Josh (02:05.176)
The nitrous, yeah. And they put this spoiler on the back. It's crazy that that's a thing, you know?
Josh Kopel (02:09.912)
Right.
Oh, it's insane. And now people are like, my car gets 8000 miles to the gallon. It's all electric. Like nobody gives a fuck anymore.
Josh (02:17.635)
Yeah.
I still see people, you know, with the muffler, you know, where like, where it makes the extra sound, I forget what they do. It still happens, but definitely not as much, but that was like, that's what you did. You know, and you felt really like, self-conscious if your car didn't have, you know, at least some speakers or something.
Josh Kopel (02:31.042)
That was, that was the thing.
Right. That's it. That was that was the whole culture. That was it. You you used to have the CD deck that would like the face would come off and come down and then you would put the disk. It's crazy. You had a five disk changer under your seat.
Josh (02:43.862)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, someone's...
Yeah, I remember someone stole my CD player and I was so mad. They're like, you know, cause you could like, you would get a new CD player installed. Yeah. Yeah. Like, cause you could never use the standard one that came with it. You had to get like something else and have it installed. And it's funny too, cause I, you know, I worked in restaurants when I was in high school and now looking back, I'm like, oh, that's what I spent my money on. What the, what a dumb, I, why did my parents not tell me to put this into like the stock market?
Josh Kopel (02:53.262)
what a bummer. Yeah, you could just take the face off.
Josh Kopel (03:00.374)
No, of course not.
Josh Kopel (03:10.894)
Hahaha
Josh Kopel (03:15.758)
For sure.
Josh (03:16.218)
I'm fucking buying speakers and a CD player that were completely worthless. Well, I totally forgot about that. Well, okay, so you've been to Masterpiece House. It's good to know. Who were your other, by the way, we'll get into restaurants, promise. Who were your top five artists in the 90s when you were growing up? For you.
Josh Kopel (03:27.991)
Yes.
Josh Kopel (03:37.381)
Ugh.
Tupac was huge for me. I mean, still to this day, I'm a huge Biggie Smalls fan. Huge, huge. I don't think anyone, I don't think there's anyone, but the dude's voice is like syrup. He was probably the greatest.
Josh (03:42.522)
Mm-hmm.
Josh (03:45.945)
Yeah.
Josh (03:53.103)
Yeah. Yeah. And his, I mean, his freestyles, like the wickedest freestyle is like, it's, it boggles my mind how good, you know, he was as a lyricist.
Josh Kopel (04:01.886)
my God. And then I will I will say like one of the best albums of my life was the Outkast dual album. I mean, yeah, because I just like two guys have been working together for so long. Right. And then they do these two albums, both of which are excellent independently. Right. But very different sounds. I just found it fascinating. And it's there aren't that many times in life.
Josh (04:09.952)
the dual album. Interesting. Okay.
Josh (04:18.33)
Yeah.
Josh (04:26.349)
Yeah.
Josh Kopel (04:31.694)
that you hear something you've never heard before. And I just...
Josh (04:34.84)
It was definitely, yeah, mean, it was definitely net new type of sounds. I mean, I'm a purist with outcasts. mean, Equimini and Southern Playlist of Cadillac music are kind of my go-tos, which I still listen to today. But that album was great. What else? We got two more.
Josh Kopel (04:48.942)
Mm-hmm.
How about you? Oh my God. OK, two more. I mean, I'm Southern, so like some of it's got to be country, right? So, I mean, not now. I don't listen to him now at all, which is fascinating. But like, I was in a lot of Garth Brooks back then. A lot of Garth Brooks. In country? Oh my God. mean, back then it was, I mean, that was like they call that like the golden era.
Josh (05:01.21)
okay.
Josh (05:10.148)
Yeah.
Who else?
Yeah.
Josh (05:20.792)
Yeah, yeah.
Josh Kopel (05:21.994)
of country so that would be Toby Keith who else who else was really big back then. yeah John Michael. Where did he go. My goodness. Where did he go. He was huge for quite some time. my goodness. So many. I mean that was that was also Trisha Yearwood. There were so many great female artists back then. Leanne Rimes. None of these people exist anymore. Shania Twain was huge.
Josh (05:25.37)
John Michael Montgomery was back then.
I know, where did he go?
Yeah. Yeah.
Josh (05:42.658)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. I like the old, country, like the Arlo Guthrie
Josh Kopel (05:51.444)
Never got into it myself. But like in Baton Rouge, Bluegrass was obviously absolutely massive.
Josh (05:58.267)
Yeah, Kenny Rogers, all that kind of stuff. That was more my cup of tea. But I was big into hip hop when I was younger. Outkast was a big one. I went from Virginia, so not many from there. Virginia Beach had Pharrell and Timbaland and Missy Elliott, but we didn't have the New York stuff. Okay, anyways, welcome to the show. I'm finishing my lunch, by the way.
Josh Kopel (06:01.112)
Yo, yeah.
Josh Kopel (06:06.317)
Same.
Josh Kopel (06:16.054)
Sure.
Josh Kopel (06:23.681)
Well, hey thanks!
No worries.
Josh (06:28.078)
So awesome to have you, man. You do such a great job of, one, teeing this up. I mean, you're a great marketer, so you share really, really concise details and things to talk about as well. But you also do a great job of telling the story of who you are. So I don't even wanna try to reinvent that. Restaurant tour, in the words of what we see online.
Josh Kopel (06:42.99)
Thank you.
Josh (06:55.162)
like force of nature in the hospitality industry, which you are. A lot of this I didn't know by the way. didn't realize you were the president of the, former president of the California Restaurant Association. Tell me about that. How did that come to be and what was that like?
Josh Kopel (07:03.054)
California restaurant.
Josh Kopel (07:08.43)
Oh, my goodness. mean, I would love to tell you that, like, everyone raised me up and said, listen, you have unique ability. You should do this. I volunteered for the job that nobody wanted during one of the most difficult times in our industry. It was literally 2020. And there was just nobody that would do it. There was nobody with the bandwidth to do it. And so 2020 to 2021.
Josh (07:26.594)
yeah.
Josh Kopel (07:34.606)
was just a really interesting, difficult time in restaurants, especially in Los Angeles, because we were kind of open, but not really. And it was difficult to navigate. there are all kinds of support systems that the California Restaurant Association has in place in order to support its members. But more than anything, it's a lobbying body. Right? So the idea was that this is a political action group.
There are laws coming down that are hurting restaurants and making it almost impossible to do business. like you can do that. That's fine. But like if you're going to protect the public safety, you need to protect the livelihood of the people that you're impacting in a really negative way. So that was that was like my my second big jaunt into advocacy. I also saw an opportunity. Honestly, the job and I never really thought about it until you asked the question.
It really kind of informed what I do today because what I do today is I work with major corporations and I have them finance free education for the industry. in the earliest days as president of the California Restaurant Association, I've had for the last five years a wonderful working relationship and partnership with Yelp for restaurants. They financed a ton of educational stuff.
both the association and at large. It was virtual town halls. They sponsored the podcast out the gate. They also helped with lines of distribution. And that's really what I try and do today. I try and work with large corporations to create free content, which ultimately drives traffic to all of the other products and services I provide.
Josh (09:24.12)
Yeah, yeah, so.
I forget, I actually forget how I met you originally, but I would love if you could sort of explain what you do, but pretend I'm not sitting here, my five-year-old kid is sitting here, like explain what it is that you do.
Josh Kopel (09:38.027)
Yeah
Josh Kopel (09:43.421)
The oversimplification of what I do is that I teach. And I think that the best teachers are avid learners. I've always been an avid learner, both within our industry and outside of our industry. And it did really well. Like it did really well as a restaurateur in Los Angeles, which is easily one of the most competitive dining markets in the world. And not only did I do well, but like I did well across multiple tiers of dining. I had a dive bar for more than 11 years.
I owned and operated a Michelin awarded fine dining restaurant. We spun that out into a multi-location fast casual concept. and the reason that I think I did well was because it's probably a mediocre to good restaurateur. It was a really great marketer. I just, get people, I think on a fundamental foundational level. And so what I wanted was what everybody else said I should have, which is all of these businesses and all of this success.
And I ran myself into the ground and I didn't even realize it until the pandemic hit and I was able to stop. And I realized that like my wife and I were roommates, barely married, certainly not in love in the way that we should be. And I also had a one and a half year old daughter who like I literally, and you're a parent yourself, I had never changed a diaper. I'd never given her a bath. I'd never put her down.
Literally, like not figuratively. I don't say that to be hyperbolic. And I didn't for a year and a half. mean, literally from the day she was born until the pandemic hit. And I just, the thought didn't cross my mind because I know she's one and a half, but like our schedules don't align real well. You know, I'm typically asleep and then out the door by the time she's up and ready for the day. And then I get home after everybody's gone to sleep. And
Josh (11:14.19)
Wow, for how long?
Josh (11:28.41)
Yeah.
Josh Kopel (11:38.966)
You know, I don't have weekends off, but they do. And it just it just didn't work. And so when the pandemic paused my life, I realized how overwhelmed I was, how overworked, how burnt out I was and how much I was missing. You know, as a parent, here's what I figured out. And it's like really tragic, but like missing out on the first year and a half of my daughter's life.
isn't a tragedy for her, which was kind of how I looked at it. It was a tragedy for me because she won't remember any of that. And I missed out on all of it. And so I quit and I quit not because I thought that we weren't going to make it. I quit because I knew that we could and that we probably would. And that wasn't a plan that I was willing to push forward with. My partners turned to me and said,
What do you need? What are we going to do? And I said, we're going to sell. We're going to sell right now. And so I did. I sold everything and I had no plan. I also had no industry. You know, it's sad when like your employer goes out of business, but I mean, my God, when your entire industry is decimated, what do you do? And it just seemed like a really good time to learn. And so my thought process was, how do I reach out to the smartest people I know and ask really granular questions about their business?
And I think that if you just do that without context, you get a restraining order. But I think that if you do it with context, like a podcast, you get whatever you want. And so I started the show thinking that no one would listen. But it didn't matter because I just needed the context because I was only talking to the people I wanted to talk to. And I was only asking the questions that I wanted to ask. And it took off like a rocket. It was incredible. We had hoped
Josh (13:15.512)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Josh Kopel (13:33.208)
to achieve 10,000 downloads full stop. Like we wondered how long it would take to achieve such a thing. And we hit that in like the first two weeks. It was amazing. was that timing, look.
Josh (13:43.227)
It's amazing. Yeah. You said, by the you said something. said you're a pretty good restaurateur, but a really great marketer because you get people. What do you get about people that maybe we might not understand fully if we're not great marketers?
Josh Kopel (14:03.82)
I think that I lead with curiosity and I think that most of us spend most of our time in dark rooms huddled together trying to figure out what people want. And I've spent most of my career asking people what they want. You know, if I want to increase customer frequency and I want to do it on the weekends, I don't come up with a promo and launch it.
I go to the people that are sitting at my bar every Saturday and I say, where are you when you're not here? Who do you hang out with? What do you guys do outside of this? Where could I find those people? If I wanted to get you in more often, what would I have to say? What would I have to do? What would I have to give you? And so.
Josh (14:50.968)
How do get them to talk to you? So how do you get them to talk to you, like, there? And then how do you get that to work at scale?
Josh Kopel (15:00.366)
So how do I get them to answer the questions candidly? think you have to ask the right questions. And I don't think it starts with that. I think what you do is I think that asking questions and getting the answers you want have more to do with two things. Number one, enrolling them in the solution. So, hey, I'm struggling with this thing and I was really hoping I could get your help. And then number two is externalizing it. So
Josh (15:04.147)
Mm-hmm. Candidly, yeah.
Josh Kopel (15:29.854)
Rarely do we have a window into ourselves. So I can't ask you like, describe to me what you like about my restaurant and what about you makes you think you like it. What you would say is you would have them externalize it where they actually do have visibility. You would say, who do you think this restaurant is right for? Who do you think would absolutely love coming here on the weekends? And so they look internally, but because they're able to externalize it, there's no ego involved.
So say you're probably looking for single guys between 30 and 45 years old. They work in the area. I think that's probably a pretty good guess for you. It's probably a pretty good guess because they are describing themselves without the fear of judgment. And then how do you do it at scale? I mean, I think that every location, one, I think that people are universally the same. I think they're all motivated by the same things.
If I am a great restaurant coach today, it's because I took the hard route. Being in multiple tiers in dining in multiple areas in Los Angeles, it's not that I know what works for every tier, it's that I know what works universally. And so what I found is, is that I don't need to be able to convince people to do anything that they don't want to do. I just need to figure out who already wants to kind of do what I want them to do and then I can just influence them to do it my way. Does that make sense?
Josh (16:55.214)
How do you figure that? sort of, yeah, I'm curious. I'm asking these specifically because I'm through, well, I'll share a little detail afterwards, but I'm going through a customer outreach initiative of my own right now. And I'm just really curious, so how do you identify those people then, the ones that you believe want to do what you're going to be asking them to
Josh Kopel (17:18.734)
They're close. They're already close. So great example. If somebody is coming in on a Saturday night for dinner, are you going to pitch them on a Tuesday happy hour? You're going to pitch them on a Sunday brunch. You would pitch them on a Sunday brunch because these are people that go out on the weekends, right? These are not people that go out during the weekdays. Those are two different class of human beings. But that's not what we do as business owners, right? We try and compel people to do things that they don't want to do.
When you look at most restaurant websites, what does it say? Sign up for my mailing list. Why? Why would I sign up for your mailing list? Have you ever gone back to a restaurant's website after you patronize the restaurant?
Josh (18:00.186)
I don't know. Good question.
Josh Kopel (18:01.282)
The answer is no, you haven't. Because if you did, you would have said yes immediately. But you haven't. And the reason you haven't is because you went there to decide whether to go or not. And so would you sign up for a newsletter for restaurant that you've never patronized? Highly unlikely. Everybody's trying to force people to do things that they don't want them to do. And the only thing we really want people to do is come by this weekend for dinner. And so
If that's my pitch and that's my pitch in perpetuity, I would argue that what it's going to do is it's not going to influence you and your wife who aren't going out this weekend to, know, Josh invited us to the restaurant this weekend. We should go. I don't think that's going to happen. But if you're already going out and you're undecided, you're way more likely to choose me.
Josh (18:50.65)
Yeah, yeah. That's, mean, for sure. Go with it, you know, skate with the puck is going. Well, I want to ask a lot about some of the, what would I call it, principles that you use when you're teaching and coaching. And we talked a little bit about sort of the work that you do. Well, why don't we just dig into that? I think let's start with, you you help a lot of restaurants. And the way that you go about it, I think is really smart. And so to start,
I'd love for you to share a little bit philosophy, like how you help, and I'll frame this with you don't do the doing, from what you've told me often. And I'd love for you to talk about why you don't do that. You know, there are a lot of consultants that do the doing, right? That they sort of go in and they'll build these things out for you, and whether it's SOPs or menus or things like that, you're pretty adamant about not doing that and more sort of teaching them...
Josh Kopel (19:28.395)
No, god no, I don't do the doing.
Josh (19:48.57)
systems and also sort of creating continuity of ways that they can do this once you're done. Can you talk a little about that?
Josh Kopel (19:57.048)
Sure. I think the only skill in this world worth having is knowing how to market. I think it is universally valuable and I think that it is universally transferable. The reason that outsourced marketing doesn't work is because they don't know you. They don't know your brand. It's like when you outsource your social media. What does it sound like? Sounds like everybody else's social media. And why? Because they don't know you. Because they're not inside your head. And so
You're never going to have great marketing unless you understand the components of great marketing. And so understanding what good looks like and understanding the path to good, I think is really the first step in the right direction. Also understanding the levers of profitability in your business as it relates to that is critical. Dude, there's nobody that comes to me for increased customer frequency or to scale their per customer average.
But those are the first two things we're gonna handle before we give them more new customers. Because that's what everybody wants. Everybody wants more new customers. But I would say, can you make more off the people that are currently sitting there? We're all planning to plan, right? So it's all, we're gonna spend six weeks, we're gonna come up with a great plan, then we're gonna have a four week lead up to actually launching it, and then you launch it and it falls flat. If I win, if my clients win, it's because we've adopted a marketer's perspective.
I teach people how to be obsessed maniacally with outcome. And then we just iterate. We launch something. If it doesn't work, that's fine. We're going to launch something else next week. Marketing is an iterative process, but they've got to learn to work faster. And so we start with the basics, which is scaling your per customer average spend, diversifying your business through catering and events, and then optimizing your floor plan so that you see more people faster on the weekends.
Everybody everybody that comes to me comes to me for more new customers and to get busier on a Tuesday. And where we start is we scale your per customer average so that you immediately start making more money today and we double your volume on the weekends because the Lord knows that is a much easier attempt than it is to convince people to come in when they don't want to come in on a Tuesday.
Josh (22:10.21)
Yeah, it's funny, you keep saying marketing, but there's parallels to so many mediums that that is the same premise. mean, in technology, it's the same thing, right? It's like ship fast, get feedback. And also just the premise that retention is far more important than new growth, right? If you can retain all your customers and then slightly increase their contract value or their check average,
Josh Kopel (22:18.808)
Sure.
Josh (22:37.29)
way more effective than growing new customers, because you also don't know if you have a leaky bucket. And then for every 10 customers that you get new, you might be losing 10 customers. Then it doesn't really matter. So I think it's really smart to start with just retaining the customers that you have and getting them to come back more frequently. And the iterative approach is awesome. I totally agree. The waterfall approach, which is typically what you see in large companies, is existentially dangerous.
because you're going off of some hypothesis that instead of trying to prove out as quickly as possible and then seeing results and iterating to your point, you're waiting the six, nine, 12, 15 months to roll it out and it might turn out that your hypothesis was wrong. And then all of that work was for no reason. Yeah.
Josh Kopel (23:23.544)
Sure. It was for nothing. You know, it's one of the reasons that I think the coaching works is I think that it's not that people don't know what to do. I think most people know what to do. Derek Siffords has this great quote. He says, if knowledge was enough, we'd all be billionaires with six packs. You know, like, do you know how to get in shape? Yeah, everybody knows how to get in shape. Are many people willing to do it? No. Is it complicated to get in shape?
No, it's a very simple process. And I think the same is true with profitability. think the same is true with how we run our businesses. And so if we focus on the fundamentals, which are how do we get our current customers to spend more money? How do we create what is a low volume, low margin business? How do we create high margin profit centers by reframing the way we look at our businesses? And then number three,
What happens to our business if everyone that comes in once a month comes in twice a month? We scale customer frequency and everything changes.
Josh (24:28.482)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
What's the profit stack? I heard you talking about that. You mentioned the profit stack. is that?
Josh Kopel (24:38.742)
So the profit stack is the is the three step process that we use to amplify your business and to get you to a higher level of profitability in a series of weeks. So what it starts with is scaling your per customer average spend rate, which costs absolutely nothing to do. It's more about figuring out what your best customers are buying and then coming up with language that helps you sell that to the rest of your customers. So
that's number one, we scale your per customer average spend. And a little bit goes a long way. I had a client based out of Rockford, Illinois, that scaled his per customer average by a dollar and change. That was it. And it translated to over a hundred thousand dollars in additional revenue in the trailing 12 months. So like a little bit goes a really long way there. So that's where we start. Because again, the idea here is not that we're planning to make more money at some nondescript time in the future. They're like, if you're going to work with me,
You need to make more money today because you're to pay me today. Right. So it's always making sure in my mind that they're quick wins so that value equation stands firm. The second thing is pivoting your mindset from B to C to B to B. So like what I love about your business, Josh, is that you're in B to B, which is very predictable, very predictable inputs create very predictable outputs, which is not true in B to C. If you want more customers,
You could do more cold outreach and that would ultimately translate to more customers. If you amped up your efforts by a thousand calls a day, would you would get more business? You would. And so once you know what your cost to acquire the customer is and what the lifetime value of that customer is, you're in a really good place. The problem with restaurants is they think they're in the B2C business and they're not. If we pivot to the B2B business, we make more money at better margin. So if we scale up our catering,
Not by trying to convince people that don't cater to cater, but if we just call every law firm, every accounting firm, every medical office in the area and we say, hey, do you cater? You should cater with us. We do a really good job and we have world-class assets like a catering pack that helps them sell that up the chain. You'll win. And that is of service and you can control how much money you make at margin. We then turn around and use the sales tactics that we've developed.
Josh Kopel (27:01.592)
to turn that one off catering order into monthly recurring revenue over time, which in my mind is the brass ring in our industry. We do the same thing with private events. So a bunch of people hold holiday parties. You don't know who they are, but if you call the categories that typically hold holiday parties, say, hey, have you booked your holiday party yet? And it's the summer. It's not like November. And they would say, no, we didn't. We say, you know what? We have this great catering pack. We'll offer you a great deal. Why don't you go ahead and book with us?
check something off their list, they're going to do it anyway, they might as well do it with you. And so that B2B pivot also helps the third pillar, which is that B2C push. So if you book more catering, those people are going to patronize your restaurant. If you host more private events, those people will bring their family and their friends back to the restaurant to experience the amazing experience that we give them.
What we have found is that in scaling your per customer average and diversifying your revenue streams, if you just do those two and we just forget about frequency entirely, you're able to scale your profit margin from most people, which is, I mean, the truth is most people aren't making any money. They make a little bit of money this month and they lose a little bit of money the next month that you could turn around and hit a 15 % blended profit margin almost within 60 days.
Josh (28:27.64)
Yeah. Century, I was actually looking this up, I don't know, like a month ago or something. And you know what the average profit margin is for a full-service restaurant in America?
Josh Kopel (28:38.766)
Wasn't it like 6 or 7 % last I saw?
Josh (28:41.37)
It's between 2 and 5 percent is the average. And what about, you know, the averages for QSR? Now, I'll be, I got these from a couple different places. I think Statista was one of them. 5 to 9 percent is the average. Yeah.
Josh Kopel (28:46.85)
That's more bleak.
What is it?
Josh Kopel (29:02.03)
I mean, incrementally better. But then you think about it, man, and you say, like, what if that QSR is killing it and they're doing $3 million a year, which is a lot of money for restaurant to do. They're netting out less than $300,000 a year on, and think about the number of transactions a QSR has to hit in order to make $3 million in a year. It just, it doesn't make sense. And so, so little of that is predictive.
Josh (29:15.257)
Yeah.
Josh Kopel (29:31.19)
You're not able to influence the outcome of who's coming to lunch at your restaurant today, but you can influence the outcome of how many people order catering.
Josh (29:40.123)
Yeah, it's a point. Yeah, it really is. You you said something before that it's so true. You can know exactly what to do and still not do it. I'm curious how much of what you do you think is just giving them accountability. know, I don't have a trainer, but for very long time I had a trainer and I told them, just check in with me every day to make sure I worked out. And they're like,
Josh Kopel (29:50.627)
Sure.
Josh (30:09.774)
I mean, we can do workouts and things, but no, I got that. I just want you to check in with me every day. So I know that I have to tell you I didn't, if I didn't. And that was enough. I mean, they did help in the beginning, and then I was like, you know, I got this, I got a home gym, but I want to make sure someone other than myself is checking in. And it's such a huge part of how we stay consistent. I'm curious if you've noticed that that's a big part of, or any part of...
Like how you help.
Josh Kopel (30:41.624)
Sure, think accountability is huge, but I think that the biggest value add is helping them overcome overwhelm. I don't think that the biggest hurdle in our industry is a lack of knowledge or a lack of information. I think that resources like this podcast are amazing and give people really actionable information that then people turn around and do nothing with because overwhelm is the hurdle.
And so like one of the tactics that we use and it's really effective is this idea of the next right thing. So like when you start working with me, the first thing we do is we do like a goals assessment. Like what are your goals? And the goals always start with the same thing, which is how much money do you want to make personally? Which is like most founders never start there. Certainly most restaurant owners never start there. But like I can't engineer a nondescript outcome. But if you tell me how much money you want to make,
And I understand the fundamentals of your business. can tell you exactly what the business needs to do in order for you to make that money. Your per customer average needs to look like this. We need to generate this much revenue at this margin per week. It's very simple, right? Not say that it's easy, but it's very simple. And so we do all of that. And then you have this massive program that we created that lasts six months. And then you have me as an accountability partner to make sure you do it.
But I don't think that that is what's most important. think what is most important is focus. That is the gift that I great coaches give. It's focus. You can work on all of these different things, but all I need you to work on is this one small thing that's going to have an immediate impact in your business, which then builds positive momentum, which leads to the next. Most business owners focus on what's wrong in their business. And my job is not to fix what's wrong in your business.
My job is to turn your attention to the things that are working in your business. Because if we simply 10x those things, everything turns around for you. And then for all the things that aren't working in your business, I have supplied you with more than enough money that you can then throw at those things to hire specialists to get that shit off your plate.
Josh (32:52.568)
Yeah, no, it's great. mean, it's great point. Focus is probably the hardest thing because...
Josh Kopel (32:57.166)
my God, isn't it? Tell me. mean, look, you're a restaurateur and a founder yourself. Tell me, is that not the lesson that you constantly learn again and again, year after year?
Josh (33:06.906)
I've had to design an entire system around, well, in my whole life around this to make sure that I stay focused. I have these things called MITs. And I can only have two, at most three if it's dire, but two things that are the most important for the next three to six months. And literally everything that I do, any meeting I take, any task I'm going to do, anything has to be related to those. And if not, it's off my plate. So I mean, I use...
AI and use my system and things to help, it's basically just sort a block and tackle of anything that isn't that I can't work on. It's really difficult because every day we get, especially as a CEO or a founder, you have a thousand things to come at you and some of them are really good opportunities. We have to be able to have the wherewithal to say, right now. And that's one of the hardest things.
Josh Kopel (34:00.214)
It is, you know, I also as it relates to overwhelm and focus, I think that one of the biggest hurdles for all of us, and I know that you've modeled your career off of other people's successful careers in your business off of the business model of other successful business models. And we just Frankenstein together the things that work. I think it's unique to you. It's unique to me. It's unique to a few of us out there. But most people don't. Most people are using trial and error to figure things out at scale.
And I think that leads to overwhelm. think that having a proven plan that has been market tested and works maybe not in your industry, but in any industry, I think that the greatest lie we've ever been told coming up in this industry is that the restaurant industry is unique or it's special. It's this unicorn that it doesn't abide by the rest of the rules that exist in every other industry. And it's just not true.
Josh (34:57.37)
Yeah, well I think something that's really helpful that you, I don't know if you think about it this way, but when things are overwhelming, if you create like quantifiable process, it makes things a lot easier to understand and also to remove some of the stress. Meaning like, I love the idea of like, you want more catering. Call law offices and call insurance companies, all the places around you and you...
You have this sort of sense of a little bit, at least a little bit, sorry, I'm listening to my eye, a little bit of stress relief. You're like, okay, well, I know if I call 100 law offices and 100 insurance companies and 100 of these, that I will, that three of them will say yes, right? And over time, you start to learn, okay, yep, for every 100 calls, I get these people to pick up, this many people say yes, this check average. So I know now if I just make a thousand of these, here's how much revenue I think I can generate from that. It's actually, it's a really nice stress reliever, right? You're like, my God, where's this revenue gonna fucking come from?
I was like, okay, I'm have to call another thousand of these places. And it's really helpful, right? Because then you create measurable sort of outcomes and it creates at least, it's very similar to the sales process, right? I'm gonna do outreach to a thousand people and five of them will get on the call with me and I have a 20 % close rate. So for every thousand people, I'm gonna get one person to buy.
Josh Kopel (36:18.454)
It's what I wanted was I wanted a proven plan. You know, when I think about, you know, the year that I opened Pruan proper and we lost like a quarter million dollars. And then I took five thousand dollars out of my own pocket after dumping every other penny that I had into the business. And I took out like a cash advance from Amex because there was no personal guarantee attached to it for 50 grand to turn this business around. I hired a consultant because all I wanted was to be told what to do.
Like in granular detail in the lowest point in my career, all I wanted to do was like just have somebody that knows what to do. Tell me what to do. This is the next right thing to do. This is the next step. And it just at least in Los Angeles in that moment with the guy that I chose to engage, it just didn't work. You know, he came to me and he was like, you need to get busier. This is a top line issue, which might have been true.
had I not turned around the business over the course of the next five months myself through iterating and trying different things other than what he suggested. I think that what people need, think Mies is an example of you creating the solution that you wish to see in the world that was not present. And for me, I think about like all those years of struggle and insecurity and hating myself even though I felt like this is what I was called.
to do and the restaurant scaling system for me is no different than what you have with me is which it's not for everybody. I built it for me and if you were in the same position that I was in then it'll work for you.
Josh (37:56.099)
Yeah. So there's obviously a number of these principles that you have. I think another one that I thought was really interesting was the culture code. Can you talk more about that?
Josh Kopel (38:07.381)
Absolutely. You know, you sit across from a restaurant owner and you ask him, you know, well, why did why does this restaurant need to exist? I think it's the hardest question for us to answer. But like, why does this world need another pizza joint? Like, are there not enough burger joints in the world now? Does the world actually need another one? And like the answer is always the same. It's commitment to community. It's commitment to my team. Like this exists because this is my gift to the neighborhood that I'm in.
And then say, that's amazing. That's so inspirational. So what are you, what are you doing there? Like, how do you, how does that exemplify itself on a day to day basis in your restaurant? To which they say, well, I mean, we don't make enough money to do that stuff, but we will once we have enough money. And the culture code is built around doing all of the things that you would do if you had all the money in the world. And then if you do those things, you'll end up with all the money in the world.
As it turns out, in order to make a ton of money, you have to have a great business. You don't get a ton of money and then create a great business. And so what the culture code is about is it's about this hack that I found that I actually stole from Geno Wickman from Traction, which is, you onboard an employee, you give them a 30 to 50 page manual, which they didn't read because candidly, you didn't read that shit either. You hired like an outsourced HR firm.
to write this thing. You're just banking on most of the stuff being in there. And then flash to six days later, they pass all the tests. They may or may not have read it. And now a customer is seething in front of them. And like, what do they do? In this incredibly variable industry where there are, it's such a human enterprise, right? Like, how do you give them all the tools that they need to succeed? And what I found is, the culture
is built off values. And if you have the right values, they don't need to remember your handbook. They just need to remember four values. And those values will carry them through every conceivable scenario that they'll find themselves in. And they'll behave accordingly in those if they're ascribing newer values. Also, the really cool thing about values is that their paths fail. So like,
Josh Kopel (40:23.412)
If one of your values is integrity and you act without integrity at any given point, you lack integrity because values aren't conditional. To my wife, one of my values is loyalty. So if I am loyal to my wife most of the time, would she say that I am a loyal spouse? I would argue no. So with the culture code we crafted, and I'm happy to share them if you're interested, like four core values that dictate
how your team should behave at all times. And if they just remember those, you're golden.
Josh (40:56.698)
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. think that the... we have a similar... I'm sure most companies do have these values. And I spent a lot of time before I ever, you know, built me to think about what do I believe to be true and what do I want, you know, how do I want to show up for people, you forgetting about the company, just like, do I want to show up? And that... those distilled down over time, there was like 15 of them, these first principles, and they've sort of slowly over time distilled down to...
Josh Kopel (41:15.736)
Sure.
Josh (41:24.634)
to three or four, and every year I also revisit them. You know, I find that the hardest thing isn't, isn't identifying them, and isn't sharing them with a team. It's how do you make sure that they are present and a part of the day-to-day for everyone all the time so that they're constantly reminded of them. And maybe it's different in a tech company rather than in a restaurant.
But I'm curious how you think about actually instilling these values in folks from an evergreen perspective, how to make sure that they stick.
Josh Kopel (42:02.956)
I think, well, I think that the right values don't dictate what they do. They dictate who they are. And then everything else falls into line. Does that make sense? I can unpack that a little bit. Okay, so if one of your core values is integrity and somebody is seething in front of you, does that in any way inform how you should behave? Not really. It's abstract. So like we use core values.
Josh (42:14.626)
No, share it, yeah, unpack a little bit.
Josh Kopel (42:30.584)
that determine who you are as a person because if you are this way, if you adhere to these values, you're good. And so you talk about people that align with those in pre-shift and those that don't. It constantly comes up because again, the problem with values are they're not really your values. They're the values that you think you should have, not the values that you ascribe to on a daily basis. So like I'll give you a couple of mine. Number one is that our team self-manage and self-motivate.
So what does that mean? That means like nobody comes in hungover. That means nobody like we don't talk about needing to show up on time in uniform ready to work. We pretend that we're bank managers and that our employees are bank tellers. And so like the margin of error in bank telling is nonexistent. And the same is true in our industry. But people just view it differently. So if they self-manage and they self-motivate, then they're always showing up on time. And if they don't,
They get fired, but you don't fire them. They fired themselves because they understand that they're in charge of their own time. They show up in uniform. They show up ready to work. Another core value is going to be attention to detail. The way I would describe it to you is the way we describe it to them, which is we pick up trash off the floor whenever we see it in other people's restaurants. Either you like to be surrounded by filth or you don't like that is a type of person.
that isn't a belief. don't believe in having attention to detail. Either it is a value that I possess or I don't. And so what does that look like? That looks like I walk by a table and I see that it's being propped up by napkins or coasters and not a wobble wedge. I figure out who did it. I say, yo, like, why would you, why would you do that? Like, do you feel like that's great attention and detail? What do you think that tells people when they come in and they see that? I want you to do me a favor. I want you to make sure that that never
happens again while you're in this restaurant. And that's it. And then it's done. And if it happens again, would I terminate somebody over that? I would, because that's a value. That's not a rule. Somebody that's willing to let that slide is not someone that belongs within the organization. You know, and then the last one I'll give you is a high performance team. I think that the great illness in our industry is that we see ourselves as a family. Like how do families operate?
Josh Kopel (44:58.798)
rate. Well, they lie to each other. Your mother turns to you Josh and she goes, Does it look like I gained weight? What are going to say? Yeah, mom, you look like a balloon. You're not gonna go No, you look great, mom. I love you so much. Like accountability does not play in to a familial relationship. So we transition from this idea of being a family to being a high performance team, where we hold each other accountable, so that when you do show up late, and I talked to you about it, I'm the fourth person that did it.
because every other member of the team that you walked by said, what the heck Josh, like we don't do things that way here. You know you're not supposed to be late. Like you missed pre-shift, what's going on? Because high performance teams hold each other accountable. And the only way you're gonna get a team full of A players is if you set that standard and you put the B and C players on notice.
Josh (45:50.543)
Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a million more of these that we think we can, not a million, but there's a handful of these we can go through. But I have some other questions for you. So I'm going give you some, a couple more of these. I'm calling them principles of how you sort of restaurants. And I'm going let you choose one or two to dig into. And then I have some other, I wanted to get your thoughts on a couple of things. So let's see. We have the awareness formula. We have the growth engine and
Let's talk about, we'll give one more option, stacking your bench. Why don't you choose one of those and talk about what it means.
Josh Kopel (46:27.736)
Let's do the awareness formula. So I think that one of the great misconceptions in our industry is that we have many problems. If you're not busy enough, many problems, so many problems, right? Generally, there are only a few foundational problems that your business has that once you fix them, everything else falls into line. All businesses that are struggling for sales have either a product market fit issue or an awareness issue. Either everybody knows
Josh (46:36.378)
You have what problem? What problems? Mini, gotcha.
Josh Kopel (46:56.864)
and nobody cares or nobody knows. But if they knew they would care. And so if you've been around for long enough that you figured out that you do not have a product market fit issue, that your community actually wants what you're selling, that you're not pitching artisan baloney sandwiches in a vegan community, then you have an awareness issue. And I think that awareness issues are relatively easy to solve.
I think that the best method to do that is social media. And I think that the best way to operate on social media is to share. And I don't think that that's how restaurants use it. Restaurants use social media to sell. But you can't sell on social media as a restaurant. Social media is a relatively low intent platform, is it not? When you are deciding where to go out to eat with your wife, do you hop on Instagram to find the restaurant? No.
You don't, right? When you see a restaurant ad or when you see a posting by a restaurant on your Instagram feed, do you drop what you're doing and go eat at that restaurant immediately? No. The purpose of social media is to be informed and entertained. And that's really it. So if all we do is focus on telling great stories, what it's going to do is it's going to create interests, which will then ultimately drive them
to pages of higher intent. That's really all we're trying to do. Does that make sense?
Josh (48:31.258)
100%. Yeah, I'm actually thinking more about the... I think that's really smart. But you mentioned product market fit. And it's interesting you say that related to restaurants, because I wouldn't think of product market fit as something to figure out in a restaurant, because a restaurant has product market fit as a business, and the way that you execute that, or the way that you decide to...
Josh Kopel (48:39.053)
Yeah.
Josh (49:01.542)
Maybe the type of product in that product might be... There might be something there, but even in the vegan community, a burger joint could crush if there's... There only needs to be a small percentage of people that love that, which there probably is. I feel like restaurants have product market fit. It's more about, can you execute on that idea? I'm curious if you... I'd love to hear you disagree with this, because it sounds like you think of a product market fit with restaurants, but for me, you know...
When we're thinking of a new business, it's like, their product market fit here? Will people actually want to buy this? And is there value exchange for product? And does that value to product align in terms of cost? And I feel like the restaurants, that's already figured out. That's a thing, right? That exists. There's a lot of them. So you might have a saturated market, but that doesn't mean necessarily that it's not product market fit. You might just have a very small market because of how saturated it is.
Let me know your thoughts on that because I've never heard that before for a restaurant.
Josh Kopel (50:04.44)
Sure, I will disagree. Okay, so here's the deal. You think of a restaurant and you're right, they all have product market fit because they all sell food and beverage and restaurants are a commodity business. I think that's a race to the bottom. I have no interest in that.
Josh (50:21.083)
I don't see them as a commodity business. It's interesting.
Josh Kopel (50:26.24)
You don't see restaurants as it's food and beverage.
Josh (50:28.858)
Yeah, what I mean is, you go to a grocery store to buy commodities, right? But you go to restaurant to have an experience. That experience might be, need something really fast and quick because I don't have time. Or that experience might be, I want to impress my girlfriend or my wife. Or that experience might be, I want to impress my friends or look like I'm important. My experience might be I want to hear great music. But it would seem to me that the restaurant is that you're going there in service of some sort of
service, right? Yeah, service or experience.
Josh Kopel (50:59.694)
Experience, right? Service experience. 100%. But you're thinking like a patron. You're not thinking like a restaurateur. That's not how restaurateurs think. Restaurateurs believe that the restaurant industry is a commodity business. That's why when you look at a restaurant social media feed, what are they showing? Are they showing food and beverage? Are they showing eating and drinking? They're showing food and beverage, right? The restaurant industry is a commodity business because that is how it is positioned.
which is my point as it relates to product market fit. The restaurants that thrive are the restaurants that transition from being a business built around commodities to being a business built around ideas.
Josh (51:39.023)
Yeah, yeah, mean it's a point. Maybe it's just that the positioning is maybe where there's some concerns there. Because yeah, you are much more likely to get a response or impact if instead of showing the burger, you find some way to tell the story of like, hey, you only have 20 minutes before you have to be back from lunch here in Midtown. Do you want something fast and delicious and get back to your desk in time to
for that Zoom call or whatever, this is it, you know, and share that experience, because that's something they're going for, and they might want a different experience, but the burger might not be that much different from another one, but the experience, the service you're looking for is really where they can differentiate. But that, to me, is what a restaurant is. Now you have to choose your lane. Do you want to be fast? Do you want to be cheap? Which part do want to excel at?
Josh Kopel (52:12.046)
for sure.
Josh Kopel (52:35.0)
But when you look at restaurant marketing, again, that's not what you see by and large. I think it's one of the reasons that my clients thrive in major markets and in minor markets as well. We do well in principal markets and tertiary markets as well. And it's because we're just telling different stories. And I think that's that's the point of awareness. And it's not that we're telling different stories than everyone else is telling, because we are. But we're also telling multiple stories at the same time. We're talking about
Josh (52:40.28)
unless they're using yours.
Josh (52:54.447)
Yeah.
Josh Kopel (53:04.396)
different things to achieve interest from different audiences. Some people are going to come to you because you're locally sourced. Some people are going to come to you because you're sustainable. Some people are going to come to you because you have a scratch beverage program. Some people are sober. They're not going to do that. And so what we're doing is we're trying to tell as many stories about all of the things that we do and why we do all of those things. And if you do that and the things you're actually making the end result matters very little.
Josh (53:33.371)
Yeah. You talked about, you know, in the beginning of this show, you were talking about, you know, learning is what helps you become a really good teacher. I think you and I had a podcast last year, and it was really, by the way, it was was a great time, and was right away I could tell you were, one, a very avid learner, and you read a lot. I'm curious, like, what are you reading today?
Josh Kopel (54:00.1)
I just read this amazing book called Come Up for Air. So it's a book about communication, principally email, text message, Slack channels, all of this. I read the book Traction by Geno Wickman and it was like and I've read like all the business books in the world. I don't say that to brag. I say it because I'm a huge fan of trial and error. But Traction was the first book I ever read where I was like, my God, that's what I've done wrong my entire career.
Come Up for Air was another one of those paradigm shifts for me where it changed how I saw the mediums of communication that I was using. Like email should not be conversational and yet it is, right? It's, hey, thanks for that. One more question, blah, blah, blah. And so you're constantly living in your inbox because we're using the tool the wrong way. Email should go one way and it doesn't necessarily need to come.
It shouldn't be this back and forth in the way that it is. Same with how we use Slack, how we use text message, how we use phone calls, the way we should structure meetings. So Come Up for Air was an amazing book around that that I am almost done with.
Josh (55:14.074)
Nice, not to be confused with Coming Up for Air by George Orwell. Awesome, I just added it to my list. It's funny, yeah, I think you I are the same. I read probably every business book there is and I've been just spending a lot more time on autobiographies and biographies lately, mostly biographies. I'm finishing up Lienard Avinci right now by Walter Isaacson. I went on a tear through all the Walter Isaacson books and I learned so much from
Josh Kopel (55:17.09)
Yes, yes.
Josh Kopel (55:33.058)
Yeah.
Josh (55:43.993)
you know, just from the past of people like that. He's just fucking insane. I mean, I could spend three hours just talking about, you know, what I love most about Leonardo is, and people similar to him, but is that, you know, there's this premise that like, he's a genius and he's so talented, all these things. And what you really see is that, he just, he just.
Josh Kopel (55:51.445)
in saying.
Josh (56:11.95)
gets so deep into the details that he's obsessed with figuring out how and why. And he'll just go way deeper than anybody else would on many subjects. And that's how he becomes so prolific and an expert at so many of these things and is able to tie all these different mediums together just because he's so curious. And the idea that curiosity can be such a superpower is pretty awesome. I mean...
You know, it also just gives us all this hope that like, wait a second, there's a lot more that we can accomplish. You know, the idea of becoming like an incredible, whatever, writer or engineer or scientist, it seems so sort of far-fetched for us, but it really just takes curiosity. was, know, before there were scientists, there were people that were trying to learn things and figured out the scientific method. And that's true of so many things. And I love that. And it's been one of my biggest takeaways from the book is...
is there's so much that that humans are capable of if they just commit to to getting really really really deep into the details which is not easy and takes a lot of obviously like diligence but if you like it there's pretty much nothing you can't do
Josh Kopel (57:26.926)
For sure. And look, I'll say this as well. Being a perennial learner and being perpetually curious, those are two valuable things. And I think the best skill you can acquire to get really good at those things is asking better questions. I mean, I would ask you. So think about like the first podcast episode you recorded relative to today. Don't you feel like you're better at asking questions? Don't you feel like like if curiosity is a skill?
that you've been able to sharpen that blade through countless conversations?
Josh (58:01.87)
Yeah, what's interesting is what I learn more and more each time from these things is the skill to learn in, at least in this medium podcast, maybe in a lot of things, is just how good are you at listening? And the better you become at being a listener, the better you become at this. It's funny you say that though about questions because I've been playing with so much AI lately.
Josh Kopel (58:13.208)
Right?
Josh (58:26.476)
and I say playing, actually utilizing in so many things that I do, both personally and professionally. I'm so excited of all the things that I'm seeing and I'm building applications. I don't know technology, but I'm building and deploying applications that are helping me in my daily life, my own personal things. And there's all of these amazing tools like Replip, where you can literally deploy applications without having any technical skill. You can use GROK or GPT to like...
Josh Kopel (58:43.234)
Sure.
Josh (58:54.49)
get all the code you need and put it into this. And you can automate basically anything in your world that you want to if you work hard enough at it. And I have a buddy of mine who is a documentary filmmaker. And every time we see each other, we talk about how that industry is in this existential threat of AI and all of these movies will be turning into AI. And I've never been more hopeful that that's actually not the case because
Josh Kopel (59:15.704)
Sure.
Josh (59:23.682)
It becomes so apparent when you have this technology at your fingertips for very little money, by the way. Replet is this, yeah. And tools like Replet or Lindy where you can actually build whatever software you want. I mean, obviously, you can't build anything. But the hardest thing, because I'll be up till like two, three in the morning building things just because it's fun. You know what the hardest part about all of that is?
Josh Kopel (59:30.83)
$20 a month for Chet GPT.
Josh (59:52.239)
just figuring out what you want to build. What questions do you have? What things do you want to solve? And it really, you we always come back to this. like, the hardest thing is just knowing what questions to ask. It really is. You know, all this technology in the world is only as good as how curious and how thoughtful you are about the things that you want to do or solve or ask. And I find sometimes I'm like, I'm sitting there,
Josh Kopel (59:54.498)
Yeah, for sure.
Josh Kopel (01:00:05.944)
For sure, it absolutely is.
Josh (01:00:21.342)
And I'm like, okay, what's next? like, I don't know. I gotta think about this. What do I wanna build? I can basically do anything I want. the only, know, and same thing with the GPT or GROK or Gemini and things like that. What questions do you wanna ask? And how deep you wanna get in that question? And that's our limitation now is what kind of questions do you want to
Josh Kopel (01:00:41.7)
my God, dude. So I just got done with AI intensive. So every quarter we do these three day, one hour day intensives on different subjects. So at the close of last year, we did one on the preloaded year where everybody created the framework for their marketing initiative in three hours. Everybody created the entire framework for their 12 month marketing calendar. So they knew exactly what they were going to be talking about every month.
Now it wasn't articulated, we didn't have social media posts and all of that, but we did know exactly what we were gonna be talking about every month, because I think that for most people, it's really about getting ahead. So we just finished our last AI, or our last intensive for this quarter last week, and it was on AI. And the whole idea was, how do you use AI to claw back more money and more time? Because again, like you hear,
I think that AI means about as much to people as like marketing does, right? It's this big abstract thing. Like, what are you going to do with it? And so the vision was day two, we were going to build out custom GPTs for all of my clients in real time over the course of an hour, like populating knowledge base with competitor data, synthesis of all of their online reviews, all of their menus.
Although there is like everything like it is literally their brand voice. It's analyzer social media the whole nine yards. So then the following day we could build out their 90 day marketing plan and that it was going to do everything for them. Everything Josh talking like and anyone can do this with a twenty dollar a month subscription. Not only did it provide them with like the copywriting in their voice for the newsletters using my frameworks but it also gave them shot list.
So like if this is all of this stuff you're going to be doing, this is all of the content you need to capture. And so that would have been like a really powerful two days, but like they still don't have time to do any of it. Right. Who does. So day one, what we focused on and this gets to your point of like asking better questions and how to utilize AI. I think the most valuable resource we have is our time. And I think that the biggest hurdle to getting more time back
Josh Kopel (01:02:59.018)
is being able to effectively delegate. And so how is what is like the most effective way to delegate? And I think that AI is uniquely capable of solving this problem. So what we had everybody do is either through an app like Loom. Are you familiar with Loom? It's amazing, right? Like you record your screen, it records your voice. You just walk through a thing. Or if like they're taking physical inventory, they could just hold up the iPhone, record a long form video of them just going through all of it.
Josh (01:03:15.947)
yeah, he was all time.
Josh Kopel (01:03:29.358)
Right? We upload it, we transcribe it, and then using a framework, they create SOPs for it. Like that is an effective way to delegate. It a little checklist at the bottom which says, hey, did you do this? Did you do that? Don't forget to do this. And now they're able to effectively delegate. So like if people are wondering where to start with AI as a restaurant owner or operator, like to use it to build out intuitive SOPs better than you ever could.
and then pair that with video footage of you doing the thing that you want someone else to do. People could begin to immediately offload hours and hours and hours worth of work without a ton of explanation.
Josh (01:04:11.896)
Yeah, 100%. I find I try to record most things that I do. use Lume a lot. there's also context in just you doing a thing a bunch of times and then seeing it. There's also a tool, I if you've ever heard of, called Scribe AI. And it's great if you're using computers because it literally just captures every single step that you do. And if it's on a computer, it will get a screenshot plus URLs. It will literally transcribe the step.
Josh Kopel (01:04:29.004)
Yeah, scribe is great.
Josh (01:04:41.69)
tell you what happened, tell you what to do. There's so many tools like that, man. It's really, I agree though, I think time and curiosity are really the two linchpins to innovation, to growth, scale, all those things. But it's exciting because there's not much we can't do. Even, photos. I don't know if you've played around with the Gemini photo editor, the flash. It's insane what we can do today and you don't.
Josh Kopel (01:05:07.527)
it's wild.
Josh (01:05:11.512)
the idea of like, I'm not an expert at this or this or this. You can be one. You need an hour. You have to dedicate a little bit of time. But again, you might decide, okay, I'm going to dedicate 20 minutes a day to learn this over the next couple of months. You will become really good at it. And you can find 20 minutes in a day. So it's exciting. Josh, think you're a very good marketer and a very good salesperson. And that would...
Josh Kopel (01:05:31.064)
for sure.
Josh Kopel (01:05:40.334)
And a glutton for a flattering.
Josh (01:05:42.435)
Well, I actually, it's funny because I say that because of that. It could be mistaken that what you do is not as good as just the ability that you have to sell people on things and market them. But from getting to know you and hearing you talk and also just hearing the experience of the restaurants that you work with, you really do help. It's very clear that the approach you have and...
and the way that you sort of help guide, you know, restaurateurs through this process, it's clearly very helpful, very results driven. And I'm always impressed every time I chat with you because it's not just, again, because you're really good salesperson and good marketer, it can come across like, well, you this is another one of those opportunities. But it's really not. And I think every time I talk with you, it's really cool to see how much there is behind what you're doing. So...
I'm really appreciative and grateful that we got to chat more about what you're doing today. Anything else you want to share? Anything we didn't dig into that you want to talk about?
Josh Kopel (01:06:49.666)
Yeah, I think you bring up a great point and I'd love to touch on it for a second, which is I think it's really easy to listen to shows like this and listen to guys like me. And I make it sound so simple, so easy. Anyone can do it. And then you get suckered into a program that you can't afford without the time to deploy into it. And when I decided to get into coaching, I hired a coach because I think that
It's one thing to know what to do. It's another thing to be able to codify it into a manner, a method, a medium that works for other people. And he gave me the best advice ever. He said, if you want to cannibalize the market, if you want to become the biggest coach in your space, it's easy. You just out teach. You just give it away for free. And so I do. And so if anyone is interested in learning exactly what I teach in the program with like
pulling no punches, wide open kimono. Like they can sign up for the five day restaurant profitability challenge. I host it every month. It's five days, it's free, and in 40 minutes a day, over the course of five days, I'll teach everyone in granular detail with templates and tools and tactics, the tenets of the program, so that if they want to just go do it on their own, they can, because this stuff works universally.
Josh (01:08:11.502)
Love it. Well, we will also put that in the notes and some links for that as well. thanks again, man. This was awesome.
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