Day 34 – The Puzzle – Converting Facebook Fans & Website Visitors To Customers For Your Restaurant

The Instagram comments never let me down!  This week it was @jaymckinley123 telling me we couldn’t do what we’ve been doing for around 10 years…HMMMM

438065128_467273339073686_6401172626786809930_n

Here’s how the story goes.  Back in 2015 Nick, a client who owned 3 restaurants said “Matt I can’t deposit likes.”  This comment was in response to me showing him how we’d grown 1 of the restaurants Facebook following from 3,000 fans to 39,000 fans.  To put this in perspective, his 3 restaurants did about $24 million in annual sales and I was in charge of an advertising budget over $1 million annually.  When I started helping them as their marketing agency and consultant we spent 99% of the budget on Radio, TV, outdoor and direct mail coupons.  WHY?  Because that’s what they’d been doing for years and I don’t change things until I understand what we have.  By 2015 I’d been able to work in digital marketing.  We were DOMINATING Facebook with Live videos weekly that yours truly was doing for them.  We’d also been collecting a ton of customer data in-store through a Kiosk I bought and started building loyalty programs to funnel their best customers to.  

BUT, they had not yet me move much of the paid advertising money over to Facebook and YouTube.  I won’t go down that road, for that you can watch the YouTube video below about how we built this company into a nationwide powerhouse for marketing restaurants from this conversation. 

So let’s break down HOW your restaurant can take Facebook comments, website visitors and people you find through paid Facebook ads and turn them into a customer database, but more importantly drive SALES. 

First, to do what I’m talking about here, you need to have a tech stack for your restaurant that does some fancy stuff.  We have all of this built into Repeat Returns, so it you want it done for you, simply ask us. or CLICK HERE.  And on top of that, you could really use help from a marketing expert or some education.  In case you don’t know about the Restaurant RGA Guide, CLICK HERE. It’s an amazing training from ABR U!

Now back to the blog 🙂

1st – You need to have 3 items in place outside of the tool to make this magic work. You need to have a website pop-up, the Facebook Comment Growth Tool and paid Facebook ads.  All 3 of these items will have an offer so good people would feel stupid saying no to.  Once they engage it will start the process of gaining their data and driving them into the restaurants. 

2nd – The stats below tell the story.  This 1st picture is of one of our BEST restaurant clients.  This owner has 1 pizza restaurant and he listens to every we say and he takes massive action.  These results are from aprox 2 years.

– The 1st line shows where 6,548 customers opted into his marketing program that we built through paid ads on Facebook.  That drove 2,145 visits and $60,000 in sales!  

– The 2nd line is exactly what it says, his website pop-up.  This gathered 2,045 customers information and drove $35,000 in sales from 1,185 visits.

– And the next 3 lines are all through comments on Facebook Comments. We gained 1,986 customers into their database and 835 of them visited and spent $24,567.

Now keep in mind, ALL OF THIS is only the front end of the customer journey. I can call you that these customers are responsible for HIGH six figures in annual sales and millions in lifetime sales.  By the end of 2024 we’ll have all of our systems built into Repeat Returns (new name coming soon) and we’ll be able to show the customers entire journey. 

 

I don’t think I need to dive deep into the #s below.  This is the 2nd restaurant I spoke about in the podcast that inspired this blog (link below)..  They have worked with us for about a year and take some of our advice.  But, as you can see, they still have great results and are ROI positive.  

So now that I’ve 100% squashed the online hater and proved without a reasonable doubt that you can show Facebook conversations, meaning taking customers from Facebook and depositing cash in the bank, let’s look at the big picture.

Below is a screenshot of our Restaurant Customer Acquisition dashboard. This shows the lifetime numbers that this customer has received through this program on the FRONT END. So in 1 year we were able to build a database that was 46% new customers and 22% lost customers.  When you take the $38,000 in total sales and pull out ONLY the new and lost customers along with the food cost, that part of the program drove aprox $18,000 in net incremental PROFIT plus gained a boat load of customer data.

That’s it, that’s all I got for today, see you tomorow.

Matt

P.S. I did a podcast on this blog post, check out episode 598 of Restaurant Marketing Secrets for more insight on how you can do this for your restaurant.  CLICK HERE

Day 33 – The Puzzle – Bad Restaurant Reviews & Negative Comments On Social Media

Bad reviews for your restaurant, how do you handle them?

Hate online and on social media, how do you handle it?

Facebook groups where anyone and everyone can throw shade your way, how do you handle it?

Let’s face it, we all get it and we all are going to continue to get it.  If you’re taking ANY ACTION in life critics are coming your way.  And on top of that, none of us are perfect every day, so guess what we actually WILL GIVE BAD service and products.  

So here is the secret, you must have this mentality as it relates to the actual review…DON’T CARE!  STILL DON’T CARE!

And when I say that, I’m not saying you’re going to ignore the review and what you can learn from it.  I’m saying you can’t let it affect you AT ALL. It can’t make your mind wonder. It can’t make you question your team.  It can’t make you have stomach pains.  You have to accept that every day, you’re going to either make a mistake and get a bad review, or made someone mad who gives you a bad review.  It’s a simple fact.

Let’s take the review up top for example.  This customer bought your pizza through a 3rd party delivery service.  They said it wasn’t edible.  If this was my restaurant how would I handle this?

1st – I’d comment something like the following ” CUSTOMERS first name, I’m sorry.  This really stinks and I’m as upset as you are, we 100% take responsibility for this and want to fix it.  I have a few questions about this order that I’d love your help with, if you could call me at 888-888-8889 (your cell phone #).  Thats my cell phone and I’m the owner.  3rd Party services are something we are evaluating to see if it’s a great idea for our restaurant, since we can’t control the time they pick it up and the delivery time sine they are not our employee.  Also, you mention “thinner than usual” which leads me to believe you’ve dined with us before and I want to know more about your past experiences since this is the only review I see from you.  Please call my cell # above so I can make sure your next pizza is taken care of and we can rebuild your trust in our company.

– For this reply you are simply trying to tell your story and make them 100% right.  75% of people will not call you, they will not reply. BUT a lof of customers looking to try you for the first time will look at your response and be blown away.  

2nd – You need to get with 5 friends and order your pizza from Uber Eats (specific to this instance).  Have you tried our product through these 3rd party apps? And not from your own account, your employees will see that.  From other people’s accounts, this will allow you to mystery shop your restaurant and understand if there’s an issue you need to address in your restaurants operations.  

3rd – Keep a chart of your bad reviews and add this it.  You need to see if there are any trends, anything to approach your team about.  

4th -Don’t raise a red flag on this to your team.  Imagine if you scream this from the mountain tops to your team and it’s 1 out of 100 instances. Is it worth putting doubt in their mind?  Now if your chart from point 3 above shows a trend, of course you’re going to IDS this (Identify, Discuss, Solve).

And then YOU’RE DONE!  Don’t beat yourself up, worry about what others think, etc.  Move on. Bad reviews, orders gone wrong and hate are all part of the game.  And yes, I understand it’s tough to stomach, but we all must get used to it. 

In episode 588 of my podcast, Restaurant Marketing Secrets, I discuss this exact topic…HAVE A LISTEN, CLICK HERE!

Thanks

Matt

Day 32 – The Puzzle – Why Should I Use Facebook For My Restaurant If Not To Post Ads Every Day

This is the attitude of way too many restaurant owners.  They think that Facebook and other social media platforms are simply a replacement for direct marketing they did 20 years ago.

Tim had commented on a video I posted about why you shouldn’t be posting your food every day.  When I responded that restaurant should not treat Facebook and Instagram like it’s their own advertising platform he said “then what purpose doe it have?”

WOW, just wow is what went through my head.  What purpose does it have!?

Social media is about ONE THING.

ATTENTION!

The more attention you get, the more you live in your customers heads.  It’s about staying top of mind.  It’s about living in their head RENT FREE so that when hunger strikes, you’re there.

Gaining that attention means you need to exist in their timelines on social media.  And that won’t happen if you don’t gain meaningful engagement consistently.  And guess what…POSTING YOUR FOOD PICTURES EVERY DAY DOES’NT DO THAT!

A consistent mix of your food along with content that appeals to your audience, like your community will help you.  BUT, whatever you post needs to garner comments.  It needs to create conversations, otherwise you will disapear. 

Matt

Day 31 – The Puzzle – My Dream For America’s Best Restaurants

Where we are today with my three companies: America’s Best Restaurants, the merger of Restaurant Marketing That Works & Repeat Returns and ABR University is the product of many hours of conversations with restaurant owners and marketers since 2008, but the van in the picture above has more significance than anything else.   

The van was a turning point in, investing in our future.  I started our company in 2008 as Driven Media Solutions, LLC.  The goal of DMS was to help local business owners manage and implement their marketing while embracing the digital marketing coming down the pipeline.  I still recall the conversations in 2008-2010 with restaurant owners about the importance of being on the website “Facebook” and them looking at me like I had three heads. 

Then something magical happened, I convinced 34 owners to give me absolute control of their marketing, including 9 restaurants.  I had 6 Independent restaurants and 3 franchise locations from around 2010-2017.  On June 22nd, 2011 I hired my first employee, Ashley.  This was something I said I’d not do three years earlier when I launched DMS.  I wanted to be a “one man show” and no responsible for anyone else.  

Now flash forward to 2015 and I realized Ashley and I had stumbled upon some marketing magic with Facebook marketing. We were able to use targeted ads and engagement on organic posts to get consumers to give us their email, cell phone number and birthday in exchange for a one use promotion at the restaurant.  This allowed us to use that information to FINALLY drive trackable sales to the restaurant and funnel specific customers into the loyalty program we’d set up.   Over the next 4 years we would change our name to Restaurant Marketing That Works, write 2 books and scale to 5 employees.

But I was still had a massive problem.  I was quite scared and lost.  I knew I was right on the marketing side of things.  I knew that I had what restaurants needed and I could help them like no other marketing company in the US, but how do I get them to know, like and trust me?  Also, how do I do this with 5 employees, this is going to be EXPENSIVE.

In 2017 I had an idea that was the product of a brain storming session with another restaurant marketer, it was the first time I’d thought of creating America’s Best Restaurants.  I had the idea of a brand like Yelp that consumers would visit to find restaurants, but a brand that was not hated by the restaurant owners themselves.  What if I could kill two birds with one stone.  

WHAT IF I could create a media company dedicated to helping independent restaurant owners gain attention from consumers and on the other side of the equation help restaurant with marketing.  

WHAT IF America’s Best Restaurants became a place that consumers would find the local restaurant in their backyard, but the restaurant owner controlled what they saw online.  We would take the power away from the consumer, you know with their crazy reviews and terrible pictures.  BUT we had to be that third party that made sure to only let the right restaurants into ABR. 

It was a great idea, but I had no money, no team and no idea what the heck it was going to become.  But I did it anyways…on a shoestring budget.  

I bought www.americasbestrestaurants.net, because I could not afford the DOT COM version. I did all of the videos by Zoom, which sucked and I had 1 of my team members spending 10 hours per week helping me reach out to the restaurant owners to set up the Zoom Interviews.  

I did this for about 3 months and realized they all SUCKED!  I stopped doing the Zoom interviews because it was not doing the restaurant any justice and honestly most people at that point were not familiar with digital interviews like that in 2018.  So in 2019 I tested doing a few in person, like the one you’ll find at the bottom of this page.  I had no clue what I was doing, except helping the restaurants tell their story.  I also had NO AUDIENCE, I mean maybe my parents :). These were AWESOME, but I did not have the time to run our company, especially as it doubled every 6 months and drive around the country to film interviews.  I also realized I would never achieve any sort of volume with this model and so I STOPPED!

In the Summer of 2019 I STOPPED and told my team we’d come back to it down the road when we had time and money. 

Well that time was in 2021.  During 2020 when the restaurant industry was stopped due to the pandemic I couldn’t help but think “WHAT IF” I’d not stopped.  What if I’d kept going with ABR, would I have been able to help these restaurant owners more?  That was on my mind for a while and finally in April of 2021 I said LET’S GO and we bought the 1st ABR Roadshow Mercedes Sprinter.  This was a HUGE purchase for me. It was scary.  You see at this point, the company had never really made any purchases, outside the building I’d just bought…that’s another story, who buys a 9,000 square foot building with only 1 other employee who works in office 🙂

So, we bought that van and hired two people, Ryan and Austin, to be on the ABR Roadshow.  Now today we are sit at 34 people on that team and we’ve spend…..err invested $4.5 million in the building of America’s Best Restaurants and the ABR Roadshow.  

That van made me get uncomfortable.  It forced me to invest in something that was an idea, that was NOT going to have an ROI for many years to come.  And here we are today with millions invested and massive momentum company wide in every division.

In episode 591 of Restaurant Marketing Secrets I spend 12 minutes and 33 seconds telling the crazy story that started the ABR Roadshow, HAVE A LISTEN…THAT MEANS TO CLICK HERE 🙂

BY THE WAY, CLICK HERE to watch the FIRST ever in person America’s Best Restaurants in person interview, this was filmed on my iPhone on the way back from the NRA Show.  

Day 30 – The Puzzle – Finding New Customer For Your Restaurant

What if you could take your restaurants customer database and use it find more customers just like the VERY BEST ones in there?

Well you can, it’s called a Lookalike Audience within Facebook.

Three of the best sources you can use to create these audiences are:

– Your Customer List (the finer tuned the better)

– Your Facebook Video Views

– Your Website Visitors.

Why do you want to do this?  It’s pretty simple. You take these sources and in Facebooks ads platform your can use them to create what’s called a “lookalike audience.”  This allows you to find people JUST LIKE the people in that list/source and then run ads to get them to visit your restaurant, join your VIP club, cater an event from your restaurant, etc.  In episode 590 of my podcast, Restaurant Marketing Secrets, I spoke about this GOLDEN opportunity.  CLICK HERE to listen on Spotify.

Ok, so let’s talk about how I would use each of these sources to find customers for a restaurant. 

1st – Your customer list.  I HOPE you have a way to identify who your best customers are.  Meaning you’re using a product like Repeat Returns to drive trackable sales at the customer level and associate it to their name, email and phone number.  If you are, then you can take that segment of your customer list and upload it to Facebook.  Then you create an audience that looks JUST LIKE THEM and target the best zip codes around your restaurant.  Once you create that audience you’re going to take them into a “Restaurant Customer Acquisition Funnel” with an offer so good they’d feel stupid saying no to.  And now you’re building a brand new customer list for your restaurant that will dryve new sales.  Another huge benefit about ads like this is when customers who look JUST LIKE your best customers engage in the ads, Facebook and Instagram optimize them. Meaning, the algorithm uses machine learning and AI to find more people just like the best customers in your rewards/loyalty database. 

2nd – Facebook Video Views – You should be using video marketing on your Facebook page to engage your customers.  And when you do use videos you can create lookalike audiences based on their engagement of your video.  As an example, lets say you’re a restaurant that’s decided to partner with America’s Best Restaurants and the ABR Roadshow to have us feature your restaurant.  You can take the people who watched 50% of that 12 minute video and create an audience of people who look JUST LIKE those highly engaged viewers.  Then you do exactly what I said in #1, you target them with an irresistable reason to visit your restaurant.  

3rd – Your Restaurants Website Visitors – There’s this amazing tool that way too many restaurants are ignoring called the Facebook Pixel. It’s a simple line of code that you install on your website and it gives you the ability to create audiences based on who visits your website.  As an example, let’s say your restaurant offering catering and has a page on your site for catering business events, wedding, etc.  Well, if you had the pixel on there you could not only target the people who visited that page with an ad “looking to cater an event”, but you could create an audience that looks just like those customers are target them as well.

I could give you 50 other ways to leverage this tool to drive sales into your restaurant, it’s that powerful. 

Below is a pretty solid video on the topic. I don’t personally know the author, but he covers the topic pretty well. 

See you tomororw,

Matt

Day 29 – The Puzzle – How Long Should You Wait For Customers To Buy

How long should you wait for customers to walk into your restaurant and spend money?

Let me rephrase that, how long should you expect to wait for someone on your restaurants email list to FINALLY become a customer.

In episode 592 of my podcast, Restaurant Marketing Secrets, I talked about this exact topic and how a restaurant owner who joined our email list 12 months prior FINALLY became a customer of ours.  As a business owner it’s hard to wait that long right?  I know I’m not the only one thinking this, because every week the past 16 years clients of ours have asked “when are these customers coming in?”  For some crazy reason we all think that just because someone raises their hand, that they are no coming to buy what we are selling. 

This is what leads us all to fail in marketing.  It causes us to give up too soon.  And in many cases those changes to our marketing plan are why our sales never grow. 

The image above is what we call a “marketing funnel”.  It’s the journey your customers takes when they come in contact with your brand.  Most restaurant owners don’t have these funnels built like they should and they commonly under FUEL the funnel, meaning they don’t put enough people in each funnel to see success.  

By the way, we have a free training on restaurant funnels, CLICK HERE to join that ABR U module for free. There are 7 In Depth Restaurant Marketing Funnels in this training that explain exactly what I’m talking about and give you step by step instructions on:

– Restaurant Birthday Funnel

– Restaurant Loyalty Funnel

– Restaurant Marketing Funnel

– Restaurant New Customer Acquisition Funnel

– Restaurant Catering Funnel

BUT now back to my example.   Let’s say you’re building a Loyalty program.  The bottom of your funnel is someone joining your restaurants loyalty program.  But the top is the traffic.  The 3 places you can get traffic for your funnel are in-store, your website and through social media.  

The lack of traffic to your loyalty funnel is why loyalty programs don’t grow how they should. Here’s what happens.  You launch a loyalty program and your team is behind it 100% for about 45 to 60 days.  Then after that it slowly dies and loses all in-store momentum.  So a program that could have tens of thousands of members ends up with maybe 1,000.  

What you’re missing is traffic.  Loyalty is one of the toughest funnels because it’s too specific.  The only people that are going to join your Loyalty program are hard core customers.   So if you do not have another program feeding it, then it’s dead in the water.  Our best tactic for this is a VIP program.  We run marketing campaigns everywhere I mentioned above.  But we focus mainly on a source we can control, paid Facebook and Instagram ads.  We offer customers an offer so good they’d feel stupid saying no to in exchange for their contact information.  Now those customers are in our “restaurant new customer acquisition funnel.”  Once they are in that funnel we use the emails, texts and retargeting ads to drive that first visit through the VIP program.  And once they’ve visited NOW they are traffic for the restaurants loyalty program.  

From that point on it’s the funnel below.  The customers now like us, so it’s time to get them to like and trust us.  Then and only then will they convert to the loyalty program.  

And what we all need to keep in mind is that this process could take a month or 3 years.  The longer you keep your funnels in place the better,  and like I mentioned in the podcast I was reminded of this last week. 

See ya tomorrow,

Matt

Day 28 – The Puzzle – Bad Restaurant Birthday Offers

Ok, so you’ve done the hard work, you’ve asked your customer for their contact information and did an amazing job of getting one of the best pieces of data, their birthday.  

Next you took a very big step and hired a company or bought a restaurant marketing software like Repeat Returns to handle the marketing automation for your restaurants customer birthday program.

And finally the email goes out…and this is where the issues kick in.

In todays blog, the puzzle piece is opitimizing your restaurants birthday marketing.  This topic was also covered in episode 594 of my podcast, Restaurant Marketing Secrets.

Let’s talk about what I see wrong with this email and how you could fix it.

1st – THE OFFER – The most important aspect of ANY marketing campaign is your “call to action” (CTA).  In his book “100M Offers” Alex Hormozi talks about giving customers an offer SO GOOD they’d feel stupid saying no.  So, let’s DO THAT!  It’s my birthday, the offer your restaurant gives me should be 100% FREE.  In this email I got a FREE entree with the purchase of a full price free entree.  So I got a coupon, big deal!  And the messaging in here is jacked up too.  First they say “Dinner is on us.”  Hike hell it is, “on us” means Matt Plapp is eating free on his birthday.  You just introduced a lie into our relationship and the brain doesn’t forget that.  Second you included the words “full priced”.  By doing that, you now have introduced another negative thought into my mind.

2nd – THE DESIGN – This email is all about your restaurant.  The logo takes up the top third of the design and everything is branded for YOU and not my birthday.  Honestly, it’s a pretty sad design and doesn’t speak at all to me about celebrating. I don’t think there’s too much to talk about here, we all should understand this. 

3rd – RETARGETING – Now I can’t say they’ve not done this, because there’s still time.  They should have paid ads running targeting me since I’m in their list, this isn’t hard in Facebook.  Also, I hope I get a text and if I get that, how badass would it be if they called me?  I know, the latter more than likely won’t happen, but a guy can dream right. 


But wait there’s more…

Here are a few other things I noticed, good and bad observatiosn, on their restaurants marketing as I started clicking through their email, website and social media, because that’s what I tend to do… go down rabbit holes 🙂

1st – The header image, their logo, opens up like an image. It should be linked to the CALL TO ACTION page for that offer.

2nd – They link to twitter, sorry X, on the email and they’ve not posted since August of 2020.  It’s also linked on their website.  REMOVE that link, you’ve stopped using the platform.  And honestly this really makes me wonder if anyone is paying attention at the restaurant to their own marketing “oh we’re on X, I wonder what we post there…oh shit, nothing.”

3rd – Their website visually is AWESOME. I freaking love it.   The graphics, food pictures, etc are all great.  BUT their menu did not have the same pictures, in fact unless my phone and laptop were loading incorrectly, they didn’t have a single picture on their menu.  

4th – Their website has an “email newsletter” signup.  Consumers don’t want a restaurants newsletter.  That needs to be MUCH sexier of a name and they need to grab the customers phone #, birthday and visit frequency there.  

5th – The email “newsletter” I signed up for trigger an automated welcome email…GOLD!! That’s what should happen, EXCEPT it’s from another brand.  It’s from the companies parent name “XYZ Hospitality”.  Your customers don’t know who the heck that is.  The email should come from the EXACT restaurant I signed up for.  

6th – I had to “confirm” my email address.  That’s lame and should not be in there.  There’s not an online gang going around signing random people up for restaurant newsletters, get rid of that step. That adds friction to your customer data collection funnel and will hurt your opt-ins. 

7th – Their social media?  Well let’s just say they do exactly what all restaurants do, USE IT WRONG!  If you’ve not see this video of me speaking in Vegas watch it, CLICK HERE, they do this.  Yes they have really pretty pictures and video, but no one is watching or engaging.  Their Facebook page is a literal ghost town. 

8th – Their website does not have a pixel or tag on it for retartgeting.  So even is they wanted to, they could carry out my plan from #3 up top, retargeting me. 

9th – Their catering page needs a less invasive opt-in and a contest.  It’s great that they have the page and it’s set up solid with all of the right choices.  But if someone is coming there, GET THEIR ATTENTION.  They should have a CTA like “register to win a party”.  They have what most restaurants do, a form that forces me to give you WAY too much info. In fact, I can’t even submit an inquiry without a date or # of people.  That’s a form for buying, not inquiring.  This page’s goal should be about gaining catering inquiries.  

10th – They have a “media page” which I love.  Let’s show off what you’re doing…EXCEPT, it’s been 16 months since their last press coverage.  Now this restaurant is legit and so are their other locations (I’ve been) so I know they’ve been published somewhere.  Worst case scenario, create your own press with a blog post (like this) and tell whatever story you want.  This reminds me of 2000 when I was at an Arby’s in Cincinnati on UC’s campus and their employee of the month plaque had not been updated in a year.  It was hanging next to the register. I looked at the manager and said “are you struggling pretty bad with your employees?”  “No, we are doing great” was his response.  Then I pointed out the plaque and he was pretty shocked and amazed they’d missed that.  And yes I know, I’m a jackass 🙂

Talk to you tomorrow, unless I forget to blog again 🙂

Matt 

Day 27 – The Puzzle – Your Employees

2F733DB6-B613-49B5-9845-7868AF117E78

TODAYS puzzle piece is a the BIGGEST piece of the puzzle, YOUR PEOEPLE

——

Back in January 2019 I met this young man at this building.

I was holding a restaurant marketing seminar for marketing agency owners in Cincinnati at Union Hall and he was one of the 51 in attendance.

I remember looking out at the room of mostly 40-50 year old men and thinking “is this kid lost. Did he scooter here, call security.”

And then I heard his story.

How he decided to bypass college to build his restaurant video and photography business. And how not too long after that he stumbled upon my book and online training and changed his company into a restaurant marketing agency.

When he saw the event we were having, he knew he had to come down for it, so he grabbed his cousin flew down from Philly.

Over the next 12 months I got to know him more and really see the talent he possessed.

My business coach Billy Gene had been on me to hire a personal videographer to document my journey and capture better content to market our company, you know the stuff I preach to all of you all 🙂

So in December of that year (maybe early January) I wrote a now hiring Facebook post with David in mind. I wrote it REALLY REALLY detailed thinking this kid would see it and jump all over it.

But he didn’t, and I was scratching my head. So after interviewing a few people and narrowing it down to one person I decided to give David a call and ask if he saw the post.

And in fact he did see the post, but the line about moving to NKY was a deal breaker. So after some discussion we determined he could travel with me every other week and edit in Philly, thus eliminating the only hurdle.

In January 2020 he tested the waters by filming me at an event I held in Jacksonville Florida, and as they say “the rest is history.”

When the pandemic hit in March of that year we never skipped a beat. We stuck to our plan, in fact we ramped it up. We were on the road 2-3 weeks every month, hopping from one plane to another.

And then in the Spring of 2021 when I told David, Luis and Doug that I was going to buy a Mercedes Sprinter van and wrap it so we could drive all over the US to start filming the ABR Roadshow from America’s Best Restaurants.

David didn’t hesitate and jumped in feet first.

What’s even more impressive is that David not only kept doing all of his duties as my videographer, but he also become the 1st videographer for ABR, edited the first episodes and then hired the team of editors that would end up editing the first 500 episodes. David also oversaw the production and branding.

All of this from a kid who went straight from high school to the big leagues.

At one point David was in charge of a team of 10, including his mom, who became an account manager in 2022.

Now it’s 2024 and he’s our marketing director and helping us shape what will become a $100 million company by 2030.

So now that I gave you the backstory of who he is, let me tell you how I feel about him.

He’s an absolute rockstar who never says no, never doubts the vision and is always ready to go at a moments notice. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever met and to have him on this journey with me means a lot.

He’s one of my WHY’S!

I’m doing what I’m doing to see him become a millionaire and look back on the many years together and smile.

Thank you David, I appreciate all that you’ve done, all that you’ll say yes to in the future and more than anything for being a great friend.

Day 26 – The Puzzle – Customers Emailing Rotting Away In Your Point Of Sale System

Take action today with the massive email list that’s sitting inside your restaurants Point Of Sale and your restaurants company email account.  

This week we are on the road visiting restaurant owners to talk about what they think they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.  Three owners in 48 hours told me they were not leveraging the emails currently sitting in their POS.  They acknowledged their fear of using it wrong and that’s whats stopping them from taking action.  In episode 589 of Restaurant Marketing Secrets I spend 15 minutes digging into the topic and dropping a few tips to make this easier.  

But I’ll say this, don’t wait!  Take action today.  You as a restaurant owner have a few levers you can pull every day to dryve sales and email marketing is one of them.  

Day 25 – The Puzzle – Traveling To Talk To You…Restaurant Owners, In Person

Day 1 is in the books of our road trip from Northern Kentucky to Las Vegas. 

We left NKY at 8am, stopped by a restaurant in Louisville Kentucky around 10am, then 2 more in St. Louis from  2pm-5pm Central time and finally a pizza joint at 9:30pm in Topeka Kansas. 

What a long and awesome day.  Talking to the owners and a few employees at these 4 restaurants was eye opening.  I heard a lot of things I already knew to be true, and also a few new twists.  The goal of this trip was to kill two birds with one stone. We had the 4th America’s Best Restaurants Roadshow van that needed to get delivered to the West Coast and I really wanted to get in front of more restaurant owners to find out what we can do better with our companies and the merger with Repeat Returns. I wanted to understand what owners need form the marketing side of things to get to their dream outcome and use that to help my team build the ultimate restaurant marketing platform that will dryve sales.  

Tomorrow we head from Topeka to Durango Colorado, stay tuned.