Today one of my team came to me bummed out what he’d just heard, and I sat there and listened. I was curious how someone can go from so excited to not excited within hours. From what I understand, the business partner squashed the idea of us filming because they had called a restaurant we visited a long time ago to get their feedback, never mind the 1,500 others. But you know what, you win some and you lose some.
But it’s my job as the CEO to stick up for my team, so I did and below is the email I sent to them with their names removed. I’m posting this because we all lose, victory isn’t always in the cards. But more than that, I want to look back at this in a few years and smile 🙂
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Dear Customer,
I don’t get involved in our operations very often, since we have 3,000 restaurant clients between our 3 divisions, and that would be tough. But when one of my team comes to me with what I heard today, I feel the need to hop back into the trenches.
I’m bummed that you’ve decided against featuring your restaurant, from what Katie and Nic said it’s exactly what we are looking for in a restaurant from the ABR Roadshow.
I started our company in 2008 to be only a local marketing firm and then in 2015 we decided to start working with restaurants nationwide. In 2017 as I traveled to speak at shows for my 1st book I was amazed at the independent restaurants I came across that weren’t telling their story and told our team of 4 at the time that we needed to do something about it.
In 2018 I personally started traveling to figure out how we could launch America’s Best Restaurants without the backing of the billion dollar media companies. It took me until 2021 to really figure it out. By that time our team had grown to 20 and I put every penny I personally had and all of our companies profit on the line.
As I sit here today we have grown to 54 employees and we’ve spent $4.5 million over the past 3 years to build what’s become the largest independently owned media company of its kind.
Just like your restaurant, we’ve had clients that are blown away and others that were not. Six months ago when we hit 1,000 episodes filmed I was thinking back over the different versions of our show and the massive changes we’d made. I was honestly bummed at the prodcut we’d put out years earlier and didn’t know how to digest it. In 2021 it was 5 of us on the road 4 days per week, who also had other roles in the company, filming at 24 restaurants per week. When I look back at that product I question a lot of things.
Ironically a podcast found me that week that hit home. Steve Jobs was speaking about the growth of a product and company. He said if you don’t look back over the prior months and have a lot of embarrassment for what you’re doing, then you aren’t taking enough action.
When I heard that I smiled, because our company has doubled and tripled every year the past 9 years.
I understand one of you spoke to some restaurants who were not impressed or happy with what we did, and a few of these were from some time ago. I’m sure those exist, but I also know that for every 2 that are like that, there are 50 that loved it all. Especially when you look at the past 6-12 months. I’ve grown the ABR team from 5 employees who worked on the show to 29 full time. In fact, Joel our creative direction left the History Channel and moved to Kentucky from Brooklyn to be on our team the past year and help us create a very high quality show.
Just like your restaurant, not everyone is happy, but in no way what you heard is a reflection on what we are doing and the hard work my team is putting in every day. No one travels the US and films at 4 restaurants 5 days per week like we do. The product is crushing it and making a huge difference in the restaurants we visit.
We’re not going anywhere.
America’s Best Restaurants will get to $100 Million in the next 7 years and we will have the largest impact of any company ever on the independent restaurant industry.
I wish you nothing but the best and challenge you to watch the private link below of our new episode format that Joel just finished and tell me that’s not awesome. Then next google our names, America’s Best Restaurants and the ABR Roadshow. You’ll find that we’ve had more coverage by media companies than any other brand in the business. The fact that we have their attention tells me all I need and confirmation that we are on the right path.
Link coming soon, I don’t know how to get it off our server (that’s above my pay grade )
