February 17, 2025 • 51 mins
Unlocking Restaurant Success: A Deep Dive with Matt Plapp on Marketing and Loyalty
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, host Jeremy Julian is joined by Matt Plapp, a seasoned marketing expert in the restaurant industry and CEO of America's Best Restaurants. Matt, also known as the Chief Energy Officer, shares insights on creating memorable guest experiences and leveraging digital loyalty programs to keep restaurant guests returning. He discusses his journey from working with his father's clients in the restaurant business to growing a marketing company that now serves thousands of restaurants nationwide. Matt explains the importance of customer acquisition and retention, emphasizing the value of capturing and utilizing customer data effectively. The conversation also touches on the challenges and opportunities in restaurant marketing, with real-world examples of success stories driven by strategic marketing and technology adoption. The episode highlights the significance of continuous self-improvement for restaurant owners and managers, encouraging them to invest in both personal development and smart marketing strategies to drive business growth.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
01:21 Matt Plapp's Background and Journey
04:28 Marketing Strategies for Restaurants
07:20 The Importance of Customer Data
14:22 Challenges and Solutions in Restaurant Marketing
22:32 Real-Life Examples and Success Stories
28:05 A Pizza Restaurant's Remarkable Growth
28:34 The Power of Business Coaching
29:29 Avery's Success Story
30:13 Engaging with Social Media
30:35 Road Trip with Dad
31:40 Matt Plapp's Marketing Philosophy
32:53 Customer Acquisition Strategies
40:57 The Birth of Driver
43:02 The Importance of Continuous Improvement
49:24 Connecting with Matt Plapp
50:27 Final Thoughts and Farewell
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
This is the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast, helping
you run your restaurant better.
Jeremy Julian (00:12):
In today's episode, we are joined by Matt
Plapp.
Matt has been on the show acouple of times and he
affectionately calls himself, orhis title at least, the Chief
Energy Officer.
He's the CEO of a couple ofdifferent companies, but
primarily in the space he'sknown for, America's Best
Restaurants.
Matt is a marketing genius whenit comes to restaurants and
(00:32):
helping to create an experiencethat restaurant Tours will get
their guests coming back.
He also is now in the digitalloyalty space and is helping
restaurants Explore theopportunity to capture guests
name and be able to communicatewith them on an ongoing basis If
you don't know me, my name isjeremy julian I have spent over
25 years in the restaurant techspace started the restaurant
(00:55):
technology guys podcast a littleover four years ago And I also
am the chief revenue officer forCBS Northstar, we developed the
Northstar Ponticell solution formulti units.
please listen to the show andtake away a ton from what Matt
continues to share because hehas a wealth of knowledge on how
to continue to create betterguest experience through
(01:16):
technology as well as throughdigital advertising.
And now, on to the show.
Welcome back to the restauranttechnology guys podcast.
I think everyone out there forjoining us today.
We are joined by second time,third time guests.
I don't know, Matt.
but, I'm sure a lot of peoplewill recognize the face if
they're watching it on YouTube,but Matt, why don't you
introduce yourself to ouraudience before we jump into
kind of what you've been up tothe last couple of years?
Matt Plapp (01:37):
thanks, Jeremy.
I am Matt Plapp.
I am the chief energy officer,the CEO of a company called
Restaurant Marketing that Works.
We own two entities, America'sBest Restaurants, which is a
media marketing firm.
And we own a platform calledDriver, which is a customer
acquisition and loyaltysoftware.
Jeremy Julian (01:54):
Love that.
And I know that, you and I justhad breakfast when you were in
Dallas and talked a little bitabout where, I'd love for you to
just share with our listenersthat might not have heard the
first time you were on the show.
where did restaurants even comefrom?
Because I think, you've got areally remarkable story and I
love telling stories of peoplethat have really, gone from a
totally different industry andare killing it in the restaurant
industry.
Cause it's not an easy space toget into as you and I've talked
through.
Matt Plapp (02:14):
Oh, no, for sure.
So I guess technicallyrestaurants go back to my youth
because my dad had an insurancecompany that worked with a lot
of restaurants and he didn't, Iused to joke that I thought my
mom couldn't cook for awhile andit wasn't that it was that my
dad wanted to give business tohis clients network have, have a
good time.
So we ate out a lot as a kidwhen I was in radio back in the
(02:36):
90s or 2000, I had a lot ofrestaurant clients because I saw
that there was a niche for allthese mom and pop restaurants
that.
Technically couldn't afford tobe on radio next to the car
dealer spending 20 grand a monthBut there's opportunities for
them to trade and do some stuffthat would be beneficial to both
sides so I became the restauranttrade guy and then when I
started this marketing companyin 2008 the idea was to Be an at
(02:59):
large marketing consultant forsmall businesses because I had a
friend of mine that owned abunch of car dealerships And I
was tired of hearing the sameradio commercial for five years
And I'm like, how do you notunderstand how to use radio
better?
And why aren't you on Facebook?
And so that was the start ofthis company in 2008 from 2008,
2015, we built up a 34, 34clients of which 31 were in all
(03:23):
different industries, but we hadthree clients that each owned
three restaurants.
And so I had nine restaurantclients and watching all of the
Our digital marketing more thananything, email, text, customer
acquisition through in storemarketing, through Facebook ads,
watching how that workedseamlessly at each client and
the restaurant space made me go,huh, if I have nine here
(03:45):
locally, maybe if I had nine inevery city across the country,
we could create somethingspecial.
And so we decided to diversifyour company and get rid of our
local clients and slowly scaleup to restaurants nationwide.
And here we are eight yearslater and, full force about, to
2200 to 2500 restaurants betweenall the entities.
Jeremy Julian (04:06):
Yeah, and anybody like I said that follows Matt
sees that he is a champion forthe local business and part of
why restaurant technology guysexist and he and I were able to
wrap on this is really to helprestaurants succeed because at
the end of the day, they've hadan impact on both of us and a
lot of people that listen and sowatching restaurants fail.
is really hard and watchingrestaurants succeed.
It's some of the best businessin the world.
(04:27):
It's created some really greatpeople.
And so talk me through a littlebit, Matt, about what does that
even mean as far as helpingrestaurants to succeed to you,
especially as it relates togetting the word about out,
about who they are and what theydo.
Matt Plapp (04:39):
Yeah.
I subscribe to a theory that weuse internally.
ABR attract, build, retain.
I always jokingly use mymarriage as this.
And 29 years ago, I attractedthe wife.
My track, the attention of mywife.
I built a relationship with herand somehow retained her 29
years later.
And I think that restaurantsfail at each step of the way
(05:01):
because they're not marketingpeople, the restaurant tours in
2024 and beyond, there's oneplace.
That were guaranteed to findanybody their cell phone.
And so when I was in radio in1999, It was tough for a mom and
pop restaurant to know where tofocus their marketing to gain
attention.
Was it radio?
(05:21):
Was it TV?
Was it direct mail?
Was it a billboard?
Was it a bus?
Was it sports marketing?
And all of those came with adollar sign.
Today, we know they're on theirphone.
I did a presentation last weekin Las Vegas for David Scott
Peters, for a group he's got.
And I had a slideshow up that Italked about people's attention.
And you can't make this stuffup.
(05:41):
I'm in the gym the morning ofthe presentation.
I look out, the guy cleaning thepool is on his phone and
cleaning the pool and I'mwatching because I'm like, this
dude's going to drop his phone.
This is going to be funny.
I'm going to film this shit.
Never did it.
But he was on his phone for 30minutes.
while he's doing this, it occursto me that I'm on my phone, so
I'm getting a kick out of that.
(06:02):
I looked to my right, Peter, myvideo guy who's there lifting
weights.
In between sets on his phone andthen I feel something to my left
and I look out and I'm notmaking this up, Jeremy, I look
out and the guy that is cleaningthe roof of the circa casino
five floors off the ground on aseveral scissor lift is leaning
(06:22):
over the mezzanine thing on hisphone
Jeremy Julian (06:25):
my goodness.
Matt Plapp (06:26):
I'm like cracking up.
And so then we're walking backto the hotel and I'm, me and
Peter are talking like, dude,I'm adding these two pictures to
the day slide presentation.
We all know it's everywhere.
If you're at a stoplight and yougot to wait for the person in
front of you, they're on theirphone.
it's everywhere.
We know this, but it's even moreplaces than we realized.
So we're walking back and we'restaying at this place called
Main Street station.
And we're walking through thelobby.
(06:47):
They're putting all new carpetin.
And I'm like, these guys areworking their butts off.
I said, look, Peter, these guysaren't on their, I look up and
there's a guy on his phone.
Like they were all working hardexcept for this one lone dude
hit a middle floor.
So my presentation walkedthrough the fact that none of us
are confused where people'sattention lies today.
It's in their phone, it's intheir email inboxes, their text
(07:09):
inboxes, their messengerinboxes, their Facebook account,
their LinkedIn account, YouTube,Twitter, whatever, we have to
understand how to attract theirattention there.
And so that is the core premiseof what we help people do is,
how do you get somebody'sattention on their phone?
And then if you want to do itover and over, it's called, it's
(07:30):
building a relationship withthem.
It's, if I walk up to your tableat your restaurant, I say,
Jeremy, are you loving your mealtonight?
Oh, this is unbelievable.
Hey, I noticed you come here allthe time.
Are you in our VIP program?
Are you in our awards program?
No, I'm not.
I want to give you a freeappetizer your next visit, scan
this code, do A, B, and C.
Now you're building a deeperrelationship, but more
importantly, you're able toretain them easier because now
(07:52):
you control their data.
And it's the number one missingcomponent that restaurants have.
They don't control theircustomers data.
So it's hope and pray.
And then the last part about itis retaining their attention.
If you want to keep my attentionfor your restaurant, On my
phone, you have to be able toreach me seamlessly.
Email was supposedly dead in2010.
(08:15):
Somehow it's still here and it'skicking stronger than ever.
And restaurants still are nottrying to acquire that customer
data.
And for the life of me, I don'tknow why.
Jeremy Julian (08:26):
Yeah.
and I'd love to talk a littlebit deeper, Matt.
before we jump into kind of the,let's talk a little bit deeper
about the attraction side of it,but I will tell you funny
enough, I was looking through mybudget and looking through my
bank account and I looked atwhere I spent money in
restaurants and I guarantee youwhen I look back at the
advertising I saw and the emailsI got, I went to places more
(08:46):
often than Then not because itwas top of mind.
It wasn't because they had thebest food out there.
It was because it was top ofmind.
I saw it and we don't realizehow many times those things,
whether it's billboards on theside of the road or it's in
where the attraction is on yourphone, that you see these things
and you're like, Oh, I hadn'tbeen considering Greek food
tonight, but I just got a textfrom the Greek restaurant.
(09:08):
Greek food starts to sound good.
we're recording this in theholiday season, same thing for
my holidays.
I purchased things for my wifefor Christmas and for her
birthday, which was 10 days ago.
I purchased it based on thethings that were advertised to
me more so than even what I had.
And I think all too oftenrestaurants don't, Think about
that because they're notmarketers to your point.
(09:29):
And so how do you helprestaurants?
And where do you see people evenon the attraction side failing
so much?
Because I've watched yourjourney over the last 10 plus
years, and it's amazing theresults that you're able to get
for people.
Matt Plapp (09:42):
I appreciate that.
let me tell you a quick storythat'll support what you just
said.
I've been eating at a placecalled barley corns since the
early eighties.
So going on 40 years, my dad hadthem insured.
My favorite wing joints, thefirst place I ever had Buffalo
wings in the early eighties.
Nobody else had them.
Would you believe me if I toldyou that a restaurant I've eaten
at for 40 years, Lost mybusiness a couple years ago
(10:06):
simply because I changed mydriving habit.
My daughter comes home fromcollege.
It was December of 2022.
She's like, where do you want togo to dinner?
Let's go to barleycorns.
Okay, cool.
So we go to barleycorns.
We're sitting there and I go,huh?
We've not been here in three orfour months.
And I put it in perspective, mywife and I.
Eat out pretty much every meal.
We don't cook it very often,maybe five times a month, if
(10:27):
that.
So we are the ideal customer forany and every restaurant that
exists.
And my daughter says, Oh, youhaven't eaten in a while.
Would they piss you off?
They do something wrong.
I said, no, the food's alwaysgreat service.
And my wife goes, it's juststupid car.
What do you mean?
She goes, you've got your sportscar and that when you drive it
to the office, cause my house ishere on the same street, a mile
and a half away as barley corns.
(10:48):
Couple miles past that is theoffice I'm in now couple miles
past that is the gym I go to thesame exact road in northern
Kentucky us 42.
She said when you drive yoursports car to the office You get
on the expressway because youcan go fast.
There's no speed limit There'sstop signs all that kind of crap
And she's like you've beendriving that because my business
coach told me what gives youamped up gets you excited I'm
(11:08):
like driving my car.
He's drive it every day the next90 days So I did I stopped going
down us 42 I stopped going to myfavorite buffalo wing restaurant
that i've had zero issues withfor 40 years Simply because the
only way they had my attentionwas their sign.
And so when you think about whatsuccess looks like today,
(11:32):
there's a heritage restaurant inthis market with great brand
recognition, with a spot in myheart.
I eat at Barleycorns all thetime.
But because I quit looking attheir sign four to five times a
day because my driving habitchanged, I stopped eating there,
but what's funny, all they wouldhave had to have done is run a
Facebook ad targeting marriedmen within a couple miles of
(11:56):
their restaurant who eat out allthe time.
And I would have been shown anad for under pennies a day and
would have kept going there.
All they would have had to dowith one of the couple hundred
times I've go to theirrestaurant every couple of years
is maybe once acknowledge me.
Dude wears orange every timecomes in here every week.
(12:16):
Hey! Surely you're in ourbirthday program.
I'm not, Oh my God, dude, we gotto give you a free dessert for
your birth, scan this, do this.
so when you think about whathappens and what we've succeeded
with is I saw that with some ofour first restaurants back
around 2010, 2012 was we had abrand called Huffborough house,
Newport, Pittsburgh, Columbus,and then eventually Cleveland.
(12:39):
And what I saw with them wasthey had a restaurant in Newport
as an example that was doing 7million in sales a year.
Not a small feat.
I knew our average check.
I started doing the math and I'mlike, huh, we have this many
people coming here.
And yet our email list is 800people.
are we like intentionally tryingnot to get emails?
(12:59):
What's going wrong here?
And so I just examined our techstack back then, our website.
If somebody comes here, is therea seamless way they can tell me
who they are?
And you got to have an offerthat they feel stupid saying no
to.
The book I'm holding up here, amillion dollar offers by Alex
Ramosi.
How to make an offer so goodpeople feel stupid saying no to
nobody in their right mind Isever going to turn down a free
(13:22):
burger a free beer a freedessert a free appetizer But
everybody's so scared to givesomething away and I always tell
our customers it's not aboutvisit one It's visit two through
a hundred And if you control mydata, you can control those
instances more often becauseemail costs you nothing.
And if you strategically useemail correctly, you don't bash
(13:43):
people with specials ordiscounts, or, just word vomit
your menu to them.
If you talk to them about what'sgoing on in the area, what's
going on.
With their life.
Christmas is coming up rightnow.
Have a email that goes out toall the women in your database.
It says, click here, go toFacebook and drop a picture of
where your elf on the shelf ishiding today.
(14:05):
Drop one of your favoritepictures of your kids from
Christmas the last couple ofyears.
Now, all of a sudden, peopleopen your email for something
different.
They go to your Facebook page.
Now they've interacted with yourbrand three or four times.
And that night when their spousesays, Hey, you want to get
pizza?
Let's go to Strong's.
Let's go to Snappy.
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Absolutely.
I love that.
And I think, it's funny that,that restaurant tours don't
think this way because if theywere at a cocktail party, if
(15:05):
they were at the kids sportingevents, they'd say, Hey, come
join me for this pizza.
Come join me for, beer, whateverthat might be.
Come join me for wings.
But unfortunately, for whateverreason there, it feels and I'd
love your opinion on this.
Matt is, Are they just scared todo that?
Like, why don't they capture theemail addresses?
Why don't, you guys have workedwith thousands of restaurants.
Why don't they ask, is it techphobic?
(15:27):
Is it the fact that they'vegotten beat up by other email
offers themselves and they'refearful to do it because they
don't want to ruin their brandby doing that.
Help me understand what isholding people back from it.
Matt Plapp (15:37):
I think it is, it's a combination of things.
So to go there real quick,there's five things.
I wrote an article recently forPMQ magazine.
I ran an article every week andI wrote an article.
It said, there's five musthaves.
Inside of your restaurant in2024, number one, you'll like
this, a point of sale because Irun across restaurants that
don't have point of sale.
(15:57):
Still mind blown.
They don't.
I was at a pizza restaurantrecently that was telling me
they went to a point of saleabout six months ago, but I went
up there.
They were telling me theirstory.
They bought the restaurant 30years in business.
They took it over and they said,Matt, we got in here Friday
night, 200 orders on the phone,pen and paper.
Like what?
(16:18):
This is 2024 and they just got aPOS not too long ago.
So number one, you got to have aPOS.
Number two, you've got to have awebsite that is in this century.
Your customers are engagingonline with Amazon, with Target,
with Uber Eats.
Like you have to have the samelevel of technology as them as
in hooked up to your point ofsale, online ordering, a
(16:41):
seamless way for somebody togive you their name via a
contest on your website.
those are two big elements.
You've got to have a customermanagement system.
You've got to have a tool thatall your customer data goes to.
So you can easily communicatewith them when you need to,
we're in the process inside ofour system driver, create what I
call the easy button that arestaurant or can click on a
(17:02):
weekly basis.
When do you need 25 customers?
It's not rocket science.
If you have the data.
You can look at it, see who'sthe easiest person to convince
to come eat right now and youcan't abuse it.
Do it every day, five times aday, but if once or twice a week
you hit an easy button and youinvite people into something
that makes them feel stupid forsaying no and it's around what
they are to eat, they'llprobably come.
(17:23):
So outside the customermanagement system, then you need
to have a loyalty programbecause loyalty, even though
it's only 12 to 15 percent ofmost restaurants customer base,
It's the biggest chunk of theirrevenue that's possible.
So you've got to have a programthat incentivizes your best
customer.
I eat at a place called Strong'sbrick oven pizza.
(17:44):
That is a mile from my house.
It is amazing pizza, solidservice.
They have never incentivized meto spend one more penny to come
one more time.
And they don't have my data tocall and invite me back when
they want to.
Jeremy Julian (17:57):
They also don't know when you leave and stop
coming back, which is somethingthat I find baffling.
Matt Plapp (18:02):
Yeah.
barbacoa is.
Jeremy Julian (18:03):
when I stop ordering or my wife stops
ordering and they're going tostart giving me offers to incent
me to come back.
Matt Plapp (18:09):
And that's not hard.
the article I did, gosh, I thinkit goes out this week for PMQ
was three, three emails you musthave for your restaurant.
And it was the welcome email.
It was the loyalty email, salesemail, or loyalty emails.
And then it was a sales dragonemail.
within the loyalty email, therewas a thing called a win back.
If Matt Platt comes to yourrestaurant, like barley coins
(18:29):
every single week, and you havea loyalty system hooked up with
his contact info in your POS,and I go missing for seven days,
I'll say I come every sevendays.
And on day eight, I don't showup and SOS needs to go out.
A manager needs to be notified.
Matt Plapp has went missing andautomate an email and automated
text, a Facebook retargeting ad.
(18:51):
There's probably a good reasonI'm gone.
It's not you it's vacation.
It's changing driving habit.
Maybe I got sick.
Who knows?
So there's a lot of things, butyou've got to know that.
And then the other aspect inthere that I talked about was
customer acquisition.
a loyalty program is a Ferrari.
It is, most of them that I haveseen on the market are very
(19:12):
finely tuned marketing machines.
But a Ferrari and my son's HondaCivic with no gas go nowhere.
So what I typically see as amajor problem with restaurants
is they do not have a strategyin place to get people's
information For the first timeto introduce them and
indoctrinate them and then throwthem in the loyalty So when you
(19:32):
ask the question like why don'tthese things happen?
The number one thing I foundthat I haven't conquered yet is
that the restaurants forwhatever reason Do not want to
get away from simply askingpeople.
How are you doing?
If I walk into a restauranttoday, I am guaranteed, Hey, how
you doing, Matt?
Let's be honest.
(19:52):
You do not care how I'm doing.
You want to sell me food.
So I have a conversation thatmoves it along.
Matt, welcome.
Have you been here before?
No, you've not.
Oh my God, dude.
that means you're not in Matt'sVIP pie club, but before I sit
you down and get your order, I'mgiving you a free pizza for your
next visit.
Now I do that.
It's easy for me.
I'm a sales and marketing guy, a16 year old that just got off a
(20:15):
band practice, probably a littleharder.
So I think that there's someintricacies in there that make
things like I just did harder,custom, employee turnover,
employees, ability to sellemployees, ability to articulate
something like that.
So I think that's the big issue.
The other part of it is I don'tthink that restaurants have put
in place the tech stack to makeit happen.
(20:36):
Autopilot because let'seliminate.
You haven't have anybody in yourrestaurant do what I think you
should do if you have a point ofsale in place That encourages
when somebody calls in to ordera pizza.
They have to put your number into get the pizza And it stores
data and historical information.
(20:56):
That's one thing.
If I go to your website, I wentto a website yesterday and the
websites pop up.
This guy follows my podcast andit was funny cause I got to see
he was using it.
It popped up and said, clickhere to win a 100 gift card.
Heck yeah.
Click there.
Put my contact information, wentinto it, got a welcome email,
Matt.
Welcome.
You're in our, you now are wellentered to win the gift card.
Good luck.
(21:16):
And I'm sure I'll get somemarketing.
But like having something likethat on your website, if I order
online, I found a gap the otherday in a point of sales online
ordering that our systemintegrates with that.
If I order as a guest, I don'tland in the marketing program.
I have to be a registered userand my thought process is that
doesn't make any sense.
(21:37):
Like we're both giving the sameexact information.
Matt Plapp surely is not goingto be mad if I order from this
restaurant on a Thursday as aguest.
Because I didn't want to fillthis crap out and Friday, get an
email that says, thank you foryour business.
Here's a promotion for your nextvisit.
So I think that the biggestproblem I've seen is that
(21:59):
restaurants Either have aFrankenstein tech stack where
they have this loyalty, thistax, this email, this none of
them communicate or they havenone of it at all.
And a lot of it is becausethey're scared to spend money on
marketing.
they don't understand that justlike you can't lose a hundred
pounds that you gained in thelast 10 years in one month.
(22:19):
You're not going to gain thesales that you lost from having
a overweight marketing programlast 10 years.
It's going to take a while.
And so a lot of them, forwhatever reason, aren't willing
to invest that time, money andeffort into something that's
going to take a couple of years.
Jeremy Julian (22:32):
Love those examples.
And, I'm going to hit on a storythat I just had last week.
I went to breakfast with them ata brand new restaurant in town.
I'd never been, it's a brand outof the West coast and the
experience was over the top.
The night before I had lunchwith my son at a brand that
collected my phone number,collected my email address, and
it was very unpersonalized and Istill haven't heard from them.
(22:54):
I went to this other brand andit was a fast casual restaurant.
I spent 40 bucks for the two ofus to have dinner.
I went to this other restaurantand I had an amazing experience
and the server came and said,Hey, it was their first time
here.
These are the three items Irecommend.
Let me tell you about, I'm goingto bring you one of the biscuits
that, that we're known for youto try it out, to see if that
difference in experience, Ispent the same 40 for that
(23:16):
experience.
When I go to make a choice withmy menu and with my wallet, I
promise you, I'm going to go tothat brand where I got that
experience.
And I talk about that because atthe end of the day, Some brands,
this brand that you talkedabout, that's doing 7 million
might not think that they can domore than that.
But at the end of the day, whenyou start to lose customers,
whether that's a recessionarything or that's, whatever it is,
(23:38):
whatever the reason is, gettingthem back is almost impossible.
If you hadn't had your wife askyou and maybe you're going back
to barleycorns, maybe you'renot.
But had you not, they don't knowthat you're gone until it's now
hundreds, if not thousands ofdollars that they don't have out
of your wallet spend.
That's gone now.
And It's really critical.
Not only to capture thosethings, but to evaluate it and
(23:59):
be intentional about it.
Matt, tell me a little bitbefore we jump into driver.
Cause I do want to get to thatbefore we get done.
Where do you see people doingit?
like how many brands are doingit?
especially in the SMB space,because it's hard.
It's I shouldn't say it's hardwith intentionality.
It takes 15 minutes a day to dowhat you're saying.
And to be able to truly drivebehavior is not nearly as
(24:21):
difficult as people But if youdon't have a system and you
don't have a plan, you're notgoing to do it.
And so I'd love to get you totalk through who's doing it
well, even in the SMB space.
And what do you see themfocusing the majority of their
intentions on early on?
Matt Plapp (24:33):
I'll say this, and this is exciting.
9.
9 out of 10 brands are not doingit right.
And that includes the bigbrands.
I think you saw it on LinkedInthe other day, the picture I
posted about McDonald's,LinkedIn.
It was a McDonald's ad aboutlike healthy ingredients, great.
What the fact that the largestrestaurant marketer in the world
(24:59):
came up with that campaign.
Excites me because I don't workwith the McDonald's of the
world.
I don't know that we ever will.
Maybe we will, but right now wework with, small restaurants,
one to five locations.
Then we have clients that have50 to 300 locations that are
chains, but we work with smallerbrands, I guess you'd say.
So when I see McDonald's doingthat, when I watch Papa John's
(25:21):
have a Facebook page that has 7million fans and gets a hundred
interactions, I'm excited.
Because what's happened is thebrands that control the majority
of advertising spend do not useit correctly.
So a lot of people don't realizethis, like Facebook advertising,
95 percent of what's purchasedon there is bought by big
(25:43):
companies.
McDonald's, Coca Cola, MountainDew, Red Bull, Chevy, Ford,
they, especially the food space,they were of the opinion that
you and I were long gone,Jeremy.
Like our opinions are like, wecannot be influenced, which is
such a crock.
Jeremy Julian (26:00):
I'm saying that I went through my spending
behavior through the month ofDecember and it's ridiculous how
many things I purchased.
I got my wife a gift for herbirthday.
And I'm like, I saw an LinkedInad, not even a LinkedIn ad.
It was an Instagram ad and Ibought her a running head,
headset because I got thatadvertisement.
Cause I was talking to her aboutgoing out for a run.
Matt Plapp (26:17):
yep.
Jeremy Julian (26:18):
So sorry, I'll let you keep going.
Matt Plapp (26:20):
so 95 percent of the advertising spend is controlled
by major brands.
The cool part about it is thosemajor brands think everybody
above my daughter's age areuseless.
My daughter's 22, she is whothey want.
And so when you look at that,you should get excited because
if you go to Facebook today,anybody over 25.
(26:42):
Even up to 75 or 80 is anamazing opportunity.
Did you know one of the fastestgrowing segments in the
restaurant loyalty space?
Are the people over 65?
My dad is a penny pincher.
he's a member of some of ourclients, local loyalty programs
through driver.
It was funny.
I didn't know he was at onepoint.
He got mad at me one timebecause I paid the bill and he
(27:03):
didn't get the points.
I did.
And then I later realized whenwe acquired what was repeat
returns then and turned to thedriver That was one of their
clients.
I'm like, hey dan.
I got your points.
I can get i'm gonna go to cancelyour account but His demographic
are hardcore in the joiningloyalty because it's gotten so
expensive to eat out now Andthey're trying to find every
dollar they can so the cool partabout it is Paid advertising on
(27:27):
Facebook and Instagram is thegold mine for a small business
right now.
And the fact that your customerbase that all of us really want
are not being sought after bythe McDonald's and Coke's of the
world means that the inventoryis a plethora of it and you can
buy it really cheap.
So that is one huge opportunity.
(27:48):
So the people that I see doingit right, the outliers are the
operators that do not workinside the four walls.
And that are hardcore intopersonal development.
Give you an example, a guy namedAvery Ward owns a restaurant
called Little Italy Restaurante.
He took over his dad'srestaurant.
I want to say it was seven yearsago.
His dad had it for about 30years.
(28:09):
It did 500k, 1400 square footpizza restaurant.
What do you think he grew thatsales to in the exact location
in five years?
500k.
Jeremy Julian (28:20):
I don't know, 800,
Matt Plapp (28:21):
three, was it 3.
5 million.
Jeremy Julian (28:24):
holy smokes at a 1400 square feet
Matt Plapp (28:27):
Same location and just recently moved into about a
year ago, a brand new store andis on pace to surpass.
I want to say 5.
5 last time I talked to him, hedid it because he went into the
restaurant, looked at it througha different lens.
He hired a business coach, a guynamed David Scott Peters.
He actually, it's funny.
He hired us to come film at hisrestaurant for America's best
(28:49):
restaurants.
One of the things we do is wegive people a trial in our
marketing program.
He got a trial.
One of the things we do with ourclients is we give them
educational resources.
I bought a few hundred of DavidScott Peters books.
We have a bunch of them here.
We mailed him a book.
He read it, went down the funnelof David Scott Peters YouTube,
hired David Scott Peters, joinedhis coaching program, and in a
(29:12):
matter of a year, became veryintent on becoming a great
operator from educating himself.
And so he took this businessover in his mid twenties and
within five years grew it towhere it went from, 500 grand to
3.
5 plus, the same location,because he upgraded himself.
And so the unicorns that we seeare Avery.
(29:33):
And the cool thing is Avery'sprobably one out of a thousand
to be quite honest with you.
He's got his own video guide.
He's got a guy named Nathan.
That is a full time videographerand social media marketer for
his restaurant.
And he
Jeremy Julian (29:45):
clearly it's paying off because he grew sales
by over 3 million.
I love that story.
Funny enough.
after I saw you speak last week,I reached out to David Scott
Peters.
Ironically, he was a customer atone point.
Matt Plapp (29:55):
on no way.
Jeremy Julian (29:56):
next time you talk to him, he was on the show
a couple of years back and he,he's dude, I remember you.
Cause he was a customer and hehad called to complain about
something.
I picked up the phone and on thepoint of sale side and we
wrapped a little bit and he's,he's gonna be on the show again
in another couple of weeks.
after I get back from holiday,Matt, you've gotten, actually
before I go there, cause I'vebeen biting my tongue.
if you haven't already connectedwith Matt on social, he'll talk
(30:17):
about his handles here in alittle bit.
His dad is freaking awesome aswell.
every time I see him post avideo with his dad and sometimes
a son, I watch from start tofinish.
And your dad is amazing.
You can share that with him, cutthis little clip out and send it
to him, but he's, he's a lot offun to, to listen to you and he
banter back and forth when youguys do your little videos,
Matt Plapp (30:35):
We're going on the road Thursday.
So we usually do on Thursdaysthing called fire with dad.
It started seven years ago thathim and I, every Thursday
started talking about business.
Okay.
And about two months in, Irealized like we were talking to
ourselves, who gives a shit?
Nobody cared about that.
So then we started telling funnystories about, the time he
almost got kicked off a plane,the, all these different, him
and I, my dad is a cartooncharacter, like Lynn Smith and
(30:58):
him and I are just alike.
You just, 30 years differenceand he works in my office three
days a week.
And so this Thursday, we'retaking a road trip.
Me, him, my camera guy, Peter,and my COO, Doug up to, see a
client of ours, Chris called MSTpub up in Tiffin about three
hours drive.
And on the way back, we're goingto hit Columbus and hit a Euro
place, called King's Euros andthen little Italy pizza and I
(31:20):
think Capuano's.
We're in four restaurants and mydad, I love bringing them along
on this because surely we'llhave some funny clips in the
car.
he's, it's great to be around mydad.
My son works for me.
my dad works for me and I saythat loosely, he's here.
He's getting, he's coaching myteam, but it's funny how we get
to interact, but he's a greatguy and we have a good time with
him.
Yeah.
Follow me on social media.
If you go to mattplapp.
(31:41):
com, M A T P L A P P.
com, you'll find links to mydaily blog, my daily podcast,
and then my social mediachannels where my goal.
On my social media is to spendless time selling you on hiring
one of our companies and moretime selling you on my theories,
because I believe if yousubscribe to our theories, no
(32:01):
matter what loyalty program youuse, the theories are going to
work.
And so I trust that at somepoint, five, 10, 15 years down
the road, We'll be big enoughthat we'll have enough people
that say, Hey, I believe in histheories.
I probably believe in hisproduct.
We'll go down there, I give alot of free content out every
single day.
After this, I have two podcaststo record for the next two days.
Jeremy Julian (32:20):
I love it.
I know Matt, you've recently gotinto the loyalty space.
You talked about repeat returns.
Where did that come from?
Talk, talk to our audience alittle bit about why that came
about.
Because, again, I've beenfollowing the story of where you
guys have been at for quite sometime.
You were one of my first outsideguests.
I told you that when we hadbreakfast a couple of weeks ago.
And so I've been a fan of whatit is that you guys are doing.
(32:41):
And now that you're getting intothe software space, that's The
impact, in my opinion, has theopportunity to be even greater
for those that, that considerit.
So help educate our audience.
What is repeat returns nowdriver?
What is this new branding?
What are you guys trying to do?
Matt Plapp (32:53):
In 2016, Everything that we did for our restaurant
clients, I controlled.
And so we would run, I boughttheir radio, their TV, their
billboards.
I ran their Facebook.
If you go to Huffbrow's Newportand go back to 2012 to 16 and
you watch their once a monthcake tapping videos filmed on an
iPad, Matt Plapp was the onefilming it.
(33:15):
So I controlled all themarketing and what I found in
that process was all the nuancesof the opportunities that
existed.
And the one thing I fell in lovewith was customer acquisition.
I saw how, I got a growler on mydesk.
We had these growlers.
Hofbrauhaus starts sellinggrowlers.
I keep it here.
I have coins in it.
(33:35):
I have a QR code to use it likea promotional idea.
But Hofbrauhaus wanted to sellgrowlers.
And they started marking them.
They were like five years lateto the game.
Everybody else in town hadgrowlers.
We were the last ones.
And nobody bought them.
So I did something reallysimple.
I went, at least to me, I wenton Facebook, I put up an ad, I
put up a digital, marketingfunnel that said, Hey, click
(33:58):
here, give us your information,walk in the restaurant.
We'll hand you a free growlerbeer, not included just for
coming in.
Next thing you know, within acouple of days, 2, 500 growlers
are gone.
And of course, people that drovedown to the restaurant after
giving us their contactinformation and then redeemed,
that was the key part.
They had to have their screen.
We had to lock the, a littledigital redeem, on a landing
(34:20):
page.
They had to unlock that with acode at the bartender.
And we knew not only that MattPlatt opted in to get the
growler, but we knew that MattPlatt came in to get the
growler, and then at the sametime, we The bartender input,
how much they spent when theywere there to get their growler.
So I could see that these peoplewere coming in, spending 18,
(34:40):
getting a beer, getting asandwich, getting the growler,
filling it with beer and thenleaving.
I saw that and realized theopportunity that exists for
customer acquisition.
And so we went on this journeyand over six months, we gained
18, 000 people for one look forone brand, three locations, an
email cell phone birthday fromthat.
We started going nationwide.
(35:01):
When we went nationwide.
What I found was that a lot ofthese restaurant owners didn't
have the belief in the data thatMatt plopped it.
I knew when we gathered 18, 000people's information and that 30
percent walked in the restaurantwithin a month or two, like I
knew the value of that.
I know that is millions in salesin the future.
(35:23):
And so I assumed foolishly thatwhen we launched this company
nationwide, that as we helpedrestaurants build customer
databases through customeracquisition, like Facebook,
Instagram ads in store contests,that these restaurants would be
blown away.
they weren't, as an example, wehad a client one time, and this
is like the extreme unicorn offailed clients spent 28, 000
(35:46):
with us in 14 months.
The Sixth Location PizzaRestaurant out on the West
Coast.
In those 14 months, we gained28, 000 people into his VIP
program, of which they spent440, 000 on the front end.
Jeremy Julian (36:02):
Wow.
That's
Matt Plapp (36:03):
even making this up.
I know these numbers because Ialmost cried when he cancelled.
I'm like, what do you meanyou're cancelling?
I don't know how we did this.
But his whole thing, I'mdisturbed that this doesn't
connect to my point of sale andthat I can't see the LTV that
while I like that we have 28,000 people, think about that 28,
(36:24):
000 people across six locationsin 14 months said, here's my
name, my phone number, my email,my birthday, and how often I
come to your restaurant.
The question we ask is the firstthing we ask right off the bat.
How often do you dine at thisrestaurant?
We give them three choices.
I've never been, I come all thetime.
I come rarely for me.
(36:44):
You're new, you're frequent,you're lost because if you come
rarely, that's a problem.
If you come all the time, Hey,high five, come back more often.
If you've not been before, Ihave to bribe you like that lost
customer to get you back.
So I'm looking at this, let meget this right.
If I, as a restaurant ownerspent 20 to 30 grand and got 20
to 30, 000 contacts, I know thata customer's data is worth 10 to
(37:04):
20.
very low end.
It's probably worth more like acouple hundred restaurant owner,
because you have the ability tosell Matt plapa pizza the next
10 years.
Yeah.
This guy didn't see it that way.
And so he was an extremeexample, but over the course of
2016 to 2020, we saw it moreoften where we would have a
client, like my whole philosophyon customer acquisition was what
(37:27):
we spend in month one, we wantto recuperate in month two.
So our average client wasspending about 1500 bucks
between us and Facebook ads.
Jeremy Julian (37:35):
Ramosy of you,
Matt Plapp (37:37):
Yeah.
And if we can get, if we can get1500, which ironic, I was,
before I knew who Hermosi was,we were a client of his gym.
I owned a gym for 10 years andour gym was a client of his
Jeremy Julian (37:48):
of Jim launch.
funny enough, I just, I actuallywas watching a YouTube video of
his on the treadmill here overto my right earlier this week.
And he talked about yourmarketing spend for this month.
You need to be able to acquirethat in, next month.
Matt Plapp (37:59):
And this is what I've always did.
I, before I even had heard ofhim, but it was, if we can spend
1500 a month and next month youget four grand in sales.
And you take your food costs offof that and you recoup your ad
spend.
You just got the attention ofall of the Facebook ads, the
emails, the text, the met, allthat stuff.
You got that for free.
(38:19):
You got the data for free andthen your next month's spin is
paid for by the people whowalked in.
That was always my vision and mygoal was to show restaurants.
If you did that over 12 to 24months and then you took that
data and you used it, you whatsmacked me in the face was April
of 2020.
We all know what hit March of2020, April of 2020.
(38:42):
I told my team, Hey, let's slowthe machine down.
We had three or six employeesthat time.
I said, let's slow the machinedown.
Let's not add any new clients.
Let's call all of our currentclients and find out how we can
help.
It's like late March, earlyApril.
we started calling clients andthis client, this one right here
was in the middle of that.
He's, he canceled that August.
And he's yeah, we haven't beenusing the data.
(39:03):
What do you mean?
you guys gain it for us and itdoes a great job, but we don't
know how to use it.
And so I said, okay, we're goingto start helping you with your
distribution.
We're going to do two emails amonth for you because consumers
were under the impression thatrestaurants were closed.
No, we just can't serve youinside the restaurant.
You can pick up, you can order,carry out, you can order
(39:24):
delivery, whatever.
And so we went around, do atthat time, I think about 80
restaurants we had as clientsand we said, Hey, we're We found
a gap that none of you are usingyour damn data.
And so we created, I hired threenew people and we were losing
money like everybody else was atthis point, but I knew that our
restaurants needed help.
We had money in the bank that wecould go on for another year or
two.
So I told my team, Hey, let'shelp our clients use the data.
(39:47):
So we started helping them usethe data.
And then that got to around2021, 2022, I think it was 2021.
When I realized that in orderfor us to not churn clients
every two years, We had to showthem the promised land.
I knew it was there.
It's not a coincidence that ifyou have a, an email program
that has 500 people in at onemonth and 5, 000 at a year
(40:09):
later, that you're probablygetting more sales out of that
if you don't use it incorrectly.
So 2021, if you've heard of avivid vision, or let me grab a
copy of one.
I built this vivid vision andthe front of it.
And the vivid vision isbasically that in three years,
this is what our company willlook like.
And I wrote on here, December31st, 2023.
(40:30):
We'll celebrate in Las Vegas.
We accomplished our vividvision.
And the second third page insidewas a software that I wanted to
create that would integrate withrestaurants, point of sales.
Now take this.
I have no clue about software.
Like I know enough to bedangerous, like not actual
software.
I could always build on top ofother people's software.
So we worked on that for about ayear and a half, two years.
(40:52):
I realized around 2022 that Ididn't need to be building a new
software company.
So I started just thinking aboutwhat if we acquired somebody.
And by luck would have it mayhave 2023.
David Scott Peters invited a guynamed Cameron Carrington to come
watch me speak.
It was a friend of his.
He's in Las Vegas.
He owned repeat returns.
Cameron was looking to exit andgo out the next place.
(41:14):
And so we ended up talking andby November we acquired repeat
returns.
And I really didn't know what Ihad until this past summer.
I wanted to try and make mymarketing tactics work inside
there.
We know how to do customeracquisition.
We now do Facebook ads.
Here's this platform thatcustomer data goes to.
We're going to force themtogether.
we found out through trial anderror that doesn't work.
(41:35):
So this past year we merged thecompanies and call it, we
created the name Driver, D R Y VE R.
And the idea is that we're goingto help you drive your sales.
The why is for you, you needlunch sales, you need appetizer
sales, catering sales, eventsales, dessert sales, more
sales.
And so the idea is that driverhas three elements to it.
(41:55):
Number one is a customeracquisition program that we help
restaurants find people in theircommunities that are hungry, get
their contact information, workto drive that first two visits
and then help them put that datasomewhere else.
If they happen to want to useour loyalty program, Then we can
integrate with our loyaltyprogram.
They can use it through theirpoint of sale or through a
tablet.
(42:15):
We'd like ideally is point ofsale.
And then on top of that, we havea higher level coaching and
consulting division where ifyou're a restaurant that's
doing, let's say a million and ahalf to 2 million, and you're
looking to get to, Two and ahalf to 3 million.
It's going to take verystrategic marketing plans.
And so we've got people insideof our building that are high
(42:36):
end restaurant coaches, coupleof them are former restaurant
owners that work with our teamand the restaurant owner to
coach them on exactly how to dowhat they do.
That's what Avery is littleItaly.
Avery has been.
One to one coach by one of myteam members every week for the
past three years.
And it's not a coincidence thathe got coaching from DSP.
He got coaching from MPs team.
(42:56):
He's got a good tech stack andhere he is, going from 500 to 5.
5.
Jeremy Julian (43:01):
Love that.
and, the one thing that I wantto, before we get off the call,
Matt, I want to just, point ouraudience back to the fact that
some of the common threads thatyou've talked about, both in
yourself and in your clients isthis idea of continuously
improving what it is that you'reworking on, evaluated.
evaluating what you did, whatworked, what didn't work, and
then making strides to do that.
(43:22):
Where did that come from?
Does that come from your dad?
Does that come from just you?
Again, I've watched the storyand I think that all too often
restaurant owners get stuck inthe rut.
They get stuck working Fridaynight shifts, working in the
bar, whatever it is, and theydon't invest in themselves,
whether that's in their physicalbody, whether that's in their
knowledge, that's reading,that's getting outside of the
four walls and talking todifferent people.
(43:43):
Where did that come from for youand how would you encourage our
audience?
Obviously if they're listeningto the podcast, they've got at
least something that they'redoing that's helping them make
them better.
But where did that come from andhow would you encourage our
restaurant owners that areexhausted and are like, I'm
done.
I can't add any more to myplate.
And why you believe so heavilyin both physical as well as the
(44:04):
mental side of the game that youdo.
Cause I know just on the sidethat those are big parts of what
it is
Matt Plapp (44:09):
So I have a mantra.
I try to live by MBS mind, body,and spirit.
And every day I have to work onmy mind.
I have to work on my body.
I have to work on my spirit.
And I have another mantra, lead,market, sell.
That as a CEO of my company, itis my job to lead my team.
If they see me eating like crap,they see me drinking, smoking,
doing vapes, not working out.
(44:30):
If they see me living alifestyle, I shouldn't be
surprised when they live thesame bad lifestyle.
If I don't market my company ata high level, like I'm always on
brand.
I have my branded ring on.
If you're watching the video, Ihave my shirt.
I have orange Jordans on there.
I have my orange jacket overhere, my shaker cup.
I market every single day.
(44:52):
And then I sell my vision, ourvivid vision, the new one.
Is a eight page document thateven to the end says, here's
what I want my headquarters tolook like by May 17th, 2027.
So mind, body, and spirit leadmarket sale.
Now, where did I get this from?
I honestly didn't start it tillmy late thirties.
I think what happens to all ofus.
Is we have teachers growing up,we have coaches growing up, we
(45:15):
get out of high school orcollege, we get a job, we learn
a skill, we become pretty goodat it.
If you own a restaurant, ifyou're an entrepreneur, you've
got a pretty good skillset atsomething, but we forget that
even Tom Brady has a coach.
Multiple coaches.
And so I don't know whattriggered it to me, but it was
in my mid to late thirties, I'm48 now I was around 35 to 38 and
(45:38):
I had convinced myself Icouldn't read, like I remember
reading a book of MichaelJordan.
I got three chapters in andoutside of the fact I knew the
book was about Michael Jordan, Ihad no clue what I read.
And so I had a mentor gottingBilly Jean shawl out in San
Diego, California, that Istarted going to his business
masterminds.
And I started looking around theroom.
The people that were doing itright, what were they doing?
(46:00):
And the one key thing I foundwas they were growth oriented,
that they were looking for thenext tip.
They were looking for the nextidea.
So I started reading, I forcedmyself, I started reading and
now I read pretty much everyday, multiple books a month.
I find motivation by readingpeople like Phil Knight, from
Nike.
(46:21):
Like people don't really, that'sprobably the best book I've ever
read in my entire life.
And you know what Nike is today,but you would never think that
he was a CEO of a companybumming money off his sales team
on the road to buy dinner,selling shoes on the back of his
trunk.
So I have found that for me.
We can relate to these peoplemore than we realize.
(46:43):
Like I can't lie, I'm thebrokest I've ever been in my
entire life trying to grow thiscompany.
I got out of my comfort zone.
I not only am I'm probably toogrowth oriented and I take
risks.
I probably shouldn't take, andwe're not funded by anybody
except for me.
And so I've gotten to a pointwhere I realize I can be normal
(47:04):
or I can be average, or I canjust go have fun with it and do
something bigger.
And what's cool about it.
Is that the majority, just likethe marketing, the majority of
these restaurants, competitorsaren't doing it weren't reading
every day.
They aren't listening topodcasts every day.
They're like, I listen to themusic that motivates me.
I have a playlist called MPevery day.
they aren't doing those things.
(47:25):
And if you're not doing that, ifyou don't have a group that you
go to, I fly every two monthssomewhere differently.
To meet with a different groupof entrepreneurs, because I have
to get out of my kitchen.
Like I'm in my building, I'vegot some great people I'm
surrounded by, but I need to be,if I'm the smartest guy in the
room, I'm screwed.
And so I try and get myself outof my comfort zone, try and
(47:45):
learn new stuff, try and educatemyself.
But like I have a mantra withinour company, our core values,
positive mindset, growthoriented, collaborative.
One of the things I love to say,and I got this from her Rosie,
when somebody says, how are youdoing?
I'm amazing.
I said, how are you amazing?
I'm a straight white guy inAmerica.
I have every opportunity.
And for the most part, anybodythat's in America has it.
(48:07):
And then for most part, anybodyin a lot of countries has it.
So if you're not positivemindset, you're screwed, but
you've got to be growth orientedand you've got to be willing to
learn and realize that, I gotthis thing on my wall here.
I'll take it off.
It's Warren Buffett's wealthcurve.
Jeremy Julian (48:21):
yeah,
Matt Plapp (48:21):
know if you've seen this or not,
Jeremy Julian (48:22):
I have
Matt Plapp (48:23):
we know Warren Buffett is this billionaire now.
Like it's 83.
He was worth 58 billion.
Dollars.
But at 33, he was at 2.
4 at 43, he was at 34.
So it just didn't happenovernight.
And I can promise you, it didn'thappen by not reading, by not
studying, by not being focused.
And so I think we owe it toourself.
(48:44):
But the biggest thing for me,it's leadership that like you're
leading a team.
If you wonder why yourrestaurant's not closed
correctly, why it's not cleancorrectly, why the recipes
aren't prepared correctly, whypeople are late.
Look in the mirror because theywere probably emulating the
leader of the company and thatleader Isn't doing what it takes
(49:04):
to get to the next level yourpeople see it.
They aren't going to either
Jeremy Julian (49:07):
well and your success story of the Italian
places is case in point ofsomebody that invested in
themselves Invested in theirteam and the results went from a
half a million dollars to threeplus three plus million dollars
And I promise you he's doingmuch better off financially And
he's able to take the time andinvest in, in that.
And so Matt, you said itearlier, how do people connect?
How do people learn more abouthow to engage with your team and
(49:29):
gauge with your content?
You're so prolific.
I love that you put the stuffout there.
So thank you for that.
but yeah, how do people getconnected?
How do they get on your emaillist to learn more about, how
they, how you can help therestaurant?
Matt Plapp (49:39):
yeah, so there's two websites you can go to and you
can probably find both from eachone But mattplap.
com my name matt at mattplap.
com is my email.
It's my website Everything's onthere.
And then our other url isrestaurantmarketingthatworks.
com If you go there, there's apath to driver, a path to ABR
path to my podcast.
And I'm an open book.
I had a guy last time in a hottub last night, about 10
(50:01):
o'clock.
And I get a text message from aguy and he's Matt, I'm reading
your PMQ series and in couple ofthe articles I published my
phone number.
Hey, if you're reading this,text me, you'll be in a drawing.
I'll send you a free book.
And I practice what I preach.
So I'm always available.
So yeah, matplotlib.
com is easiest place.
And I'm an open book.
I love talking marketing.
I love helping people no matterif they're a client or not.
(50:23):
I feel that if I keep givingenough, it'll eventually come
back.
Jeremy Julian (50:27):
I, I appreciate that.
And again, you and I are prettysymbiotic in that regard
because, That's ultimately whythis podcast exists.
Cause I, I love seeing peoplesucceed.
I love watching your journey.
So thank you for sharing a bitof it.
Thank you for continuing to pushoutside of your comfort zone,
push your clients to ourlisteners out there.
You guys are obviously investingin yourself by listening to the
show.
So thank you guys for that.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do Thank you,
(50:47):
Matt, for your time.
Have a happy holiday and make ita great day.
Matt Plapp (50:50):
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
(51:13):
Thanks for listening to theRestaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
Visit www.
RestaurantTechnologyGuys.
com for tips, industry insights,and more to help you run your
restaurant better.
This is the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast, helping
you run your restaurant better.
Jeremy Julian (00:12):
In today's episode, we are joined by Matt
Plapp.
Matt has been on the show acouple of times and he
affectionately calls himself, orhis title at least, the Chief
Energy Officer.
He's the CEO of a couple ofdifferent companies, but
primarily in the space he'sknown for, America's Best
Restaurants.
Matt is a marketing genius whenit comes to restaurants and
(00:32):
helping to create an experiencethat restaurant Tours will get
their guests coming back.
He also is now in the digitalloyalty space and is helping
restaurants Explore theopportunity to capture guests
name and be able to communicatewith them on an ongoing basis If
you don't know me, my name isjeremy julian I have spent over
25 years in the restaurant techspace started the restaurant
(00:55):
technology guys podcast a littleover four years ago And I also
am the chief revenue officer forCBS Northstar, we developed the
Northstar Ponticell solution formulti units.
please listen to the show andtake away a ton from what Matt
continues to share because hehas a wealth of knowledge on how
to continue to create betterguest experience through
(01:16):
technology as well as throughdigital advertising.
And now, on to the show.
Welcome back to the restauranttechnology guys podcast.
I think everyone out there forjoining us today.
We are joined by second time,third time guests.
I don't know, Matt.
but, I'm sure a lot of peoplewill recognize the face if
they're watching it on YouTube,but Matt, why don't you
introduce yourself to ouraudience before we jump into
kind of what you've been up tothe last couple of years?
Matt Plapp (01:37):
thanks, Jeremy.
I am Matt Plapp.
I am the chief energy officer,the CEO of a company called
Restaurant Marketing that Works.
We own two entities, America'sBest Restaurants, which is a
media marketing firm.
And we own a platform calledDriver, which is a customer
acquisition and loyaltysoftware.
Jeremy Julian (01:54):
Love that.
And I know that, you and I justhad breakfast when you were in
Dallas and talked a little bitabout where, I'd love for you to
just share with our listenersthat might not have heard the
first time you were on the show.
where did restaurants even comefrom?
Because I think, you've got areally remarkable story and I
love telling stories of peoplethat have really, gone from a
totally different industry andare killing it in the restaurant
industry.
Cause it's not an easy space toget into as you and I've talked
through.
Matt Plapp (02:14):
Oh, no, for sure.
So I guess technicallyrestaurants go back to my youth
because my dad had an insurancecompany that worked with a lot
of restaurants and he didn't, Iused to joke that I thought my
mom couldn't cook for awhile andit wasn't that it was that my
dad wanted to give business tohis clients network have, have a
good time.
So we ate out a lot as a kidwhen I was in radio back in the
(02:36):
90s or 2000, I had a lot ofrestaurant clients because I saw
that there was a niche for allthese mom and pop restaurants
that.
Technically couldn't afford tobe on radio next to the car
dealer spending 20 grand a monthBut there's opportunities for
them to trade and do some stuffthat would be beneficial to both
sides so I became the restauranttrade guy and then when I
started this marketing companyin 2008 the idea was to Be an at
(02:59):
large marketing consultant forsmall businesses because I had a
friend of mine that owned abunch of car dealerships And I
was tired of hearing the sameradio commercial for five years
And I'm like, how do you notunderstand how to use radio
better?
And why aren't you on Facebook?
And so that was the start ofthis company in 2008 from 2008,
2015, we built up a 34, 34clients of which 31 were in all
(03:23):
different industries, but we hadthree clients that each owned
three restaurants.
And so I had nine restaurantclients and watching all of the
Our digital marketing more thananything, email, text, customer
acquisition through in storemarketing, through Facebook ads,
watching how that workedseamlessly at each client and
the restaurant space made me go,huh, if I have nine here
(03:45):
locally, maybe if I had nine inevery city across the country,
we could create somethingspecial.
And so we decided to diversifyour company and get rid of our
local clients and slowly scaleup to restaurants nationwide.
And here we are eight yearslater and, full force about, to
2200 to 2500 restaurants betweenall the entities.
Jeremy Julian (04:06):
Yeah, and anybody like I said that follows Matt
sees that he is a champion forthe local business and part of
why restaurant technology guysexist and he and I were able to
wrap on this is really to helprestaurants succeed because at
the end of the day, they've hadan impact on both of us and a
lot of people that listen and sowatching restaurants fail.
is really hard and watchingrestaurants succeed.
It's some of the best businessin the world.
(04:27):
It's created some really greatpeople.
And so talk me through a littlebit, Matt, about what does that
even mean as far as helpingrestaurants to succeed to you,
especially as it relates togetting the word about out,
about who they are and what theydo.
Matt Plapp (04:39):
Yeah.
I subscribe to a theory that weuse internally.
ABR attract, build, retain.
I always jokingly use mymarriage as this.
And 29 years ago, I attractedthe wife.
My track, the attention of mywife.
I built a relationship with herand somehow retained her 29
years later.
And I think that restaurantsfail at each step of the way
(05:01):
because they're not marketingpeople, the restaurant tours in
2024 and beyond, there's oneplace.
That were guaranteed to findanybody their cell phone.
And so when I was in radio in1999, It was tough for a mom and
pop restaurant to know where tofocus their marketing to gain
attention.
Was it radio?
(05:21):
Was it TV?
Was it direct mail?
Was it a billboard?
Was it a bus?
Was it sports marketing?
And all of those came with adollar sign.
Today, we know they're on theirphone.
I did a presentation last weekin Las Vegas for David Scott
Peters, for a group he's got.
And I had a slideshow up that Italked about people's attention.
And you can't make this stuffup.
(05:41):
I'm in the gym the morning ofthe presentation.
I look out, the guy cleaning thepool is on his phone and
cleaning the pool and I'mwatching because I'm like, this
dude's going to drop his phone.
This is going to be funny.
I'm going to film this shit.
Never did it.
But he was on his phone for 30minutes.
while he's doing this, it occursto me that I'm on my phone, so
I'm getting a kick out of that.
(06:02):
I looked to my right, Peter, myvideo guy who's there lifting
weights.
In between sets on his phone andthen I feel something to my left
and I look out and I'm notmaking this up, Jeremy, I look
out and the guy that is cleaningthe roof of the circa casino
five floors off the ground on aseveral scissor lift is leaning
(06:22):
over the mezzanine thing on hisphone
Jeremy Julian (06:25):
my goodness.
Matt Plapp (06:26):
I'm like cracking up.
And so then we're walking backto the hotel and I'm, me and
Peter are talking like, dude,I'm adding these two pictures to
the day slide presentation.
We all know it's everywhere.
If you're at a stoplight and yougot to wait for the person in
front of you, they're on theirphone.
it's everywhere.
We know this, but it's even moreplaces than we realized.
So we're walking back and we'restaying at this place called
Main Street station.
And we're walking through thelobby.
(06:47):
They're putting all new carpetin.
And I'm like, these guys areworking their butts off.
I said, look, Peter, these guysaren't on their, I look up and
there's a guy on his phone.
Like they were all working hardexcept for this one lone dude
hit a middle floor.
So my presentation walkedthrough the fact that none of us
are confused where people'sattention lies today.
It's in their phone, it's intheir email inboxes, their text
(07:09):
inboxes, their messengerinboxes, their Facebook account,
their LinkedIn account, YouTube,Twitter, whatever, we have to
understand how to attract theirattention there.
And so that is the core premiseof what we help people do is,
how do you get somebody'sattention on their phone?
And then if you want to do itover and over, it's called, it's
(07:30):
building a relationship withthem.
It's, if I walk up to your tableat your restaurant, I say,
Jeremy, are you loving your mealtonight?
Oh, this is unbelievable.
Hey, I noticed you come here allthe time.
Are you in our VIP program?
Are you in our awards program?
No, I'm not.
I want to give you a freeappetizer your next visit, scan
this code, do A, B, and C.
Now you're building a deeperrelationship, but more
importantly, you're able toretain them easier because now
(07:52):
you control their data.
And it's the number one missingcomponent that restaurants have.
They don't control theircustomers data.
So it's hope and pray.
And then the last part about itis retaining their attention.
If you want to keep my attentionfor your restaurant, On my
phone, you have to be able toreach me seamlessly.
Email was supposedly dead in2010.
(08:15):
Somehow it's still here and it'skicking stronger than ever.
And restaurants still are nottrying to acquire that customer
data.
And for the life of me, I don'tknow why.
Jeremy Julian (08:26):
Yeah.
and I'd love to talk a littlebit deeper, Matt.
before we jump into kind of the,let's talk a little bit deeper
about the attraction side of it,but I will tell you funny
enough, I was looking through mybudget and looking through my
bank account and I looked atwhere I spent money in
restaurants and I guarantee youwhen I look back at the
advertising I saw and the emailsI got, I went to places more
(08:46):
often than Then not because itwas top of mind.
It wasn't because they had thebest food out there.
It was because it was top ofmind.
I saw it and we don't realizehow many times those things,
whether it's billboards on theside of the road or it's in
where the attraction is on yourphone, that you see these things
and you're like, Oh, I hadn'tbeen considering Greek food
tonight, but I just got a textfrom the Greek restaurant.
(09:08):
Greek food starts to sound good.
we're recording this in theholiday season, same thing for
my holidays.
I purchased things for my wifefor Christmas and for her
birthday, which was 10 days ago.
I purchased it based on thethings that were advertised to
me more so than even what I had.
And I think all too oftenrestaurants don't, Think about
that because they're notmarketers to your point.
(09:29):
And so how do you helprestaurants?
And where do you see people evenon the attraction side failing
so much?
Because I've watched yourjourney over the last 10 plus
years, and it's amazing theresults that you're able to get
for people.
Matt Plapp (09:42):
I appreciate that.
let me tell you a quick storythat'll support what you just
said.
I've been eating at a placecalled barley corns since the
early eighties.
So going on 40 years, my dad hadthem insured.
My favorite wing joints, thefirst place I ever had Buffalo
wings in the early eighties.
Nobody else had them.
Would you believe me if I toldyou that a restaurant I've eaten
at for 40 years, Lost mybusiness a couple years ago
(10:06):
simply because I changed mydriving habit.
My daughter comes home fromcollege.
It was December of 2022.
She's like, where do you want togo to dinner?
Let's go to barleycorns.
Okay, cool.
So we go to barleycorns.
We're sitting there and I go,huh?
We've not been here in three orfour months.
And I put it in perspective, mywife and I.
Eat out pretty much every meal.
We don't cook it very often,maybe five times a month, if
(10:27):
that.
So we are the ideal customer forany and every restaurant that
exists.
And my daughter says, Oh, youhaven't eaten in a while.
Would they piss you off?
They do something wrong.
I said, no, the food's alwaysgreat service.
And my wife goes, it's juststupid car.
What do you mean?
She goes, you've got your sportscar and that when you drive it
to the office, cause my house ishere on the same street, a mile
and a half away as barley corns.
(10:48):
Couple miles past that is theoffice I'm in now couple miles
past that is the gym I go to thesame exact road in northern
Kentucky us 42.
She said when you drive yoursports car to the office You get
on the expressway because youcan go fast.
There's no speed limit There'sstop signs all that kind of crap
And she's like you've beendriving that because my business
coach told me what gives youamped up gets you excited I'm
(11:08):
like driving my car.
He's drive it every day the next90 days So I did I stopped going
down us 42 I stopped going to myfavorite buffalo wing restaurant
that i've had zero issues withfor 40 years Simply because the
only way they had my attentionwas their sign.
And so when you think about whatsuccess looks like today,
(11:32):
there's a heritage restaurant inthis market with great brand
recognition, with a spot in myheart.
I eat at Barleycorns all thetime.
But because I quit looking attheir sign four to five times a
day because my driving habitchanged, I stopped eating there,
but what's funny, all they wouldhave had to have done is run a
Facebook ad targeting marriedmen within a couple miles of
(11:56):
their restaurant who eat out allthe time.
And I would have been shown anad for under pennies a day and
would have kept going there.
All they would have had to dowith one of the couple hundred
times I've go to theirrestaurant every couple of years
is maybe once acknowledge me.
Dude wears orange every timecomes in here every week.
(12:16):
Hey! Surely you're in ourbirthday program.
I'm not, Oh my God, dude, we gotto give you a free dessert for
your birth, scan this, do this.
so when you think about whathappens and what we've succeeded
with is I saw that with some ofour first restaurants back
around 2010, 2012 was we had abrand called Huffborough house,
Newport, Pittsburgh, Columbus,and then eventually Cleveland.
(12:39):
And what I saw with them wasthey had a restaurant in Newport
as an example that was doing 7million in sales a year.
Not a small feat.
I knew our average check.
I started doing the math and I'mlike, huh, we have this many
people coming here.
And yet our email list is 800people.
are we like intentionally tryingnot to get emails?
(12:59):
What's going wrong here?
And so I just examined our techstack back then, our website.
If somebody comes here, is therea seamless way they can tell me
who they are?
And you got to have an offerthat they feel stupid saying no
to.
The book I'm holding up here, amillion dollar offers by Alex
Ramosi.
How to make an offer so goodpeople feel stupid saying no to
nobody in their right mind Isever going to turn down a free
(13:22):
burger a free beer a freedessert a free appetizer But
everybody's so scared to givesomething away and I always tell
our customers it's not aboutvisit one It's visit two through
a hundred And if you control mydata, you can control those
instances more often becauseemail costs you nothing.
And if you strategically useemail correctly, you don't bash
(13:43):
people with specials ordiscounts, or, just word vomit
your menu to them.
If you talk to them about what'sgoing on in the area, what's
going on.
With their life.
Christmas is coming up rightnow.
Have a email that goes out toall the women in your database.
It says, click here, go toFacebook and drop a picture of
where your elf on the shelf ishiding today.
(14:05):
Drop one of your favoritepictures of your kids from
Christmas the last couple ofyears.
Now, all of a sudden, peopleopen your email for something
different.
They go to your Facebook page.
Now they've interacted with yourbrand three or four times.
And that night when their spousesays, Hey, you want to get
pizza?
Let's go to Strong's.
Let's go to Snappy.
Jeremy Julian (14:23):
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Absolutely.
I love that.
And I think, it's funny that,that restaurant tours don't
think this way because if theywere at a cocktail party, if
(15:05):
they were at the kids sportingevents, they'd say, Hey, come
join me for this pizza.
Come join me for, beer, whateverthat might be.
Come join me for wings.
But unfortunately, for whateverreason there, it feels and I'd
love your opinion on this.
Matt is, Are they just scared todo that?
Like, why don't they capture theemail addresses?
Why don't, you guys have workedwith thousands of restaurants.
Why don't they ask, is it techphobic?
(15:27):
Is it the fact that they'vegotten beat up by other email
offers themselves and they'refearful to do it because they
don't want to ruin their brandby doing that.
Help me understand what isholding people back from it.
Matt Plapp (15:37):
I think it is, it's a combination of things.
So to go there real quick,there's five things.
I wrote an article recently forPMQ magazine.
I ran an article every week andI wrote an article.
It said, there's five musthaves.
Inside of your restaurant in2024, number one, you'll like
this, a point of sale because Irun across restaurants that
don't have point of sale.
(15:57):
Still mind blown.
They don't.
I was at a pizza restaurantrecently that was telling me
they went to a point of saleabout six months ago, but I went
up there.
They were telling me theirstory.
They bought the restaurant 30years in business.
They took it over and they said,Matt, we got in here Friday
night, 200 orders on the phone,pen and paper.
Like what?
(16:18):
This is 2024 and they just got aPOS not too long ago.
So number one, you got to have aPOS.
Number two, you've got to have awebsite that is in this century.
Your customers are engagingonline with Amazon, with Target,
with Uber Eats.
Like you have to have the samelevel of technology as them as
in hooked up to your point ofsale, online ordering, a
(16:41):
seamless way for somebody togive you their name via a
contest on your website.
those are two big elements.
You've got to have a customermanagement system.
You've got to have a tool thatall your customer data goes to.
So you can easily communicatewith them when you need to,
we're in the process inside ofour system driver, create what I
call the easy button that arestaurant or can click on a
(17:02):
weekly basis.
When do you need 25 customers?
It's not rocket science.
If you have the data.
You can look at it, see who'sthe easiest person to convince
to come eat right now and youcan't abuse it.
Do it every day, five times aday, but if once or twice a week
you hit an easy button and youinvite people into something
that makes them feel stupid forsaying no and it's around what
they are to eat, they'llprobably come.
(17:23):
So outside the customermanagement system, then you need
to have a loyalty programbecause loyalty, even though
it's only 12 to 15 percent ofmost restaurants customer base,
It's the biggest chunk of theirrevenue that's possible.
So you've got to have a programthat incentivizes your best
customer.
I eat at a place called Strong'sbrick oven pizza.
(17:44):
That is a mile from my house.
It is amazing pizza, solidservice.
They have never incentivized meto spend one more penny to come
one more time.
And they don't have my data tocall and invite me back when
they want to.
Jeremy Julian (17:57):
They also don't know when you leave and stop
coming back, which is somethingthat I find baffling.
Matt Plapp (18:02):
Yeah.
barbacoa is.
Jeremy Julian (18:03):
when I stop ordering or my wife stops
ordering and they're going tostart giving me offers to incent
me to come back.
Matt Plapp (18:09):
And that's not hard.
the article I did, gosh, I thinkit goes out this week for PMQ
was three, three emails you musthave for your restaurant.
And it was the welcome email.
It was the loyalty email, salesemail, or loyalty emails.
And then it was a sales dragonemail.
within the loyalty email, therewas a thing called a win back.
If Matt Platt comes to yourrestaurant, like barley coins
(18:29):
every single week, and you havea loyalty system hooked up with
his contact info in your POS,and I go missing for seven days,
I'll say I come every sevendays.
And on day eight, I don't showup and SOS needs to go out.
A manager needs to be notified.
Matt Plapp has went missing andautomate an email and automated
text, a Facebook retargeting ad.
(18:51):
There's probably a good reasonI'm gone.
It's not you it's vacation.
It's changing driving habit.
Maybe I got sick.
Who knows?
So there's a lot of things, butyou've got to know that.
And then the other aspect inthere that I talked about was
customer acquisition.
a loyalty program is a Ferrari.
It is, most of them that I haveseen on the market are very
(19:12):
finely tuned marketing machines.
But a Ferrari and my son's HondaCivic with no gas go nowhere.
So what I typically see as amajor problem with restaurants
is they do not have a strategyin place to get people's
information For the first timeto introduce them and
indoctrinate them and then throwthem in the loyalty So when you
(19:32):
ask the question like why don'tthese things happen?
The number one thing I foundthat I haven't conquered yet is
that the restaurants forwhatever reason Do not want to
get away from simply askingpeople.
How are you doing?
If I walk into a restauranttoday, I am guaranteed, Hey, how
you doing, Matt?
Let's be honest.
(19:52):
You do not care how I'm doing.
You want to sell me food.
So I have a conversation thatmoves it along.
Matt, welcome.
Have you been here before?
No, you've not.
Oh my God, dude.
that means you're not in Matt'sVIP pie club, but before I sit
you down and get your order, I'mgiving you a free pizza for your
next visit.
Now I do that.
It's easy for me.
I'm a sales and marketing guy, a16 year old that just got off a
(20:15):
band practice, probably a littleharder.
So I think that there's someintricacies in there that make
things like I just did harder,custom, employee turnover,
employees, ability to sellemployees, ability to articulate
something like that.
So I think that's the big issue.
The other part of it is I don'tthink that restaurants have put
in place the tech stack to makeit happen.
(20:36):
Autopilot because let'seliminate.
You haven't have anybody in yourrestaurant do what I think you
should do if you have a point ofsale in place That encourages
when somebody calls in to ordera pizza.
They have to put your number into get the pizza And it stores
data and historical information.
(20:56):
That's one thing.
If I go to your website, I wentto a website yesterday and the
websites pop up.
This guy follows my podcast andit was funny cause I got to see
he was using it.
It popped up and said, clickhere to win a 100 gift card.
Heck yeah.
Click there.
Put my contact information, wentinto it, got a welcome email,
Matt.
Welcome.
You're in our, you now are wellentered to win the gift card.
Good luck.
(21:16):
And I'm sure I'll get somemarketing.
But like having something likethat on your website, if I order
online, I found a gap the otherday in a point of sales online
ordering that our systemintegrates with that.
If I order as a guest, I don'tland in the marketing program.
I have to be a registered userand my thought process is that
doesn't make any sense.
(21:37):
Like we're both giving the sameexact information.
Matt Plapp surely is not goingto be mad if I order from this
restaurant on a Thursday as aguest.
Because I didn't want to fillthis crap out and Friday, get an
email that says, thank you foryour business.
Here's a promotion for your nextvisit.
So I think that the biggestproblem I've seen is that
(21:59):
restaurants Either have aFrankenstein tech stack where
they have this loyalty, thistax, this email, this none of
them communicate or they havenone of it at all.
And a lot of it is becausethey're scared to spend money on
marketing.
they don't understand that justlike you can't lose a hundred
pounds that you gained in thelast 10 years in one month.
(22:19):
You're not going to gain thesales that you lost from having
a overweight marketing programlast 10 years.
It's going to take a while.
And so a lot of them, forwhatever reason, aren't willing
to invest that time, money andeffort into something that's
going to take a couple of years.
Jeremy Julian (22:32):
Love those examples.
And, I'm going to hit on a storythat I just had last week.
I went to breakfast with them ata brand new restaurant in town.
I'd never been, it's a brand outof the West coast and the
experience was over the top.
The night before I had lunchwith my son at a brand that
collected my phone number,collected my email address, and
it was very unpersonalized and Istill haven't heard from them.
(22:54):
I went to this other brand andit was a fast casual restaurant.
I spent 40 bucks for the two ofus to have dinner.
I went to this other restaurantand I had an amazing experience
and the server came and said,Hey, it was their first time
here.
These are the three items Irecommend.
Let me tell you about, I'm goingto bring you one of the biscuits
that, that we're known for youto try it out, to see if that
difference in experience, Ispent the same 40 for that
(23:16):
experience.
When I go to make a choice withmy menu and with my wallet, I
promise you, I'm going to go tothat brand where I got that
experience.
And I talk about that because atthe end of the day, Some brands,
this brand that you talkedabout, that's doing 7 million
might not think that they can domore than that.
But at the end of the day, whenyou start to lose customers,
whether that's a recessionarything or that's, whatever it is,
(23:38):
whatever the reason is, gettingthem back is almost impossible.
If you hadn't had your wife askyou and maybe you're going back
to barleycorns, maybe you'renot.
But had you not, they don't knowthat you're gone until it's now
hundreds, if not thousands ofdollars that they don't have out
of your wallet spend.
That's gone now.
And It's really critical.
Not only to capture thosethings, but to evaluate it and
(23:59):
be intentional about it.
Matt, tell me a little bitbefore we jump into driver.
Cause I do want to get to thatbefore we get done.
Where do you see people doingit?
like how many brands are doingit?
especially in the SMB space,because it's hard.
It's I shouldn't say it's hardwith intentionality.
It takes 15 minutes a day to dowhat you're saying.
And to be able to truly drivebehavior is not nearly as
(24:21):
difficult as people But if youdon't have a system and you
don't have a plan, you're notgoing to do it.
And so I'd love to get you totalk through who's doing it
well, even in the SMB space.
And what do you see themfocusing the majority of their
intentions on early on?
Matt Plapp (24:33):
I'll say this, and this is exciting.
9.
9 out of 10 brands are not doingit right.
And that includes the bigbrands.
I think you saw it on LinkedInthe other day, the picture I
posted about McDonald's,LinkedIn.
It was a McDonald's ad aboutlike healthy ingredients, great.
What the fact that the largestrestaurant marketer in the world
(24:59):
came up with that campaign.
Excites me because I don't workwith the McDonald's of the
world.
I don't know that we ever will.
Maybe we will, but right now wework with, small restaurants,
one to five locations.
Then we have clients that have50 to 300 locations that are
chains, but we work with smallerbrands, I guess you'd say.
So when I see McDonald's doingthat, when I watch Papa John's
(25:21):
have a Facebook page that has 7million fans and gets a hundred
interactions, I'm excited.
Because what's happened is thebrands that control the majority
of advertising spend do not useit correctly.
So a lot of people don't realizethis, like Facebook advertising,
95 percent of what's purchasedon there is bought by big
(25:43):
companies.
McDonald's, Coca Cola, MountainDew, Red Bull, Chevy, Ford,
they, especially the food space,they were of the opinion that
you and I were long gone,Jeremy.
Like our opinions are like, wecannot be influenced, which is
such a crock.
Jeremy Julian (26:00):
I'm saying that I went through my spending
behavior through the month ofDecember and it's ridiculous how
many things I purchased.
I got my wife a gift for herbirthday.
And I'm like, I saw an LinkedInad, not even a LinkedIn ad.
It was an Instagram ad and Ibought her a running head,
headset because I got thatadvertisement.
Cause I was talking to her aboutgoing out for a run.
Matt Plapp (26:17):
yep.
Jeremy Julian (26:18):
So sorry, I'll let you keep going.
Matt Plapp (26:20):
so 95 percent of the advertising spend is controlled
by major brands.
The cool part about it is thosemajor brands think everybody
above my daughter's age areuseless.
My daughter's 22, she is whothey want.
And so when you look at that,you should get excited because
if you go to Facebook today,anybody over 25.
(26:42):
Even up to 75 or 80 is anamazing opportunity.
Did you know one of the fastestgrowing segments in the
restaurant loyalty space?
Are the people over 65?
My dad is a penny pincher.
he's a member of some of ourclients, local loyalty programs
through driver.
It was funny.
I didn't know he was at onepoint.
He got mad at me one timebecause I paid the bill and he
(27:03):
didn't get the points.
I did.
And then I later realized whenwe acquired what was repeat
returns then and turned to thedriver That was one of their
clients.
I'm like, hey dan.
I got your points.
I can get i'm gonna go to cancelyour account but His demographic
are hardcore in the joiningloyalty because it's gotten so
expensive to eat out now Andthey're trying to find every
dollar they can so the cool partabout it is Paid advertising on
(27:27):
Facebook and Instagram is thegold mine for a small business
right now.
And the fact that your customerbase that all of us really want
are not being sought after bythe McDonald's and Coke's of the
world means that the inventoryis a plethora of it and you can
buy it really cheap.
So that is one huge opportunity.
(27:48):
So the people that I see doingit right, the outliers are the
operators that do not workinside the four walls.
And that are hardcore intopersonal development.
Give you an example, a guy namedAvery Ward owns a restaurant
called Little Italy Restaurante.
He took over his dad'srestaurant.
I want to say it was seven yearsago.
His dad had it for about 30years.
(28:09):
It did 500k, 1400 square footpizza restaurant.
What do you think he grew thatsales to in the exact location
in five years?
500k.
Jeremy Julian (28:20):
I don't know, 800,
Matt Plapp (28:21):
three, was it 3.
5 million.
Jeremy Julian (28:24):
holy smokes at a 1400 square feet
Matt Plapp (28:27):
Same location and just recently moved into about a
year ago, a brand new store andis on pace to surpass.
I want to say 5.
5 last time I talked to him, hedid it because he went into the
restaurant, looked at it througha different lens.
He hired a business coach, a guynamed David Scott Peters.
He actually, it's funny.
He hired us to come film at hisrestaurant for America's best
(28:49):
restaurants.
One of the things we do is wegive people a trial in our
marketing program.
He got a trial.
One of the things we do with ourclients is we give them
educational resources.
I bought a few hundred of DavidScott Peters books.
We have a bunch of them here.
We mailed him a book.
He read it, went down the funnelof David Scott Peters YouTube,
hired David Scott Peters, joinedhis coaching program, and in a
(29:12):
matter of a year, became veryintent on becoming a great
operator from educating himself.
And so he took this businessover in his mid twenties and
within five years grew it towhere it went from, 500 grand to
3.
5 plus, the same location,because he upgraded himself.
And so the unicorns that we seeare Avery.
(29:33):
And the cool thing is Avery'sprobably one out of a thousand
to be quite honest with you.
He's got his own video guide.
He's got a guy named Nathan.
That is a full time videographerand social media marketer for
his restaurant.
And he
Jeremy Julian (29:45):
clearly it's paying off because he grew sales
by over 3 million.
I love that story.
Funny enough.
after I saw you speak last week,I reached out to David Scott
Peters.
Ironically, he was a customer atone point.
Matt Plapp (29:55):
on no way.
Jeremy Julian (29:56):
next time you talk to him, he was on the show
a couple of years back and he,he's dude, I remember you.
Cause he was a customer and hehad called to complain about
something.
I picked up the phone and on thepoint of sale side and we
wrapped a little bit and he's,he's gonna be on the show again
in another couple of weeks.
after I get back from holiday,Matt, you've gotten, actually
before I go there, cause I'vebeen biting my tongue.
if you haven't already connectedwith Matt on social, he'll talk
(30:17):
about his handles here in alittle bit.
His dad is freaking awesome aswell.
every time I see him post avideo with his dad and sometimes
a son, I watch from start tofinish.
And your dad is amazing.
You can share that with him, cutthis little clip out and send it
to him, but he's, he's a lot offun to, to listen to you and he
banter back and forth when youguys do your little videos,
Matt Plapp (30:35):
We're going on the road Thursday.
So we usually do on Thursdaysthing called fire with dad.
It started seven years ago thathim and I, every Thursday
started talking about business.
Okay.
And about two months in, Irealized like we were talking to
ourselves, who gives a shit?
Nobody cared about that.
So then we started telling funnystories about, the time he
almost got kicked off a plane,the, all these different, him
and I, my dad is a cartooncharacter, like Lynn Smith and
(30:58):
him and I are just alike.
You just, 30 years differenceand he works in my office three
days a week.
And so this Thursday, we'retaking a road trip.
Me, him, my camera guy, Peter,and my COO, Doug up to, see a
client of ours, Chris called MSTpub up in Tiffin about three
hours drive.
And on the way back, we're goingto hit Columbus and hit a Euro
place, called King's Euros andthen little Italy pizza and I
(31:20):
think Capuano's.
We're in four restaurants and mydad, I love bringing them along
on this because surely we'llhave some funny clips in the
car.
he's, it's great to be around mydad.
My son works for me.
my dad works for me and I saythat loosely, he's here.
He's getting, he's coaching myteam, but it's funny how we get
to interact, but he's a greatguy and we have a good time with
him.
Yeah.
Follow me on social media.
If you go to mattplapp.
(31:41):
com, M A T P L A P P.
com, you'll find links to mydaily blog, my daily podcast,
and then my social mediachannels where my goal.
On my social media is to spendless time selling you on hiring
one of our companies and moretime selling you on my theories,
because I believe if yousubscribe to our theories, no
(32:01):
matter what loyalty program youuse, the theories are going to
work.
And so I trust that at somepoint, five, 10, 15 years down
the road, We'll be big enoughthat we'll have enough people
that say, Hey, I believe in histheories.
I probably believe in hisproduct.
We'll go down there, I give alot of free content out every
single day.
After this, I have two podcaststo record for the next two days.
Jeremy Julian (32:20):
I love it.
I know Matt, you've recently gotinto the loyalty space.
You talked about repeat returns.
Where did that come from?
Talk, talk to our audience alittle bit about why that came
about.
Because, again, I've beenfollowing the story of where you
guys have been at for quite sometime.
You were one of my first outsideguests.
I told you that when we hadbreakfast a couple of weeks ago.
And so I've been a fan of whatit is that you guys are doing.
(32:41):
And now that you're getting intothe software space, that's The
impact, in my opinion, has theopportunity to be even greater
for those that, that considerit.
So help educate our audience.
What is repeat returns nowdriver?
What is this new branding?
What are you guys trying to do?
Matt Plapp (32:53):
In 2016, Everything that we did for our restaurant
clients, I controlled.
And so we would run, I boughttheir radio, their TV, their
billboards.
I ran their Facebook.
If you go to Huffbrow's Newportand go back to 2012 to 16 and
you watch their once a monthcake tapping videos filmed on an
iPad, Matt Plapp was the onefilming it.
(33:15):
So I controlled all themarketing and what I found in
that process was all the nuancesof the opportunities that
existed.
And the one thing I fell in lovewith was customer acquisition.
I saw how, I got a growler on mydesk.
We had these growlers.
Hofbrauhaus starts sellinggrowlers.
I keep it here.
I have coins in it.
(33:35):
I have a QR code to use it likea promotional idea.
But Hofbrauhaus wanted to sellgrowlers.
And they started marking them.
They were like five years lateto the game.
Everybody else in town hadgrowlers.
We were the last ones.
And nobody bought them.
So I did something reallysimple.
I went, at least to me, I wenton Facebook, I put up an ad, I
put up a digital, marketingfunnel that said, Hey, click
(33:58):
here, give us your information,walk in the restaurant.
We'll hand you a free growlerbeer, not included just for
coming in.
Next thing you know, within acouple of days, 2, 500 growlers
are gone.
And of course, people that drovedown to the restaurant after
giving us their contactinformation and then redeemed,
that was the key part.
They had to have their screen.
We had to lock the, a littledigital redeem, on a landing
(34:20):
page.
They had to unlock that with acode at the bartender.
And we knew not only that MattPlatt opted in to get the
growler, but we knew that MattPlatt came in to get the
growler, and then at the sametime, we The bartender input,
how much they spent when theywere there to get their growler.
So I could see that these peoplewere coming in, spending 18,
(34:40):
getting a beer, getting asandwich, getting the growler,
filling it with beer and thenleaving.
I saw that and realized theopportunity that exists for
customer acquisition.
And so we went on this journeyand over six months, we gained
18, 000 people for one look forone brand, three locations, an
email cell phone birthday fromthat.
We started going nationwide.
(35:01):
When we went nationwide.
What I found was that a lot ofthese restaurant owners didn't
have the belief in the data thatMatt plopped it.
I knew when we gathered 18, 000people's information and that 30
percent walked in the restaurantwithin a month or two, like I
knew the value of that.
I know that is millions in salesin the future.
(35:23):
And so I assumed foolishly thatwhen we launched this company
nationwide, that as we helpedrestaurants build customer
databases through customeracquisition, like Facebook,
Instagram ads in store contests,that these restaurants would be
blown away.
they weren't, as an example, wehad a client one time, and this
is like the extreme unicorn offailed clients spent 28, 000
(35:46):
with us in 14 months.
The Sixth Location PizzaRestaurant out on the West
Coast.
In those 14 months, we gained28, 000 people into his VIP
program, of which they spent440, 000 on the front end.
Jeremy Julian (36:02):
Wow.
That's
Matt Plapp (36:03):
even making this up.
I know these numbers because Ialmost cried when he cancelled.
I'm like, what do you meanyou're cancelling?
I don't know how we did this.
But his whole thing, I'mdisturbed that this doesn't
connect to my point of sale andthat I can't see the LTV that
while I like that we have 28,000 people, think about that 28,
(36:24):
000 people across six locationsin 14 months said, here's my
name, my phone number, my email,my birthday, and how often I
come to your restaurant.
The question we ask is the firstthing we ask right off the bat.
How often do you dine at thisrestaurant?
We give them three choices.
I've never been, I come all thetime.
I come rarely for me.
(36:44):
You're new, you're frequent,you're lost because if you come
rarely, that's a problem.
If you come all the time, Hey,high five, come back more often.
If you've not been before, Ihave to bribe you like that lost
customer to get you back.
So I'm looking at this, let meget this right.
If I, as a restaurant ownerspent 20 to 30 grand and got 20
to 30, 000 contacts, I know thata customer's data is worth 10 to
(37:04):
20.
very low end.
It's probably worth more like acouple hundred restaurant owner,
because you have the ability tosell Matt plapa pizza the next
10 years.
Yeah.
This guy didn't see it that way.
And so he was an extremeexample, but over the course of
2016 to 2020, we saw it moreoften where we would have a
client, like my whole philosophyon customer acquisition was what
(37:27):
we spend in month one, we wantto recuperate in month two.
So our average client wasspending about 1500 bucks
between us and Facebook ads.
Jeremy Julian (37:35):
Ramosy of you,
Matt Plapp (37:37):
Yeah.
And if we can get, if we can get1500, which ironic, I was,
before I knew who Hermosi was,we were a client of his gym.
I owned a gym for 10 years andour gym was a client of his
Jeremy Julian (37:48):
of Jim launch.
funny enough, I just, I actuallywas watching a YouTube video of
his on the treadmill here overto my right earlier this week.
And he talked about yourmarketing spend for this month.
You need to be able to acquirethat in, next month.
Matt Plapp (37:59):
And this is what I've always did.
I, before I even had heard ofhim, but it was, if we can spend
1500 a month and next month youget four grand in sales.
And you take your food costs offof that and you recoup your ad
spend.
You just got the attention ofall of the Facebook ads, the
emails, the text, the met, allthat stuff.
You got that for free.
(38:19):
You got the data for free andthen your next month's spin is
paid for by the people whowalked in.
That was always my vision and mygoal was to show restaurants.
If you did that over 12 to 24months and then you took that
data and you used it, you whatsmacked me in the face was April
of 2020.
We all know what hit March of2020, April of 2020.
(38:42):
I told my team, Hey, let's slowthe machine down.
We had three or six employeesthat time.
I said, let's slow the machinedown.
Let's not add any new clients.
Let's call all of our currentclients and find out how we can
help.
It's like late March, earlyApril.
we started calling clients andthis client, this one right here
was in the middle of that.
He's, he canceled that August.
And he's yeah, we haven't beenusing the data.
(39:03):
What do you mean?
you guys gain it for us and itdoes a great job, but we don't
know how to use it.
And so I said, okay, we're goingto start helping you with your
distribution.
We're going to do two emails amonth for you because consumers
were under the impression thatrestaurants were closed.
No, we just can't serve youinside the restaurant.
You can pick up, you can order,carry out, you can order
(39:24):
delivery, whatever.
And so we went around, do atthat time, I think about 80
restaurants we had as clientsand we said, Hey, we're We found
a gap that none of you are usingyour damn data.
And so we created, I hired threenew people and we were losing
money like everybody else was atthis point, but I knew that our
restaurants needed help.
We had money in the bank that wecould go on for another year or
two.
So I told my team, Hey, let'shelp our clients use the data.
(39:47):
So we started helping them usethe data.
And then that got to around2021, 2022, I think it was 2021.
When I realized that in orderfor us to not churn clients
every two years, We had to showthem the promised land.
I knew it was there.
It's not a coincidence that ifyou have a, an email program
that has 500 people in at onemonth and 5, 000 at a year
(40:09):
later, that you're probablygetting more sales out of that
if you don't use it incorrectly.
So 2021, if you've heard of avivid vision, or let me grab a
copy of one.
I built this vivid vision andthe front of it.
And the vivid vision isbasically that in three years,
this is what our company willlook like.
And I wrote on here, December31st, 2023.
(40:30):
We'll celebrate in Las Vegas.
We accomplished our vividvision.
And the second third page insidewas a software that I wanted to
create that would integrate withrestaurants, point of sales.
Now take this.
I have no clue about software.
Like I know enough to bedangerous, like not actual
software.
I could always build on top ofother people's software.
So we worked on that for about ayear and a half, two years.
(40:52):
I realized around 2022 that Ididn't need to be building a new
software company.
So I started just thinking aboutwhat if we acquired somebody.
And by luck would have it mayhave 2023.
David Scott Peters invited a guynamed Cameron Carrington to come
watch me speak.
It was a friend of his.
He's in Las Vegas.
He owned repeat returns.
Cameron was looking to exit andgo out the next place.
(41:14):
And so we ended up talking andby November we acquired repeat
returns.
And I really didn't know what Ihad until this past summer.
I wanted to try and make mymarketing tactics work inside
there.
We know how to do customeracquisition.
We now do Facebook ads.
Here's this platform thatcustomer data goes to.
We're going to force themtogether.
we found out through trial anderror that doesn't work.
(41:35):
So this past year we merged thecompanies and call it, we
created the name Driver, D R Y VE R.
And the idea is that we're goingto help you drive your sales.
The why is for you, you needlunch sales, you need appetizer
sales, catering sales, eventsales, dessert sales, more
sales.
And so the idea is that driverhas three elements to it.
(41:55):
Number one is a customeracquisition program that we help
restaurants find people in theircommunities that are hungry, get
their contact information, workto drive that first two visits
and then help them put that datasomewhere else.
If they happen to want to useour loyalty program, Then we can
integrate with our loyaltyprogram.
They can use it through theirpoint of sale or through a
tablet.
(42:15):
We'd like ideally is point ofsale.
And then on top of that, we havea higher level coaching and
consulting division where ifyou're a restaurant that's
doing, let's say a million and ahalf to 2 million, and you're
looking to get to, Two and ahalf to 3 million.
It's going to take verystrategic marketing plans.
And so we've got people insideof our building that are high
(42:36):
end restaurant coaches, coupleof them are former restaurant
owners that work with our teamand the restaurant owner to
coach them on exactly how to dowhat they do.
That's what Avery is littleItaly.
Avery has been.
One to one coach by one of myteam members every week for the
past three years.
And it's not a coincidence thathe got coaching from DSP.
He got coaching from MPs team.
(42:56):
He's got a good tech stack andhere he is, going from 500 to 5.
5.
Jeremy Julian (43:01):
Love that.
and, the one thing that I wantto, before we get off the call,
Matt, I want to just, point ouraudience back to the fact that
some of the common threads thatyou've talked about, both in
yourself and in your clients isthis idea of continuously
improving what it is that you'reworking on, evaluated.
evaluating what you did, whatworked, what didn't work, and
then making strides to do that.
(43:22):
Where did that come from?
Does that come from your dad?
Does that come from just you?
Again, I've watched the storyand I think that all too often
restaurant owners get stuck inthe rut.
They get stuck working Fridaynight shifts, working in the
bar, whatever it is, and theydon't invest in themselves,
whether that's in their physicalbody, whether that's in their
knowledge, that's reading,that's getting outside of the
four walls and talking todifferent people.
(43:43):
Where did that come from for youand how would you encourage our
audience?
Obviously if they're listeningto the podcast, they've got at
least something that they'redoing that's helping them make
them better.
But where did that come from andhow would you encourage our
restaurant owners that areexhausted and are like, I'm
done.
I can't add any more to myplate.
And why you believe so heavilyin both physical as well as the
(44:04):
mental side of the game that youdo.
Cause I know just on the sidethat those are big parts of what
it is
Matt Plapp (44:09):
So I have a mantra.
I try to live by MBS mind, body,and spirit.
And every day I have to work onmy mind.
I have to work on my body.
I have to work on my spirit.
And I have another mantra, lead,market, sell.
That as a CEO of my company, itis my job to lead my team.
If they see me eating like crap,they see me drinking, smoking,
doing vapes, not working out.
(44:30):
If they see me living alifestyle, I shouldn't be
surprised when they live thesame bad lifestyle.
If I don't market my company ata high level, like I'm always on
brand.
I have my branded ring on.
If you're watching the video, Ihave my shirt.
I have orange Jordans on there.
I have my orange jacket overhere, my shaker cup.
I market every single day.
(44:52):
And then I sell my vision, ourvivid vision, the new one.
Is a eight page document thateven to the end says, here's
what I want my headquarters tolook like by May 17th, 2027.
So mind, body, and spirit leadmarket sale.
Now, where did I get this from?
I honestly didn't start it tillmy late thirties.
I think what happens to all ofus.
Is we have teachers growing up,we have coaches growing up, we
(45:15):
get out of high school orcollege, we get a job, we learn
a skill, we become pretty goodat it.
If you own a restaurant, ifyou're an entrepreneur, you've
got a pretty good skillset atsomething, but we forget that
even Tom Brady has a coach.
Multiple coaches.
And so I don't know whattriggered it to me, but it was
in my mid to late thirties, I'm48 now I was around 35 to 38 and
(45:38):
I had convinced myself Icouldn't read, like I remember
reading a book of MichaelJordan.
I got three chapters in andoutside of the fact I knew the
book was about Michael Jordan, Ihad no clue what I read.
And so I had a mentor gottingBilly Jean shawl out in San
Diego, California, that Istarted going to his business
masterminds.
And I started looking around theroom.
The people that were doing itright, what were they doing?
(46:00):
And the one key thing I foundwas they were growth oriented,
that they were looking for thenext tip.
They were looking for the nextidea.
So I started reading, I forcedmyself, I started reading and
now I read pretty much everyday, multiple books a month.
I find motivation by readingpeople like Phil Knight, from
Nike.
(46:21):
Like people don't really, that'sprobably the best book I've ever
read in my entire life.
And you know what Nike is today,but you would never think that
he was a CEO of a companybumming money off his sales team
on the road to buy dinner,selling shoes on the back of his
trunk.
So I have found that for me.
We can relate to these peoplemore than we realize.
(46:43):
Like I can't lie, I'm thebrokest I've ever been in my
entire life trying to grow thiscompany.
I got out of my comfort zone.
I not only am I'm probably toogrowth oriented and I take
risks.
I probably shouldn't take, andwe're not funded by anybody
except for me.
And so I've gotten to a pointwhere I realize I can be normal
(47:04):
or I can be average, or I canjust go have fun with it and do
something bigger.
And what's cool about it.
Is that the majority, just likethe marketing, the majority of
these restaurants, competitorsaren't doing it weren't reading
every day.
They aren't listening topodcasts every day.
They're like, I listen to themusic that motivates me.
I have a playlist called MPevery day.
they aren't doing those things.
(47:25):
And if you're not doing that, ifyou don't have a group that you
go to, I fly every two monthssomewhere differently.
To meet with a different groupof entrepreneurs, because I have
to get out of my kitchen.
Like I'm in my building, I'vegot some great people I'm
surrounded by, but I need to be,if I'm the smartest guy in the
room, I'm screwed.
And so I try and get myself outof my comfort zone, try and
(47:45):
learn new stuff, try and educatemyself.
But like I have a mantra withinour company, our core values,
positive mindset, growthoriented, collaborative.
One of the things I love to say,and I got this from her Rosie,
when somebody says, how are youdoing?
I'm amazing.
I said, how are you amazing?
I'm a straight white guy inAmerica.
I have every opportunity.
And for the most part, anybodythat's in America has it.
(48:07):
And then for most part, anybodyin a lot of countries has it.
So if you're not positivemindset, you're screwed, but
you've got to be growth orientedand you've got to be willing to
learn and realize that, I gotthis thing on my wall here.
I'll take it off.
It's Warren Buffett's wealthcurve.
Jeremy Julian (48:21):
yeah,
Matt Plapp (48:21):
know if you've seen this or not,
Jeremy Julian (48:22):
I have
Matt Plapp (48:23):
we know Warren Buffett is this billionaire now.
Like it's 83.
He was worth 58 billion.
Dollars.
But at 33, he was at 2.
4 at 43, he was at 34.
So it just didn't happenovernight.
And I can promise you, it didn'thappen by not reading, by not
studying, by not being focused.
And so I think we owe it toourself.
(48:44):
But the biggest thing for me,it's leadership that like you're
leading a team.
If you wonder why yourrestaurant's not closed
correctly, why it's not cleancorrectly, why the recipes
aren't prepared correctly, whypeople are late.
Look in the mirror because theywere probably emulating the
leader of the company and thatleader Isn't doing what it takes
(49:04):
to get to the next level yourpeople see it.
They aren't going to either
Jeremy Julian (49:07):
well and your success story of the Italian
places is case in point ofsomebody that invested in
themselves Invested in theirteam and the results went from a
half a million dollars to threeplus three plus million dollars
And I promise you he's doingmuch better off financially And
he's able to take the time andinvest in, in that.
And so Matt, you said itearlier, how do people connect?
How do people learn more abouthow to engage with your team and
(49:29):
gauge with your content?
You're so prolific.
I love that you put the stuffout there.
So thank you for that.
but yeah, how do people getconnected?
How do they get on your emaillist to learn more about, how
they, how you can help therestaurant?
Matt Plapp (49:39):
yeah, so there's two websites you can go to and you
can probably find both from eachone But mattplap.
com my name matt at mattplap.
com is my email.
It's my website Everything's onthere.
And then our other url isrestaurantmarketingthatworks.
com If you go there, there's apath to driver, a path to ABR
path to my podcast.
And I'm an open book.
I had a guy last time in a hottub last night, about 10
(50:01):
o'clock.
And I get a text message from aguy and he's Matt, I'm reading
your PMQ series and in couple ofthe articles I published my
phone number.
Hey, if you're reading this,text me, you'll be in a drawing.
I'll send you a free book.
And I practice what I preach.
So I'm always available.
So yeah, matplotlib.
com is easiest place.
And I'm an open book.
I love talking marketing.
I love helping people no matterif they're a client or not.
(50:23):
I feel that if I keep givingenough, it'll eventually come
back.
Jeremy Julian (50:27):
I, I appreciate that.
And again, you and I are prettysymbiotic in that regard
because, That's ultimately whythis podcast exists.
Cause I, I love seeing peoplesucceed.
I love watching your journey.
So thank you for sharing a bitof it.
Thank you for continuing to pushoutside of your comfort zone,
push your clients to ourlisteners out there.
You guys are obviously investingin yourself by listening to the
show.
So thank you guys for that.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do Thank you,
(50:47):
Matt, for your time.
Have a happy holiday and make ita great day.
Matt Plapp (50:50):
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
(51:13):
Thanks for listening to theRestaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
Visit www.
RestaurantTechnologyGuys.
com for tips, industry insights,and more to help you run your
restaurant better.
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