Day 76 – The Puzzle – Be The Business That Would Put You Out Of Business

“Be The Business That Would Put You Out Of Business.”

Wow, that really really really HIT HOME!

Meet Bri and Jonathon of Wooden Paddle.  They own what I’d call a higher-end casual dining restaurant that leans towards pizza, but to say they are a pizza joint would be under selling the magic their chef Patrick creates that’s not pizza (which is a lot).

This dynamic couple that will soon have a restaurant EMPIRE (mark my words) have an awesome podcast that every restaurant owner should know about, CLICK HERE TO LISTEN and subscribe!  It’s called “The Fire Ready Aim” podcast and it’s FIRE!  To hear from a duo that’s been there done that on EVERYTHING in the restaurant biz and then to be able to convey that message is video and audio, WOW! 

But the reason for this post wasn’t to only hype the podcast, it was to showcase one line that hit me today while listening.

At the 31:29 mark Jonathon says “be the business that would put you out of business” was a great tip they’ve gotten along their journey.  

WOW, that’s impactful and now I’m sitting here not listening to their podcast anymore, but making a list of WHAT and WHO could put us out of business.  I heard Alex Hormozi say one time that a great practice to make your business bullet proof was to think of every way you could go out of business and then figure out how to do the opposite.  When you take these two ideas and make them one, it could give you the most powerful business plan EVER!

Ok, now I’m going back to my list of what and who could put me out of business and then I PROMISE I’ll go back and finish listening Bri & Jonathon 🙂

MP OUT!

Day 74 – The Puzzle – Now I Know Why

NOW I KNOW WHY 

We all have those days, those days that wish life was simpler.  That we wished we hadn’t try to take the hard path.  

You see that guy walking down the street going to his 9 to 5 and think “I wish life was simpler.”  Then you realize you’re not built that way, you realize your hate for today comes from the deep understanding of what you can actually do, and it’s not being THAT GUY!

This went through my head all the time from 2022 to 2024.  It was mostly fueled by a lack of money, but constant cash flow issues.  Weekly I’d think WHY Matt, WHY!  

Then one day I was on my weekly hill run and as I struggle to come up the 1.2 mile hill for the 2nd time a song came on by Limp Biscuit that states “I know why you want to hate me.”  I thought, no one wants to hate me. My struggles are simply me hating the fact that I CAN’T take the easy route, I always run straight into the tough unproven one.

As the song hit the 3:49 part It came on really soft and slow with “now I know why, now I know why, now I know why, now I know why” and then LOUD HARD “NOW I KNOW WHY YOU WANT TO HATE ME!”

The HATE was coming from ME.

 It was me being angry at myself for not having that slow gear.  

For not having small goals.  

For wanting IT ALL and NOW!  

I knew where I could go and it was eating at me that I wasn’t there yet and that I had to wait. 

Patience is not something I’d ever learned.  Many times I’d been spoiled by having the ability to find the money needed to get where I wanted to go, faster than I should have.  Whether it was in 2004 when banks were throwing money at our boat dealership, or 2018 when I had enough profits to be dangerous.

But now though the money wasn’t there and my impatience was the root of my issues.

And when you combine cashflow issues and a lack of patience, it can be dangerous.  

Part of me would think “if we make through this” while the other part would think “live to die another day.”  I had this deep rooted belief what we needed was always around the corner, but I’d not learned how to control my mind and honestly believe it some days. 

During February of 2024 I made up my mind “FUCK IT” we’re making it and we’re only going to get there if I accept how I’m built and change it.  I had to trust my clique, the ABR crew I’d built where in it for the long haul.  They just needed a healthy MP.

On those runs the song “show me how to live” would come on as well and it was a constant reminder that the only person I had to prove it to was ME!  I had to be able to look in the mirror every day and be proud of how I was leading myself, my team, my family and my friends.   After all, I’m not leading from the front how can I expect others to follow?

This journey I’m on is tough, it’s brutal.  Just like Tom Brady has to shake off an interception, I have to be able to turn the page of every day.  

One bad day can’t effect tomorrow and a bad week isn’t an option.

I can’t allow yesterday to change how I live today.  This journey requires and unbreakable MIND.

“Wait Until I Get My Money Right!”

I recall hearing that in 2023 while driving to the office.  Just wait, just wait!  

The restaurant industry doesn’t know what was going to hit them.  The haters can’t fathom what we’re about to pull off.  The big brands won’t realize the little guy was coming to punch them in the throat.  

MP will become to the restaurant marketing game what Alex Hormozi was to marketers in 2023.

The past 3 years have taught me the world is at my feet. and it’s time to take this shit to another level. 

Day 73 – The Puzzle – My Shoes & This Car, 2 Things Your Restaurant Needs

Every day shoes like the ones above stop people in their tracks and FORCE them to create a conversation with me.

And every day I’m stopped in my tracks by a wrapped vehicle, like the one below.  

As a restaurant owner you must live by the mantra, LMS.

Lead

Market

Sell

The shoes and wrapped car are how you market every day on auto pilot.  I’m blown away by what I see restaurant owners outside of their restaurant.  You are rocking other peoples brands like Nike and Polo, vs your own.  Back in 2017 when I decided to OWN the color orange for good I made a decision, orange shoes and shirts every day.  The first few years only a few people took notice, now, EVERY ONE DOES.  I don’t care if you’re at the gym, a football game, the grocery store or the airport, you should be repping your restaurant and be wearing SOMETHING that makes people around you ask a question.  I’m at a disadvantage, 99 out of 100 people I meet are not my target audience, but everyone you meet EATS DAILY :). And odds are the majority of your time is spent in the same region as your restaurant, so there you go!

With wrapped vehicle, it’s a no brainer.  I shouldn’t even have to be typing this.  You drive to the restaurant EVERY DAY.  You pass your ideal customers EVERY DAY.  You could use another amazing sign at your restaurant EVERY DAY!

And you want to know something else, you could opt to buy a much COOLER car to wrap that will stop people in their tracks.  What if your pizza joint had a wrapped Porsche?  You would be the talk of the town.  And guess what, you could do that for under $700 per month, and it would cause a lot of buzz and sell a lot of food!

Photo Credit – LINK NKY 

Day 72 – The Puzzle – 14 Changes To This Restaurants Website

On a weekly basis I’ll click a link and go down into a rabbit hole that is a clients website or marketing funnel.  My goal is two prong, to provide that restaurant owner with value and help, but also to train my team on what to look for.  

Here’s the most recent website audit.

1st – The menu bar – Is there an error, mine shows a “strange” word, possibly a niche word to fit their theme for what goes to the online ordering. I’m betting this is something to fit the theme, I’d recommend against that.

2nd – The menu – The term used for booking the venue is a very unique term.  This is just like #1, customers may be confused by Google also will be.   Those unique one off brand terms will not be something that shows up when someone is searching for a place to hold an event. 

3rd – Great Video on the home page, LOVE IT! SOLID professionally produced video

4th – Need to install FB pixel

5th – Can we get a pop-up for your VIP/Rewards program?  Many of your website visitors are just that, visitors.  They are not ordering, so give them an excuse to take an action.

6th – Email button at the bottom goes to inactive toast form. OWNERS, every week go to your website and other important online pages and CLICK EVERY WHERE.  You will almost always find a link broken or going to the wrong place.

7th – About Us home page box, can we get 2 lines about the owners in there? They have a solid area telling part of the story, but it’s missing the best part.  That it’s locally owned and operated and not a chain.

8th – EZ Cater link – What do they charge for you to use their form for catering orders from the website?  They have a link for catering that goes through EZ Cater.  I don’t know the costs a restaurant would incur with that, if any, if it’s placed directly with the restaurant through the restaurants website.  Two things that scare we there are the fees and introducing the customers to a new website like EZ Cater where they can look for other restaurants.  But, the value of having an online ordering platform like there’s might outweigh building one from scratch.  

9th – Can we get a catering contest pop-up on that page?  Same as #5, put a high value call to action button in front of this traffic.  Research shows that the majority of catering traffic to your website is for research purposes, so grab their attention and their data.  Then you can build a relationship with them through your catering sales program. 

10th – Can you create a “see our menu page.”   I think a few of those would look great on a dedicated menu page. They currently have the toast ordering page, but if I’m just poking around I might click a menu page before I click an “ordering” page.  

11th – LOVE that you don’t have a PDF of the menu.

12th – The tab that takes people to the toast ordering, have that open a new window not in the same one. That keeps people on the website after they exit that one if they are just poking around. (like the buy gift card button does on the toast ordering page)

13th – I love the Bios of the owners on the home page with 1 other employee, but I’d love a picture of the owners together (it’s seperate now) and show it’s owned by a local married couple.

14th – Contact us picture is my favorite, so 90s!  This page was LEGIT.  It’s at the top of this page. It ties in with their company theme of the 80s and 90s, the pay phone pic is legit!

15th – Love the join the team page.  You should always have a page and marketing running to find team members.  Make it fun, informative and easy to apply. 

16th – Their America’s Best Restaurants branding and ABR Roadshow Episode is missing.  This is a huge way to seperate yourself from the competition. When we list a restaurant on www.americasbestrestaurants.com for FREE, those restaurants get access to our branding for their website.  And when we film an episode of the ABR Roadshow they can embed the episode on their website.

Just a few observations, hope you can use some of these to make your restaurant standout and drive more sales. 

FYI, when I say that a link on your website, like in #12 above, needs to open to an external source, it’s like the one for the ABR Roadshow above and the podcasts below.  It takes you to that place, but keeps you on this website. 

Thanks,

MP

PS – I also did a podcast on this topic, go figure :). CLICK HERE to listen to episode 638 of Restaurant Marketing Secrets.

Day 71 – The Puzzle – Do Not Ask For Restaurant Reviews Like This

This is a common mistake from restaurant software, it asks EVERYONE for a public review, NO!!!!

In this case the restaurant has two things happening here that I would correct.

#1 – I already got an email from Toast last night, their point of sale, asking me how my experience was, so now I have 2 different requests in 24 hours.

#2 – This email is from a company called Rev Local.  They must have an integration with Toast that sends this automated email to people who visited, ME.  Here’s the issue, what if my visit wasn’t good and you just gave me an invitation to leave bad reviews everywhere!

And now that I think about it, what if I responded poorly to the message from Toast that I got yesterday, would this one still have been sent?

A consumer should only be asked for a review when you know the answer.  In this case I would have had the review left in the platform, like Dryver (formerly Repeat Returns) does, and if they leave a great review THEN give them the google link.  You need to gate the surveys and only give people YOU reach out to via your marketing a link to give you private feedback and THEN you give them a link to Google, etc.

MP OUT!

Day 70 – The Puzzle – You Have A New Competitor, How Can You Market Your Restaurant Differently

So, a new restaurant just opened up across the street, what should you do?

This just happened a few minutes from my house and I can already hear the frantic conversations happening inside during staff meetings.  

First, accept that the new spot will kick your butt the next 90 days and they are going to steal some of your customers short term, or maybe long term if you let them.  But there are a lot of proactive things you can do to make sure the impact is much less than it will be, in no particular order.

First – If this new spot has long lines, and you don’t, have a sign you can place out front during these times that says “Current Wait Time = Zero Minutes 🙂 “

Second – Use social media ads to target people currently within 1 mile of your restaurant and put some DELISH looking video ads in front of the people during their long wait at the new spot.

Third – Finally get off you butt and create a customer VIP program that forces everyone in your region to give you their contact information.

Forth – Get way more active in your community.  DO NOT let this new kid on the block jack the high school crowd you’ve nurtured for the past 10 years.

Fifth – Read blog post “Day 69” and do everything I told the new restaurant to do 🙂. Just click the text before this sentence and read away.

Sixth – Last but not least, don’t sweat it.  You can only control YOU and them brining more traffic to your area can’t hurt.

Seventh – I lied, the prior tip wasn’t the last one.  As I was typing that I thought “what if their restaurant looks like shit?”  So the real last tip is to have 3 friends look at your spot from the street and give you tips on what you’re not seeing. Spruce up the front of your restaurant, fix your mulch beds (maybe actually mulch), pull some weeds, refresh your sign and get rid of the banner that’s been up for 5 years!  There’s a very good chance you have changes to make and with this increased traffic you don’t want people saying “look at that dump” because you’re next to a brand new spot. 

Day 69 – The Puzzle – This Restaurant Is Brand New, What Should They Do?

This topic drives me crazy!  Why, because I am the one that hears it ONLY on the frontend and the backend.

First, I’ve been talking to restaurant owners for 16 years who say “we are slammed now that we opened, and we will be for 90 days or so, let’s talk after that.  I don’t need to spend any money on marketing right now.”

Second, “crap, sales have dropped 30% from our first few months, we better start marketing.”

Restaurant owners, get this through your head, YOU ALWAYS MARKET AND ADVERTISE…even when you are in your honeymoon phase after you open. Heck, I’d say that’s the most important time actually.

Here’s what you should do and why

1st – Gather every persons name in your restaurant, visit your website and engage with your social media, next is the why

2nd – The #1 reason you need this info is to use to reach back out to the customers who STOP coming in 90 days due to the bad experience they are going to have with you having a new product, team, long lines, etc.  It 100% happens to every new restaurant and if you don’t have a list of people you can reach out to, to say “I’m sorry, give us another try, then you have to spend money to re-acquire them.”

3rd – You need their data to keep the honeymoon going MUCH LONGER!  The long lines and buzz are going away, and people will forget about you.  

4th – A HUGE free appetizer or dessert promo right out of the gate for “their next visit.”  WHY?  Because these new people need a reason to not only come back but, try something they did not try the first visit.

5th – Facebook and Instagram ads running to target everyone within a mile of your restaurant so that when they are eating at your restaurant they will see your content, possibly engage and then you have then in an audience through Facebook to target at a later date.

6th – A REALLY great reason for them to visit your website while they are inside the restaurant.  You MUST have a QR code that is 100% dedicated for in-house traffic.  This way you create another custom audience you can target through digital ads in the future of people who’d been INSIDE your restaurant.

7th – Buy a beacon that allows you to target customers in your restaurant in the future through Facebook ads.  These devices are great to put at your front door, so when people walk through the device pings their phone and you can target them after they are gone with Facebook and Instagram ads.

That’s it for now, I may add more later, but those are a few things I’d do if I was opening a new restaurant. And honestly, all of those apply for really EVERY restaurant 🙂

Day 68 – The Puzzle – Why I Don’t Do Social Events

If you know me, you know Matt Plapp doesn’t attend many social events, if any.

Weddings, NOPE.

Gym canoe trips, NOPE.

Graduation parties, NOPE.

Neighborhood parties, DOUBLE NOPE!

I work, workout, hangout with my family and attend business mastermind events, THAT’S IT!

But why?  Do I dislike people?  Am I anti social?  Or am I just a jackass…probably yes on the last one 🙂

Here’s why.

I don’t want to hang around or talk with people who have broke mindsets.  I don’t want to put myself in situations where I’m going to get dumber.  I don’t want to be around people that enjoy the gossip, drown their sorrows in alcohol and talk about shit that they can’t control.

CASE IN POINT

Last weekend my wife said “Sunday we have XYZ’s graduation party.”  I said “have fun, hard pass.  I’ll pass on the useless conversations that will happen there with people I don’t know or don’t see at all in life.”

That night Christy and I are on a walk and she says “well, you were right, the graduation party conversation was so stupid.  It was a group of parents and kids bragging about how they’d been out until 6am at another kids party the night before and how everyone was drunk.  It was pitiful.”

And THAT my friends is why I don’t go to those type of events. 

#1 – The fact that parents find it funny their kids were hammered at a high school party tells me all I need to hear about those people.  

#2 – How’s that conversation going to help me improve my mind, body or spirit?

#3 – Those aren’t the people that I want to surround myself with.

Instead, I opt to fly out of town every few months to business events like Josh Nelson’s 7FA in Miami (pictured above).  For 3 days, day and night, I’m in a room with like minded professionals.  Our conversations aren’t about politics, someone we don’t like, drinking all night, etc.  The conversations are all about how we can be better spouses, optimize our health, be an awesome CEO and how we can better serve our clients.

To some people what I described above is boring, and those are exactly the people I’m trying to avoid.

My goal is to AVOID at all costs BROKE ASS PEOPLE!  

And broke doesn’t always mean financially broke.  It means broke morally, financially, ethically, mentally.  

My friends, if you want to be the best version of yourself, you MUST protect yourself from these people.

One day soon I hope to start hosting a quarterly event for restaurant owners like I have with 7FA.  An event that will allow us all to fill that social void with the RIGHT people, conversations and energy. 

Day 67 – The Puzzle – How Social Stats Showed Me This Restaurant Owner Was An Attorney And Passive Owner

This is one of those moments you never forget.  One where you want to hop in your car and drive as fast as possible to show anyone, everyone what you’d found.  You see, for years I’d been preaching about the importance of social media to build a database and recently I’d discovered how the effectiveness of some of the campaigns were a product of the ownership and not our campaigns. But it wasn’t until this day that I had the proof.

Earlier that year we had started working directly with two pizza franchise locations on our Facebook Messenger VIP program. The goal of the program was pretty simple, use Facebook posts and ads to build a database and then drive those customers into the restaurant to buy pizza.

After 30 days of crushing it with these 2 stores the corporate office called to add 2 struggling stores to our program and another franchisee called to hire us as well.  Over the next few months all of the program operated at different levels and I could not put my finger on the WHY.  Our program was exactly the same at each location and the stores all had similar demographic and geographic profiles. Meaning, the customers and neighborhoods looked very similar.

Stores 1 and 2 were both crushing it.  The owners of the 2 stores were what you’d want as a restaurant owner.  They were involved in the store every day and very hands on.  They were also exactly the types of clients you’d want for a marketing company.  They had a positive mindset, were growth oriented and collaborative.  

Store 3 was doing decent, but the owner wasn’t like the first two stores.  She was negative, always complaining about customers and broke.  When I say broke, I mean mind and bank account.

Stores 4 and 5 were not doing well at all with our customer acquisition program. From dealing with the owner of store 3 I knew why her program wasn’t doing well, it was her and the way she ran her business.   But on these last 2 stores we worked with the corporate office.  They’d hired us directly to help 2 struggling franchisees, so we didn’t know the owners and they were not involved in our programs.  

A few months into working with all 5 stores I decided to pull the basic stats of each store for 2 months and compare the social stats to see if their was a story. 

I pulled the following stats for their social media campaigns over 60 days:

– Reach – unique people reached

– Impressions – this is a multiple of your reach based on your ad frequency.  If Matt Plapp saw your ad 3 times he’s only in your reach once, but here twice.

– Comments – commented on the posts and ads

– Shares – Shared the posts and ads.

Then I looked at the results of the campaigns.  All of our campaigns are built to get customers to give us their contact info and then we add them to a marketing funnel to drive them into the restaurant.

– Opt-ins – Email, Cell #, Birthday, Visit Frequency

– Redemptions – Customer came to the store and spent money

– Redemption % – The percentage of the customers who used their promotion

– Sales – Sales generated from the redemptions

The stats above are from the 5 stores.

You’ll notice the reach and impressions are very similar, which makes sense due to us spending the same amount of money on campaigns and the stores being located in very similar types of communities. 

Where the results start to show cracks is the comments and shares.  Both are a sign of the people around the community either loving your brand or not.  You see, excited customers of yours will see these promotions and go crazy. They’ll comment to show love, tag a friend and get the promo.  The hardcore ones will share it and announce their love for what you’re doing and encourage their friends to take action.

The lower your comments and shares are, the worse everything else will be and it’s honestly a true reflection on YOU and your product.

Here’s an example:

Both stores post a “Comment Below & Get A Free Pizza.”  

– Store 1 customers comment “this place rocks, I love the meat lovers pizza.  The employees are always friendly and the service is fast. ” and many of them will share the post with comments just like that. Many times they tag a friend.

– Store 2 customers comment ” I’ll take a free pizza” and don’t share.

What stores 1 and 2 saw is what makes campaigns go viral and what stores 3-5 saw is what makes campaigns NOT GO VIRAL!

Next up is the customer acquisition part.  The better your Facebook campaign works the higher your opt-in % and remption % is.  In this case, we’ll focus on the redemption % since that is what DRIVES SALES…what you all care about right?

See how store 5 is almost half of what store 1 is on the redemption %.  And see how their opt-ins are a 3rd.  Well, that lead to sales that were 4 times lower as well. 

As I gathered this data I thought, what do I know about the owners and what can I assume from this.  Well I knew stores 1-3 and the fact that stores 1 & 2 dominated was a direct reflection on the owners, the level of service they provided, the way they were viewed in the community and the support they had by their best customers.  

Store 3 had a little of that, but the owners toxic attitude was the big difference maker and it was visible in her online reviews.  

But what about stores 4 and 5?  Well, store 4 had awesome reviews, not a lot of them, but they were good.  Store 5 did not have great reviews.  As I said, I didn’t know anything about these owners.  So when I drove to the corporate office to meet with the CMO and owner I made a bold prediction.

Store 4 is owned by a person who LOVES back of house operations and who never steps a foot into the dining room to shake hands and kiss babies.  

Store 5 is owned by an attorney or accountant who bought the franchise as passive income and never comes into the store.

I WAS RIGHT!  The owner of store 4 was a former Chipotle GM who dominated the operations side of things and despised customer interaction.  Store 5 was owned by an attorney.

HOW DID I KNOW THIS?  The LACK of social engagement on their campaigns when compared to stores 1 and 2 showed me they treated customers like a number and had no relationships.  The crazy thing for me though, was seeing how it dramatically impacted the bottomline.  This was the first time I’d see proof at this level across the exact brand with the exact marketing campaigns.

Moral of the story, be an active owner and remember you’re in the sales business.  Sell your vision, your food and be kind!  And apparently it’s worth at least $5,000 per month in sales to do things right!

I also talked about this topic in episode 635 of my podcast, Restaurant Marketing Secrets, CLICK HERE and have a listen!


Day 66 – The Puzzle – Mistakes Fund Your Victories

I was talking to a restaurant owner the other day about the brutal journey that is, small business ownership.  We were talking about our biggest mistakers, regrets and victories.  

As we talked I couldn’t help but think about my journey from a one man show in 2008 to a company serving 20 local businesses to a company with 60+team members serving 3,000 restaurants in 2024.  It got me thinking about the highs and the lows, but as much as I’d like to think the highs were at the top of the list, it was the LOWS!

You can’t help but think WHAT IF with those lows, those mistakes, did not happen.  And it’s hard not to have throw yourself a pity party and doubt where you are going.  

But then you think deeper into those mistakes, like for me a few that I had in 2023 that ending costing my company around $1,000,0000…YES 1 MILLION DOLLARS!  And as I thought about what happened and where we are, I saw that those issues were 100% unavoidable.  There wasn’t any way I’d be where I am today without them.  So those mistakes had to happen to find the promised land.  

And then the thought crossed my mind, so I lost $1,000,000 but I found the way forward to $10,000,00.  And when you frame it that way, its easy to see the massive value the mistake actually was.  

For years I’ve heard the term “your mistakes fund your victories” and to be 100% honest, I never understood it completely.  But now I do.

It takes me back to high school track when I was learning the hurdles.  I had to fall down and get hurt to really appreciate the purpose of perfect form, and it wasn’t until I busted my ass a few times that I fixed what my coach had been pointing out to me.