March 13, 2025 • 18 mins
Zack welcomes Stacey Kane, a fractional CMO for emerging and beyond brands, to discuss the importance of brand voice, guest experience, and tactical marketing strategies in the restaurant industry. With experience leading marketing efforts for multiple brands, Stacey shares how businesses can define their identity, engage guests, and use nostalgia to create memorable experiences.
Zack and Stacey discuss:
- Why brand personality is the foundation of marketing success
- The origin story approach to uncovering a restaurant’s mission and vision
- How multi-generational guests demand more than a one-size-fits-all experience
- Tactical marketing ideas that can be implemented immediately
- The importance of leveraging existing vendor capabilities
Folow Stacey:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceylkane/
Thanks, Stacey!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast, where I talk to
industry experts to get theirstrategies and tactics you can
use to create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is sponsored byOvation, an operations and guest
recovery platform formulti-unit restaurants that
gives all the answers withoutannoying guests with all the
(00:21):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
Today we have a good friend, amentor and someone who one time
yanked me out of a hallway tocome onto my own panel Stacey
Cain, a fractional CMO forEmerging and Beyond Brand.
Sixth time she was voted thetop 25 restaurant executives and
and I think her most proudmoment to date was being voted
(00:45):
best dressed at the 2024 FastCasual Movers and Shakers Gala.
It's true, that was amazing.
Who did you win that with?
Who was your counterpart?
I always forget who was yourcounterpart.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
A man with really good hair.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh was Sterling.
Was Sterling Douglas.
Did he win along with you?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
No, a little bit closer to home there, Zach.
Oh wow, Look at that award, ohmy goodness, that's right,
mine's a dress and yours is abow tie.
Perhaps in post you couldinsert our beautiful photograph
from that evening.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh yeah, we do have a great photo together where you
won best dressed and I won bestdressed.
You deserved it, I paid for it.
It is what it is 100%.
It's now my Facebook coverphoto of you and I oh my gosh, I
didn't even know that.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So the only person who actually sees it.
There is probably my mom, butyou know, there you go.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
That's awesome.
Well, Stacey, thanks forjoining us today.
I know that you've got a lot onyour plate, and why don't you
just talk to me a little bitabout?
You do have a lot on your plate.
What is that lot?
What kinds of brands do youwork with and what do you do for
them?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, most of them are small, sub 30 units, and
they're kind of in either thisemerging status or meaning
they're starting to grow, orthey're kind of holding steady
that they're family owned or notfranchised.
So I go into brands in a coupleof different ways.
(02:13):
Some of them don't havemarketing departments so I
become their marketingdepartment, some meaning I'm
sending the email at two o'clockin the morning or I'm directing
a social media content person.
And then in some brands I'mmentoring somebody who's in
house, like with fresh baguette,that really quickly growing
(02:37):
French bakery out of DC.
Or in the case of Ziggy's, I'macting as leadership for a
robust team.
They have about 12 people ontheir marketing team and they
just needed somebody withexperience to come in there and
say this is where you sit, thisis where you sit, here's what
our brand means, the big picturestuff.
(02:58):
So it's one of those three waysand right now I have somewhere
around eight or nine brands invarious different capacities.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
You've been in this industry for a while and are you
just trying to say I'm old.
No, what I'm trying to say islike I feel like everywhere I go
, any discussion about marketingfor restaurants, stacey Cain is
involved.
People are talking about her,or Stacey Cain is talking, and I
think that it's really powerfulto get that broad perspective
(03:33):
on what's working and what's notworking.
When you enter a brand, whatare some of the things that you
look at to say here are thingsthat we could look at for some
low hanging fruit, where I knowthat restaurants are
consistently getting thesethings wrong.
What do you look at there?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, one of the first things that I do when I
come into a brand is try tofigure out who they are.
And I don't mean like whoeverybody is, who's running it,
but who are they as a brand?
So what's their mission, what'stheir vision, what is their
brand personality?
That's a big thing actually.
Brand personality Like how isthat brand reflected to the
(04:13):
consumer?
So you could have like 10different social media people,
another copywriter and somebodyelse who's designing POP, and
they've never had the discussionof what's our brand voice.
So for the first probably month, it's uncovering that If a
(04:33):
brand doesn't have a mission ora vision or any of that kind of
preliminary stuff done, thenI'll come in and do that.
That's what I like to get tothe heart of, because it affects
everything.
It affects guest experienceTotally, it affects your content
strategy, but what it reallyaffects is how people become
(04:58):
loyal, or why people becomeloyal to your brand.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
How do you take someone down that journey,
stacey?
So let's say that I've beenaround for five, six years, I'm
growing, I've got a fewlocations, things are going well
, and maybe I'm looking back andI'm thinking, oh boy, like I
don't know if I have all thisstuff written down, it's kind of
just been what is mypersonality?
Sure, how do you thentransition to something that's
(05:23):
growing and documented andtranslatable?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well, as with any good superhero movie, we start
with the origin story, so I justdid this presentation.
It's like how did Peter Parkerbecome Spider-Man?
So he became Spider-Man notonly because he was bitten by a
spider by a radioactive spiderbut it was because he saw Uncle
(05:49):
Ben get murdered and he didn'tdo anything about it.
Those two things came together.
He became a person who helpspeople.
Because of the guilt when I gointo a brand, I don't want to
know what you did last month.
I want to know why did youfound this brand this way, and
(06:10):
what were the first couple ofmonths, years like?
Because that normally dictates,kind of everything.
Founder stories are soimportant in this kind of work,
and so, look, you've known me along time.
I don't have like highemotional IQ, I'm very down and
dirty kind of person, but thesekind of conversations are really
(06:35):
important because people wantto do business that they connect
with.
So those are the kinds ofstories that we go in and try to
figure out.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Interesting.
I think that is a reallypowerful super tactical thing
that everyone can take away fromthis of like find the origin
story and there within is themission, and in those early
sproutlings of the dream is thevision.
Go back to that.
(07:11):
That just gives everyone areason, something to hold on to,
and when you're all holding onto that same thread that ties
everything together, it's a loteasier to move in the right
direction.
It's a lot easier to trainpeople, because then
everything's connected to thewhy.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, everybody's all Simon Sinek up in here.
You know we've all been SimonSinek and love him and he
changed the way a lot of us lookat brand and why we do what we
do.
So I love that.
But, yes, it all comes back towhy it also helps.
This origin story, this mission, this vision, help with core
(07:43):
values, right, that become thatlitmus test for every business
decision we make, right?
So who you hire, how you trainthem, all of that comes from the
core values and how we want tointeract with our guests.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, because at the end of the day, it's all about
the guest experience, andeverything that we're doing
boils down to that.
So, as you think about guestexperience nowadays, what do you
think are some of the mostimportant things to keep in mind
as people are building theirrestaurant brand?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I think this concept of one size fits all is not the
case anymore.
I think we have amulti-generational consumer base
and we need to make sure thatwe're truly meeting people where
they're at, in all touch points, having things like, for
example, I have Mamoun's, theoldest falafel shop in New York
(08:39):
City, still run and owned by thesame family, and they realized
that people want to orderdifferently, whether not just
online or in the restaurant, butalso within the restaurant,
four walls itself.
So they were founded in 1971.
And two years ago put veryrobust kiosks in because there's
(09:01):
a segment of the population,especially in New York, dense
population that wants to order,doesn't want to talk to anybody,
just literally wants to go to akiosk, pick what they want and
get it quickly, without everhaving a human interaction.
Although I would say Mamoun'salways has some sort of personal
(09:23):
touch in there.
I would say, like, from a guestexperience perspective, you
need to realize that one sizedoes not fit all.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, and the
whole concept of meeting guestswhere they're at is a cliche,
and cliches are cliches becausethey withstand the test of time
and they withstand the test ofconsumers, and so I think that
meeting them where they're at isreally important.
And how would you boil thatdown to any tactics?
Someone's listening to this andthey say all right, stacey.
(09:52):
I love this conversation aboutbrand voice and about
understanding how to meet theguests where they're at.
But, like, what can I do aboutthat in my restaurant this week?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
This week.
Wow, that's a really quickturnaround.
Nice deadline there, zach.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Well, okay, how can I start?
What can I start planning onthis week to actually improve
the guest experience?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
It's funny that you say that One of my brands I've
been working with.
We just realized this today.
I started with CaliforniaTortilla in 2007.
And they were my first kind ofleadership role, so I was the VP
of marketing there for a longtime and it's their 30th
anniversary and we areresurrecting all of the old
(10:37):
wacky promos that we did back inthe day.
We're resurrecting them allthis whole like kind of play on
nostalgia.
So one of the things that we'redoing for March Madness is
we're bringing basketball hoopsinto the Nerf, basketball hoops
(10:59):
into the restaurant and forMarch Madness you'll be shooting
hoops for various prizes.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Super tactical.
It's easy to do in one or tworestaurants.
It's nuts to do it in a smallchain.
But we're doing it because wedid it in 2008.
And I know this because wefound the video pre-pandemic
Instagram, actually pre-Facebook.
We found the YouTube video thatwe produced in 2008 and we're
(11:29):
repurposing it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Oh my gosh, it's all grainy and like terribly shot.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So things like that.
I think again, if your mission,vision, brand values and voice
line up with doing something funand interactive, it's really
easy to do Having a wheel on areally slow night, super
engaging, People love it.
You come in, you make apurchase, you spin a wheel, you
win something for a bounce back.
(11:57):
Oh, interesting that's supertactical If you want to talk
about something you could doimmediately.
I think bigger picture thingsis.
I always go back tocommunications, communications.
So a lot of brands, especiallyin the franchise space.
It's hard to especially in theemerging franchise space, let's
(12:17):
put it that way it's hard tofigure out the dollars and cents
of text marketing.
You have one big creative fund.
How do we account for thisstore getting 10,000 texts and
this store getting three textsor 10 texts because of who you
have opt-in?
But that's one thing that issuper easy to pull the trigger
(12:41):
on is not just having email asyour communication tool, but
anything kind of within yourtech stack and then using them.
That's a big thing.
We have lots of technology inrestaurants that sometimes we
just don't have the humanresources to use.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Sometimes I feel like restaurants become a big
mansion where it's like, oh yeah, we have that room, but we just
don't ever go in that room.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
All the time I'll find a piece of functionality
that PS has been part of ourever-growing list of SaaS fees
and, oh my gosh, we haven'tpulled that lever.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, and I think that's something that I always
recommend to people is go andtalk to all your vendors, find
out what they do.
People is go and talk to allyour vendors, find out what they
do, because, as someone that isbuilding a B2B SaaS company
focusing the restaurant space,we have an entire team of people
that is just focused onbuilding new stuff at Ovation
(13:40):
and what happens is we build thestuff, we launch the stuff and
then we forget to really letpeople know that we have this
stuff, and then so we go a fewmonths and people are like man
Zach, do you know of anyone thatdoes text marketing?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
And I'm like oh my God, that happened with you and
I a couple months ago.
I was like who should I use fortext marketing?
And you're like you're alreadypaying ovation.
And I'm like no, no, no, no, no, not related to customer
feedback, actual text marketing.
And you're like Stace, we dothat, we do that and this is not
(14:17):
a commercial for ovation, butlet's make it a commercial for
ovation.
I had no idea.
And again, we're all so busyand pulled so thin that
sometimes you're not havingthose kind of follow-up calls or
regular calls with your vendorsto know what the capabilities
are, especially in small brands.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, because what happens is, again, maybe you
have a monthly meeting with eachvendor, and so you're like, oh,
I feel like I know what they'redoing, but the problem is, on
those monthly meetings, what areyou doing, stacey?
You're like, okay, we have thisthing we need to send out.
We got this problem.
This location isn't doing this,and so, like you're doing very
tactical things, make sure thatyou're taking a step back with
each of your vendors to say, hey, here are my goals as a brand,
(15:00):
how can you help me achievethese goals?
And hey, is there anything thatwe're not using that you're
doing?
And hey, is there anything thatwe're not using that you're
doing?
Because I promise you, it's alot easier to work with a vendor
that you're already workingwith and make it better, unless
you know, like we work withpeople all the time who they
work with, great vendors who dolong form surveys but at the end
(15:21):
of the day, like guests justdon't want to take a long survey
, and so that's the thing oflike, if the vendor isn't doing
what fundamentally is going tocreate a better brand for
yourself, then, yeah, switchvendors.
But I would say, start off byfiguring out what your vendors
do, because they really do wantto partner with you, and if they
don't, then that's a good signthey're probably not a good
(15:42):
place for you.
So really good, you threw outlike half a dozen tactics there.
Love that.
Now here comes the hard question, stacey Okay right, because you
know everyone.
Everyone knows you.
Who deserves an ovation in therestaurant industry?
Who's someone that we should befollowing?
Speaker 2 (16:03):
You're gonna make me play favorites, but I'm gonna
play favorites.
I mean, it's really got to bethe team at Garden Catering
right now, specifically Tina.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Love Tina.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I love Tina so much and she is the COO of Garden
Caterings.
She's got two little kids.
Her daughter was diagnosed withleukemia two years ago.
So big projects that she and Ihave worked on together are
raising funds for organizationsthat help kids with cancer.
And she is smart and works herass off and, yeah, I have just
(16:41):
mad respect for her as a workingwoman and as a mom and so if I
was going to give an ovation, itwould be to Tina.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
She's amazing, and the brand is amazing, and she's
amazing and so, anyway, well,well deserved, totally applaud
that ovation, pun intended.
So, stacey, where can people goto follow your musings?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Oh God.
So I decided, after launchingCalifornia Tortillas social
presence in 2008 as a whim whichis what I credit my entire
career to to maybe I didn't needto be.
I'm kind of quiet on social andLinkedIn, but if you need
anything, just give me a shoutat Stacey S-T-A-C-E-Y at
(17:27):
GoStacyCaincom.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
That is Cain with a K .
Yeah, like citizen.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
There we go Awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, Stacy, for giving us just a dose of your
amazing personality to remind usto help our brand find its
personality.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGive an Ovation.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Thanks, Zach, Thanks for joining us on Give an
Ovation.
Thanks, Zach.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Thanks for joining us today.
If you liked this episode,leave us a review on Apple
Podcasts or your favorite placeto listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question, sms-basedactionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast, where I talk to
industry experts to get theirstrategies and tactics you can
use to create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is sponsored byOvation, an operations and guest
recovery platform formulti-unit restaurants that
gives all the answers withoutannoying guests with all the
(00:21):
questions.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
Today we have a good friend, amentor and someone who one time
yanked me out of a hallway tocome onto my own panel Stacey
Cain, a fractional CMO forEmerging and Beyond Brand.
Sixth time she was voted thetop 25 restaurant executives and
and I think her most proudmoment to date was being voted
(00:45):
best dressed at the 2024 FastCasual Movers and Shakers Gala.
It's true, that was amazing.
Who did you win that with?
Who was your counterpart?
I always forget who was yourcounterpart.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
A man with really good hair.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh was Sterling.
Was Sterling Douglas.
Did he win along with you?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
No, a little bit closer to home there, Zach.
Oh wow, Look at that award, ohmy goodness, that's right,
mine's a dress and yours is abow tie.
Perhaps in post you couldinsert our beautiful photograph
from that evening.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh yeah, we do have a great photo together where you
won best dressed and I won bestdressed.
You deserved it, I paid for it.
It is what it is 100%.
It's now my Facebook coverphoto of you and I oh my gosh, I
didn't even know that.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So the only person who actually sees it.
There is probably my mom, butyou know, there you go.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
That's awesome.
Well, Stacey, thanks forjoining us today.
I know that you've got a lot onyour plate, and why don't you
just talk to me a little bitabout?
You do have a lot on your plate.
What is that lot?
What kinds of brands do youwork with and what do you do for
them?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, most of them are small, sub 30 units, and
they're kind of in either thisemerging status or meaning
they're starting to grow, orthey're kind of holding steady
that they're family owned or notfranchised.
So I go into brands in a coupleof different ways.
(02:13):
Some of them don't havemarketing departments so I
become their marketingdepartment, some meaning I'm
sending the email at two o'clockin the morning or I'm directing
a social media content person.
And then in some brands I'mmentoring somebody who's in
house, like with fresh baguette,that really quickly growing
(02:37):
French bakery out of DC.
Or in the case of Ziggy's, I'macting as leadership for a
robust team.
They have about 12 people ontheir marketing team and they
just needed somebody withexperience to come in there and
say this is where you sit, thisis where you sit, here's what
our brand means, the big picturestuff.
(02:58):
So it's one of those three waysand right now I have somewhere
around eight or nine brands invarious different capacities.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
You've been in this industry for a while and are you
just trying to say I'm old.
No, what I'm trying to say islike I feel like everywhere I go
, any discussion about marketingfor restaurants, stacey Cain is
involved.
People are talking about her,or Stacey Cain is talking, and I
think that it's really powerfulto get that broad perspective
(03:33):
on what's working and what's notworking.
When you enter a brand, whatare some of the things that you
look at to say here are thingsthat we could look at for some
low hanging fruit, where I knowthat restaurants are
consistently getting thesethings wrong.
What do you look at there?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Well, one of the first things that I do when I
come into a brand is try tofigure out who they are.
And I don't mean like whoeverybody is, who's running it,
but who are they as a brand?
So what's their mission, what'stheir vision, what is their
brand personality?
That's a big thing actually.
Brand personality Like how isthat brand reflected to the
(04:13):
consumer?
So you could have like 10different social media people,
another copywriter and somebodyelse who's designing POP, and
they've never had the discussionof what's our brand voice.
So for the first probably month, it's uncovering that If a
(04:33):
brand doesn't have a mission ora vision or any of that kind of
preliminary stuff done, thenI'll come in and do that.
That's what I like to get tothe heart of, because it affects
everything.
It affects guest experienceTotally, it affects your content
strategy, but what it reallyaffects is how people become
(04:58):
loyal, or why people becomeloyal to your brand.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
How do you take someone down that journey,
stacey?
So let's say that I've beenaround for five, six years, I'm
growing, I've got a fewlocations, things are going well
, and maybe I'm looking back andI'm thinking, oh boy, like I
don't know if I have all thisstuff written down, it's kind of
just been what is mypersonality?
Sure, how do you thentransition to something that's
(05:23):
growing and documented andtranslatable?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well, as with any good superhero movie, we start
with the origin story, so I justdid this presentation.
It's like how did Peter Parkerbecome Spider-Man?
So he became Spider-Man notonly because he was bitten by a
spider by a radioactive spiderbut it was because he saw Uncle
(05:49):
Ben get murdered and he didn'tdo anything about it.
Those two things came together.
He became a person who helpspeople.
Because of the guilt when I gointo a brand, I don't want to
know what you did last month.
I want to know why did youfound this brand this way, and
(06:10):
what were the first couple ofmonths, years like?
Because that normally dictates,kind of everything.
Founder stories are soimportant in this kind of work,
and so, look, you've known me along time.
I don't have like highemotional IQ, I'm very down and
dirty kind of person, but thesekind of conversations are really
(06:35):
important because people wantto do business that they connect
with.
So those are the kinds ofstories that we go in and try to
figure out.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Interesting.
I think that is a reallypowerful super tactical thing
that everyone can take away fromthis of like find the origin
story and there within is themission, and in those early
sproutlings of the dream is thevision.
Go back to that.
(07:11):
That just gives everyone areason, something to hold on to,
and when you're all holding onto that same thread that ties
everything together, it's a loteasier to move in the right
direction.
It's a lot easier to trainpeople, because then
everything's connected to thewhy.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, everybody's all Simon Sinek up in here.
You know we've all been SimonSinek and love him and he
changed the way a lot of us lookat brand and why we do what we
do.
So I love that.
But, yes, it all comes back towhy it also helps.
This origin story, this mission, this vision, help with core
(07:43):
values, right, that become thatlitmus test for every business
decision we make, right?
So who you hire, how you trainthem, all of that comes from the
core values and how we want tointeract with our guests.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, because at the end of the day, it's all about
the guest experience, andeverything that we're doing
boils down to that.
So, as you think about guestexperience nowadays, what do you
think are some of the mostimportant things to keep in mind
as people are building theirrestaurant brand?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I think this concept of one size fits all is not the
case anymore.
I think we have amulti-generational consumer base
and we need to make sure thatwe're truly meeting people where
they're at, in all touch points, having things like, for
example, I have Mamoun's, theoldest falafel shop in New York
(08:39):
City, still run and owned by thesame family, and they realized
that people want to orderdifferently, whether not just
online or in the restaurant, butalso within the restaurant,
four walls itself.
So they were founded in 1971.
And two years ago put veryrobust kiosks in because there's
(09:01):
a segment of the population,especially in New York, dense
population that wants to order,doesn't want to talk to anybody,
just literally wants to go to akiosk, pick what they want and
get it quickly, without everhaving a human interaction.
Although I would say Mamoun'salways has some sort of personal
(09:23):
touch in there.
I would say, like, from a guestexperience perspective, you
need to realize that one sizedoes not fit all.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, and the
whole concept of meeting guestswhere they're at is a cliche,
and cliches are cliches becausethey withstand the test of time
and they withstand the test ofconsumers, and so I think that
meeting them where they're at isreally important.
And how would you boil thatdown to any tactics?
Someone's listening to this andthey say all right, stacey.
(09:52):
I love this conversation aboutbrand voice and about
understanding how to meet theguests where they're at.
But, like, what can I do aboutthat in my restaurant this week?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
This week.
Wow, that's a really quickturnaround.
Nice deadline there, zach.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Well, okay, how can I start?
What can I start planning onthis week to actually improve
the guest experience?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
It's funny that you say that One of my brands I've
been working with.
We just realized this today.
I started with CaliforniaTortilla in 2007.
And they were my first kind ofleadership role, so I was the VP
of marketing there for a longtime and it's their 30th
anniversary and we areresurrecting all of the old
(10:37):
wacky promos that we did back inthe day.
We're resurrecting them allthis whole like kind of play on
nostalgia.
So one of the things that we'redoing for March Madness is
we're bringing basketball hoopsinto the Nerf, basketball hoops
(10:59):
into the restaurant and forMarch Madness you'll be shooting
hoops for various prizes.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Super tactical.
It's easy to do in one or tworestaurants.
It's nuts to do it in a smallchain.
But we're doing it because wedid it in 2008.
And I know this because wefound the video pre-pandemic
Instagram, actually pre-Facebook.
We found the YouTube video thatwe produced in 2008 and we're
(11:29):
repurposing it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Oh my gosh, it's all grainy and like terribly shot.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So things like that.
I think again, if your mission,vision, brand values and voice
line up with doing something funand interactive, it's really
easy to do Having a wheel on areally slow night, super
engaging, People love it.
You come in, you make apurchase, you spin a wheel, you
win something for a bounce back.
(11:57):
Oh, interesting that's supertactical If you want to talk
about something you could doimmediately.
I think bigger picture thingsis.
I always go back tocommunications, communications.
So a lot of brands, especiallyin the franchise space.
It's hard to especially in theemerging franchise space, let's
(12:17):
put it that way it's hard tofigure out the dollars and cents
of text marketing.
You have one big creative fund.
How do we account for thisstore getting 10,000 texts and
this store getting three textsor 10 texts because of who you
have opt-in?
But that's one thing that issuper easy to pull the trigger
(12:41):
on is not just having email asyour communication tool, but
anything kind of within yourtech stack and then using them.
That's a big thing.
We have lots of technology inrestaurants that sometimes we
just don't have the humanresources to use.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Sometimes I feel like restaurants become a big
mansion where it's like, oh yeah, we have that room, but we just
don't ever go in that room.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
All the time I'll find a piece of functionality
that PS has been part of ourever-growing list of SaaS fees
and, oh my gosh, we haven'tpulled that lever.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, and I think that's something that I always
recommend to people is go andtalk to all your vendors, find
out what they do.
People is go and talk to allyour vendors, find out what they
do, because, as someone that isbuilding a B2B SaaS company
focusing the restaurant space,we have an entire team of people
that is just focused onbuilding new stuff at Ovation
(13:40):
and what happens is we build thestuff, we launch the stuff and
then we forget to really letpeople know that we have this
stuff, and then so we go a fewmonths and people are like man
Zach, do you know of anyone thatdoes text marketing?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
And I'm like oh my God, that happened with you and
I a couple months ago.
I was like who should I use fortext marketing?
And you're like you're alreadypaying ovation.
And I'm like no, no, no, no, no, not related to customer
feedback, actual text marketing.
And you're like Stace, we dothat, we do that and this is not
(14:17):
a commercial for ovation, butlet's make it a commercial for
ovation.
I had no idea.
And again, we're all so busyand pulled so thin that
sometimes you're not havingthose kind of follow-up calls or
regular calls with your vendorsto know what the capabilities
are, especially in small brands.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, because what happens is, again, maybe you
have a monthly meeting with eachvendor, and so you're like, oh,
I feel like I know what they'redoing, but the problem is, on
those monthly meetings, what areyou doing, stacey?
You're like, okay, we have thisthing we need to send out.
We got this problem.
This location isn't doing this,and so, like you're doing very
tactical things, make sure thatyou're taking a step back with
each of your vendors to say, hey, here are my goals as a brand,
(15:00):
how can you help me achievethese goals?
And hey, is there anything thatwe're not using that you're
doing?
And hey, is there anything thatwe're not using that you're
doing?
Because I promise you, it's alot easier to work with a vendor
that you're already workingwith and make it better, unless
you know, like we work withpeople all the time who they
work with, great vendors who dolong form surveys but at the end
(15:21):
of the day, like guests justdon't want to take a long survey
, and so that's the thing oflike, if the vendor isn't doing
what fundamentally is going tocreate a better brand for
yourself, then, yeah, switchvendors.
But I would say, start off byfiguring out what your vendors
do, because they really do wantto partner with you, and if they
don't, then that's a good signthey're probably not a good
(15:42):
place for you.
So really good, you threw outlike half a dozen tactics there.
Love that.
Now here comes the hard question, stacey Okay right, because you
know everyone.
Everyone knows you.
Who deserves an ovation in therestaurant industry?
Who's someone that we should befollowing?
Speaker 2 (16:03):
You're gonna make me play favorites, but I'm gonna
play favorites.
I mean, it's really got to bethe team at Garden Catering
right now, specifically Tina.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Love Tina.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I love Tina so much and she is the COO of Garden
Caterings.
She's got two little kids.
Her daughter was diagnosed withleukemia two years ago.
So big projects that she and Ihave worked on together are
raising funds for organizationsthat help kids with cancer.
And she is smart and works herass off and, yeah, I have just
(16:41):
mad respect for her as a workingwoman and as a mom and so if I
was going to give an ovation, itwould be to Tina.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
She's amazing, and the brand is amazing, and she's
amazing and so, anyway, well,well deserved, totally applaud
that ovation, pun intended.
So, stacey, where can people goto follow your musings?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Oh God.
So I decided, after launchingCalifornia Tortillas social
presence in 2008 as a whim whichis what I credit my entire
career to to maybe I didn't needto be.
I'm kind of quiet on social andLinkedIn, but if you need
anything, just give me a shoutat Stacey S-T-A-C-E-Y at
(17:27):
GoStacyCaincom.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
That is Cain with a K .
Yeah, like citizen.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
There we go Awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, Stacy, for giving us just a dose of your
amazing personality to remind usto help our brand find its
personality.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you for joining us onGive an Ovation.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Thanks, Zach, Thanks for joining us on Give an
Ovation.
Thanks, Zach.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Thanks for joining us today.
If you liked this episode,leave us a review on Apple
Podcasts or your favorite placeto listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
two-question, sms-basedactionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
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