is very specific and it's been around for let's say 100 or 200 years. A marketing story goes something like this.
[00:31:07] I, the consumer used to believe this.
[00:31:11] Then I discovered the brand and now I believe something else.
[00:31:18] I used to believe this and then I discovered the brand and now I believe something else.
[00:31:25] That is a marketing story. People want results, right? There's this old thing in marketing says we sell the results, not the benefits, right? So don't talk to me about all the features and all of that. Tell me about the benefits, the results, what you get, right? Don't sell features, sell results, sell the benefits, right? We don't sell a, we don't sell a vacuum cleaner. Talking about the light and the self propelled and the different attachments and all of that.
[00:31:53] We sell the clean floors, the clean stairs, the lack of dust bunnies under the furniture we sell. They'll benefit, you get from this thing. It is the same thing with the restaurant, right? So what I see a lot of people doing, they don't understand a marketing story. This again goes back to the who who is joining you. What problem do they have? What we talk a lot about pain points in marketing. What's the pain point they have specifically? What do they need when they come to you? Or what do they need when they would look to book a reservation at a restaurant like yours?
[00:32:30] Again, it all goes back to the who. It all goes back to demand. It all goes back to understanding your market and how you fit within your market and how your product is a compelling solution to someone's problem.
[00:32:42] So again, the eighth bullet point here, number eight here of why so many restaurants marketing is broken because they don't know how to tell a good marketing story. What is a marketing story? The consumer says, I used to believe this, then I discovered the brand.
[00:32:56] Now I believe something else.
[00:33:01] So how does that relate to your consumer? That's how to fix this thing. You got to do the deep work of understanding your person. What do they believe?
[00:33:11] How can you help change what they believe, right?
[00:33:14] I used to think that sushi restaurant was the best restaurant in town. But then I discovered this brand and now they're my favorite sushi place.
[00:33:24] That's a simple marketing story. Guess what? All marketing stories at the core are simple. Used to believe this, then I discovered the brand. Now I believe something else. You apply that framework to your business, you will start to see a big shift, a big shift in how your consumers, how your market responds to you.
[00:33:46] Now number nine, this is somewhat related. Here we go.
[00:33:49] Number eight, was you don't know how to tell a marketing story. Number nine is maybe even more egregious of an issue.
[00:33:55] You don't bother telling your own story. And I'm nodding my cap to Sean Walsheff.
[00:34:02] He's a podcaster.
[00:34:04] He's the owner, founder of Cali Barbecue, Cali Barbecue Media out outside San Diego in California. He's putting out top notch, great barbecue in a really cool space. And he has gotten really good at telling his own story. And now he's gone around the country, he's got three different podcasts, he hosts, he speaks all over the country, and he's trying to tell the story that you should be telling your story. And he's really good at making this thing right, is that you have to care about what you do in order for anyone else to care about what you do. So we were at the Western Food Expo, he and I, back in August of this year, and we gave a presentation together and it was all about this, right? What's the ROI of great storytelling? That was our, that was the topic of our talk. And one of the things we talked about on there was the two whys, right? Two whys that you got to ask and answer for yourself. Number one, why do you do what you do?
[00:35:00] And number two, why should anyone care? Meaning why might someone care? Why should someone care about that, right? Why do you do what you do? Why should anyone care? If you answer those two questions, you'll be better than 99% of the restaurants out there. And if you tell those stories over and over and over, who you are, why you do what you do, what your restaurants all about, why you found at your restaurant, who your restaurants for, why they should care that it exists, why It's a compelling solution, all of that. If you get good at telling that story in a lot of different ways via photo copy video, your server should tell that story. Your menu, your menu should help tell that story.
[00:35:45] And you should get good at your telling your story. You got to tell your story to your people so your people can tell the story for you.
[00:35:52] You've got to tell your story so that other people can evangelize for you, right? Sean Walsheff, his story is really interesting, but it's no more extraordinary than any of you listening. Your businesses are extraordinary. The efforts you went to to open your business is extraordinary.
[00:36:11] It impacts your family, your friends, your community, your staff and the consumers, the guests you that you ultimately have been taken care of.
[00:36:21] This is a big problem. You don't even bother telling your Own story. Because you think nobody cares. Guess what? People do care.
[00:36:28] People do. People buy from people that they know, like and trust.
[00:36:33] In order to do that, you got to make sure people know you.
[00:36:36] People like you, and then people trust you.
[00:36:40] That's number nine and number ten. We're gonna wrap this up by saying one of the biggest mistakes that I see, one of the reasons why I think most restaurant marketing is broken is because people, restaurant owners, operators, don't measure their results.
[00:36:55] So talk about this with my clients all the time. I am a big fan of Peter Drucker. Peter Drucker and his smart goal framework.
[00:37:03] Smart S M A R T. It's an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. One of the things all my clients get really good at doing is setting proper goals, right? Proper goal setting for me, when you work in my mastermind, for example, is about applying these. The smart goal framework, right?
[00:37:26] We don't fix it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We don't fix anything that isn't broken. Luckily, in the restaurants, just about everything is broken or many, many things are broken, right? So it's about identifying problems, prioritizing those problems, then setting goals for those problems. We don't start to fix a problem until we set a goal again, we make it specific. Therefore we can measure it.
[00:37:48] Right? At the beginning of Peter Drucker's smart goal framework, it's talking about measurement. Again, Peter Drucker is also the famous one who had said, what gets measured gets managed. So if you're not measuring it, you're certainly not managing it. So how can you expect to get better?
[00:38:04] So you have to measure your efforts, track your results, analyze your results. So that's what I see most restaurant owners not doing. How do you fix that? You simply start measuring it. Make sure you set a goal and you check. You track to see if you hit your goal. Hey, this is what we want to do. This is the system we're going to put in place to achieve that goal. And then at the end of the designated time, you figure out whether you achieved your goal or not. You measure and you analyze. If it worked, you do it again. If it worked, you just do more of it. If it didn't work, you go back to the drawing board and figure something else out.
[00:38:41] The biggest mistake I see is that they don't measure the results. One of the things, back when I was doing a lot of marketing for restaurants in New York City, I would have all, all the time. People would Say to me, well, what's the roi? What's the roi? The amazing thing was they were asking me about how I measure the return of my efforts, and they weren't bothering to measure anything.
[00:39:02] And I knew that because I said, that's a really great question. Talk to me about the results you're getting now because that'll be a really great baseline. So then we'll know whether what we're doing, the new things we're going to do when I come on board, whether that's working better or worse than what you were doing. Because if it's not working, you shouldn't be working with me.
[00:39:23] And to a T, every last one that I worked with couldn't answer that question.
[00:39:30] They're trying to put my feet, you know, put my feet in the coals here. Right? Well, what's the return? What sort of return can we get? That's a great question. What sort of return are you getting now? And none of them could answer it. So you want to see, you want to act like the, like the big guy, the big hotshot. Ask all the hard questions for the people coming in.
[00:39:49] Do it yourself.
[00:39:51] You're not measuring in the ways that you should be measuring. I can just about promise you there's always a way to level up, to get better at doing this.
[00:39:59] So start measuring your results and that's it. Your restaurant marketing is broken, but this episode is specifically targeted to you so you can figure out how to fix it. As always, big note of appreciation for you tuning in. I know there are a lot of ways that you can spend your time. Certainly a lot of great restaurant podcasts out there. Appreciate you making this show a part of your week. I hope you're getting some value from the interviews we do and the episodes like this that we do each and every week. Again, another reminder, visit therestaurantmarketingmindset.com to go grab a copy of the book. And if you want to learn more about the Mastermind I run. To date, We've got nearly 100 different restaurant owners in the program, spread across three different groups. Visit restaurantstrategypodcast.com schedule set up a free 30 minute strategy session where we'll get to learn more about each other. See if you're a good fit for the program. Again, I appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. Keep spreading the word about this show and the impact that we make and I will see you next time.
[00:41:23] Sam, it.
