Day 154 – The Puzzle – I Guess Late Is Better Than Never For This Business Replying To My Online Review

This is from a review I left two months ago after getting my oil changed.  I ONLY did it because the young lady helping me asked me to AFTER she confirmed I was thrilled with the service I got.  She said, “Great, it would mean a lot to me and my job performance ratings if you left a 5-star review on Google and mentioned me by name. My name is Kylie.”  It was easy to remember since my niece’s name is Kylie.  

So, a few minutes later, when I had a chance, I left the review. 

Then, yesterday, I got an email notification that someone had replied to my review.  When I looked, I recalled the experience.  I was not only amazed it took two months to answer but also by the fact that they copied and pasted a response even though I was particular.  

First, let’s talk about online marketing related to social media.  Review sites like this, I consider a form of social media.  And the first word in Social Media is (insert drum roll) SOCIAL!  

The idea behind social media is to be SOCIAL!

That means you respond to every post comment, every share that you can see, and every review that customers leave.  

Could you put it this way?  If you approached me in a restaurant and said, “Matt, how was your meal?”  And I replied, “Awesome!” 

Would you keep walking and not respond to me?  

OF COURSE NOT, THEN STOP DOING IT ONLINE!

First of all, this reply should have happened TWO MONTHS AGO!  Secondly, they should have engaged me in a specific manner instead of copy and paste.  


If we want to win in the game of marketing, it’s time to wake up and do it right!

Day 122 – The Puzzle – Our Vivid Vision Is Live!

It’s done!

After six months of work, our 2nd Vivid Vision is DONE!

To give you some context, a Vivid Vision is where you create a document that is three years in the future.  So as you read this, think about the date being May 17, 2027.  

Scroll down to read each page.  If you’d like a printed version, email matt@mattplapp.com subject line GIVE ME MP’S VV

It’s done!

After six months of work, our 2nd Vivid Vision is DONE!

To give you some context, a Vivid Vision is where you create a document that is three years in the future.  So as you read this, think about the date being May 17, 2027. 

Scroll down to flip through our VV.  If you’d like a printed version, email matt@mattplapp.com subject line GIVE ME MP’S VV

Day 111 – The Puzzle – 10 Rocks!

Many hands make light work.

We’ve all heard the saying, but have we all experienced it?

From 2008 until 2017, I ran my company as a one-man show. In 2011, I hired Ashley, my first employee. She was my right hand and made life so much easier. However, I don’t think until 2017 that I realized she and other leaders would be the key to our future growth. Like most founders, I thought I had to do everything and that I was the only one who could do it as well as me or how I wanted it done.  

Then, my vision became clear, and I knew I needed another leader to help me reach the next level. With that epiphany, I handed Ashley the keys to her department and our second employee. That was seven years ago, and I think 55 employees ago. 

Well, this past Friday, my leadership team sat down for our quarterly EOS meeting. EOS is a company that has built a proven strategy for structuring decision-making and aligning that decision-making with goals.  I found EOS many years ago through a few books by the founder, Gino Wickman.  I “attempted” to put in place some of the systems from EOS as far back as 2018 but with my own twist.  Then, in 2023, our COO, Doug Smith, became a big fan of EOS and started implementing their teachings.  

We had our first annual two-day. EOS deep dive in January of this.  In those two days, we identified some goals and issues to tackle in 2024, but we also figured out that someone else had to lead the EOS meetings if we wanted to see the true power of EOS.  So, we hired Lyn Askin (Black shirt i the picture above) to be our EOS Implementer.  

Lyn led our April Quarterly and July meetings on Friday. Both meetings brought massive growth from my team and our vision. April was much more challenging, and we left with too much on our plate, but Lyn warned us of this. Last week, we went with a very manageable workload of quarterly goals (called ROCKS in EOS), but more importantly, we left with a massive sense of teamwork.  

In tomorrow’s blog, I’ll cover our ROCKS and what they mean to our vision, but today, I want to cover what hit me hard.  

As I said above, it took me many years to appoint another leader to run side-by-side with me.  Looking around the room Friday, I saw seven leaders in it to win it.  

Seven “ride-or-dies,” and I can’t tell you how great it felt.  Some days, I scare myself with what we are building, but then I look around like I did Friday and realize that I’m not alone.  At these times, I realized how “many hands make light work.”

Talk tomorrow,

MP

P.S. We have a HUGE announcement next week on our 8th horseman joining the RMTW leadership team!!!


Day 105 – The Puzzle – Are You Planning To Fail?

You’re busy, I get it, ME TOO!

The other day I was giving a restaurant owner friend some shit about how he’s slacked on his marketing and he fired back “You’ve got a team, it’s much easier for you.”

So, I fired right back at him “What is 56 people today, was me and Ashley for 10 years.  Everything that employees do for me now, I did on my own. So what I’m telling you isn’t from a person that’s not put in the work for many years just like you need to.”

“You’re right, my bad :)” he said.

It was a great conversation, it was me holding someone I look up to, accountable.  Because, at that time what I was seeing was someone who was putting in place marketing programs for THAT WEEKEND!  

If you’re planning this weekend’s promos today, then you’ve lost.  It’s called PLANNING TO FAIL! 

I get it, you have a crazy freaking job.  But I also know that many of your signed your name on the line of many loans and personal guarantees, so it’s time to buckle up!  Your sales today are not a product of this week or this month.  Your sales today are a product of many months and that’s why I’m such a stickler for having a well-thought-out marketing plan and working ahead.  

So go ahead and get caught up, but by August 1st I wan to see you ALL have 60 days planned out, delegate to your team, and a plan in place!

Day 104 – The Puzzle – Get Great Content For Your Restaurant From Here

Today’s post is quite simple, the comment section is your friend:)

I’m sure we’ve all seen posts highlighting sandwich boards like the one above, in my opinion, THEY ARE GOLD!

You can also find great content like this in the comment section on your Facebook and Instagram posts.  I see if every day, consumers being, well consumers, and throwing shade at you.  Well, USE IT!  Take those comments and have some fun with it.  Heck, just this weekend I had a guy saying my Instagram Post was bad, then I clicked his profile to see who I was about to fire back at and HE WAS A VEGAS STRIPPER!!!  You can’t make this shit up, I’ve got a dude that sells his body for money giving me marketing advice.  

In episode 673 of my podcast, Restaurant Marketing Secrets, I cover how you shouldn’t let these morons ruin your day, have a listen.

But this blog post is about how you should turn that “negative” into a positive like the sandwich board up top. 

Day 99 – The Puzzle – A Restaurant & Business Used Facebook To Get My Business

Well, companies in the big cities are finally waking up, when will you?

Since 2016 I’ve been traveling the country and scratching my head by the fact that NO ONE is targeting me when I arrive through the tourist marketing options inside of Facebook.

Equally perplexing is the fact that no local restaurants target me at home.

Well, I’m hoping that’s about to change.  Since around 2010 I’ve been helping restaurants run targeted ads on Facebook. By 2014 I figured out how to use Facebook ads to drive sales and by 2015 I created a solution to gather customer data and drive sales.  From 2014-2020 we spent millions for clients on Facebook ads and helped many restaurants grow.  

I’ve been waiting for the day to come for you all to wake up to this opportunity, and maybe it’s here.

WHY?

Well, because I’m now finally seeing tourist marketing on Facebook. In fact, I started getting more and more of it in 2023.  This past week I flew into New York to take a cruise with my family and right away I was hit with many offers to restaurants and attractions.  In fact, the coffee mug picture above is from one of those ads.   Edge NYC targeted me with an ad for their observation tower, and $190 later this video was created…CLICK TO WATCH.

So I’m excited because if these spots in big cities are finally jumping on board, then maybe, just maybe local restaurants won’t be far behind. 

CLICK HERE to listen to episode 667 of my podcast, Restaurant Marketing Secrets where I discuss this topic.

Day 97 – The Puzzle – Restaurant Customer Acquisition Continued

Ok, back to how restaurants can acquire customers for their restaurants.

The 3 examples below are very similar restaurants.  They share the same type of food, service, and location.  And, their customer feedback and review scores are really close.  So we are comparing apples to apples here.  

So let’s see what the journey can look like for a restaurant.   And see why one has a 19% redemption rate and an acquisition cost of $3.44, while one is 10% and $25 🙁

RESTAURANT #1

RESTAURANT #2

RESTAURANT #3

There are 2 factors I look at here to tell the story:

1st – Redemption %

2nd – Acquisition Cost

3rd – Review Rating

Review Rating

Let’s start with #3, the review ratings.  These are private reviews the customers leave after they visit.  It’s a quick survey in Messenger that is simply meant to identify bad experiences and get that to a manager, or deliver a link to Google for people with 4 and 5-star ratings.  This is important to me because the success of all marketing depends on the products you serve.  You’d think this is known by all, but we’ve had clients with 3.5-star ratings through our system and wonder why their redemption % is low.   I’m like seriously!  If these customers are giving you bad reviews, that means others have many times as well, and that in turn means the word on the street is your restaurant sucks.  So, how good, or bad you deliver your product will affect results. 

Redemption % 

#1 is the redemption percentage and this is a funny topic to talk about.  Direct mail companies have always talked about success being a 2-5% redemption rate and that was accepted by all of you.  Meanwhile, I get restaurants upset with a 10% redemption percentage.  This number is reflective of how you are viewed in your region.  It’s 100% a product of the amount of “know, like & trust” you have with the community.  

We aim to get all clients to a 30% to 35% redemption percentage. BUT, that might take 2-3 years for some restaurants.  I can tell you with absolute certainty that if you reach a consumer in your neighborhood who looks like your other customers and you give them a high-value offer, say a free burger, and they don’t take you up on it, YOU HAVE A BRANDING ISSUE!  

But not all is lost.  This isn’t a huge deal, it’s just a sign that you need to keep putting irresistible offers in front of the people around your restaurant and retargeting them with other content that pushes them over the hump.  I’ve personally had offers for businesses around me that I’ve not used for 12 months.  The timing isn’t right, I forget, I’m not sold yet, etc.  There are many reasons people don’t take you up on your offer, but the #1 reason is typically that you’ve not made a compelling sales pitch for them to.  You might have given me a free pizza, but am I going to drive past my regular spot to give you a try?

Acquisition cost

Now let’s talk about how much it’s going to cost to acquire customers and why this number is typically much lower than customers realize. I say this number is much lower because of the lifetime value of customers.  

Let’s look at an average scenario.  Restaurant #3 above, the program is 1 year old.  It’s a heritage restaurant with new ownership.  The old owners never marketed so the new owners have some lifting to do.  They have a 20% redemption % and $3.44 acquisition cost.  This means that 1 out of every 5 customers who are acquired visits and that 1 visit costs the restaurant owner $3.44
 

SAMPLE MONTHS STATS
– You acquire 500 new customers into your database
– You convince 100 of those customers to visit
– You spend $344 to gain 500 customers into your marketing program and 100 of them to visit.
– They spend $2,170

Now I’m not going to get into profit from this SINGLE visit by your customers, because that’s not how you look at this.  But it’s pretty damn easy to see that you just funded next month’s ad costs with the profit from this $2,170, it’s a freaking no-brainer.

The VALUE with these 100 customers is their future visits. Here’s how I see that going for most restaurants

– 30 will be one and done, they won’t come back anytime soon

– 50 will become occasional customers, visiting 5 times per year over the next 3 years: 15 visits x 50 customers = 750 visits

– 20 will become hard-core customers, visiting 15 times per year over the next 3 years:  45 visits x 20 customers = 900 visits

So this restaurant stands to gain 1.650 visits at $21.70, which is $17,175 in sales.  

So you just gave out $500 in free food (your cost) and spent $344 and got close to $20,000 in sales with the first visit and the following 3 years.

How it WORLD are none of you freaking doing this?  I just don’t get it. 

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

 Don’t forget about the 400 customers who gave you their contact info who did not visit immediately.  10-15% of them will follow the same path as above, adding another $17,000 in sales. 

 

IN CLOSING

All three of these restaurants have a story of their own and every restaurant’s marketing journey will be different.  

Restaurant #3 has solid results due to it being a heritage restaurant in their community, but weak everywhere else.  They also have new owners who are starting to do more, and if they stick with that, this 20% could be 40% within a few years. 

 The #2 and #3 are strong brands, but they are just now laying their foundation.  They are newer brands that the masses don’t know about.  The word-of-mouth marketing hasn’t had time to take hold and they’ve not advertised enough to build their following.

As I’ve said, acquisition marketing is 100% a product of their brand strength in the community and it’s just not there yet.  So it’s all about taking a strategy like this and sticking with it along with what we’ll talk about in tomorrow’s blog. 

Tomorrow we discuss the funnel these customers are, or should be put into, so they follow a very specific marketing path catered to their journey with the restaurant.  

MP OUT


Day 89 – The Puzzle – What Time Away Means For Me & How I Handle It

We all handle time off differently, and it’s up to you to find your speed and the “level” in which you turn your shut-off valve.

And it’s OK to accept that we all need a break occasionally and not beat ourselves up over it. 

Many years ago I realized when a long weekend is upon me, or a vacation is a few days away, I become pretty useless.  I get less concerned with daily hustle and more about free thinking.  I used to beat myself up for this, I’d think “MATT it’s not vacation yet, keep grinding!”

But then one day I accepted it, and I realized we all slow down sometimes.  This week was a great example of that. On accident, I combined these two powers.  I was leaving for vacation today July 6th, during a 4-day weekend 🙂

As I was making some to-do lists the week prior, I realized what I’d done and thought “OH NO” both of my kryptonite are hitting at once 🙂

But then I thought, OH YEAH!!!!!  

PARTY TIME 🙂

So with that, I embraced it.  I looked at the calendar and thought HOW can we have some fun this week? 

Grilling out on Wednesday at the office seemed like the perfect way to end the “work week”, start the long weekend and go into vacation mode. 

PLUS, I knew my team would enjoy it too.  

That’s another reality I had to come to accept as well,.  If Matt Plapp’s brain goes to cruise control before these events, I’m sure my employees are even farther gone.  So embrace it, have fun, and smile.

Now, onto the actual vacation.

As I was walking through the gym Friday night, the day before we left for our cruise I mentioned to a friend “I need this, I’m fried.”

And to be quite honest, that’s the truth. I’ve been running HARD since last Summer and even the few trips I took during that time were not completely what they should have been, since we are in a crazy growth stage.  But now, I have some breathing room and time to chill.  

BUT you also have to know what NOT TO DO in these instances.  You have to be “one with your mind” and know how to keep your brain going.  

For me, that’s why I love cruises.  I love taking a few books, empty paper, and headphones to a secluded area for a few hours and GOING DEEP!  Yes, I get plenty of downtime on trips, but I also know there is no turning off my brain, and when I have done that in the past, I’m miserable. 

The part that I truly love about vacation is the lack of meetings and phone calls.  The fact that there’s zero expectation from me for that time and I can just be ME!

So I’m off for 12 days, but you’ll still find me here every day.  

MP OUT

Day 88 – The Puzzle – Doing What You Don’t Want To Do

I knew this time was coming, and I was dreading it.

As much as I love the daily podcast, it’s days like this where I question my sanity.  It’s days like this where I think “What if I take a week off”, people would understand.

I’m getting ready to head on vacation and for this trip, a microphone isn’t traveling with me, which means I need to knock out 12 podcasts in 2 sessions over 24 hours. 

Two weeks ago I had this great idea “Matt, if you do two episodes per day for the next week or so you’ll be ahead enough!”

GENIUS right?

Well, that didn’t happen and as I sat at my house on Thursday, July 4th around 9 pm I realized I had to do that day’s podcast to do STILL, and “OH SHIT” I need to get another 12 done on top of that 🙂 I thought “I can do them all tomorrow, but then I thought “That’s going to make for a long day” so I sucked it up and knocked out 5 more that night.

And then on Friday I went into the office and got uncomfortable, and knocked out the other 7 podcasts.  Let’s be honest, there are things we love to do that some days we simply don’t want to 🙂 And what I’ve found on those days is the energy you have after you do it is awesome.  You realize “That was brutal, but I did it.”

And something I realized many years ago about taking tough tasks, is it makes easy stuff, REALLY EASY in the future.  I think that’s why doing 1 or 2 podcasts some days is light work because I’ve had plenty of days where I crank out 5 pods.

My friends, there is scientific proof that shows the part of your brain that’s activated in instances like this, ONLY GETS STRONGER, when you do what you don’t want to do.

So get off your ass today, and do something that SUCKS!

Day 82 – The Puzzle – Seek Discomfort, Embrace Soreness

Seek discomfort.

Seek pain.

Seek soreness.

Seek stress.

Seek that will make you stronger as your journey takes you to bigger and better places.

The picture above is from a CrossFit competition at CrossFit The Tracks in June 2017.  From 2010 to 2020 I would put my body through some tough tests.  I was doing CrossFit, Olympic Lifting and Running every week.  And I had people pushing me all the time to become better.  Back then it was a hobby, but now it’s a life choice.  You see, then I was just doing it as a part of my free time and as a way to stay in shape.  I didn’t really understand the idea behind putting yourself in tough spots for the sole purpose of becoming better. 

Then around 2020 I put it on coast.  This wasn’t due to the pandemic, it was a combination of my business growing and CrossFit as a hobby taking a backseat.  I still worked out, but I stopped with the extra stuff I was doing like lifting sessions and races.  Over the next 4 years I’d go from 175 pounds to 201. I reasoned with myself that it was OK because during those tough CrossFit hobby years I was sore all of the time.  To me not being sore, was a sign I was in a better place.

WRONG!

It turned out it was simply an excuse to not work my ass off. On December 25th 2023 I looked in the mirror and saw what personal neglect had created.  I was the heaviest I’d been since 2010 weighing in at 201 pounds.  I looked in the mirror and said enough is enough, and as I type this I’m aprox 178 6 months later.  The weight loss has been a combo of nutrition (75%) and higher intensity workouts more often.  And guess what, I’m sore again!

SORE is what I now realize what was missing.

And at the same time, I look back at the Summer of 2023 as my company saw losses for the year mount to over $1 million and stress me out of my freaking mind!  I can’t start to tell you how tough last Summer and Fall was for me mentally, but I smile now.  I realized that I had to make those mistakes and learn those lessons to get to the next level as a CEO.  At the end of the day, if you don’t learn how to lose, you can’t learn how to win the RIGHT WAY!

All of this hit me this spring. I realized the more I accepted the shit was going to hit the fan often, that I was going to be SORE all over, not just my body, but my mind too.  When I accepted this reality and realized the only way I was going to become the CEO I was destined to be was to embrace the suck things became clear.

This is also when it hit me about working out, EMBRACE, screw it, FIND muscle soreness.  Otherwise, it simply means you’re not doing enough.

Check out todays podcast on this topic, episode 649 of Restaurant Marketing Secrets by yours truly…CLICK HERE to listen.

MP OUT!

P.S. Someone told me long ago…