April 23, 2025 • 15 mins
Sebastian Stahl, former hospitality operator and now founder of Breadth, joins the show to talk about how restaurants can build marketing systems that actually work. As the host of Restaurant Leaders Unplugged, Sebastian shares how guest experience starts long before a diner walks through the door—and how to align your team, tech, and messaging to make every touchpoint count.
Zack and Sebastian discuss:
- Why systems are the foundation of strong marketing
- How to plan campaigns instead of winging them
- The role of tech in enhancing guest experience
- Why every touchpoint shapes brand perception
- How to scale hospitality with the right people
- The connection between employee and guest experience
Tune in to hear Sebastian’s operations-first take on restaurant marketing and how structure creates standout experiences.
Thanks, Sebastian!
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 questions Learnmore at OvationUpcom.
(00:22):
With all the questions Learnmore at OvationUpcom.
And today's guest is SebastianStahl, former hospitality leader
, now founder and CEO of Breadth, where he helps restaurants
with data driven marketing, andhe is also an author and podcast
host of Restaurant LeadersUnplugged.
Welcome to the show, sebastian.
How are you man.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey Zach, Thank you, man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You have such a great podcast one that I look up to,
and I'm so honored to have youon this podcast, and I'm trying
to put my best foot forward here, because I know you got some
real notes.
I feel like I'm just dancing inthe club and I got a
professional dancer here with me, so, anyway, I'm excited to
chat, man, let's do it.
So talk to me a little bitabout breadth, and one of the
(01:05):
things that I would love to getyour thoughts on are what do you
see a lot of restaurant brandsgetting wrong when it comes to
marketing?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So, zach, I mean there's the basics right.
More than anything, it dependson the size of operators, but
usually small operators.
The problem is that they justdon't have a plan.
There's no structure.
They're just kind of wingingmarketing with whatever they
have, like there's any emails,there's maybe collecting some
customer data there, maybe havesome promotions going on, just
because they come up with it,but it's just very disorganized
(01:33):
and there's no structure.
And I understand, because itcould get busy once you're
operating and let's say youdon't have a marketing team or
anybody that's helping you.
You really don't have the time.
So you're just kind of jugglingand just putting things
together as you go.
And then you plan late, right,let's say they're doing
something for Valentine's orMother's Day, whatever it is.
They're planning way late andthey're just going out with what
they can and they're justexpecting for that to work.
So the thing is, and it's likeeverything in the restaurant
(01:56):
business, it's like right, it'ssystems.
You're going to fall below thelevel of your systems.
So if you don't build those,then you're not going to be able
to get marketing right.
And it's not that complicated.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's really interesting.
So systems you rarely hearsomeone who talks about
marketing also talking aboutsystems.
Isn't marketing the fun thingand systems the boring thing?
Like why is a marketing guy?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
talking about systems .
Yeah, yeah, because it'severything right.
Because everything out there,man, like all the shiny stuff,
right, tiktok, whatever platformcomes out, is a channel.
That's all that is.
So if you don't have the rightstructure and systems in place,
you're not even going to knowhow to leverage that channel
properly.
So it's about buildingsomething right Again, a
(02:42):
structure where you can say,okay, this is where my
restaurant is at right now,these are the opportunities.
Let's say, if it's going to beone of my day parts, if it's
going to be private events, ifit's going to be what revenue
center, is there an opportunityfor my type of concept in my
restaurant?
So once you identify that, okay, now let's build a plan that's
going to address thoseopportunities that I find and
(03:04):
it's going to vary, of course,by concept, because a fast
casual is going to be verydifferent than a full service
restaurant.
So once you do that, okay, howare we going to address this?
Okay, we need to generate,let's say, more private event
leads for a full servicerestaurant.
Hey, we need to really do ourholiday promotions, execute them
really well.
We have a great chef, let's do amenu, let's do all these things
.
So once you start putting allthose things together, then you
(03:26):
can create a plan and you cancreate now a calendar of the
things you're going to be doingevery single month, because,
really, restaurant marketing isabout having always an excuse to
bring people back and talkingto them, engaging with them.
That's what we're doing here.
So once you have that in placenow, okay, how am I going to
communicate these things to myaudience?
So you need to, first, ofcourse, define your audience.
(03:46):
You need to leverage all yourcustomer database right If
you're collecting data.
If not, you need to go back tostep one, which is collect all
your customer data right.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Step zero, right.
It's almost like you needcustomer data before you even
need like food, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
A hundred percent, exactly.
I know you're all aboutcustomer data, so like that's
the name of the game.
So, again, going back tosystems, you need a system to
gather customer data.
Now, once you have that, thenyou say, okay, what channels am
I going to use to communicatethis?
Do I have a customer database?
Okay, email, great.
I can use the data also forretargeting, for ads.
Okay, my Google listing mywebsite.
(04:21):
I need to be in all thesedifferent channels where people
are seeing my stuff, basically,and send all that messaging.
It needs to be coherent, itneeds to be cohesive, it needs
to be the same messaging forevery channel.
It's not that complex, butagain, it just requires planning
and then systems.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I love that because systems are so key and, at the
end of the day, when we look ateverything we do in restaurants,
systems are so key and, at theend of the day, when we look at
everything we do in restaurantsfrom the systems we put into the
team to the ingredients that wechoose it's all about creating
a great guest experience, and soI'd love to dive into that a
little bit with you, sebastian,as you're looking at the guest
experience in restaurants.
What do you think is the mostimportant aspect of guest
(05:01):
experience nowadays?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Listen, I think it still goes back to the same
thing as it always meant.
We're in the hospitalitybusiness, in the people business
, so it's about being presentwith your guests, learning about
your guests, understanding yourguests right so we can provide
the best guest experience.
And, as you know, I've been inthe restaurant business.
I was in the restaurantbusiness for a really long time
(05:22):
guest experience.
As you know, I've been in therestaurant business, I was in
the restaurant business for areally long time, yeah, so it's
about foreseeing those needs andmeeting them.
You can have great food, a greatplace, a beautiful restaurant,
but everything that reallycreates a guest experience is
that personal touch.
Now technology we're going toget into that, of course.
You need to leverage it now soyou can create the best possible
(05:44):
guest experience and I thinkthose two can coexist the
personal touch and technology soyou can even provide a much
better guest experience.
And I know that's what you guysare about as well,
understanding that you'rebuilding relationships with
people.
It's not just about atransaction, and I know that can
(06:06):
be challenging when you have afull restaurant, right,
no-transcript.
Again, going back to systems,if you've developed them
properly, then you can providethe proper guest experience when
people go visit you at therestaurant.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Even if it's tough, even if it's tough to train on
that, even if it's tough toimplement some of these things,
when you can understand who isyour guest and why are they
coming in, so when you can startwith the desire of the guest
and then you create that thingthat's going to fulfill that.
And a lot of times, what peopleare doing is they want to feel
(06:40):
heard, they want to feel seenWill Guderia talks about that
all the time is helping yourguests feel seen, and that's
what hospitality really is.
And technology can either bethere to distract your team and
distract your guest or theycould be there to enhance the
team and the guest experience.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
When I was running restaurants.
Again, it's about buildingthose relationships.
Every guest that came to ourrestaurant, I was appreciative
of them, because it's aboutappreciating that they're coming
to see you among all theseother options that they have,
and they're coming to check youout.
They're recurring guests, evenmore so, because now it's like,
dude, thank you for coming tosee you among all these other
options that they have andthey're coming to check you out.
If they're recurring guests,even more so, because now it's
like, dude, thank you for comingto see again.
(07:21):
Like, yes, we're providing anamazing experience, but they're
choosing to see, to go see right, to spend money at your
restaurant.
So it's really aboutacknowledging that.
So, of course, you, as the owner, can go and like talk to any
guests and you can do thatreally quickly, right, because
those, as owners, like we, justknow how to connect with their
guests.
But how do you train your teamto do the same?
(07:41):
Yes, exactly how do you scalethat?
I think, zach, that goes backto hiring.
It's just finding the peoplethat are in line with your
values and who you are as aperson and as a concept.
So then it's going to be mucheasier for them to deliver on
your promise and deliver thatguest experience.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, and I think that that's what it really comes
down to is so many times onthese podcasts where we're over
350 episodes in, and so often wetalk about the people because
we understand you got to hirethe right people.
It is too expensive to hire thewrong person.
So if you're choosing between amaybe good fit and no one, pick
(08:27):
no one, because no one isbetter than the wrong one.
And I think that's somethingthat in restaurants and in life
and in business in general, thecustomer experience can never
exceed the employee experience,and that employee experience it
doesn't mean you don't hire thisperson.
It's okay, in fact, to go anextra month without a hire
(09:02):
because hiring the wrong personit's too expensive, it creates
really negative guestexperiences and it hurts the
team morale.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
A hundred percent.
And if you want to circle itback to marketing your team is a
representation of your brand.
Any experience that they havewith anybody from your team,
they're going to associate itimmediately with your brand.
So that server sucked.
No, they're going to say thatrestaurant sucked, their service
sucked.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yes, exactly, it tarnishes way too much.
And so, thinking about this andthinking about the marketing
and the systems and the peopleand all of this boils down to
the guest experience what aresome tactics that you would use?
So what are some things thatrestaurant operators that are
listening right now can walkaway and say, oh, that's
something I could do?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So it's developing a system because the guest
experience is going to beaffected in every single
touchpoint, not just in the fourwalls but also through any
contact that you have, anytouchpoint that you have with
them.
So may that be through somebodycalling the restaurant and
asking a question about whatever, just trying to make a
(10:09):
reservation, just trying to makea reservation.
You know, listen, you don'tknow how many times we've ran
campaigns for clients and forsummer restaurants and they
would have, let's say, forMother's Day and they had a
special or whatever it is theycame up with and people would
call and the hosts would answerand we would record the call.
So we know we can track theguest experience where we're
listening into what's happeningand it's like, sorry, what menu,
what is it?
And they wouldn't even knowwhat is it and they wouldn't
(10:33):
even know.
So that already messed up thewhole guest experience right
there.
It's mapping out all yourcustomer touch points and making
sure that all of these arecoherent and that everybody that
has a contact with a guest ison the same page.
Now, if that's a text messageand automation, same thing.
If that's somebody responding.
A community manager respondingto your social media comments,
(10:54):
same deal.
If that's somebody responding acommunity manager responding to
your social media comments samedeal.
If it's somebody replying toyour guest's feedback same thing
.
There needs to be a process inplace for every single
touchpoint in the restaurant andoutside the restaurant, with
all your guests right, or evenpotential guests.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I love that because the worst time to train your
staff is when they go back tothe manager and say a customer
said this.
What does that mean?
Right, it's like it seems soobvious.
But again to your point, andthis is why I love that you
started with systems.
If you don't have a good systemfor training your team for
getting that communication outthere, it's impossible.
(11:31):
There's too much of a game oftelephone is if you get it from
the top all the way down to thebottom, but you have to
streamline that.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Again, it's SOPs, right.
Develop SOPs for every singletouchpoint and so everybody
knows what they need to do andsay hire the right people, of
course, so they can do and saythe right things, and so
everybody knows what to do atevery touchpoint.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, and if it's?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
going to be all the other touch points that are not
somebody actually interactingwith them.
If it's your website, if it'syour private events page, they
have all the information thatthey need.
Whatever it is, everythingneeds to have a process, a
system and a way of consistentlybe able to respond to your
guests in the right way.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
This is just a masterclass right now, listening
to you in terms of how to thinkabout marketing and it not just
being this creative, fluffything, because you're coming at
this as a restaurant operator,like you've done this, you've
been there, you're not justspeaking at this from a
theoretical hey, I got my degreein marketing and here's what we
should do, but, like, you'verun restaurants before and
(12:38):
that's why I think that when youthink about a restaurant, a
restaurant really is 90%operations and 10% marketing.
If you were going to bucket itinto those two things because
it's good, you can come up withthe most creative campaigns, but
if people aren't executing onit consistently to meet the
expectations of the guest, youwon't be around for long.
(12:59):
So I think this has beenawesome.
Now, sebastian, wrapping uphere, you know so many people in
this industry still having agreat career.
Who's someone that we should befollowing.
Who's someone that deserves anovation.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I would say there's a couple of people that I really
like in the industry man that Ido follow.
David Scott Peters is one.
He's a restaurant coach and Ithink he's fantastic.
Dsp is the man.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I just hung out with him last week in Vegas.
He's just so cool, so sharp.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
He is man, he is super sharp.
And then there's another greatguy we interview actually on our
podcast.
His name is Arjun Sen.
He goes beyond just restaurantbranding.
His deal is branding.
His life story is spectacular.
He went through, I think, 23surgeries beat cancer, like all
these things.
So, his wisdom beyond marketing, beyond strategy and branding,
(13:47):
is something else.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
What's his name again ?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Arjun A-R-J-U-N.
They even made a movie out ofhis life.
Arjun A-R-J-U-N they even madea movie out of his life.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
It's called Arjun.
His name is Arjun Sen.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, so check him out.
I would definitely have him onyour podcast if you can, because
you're going to really enjoythat conversation.
I did a lot From Zen Mango Yep.
Okay, he used to be VP of PapaJohn's at some point, so he was
up in the corporate ladder atsome point with big restaurant
chains and then he founded hisown company.
There's a whole story behindthat and there's a story he
(14:20):
wrote, also a book.
He wrote about experience withhis daughter and how he helped
them see that he was not beingpresent in her life and showed
him that he was just so focusedon climbing up the corporate
ladder so he really changed hiswhole philosophy and it was just
a beautiful story man, sodefinitely recommend to talk to
him.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Well, I'm excited to go chat with him because we got
our MBA from the same place.
We both went to BYU to get ourMBA.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So small world here.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, yeah, awesome.
And now, Sebastian, where canpeople go find and follow you
and where could they find yourpodcast?
It's the Restaurant LeadersUnplugged podcast.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, restaurant Leaders Unplugged podcast.
Yeah, restaurant LeadersUnplugged.
You can look it up anywhereYouTube, spotify, apple podcast,
whatever any of those channelsit's there.
And then you can find us.
If you need help with themarketing for your restaurant,
building your systems andstructure and execution, you can
find us on breathmarketingcom,and that's it, zach awesome well
, sebastian, for helping us stayplugged into Restaurant Leaders
with your Restaurant LeadersUnplugged podcast.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you so much for joiningus on Given Ovation.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Thanks, Zach Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
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
(15:47):
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 questions Learnmore at OvationUpcom.
(00:22):
With all the questions Learnmore at OvationUpcom.
And today's guest is SebastianStahl, former hospitality leader
, now founder and CEO of Breadth, where he helps restaurants
with data driven marketing, andhe is also an author and podcast
host of Restaurant LeadersUnplugged.
Welcome to the show, sebastian.
How are you man.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hey Zach, Thank you, man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You have such a great podcast one that I look up to,
and I'm so honored to have youon this podcast, and I'm trying
to put my best foot forward here, because I know you got some
real notes.
I feel like I'm just dancing inthe club and I got a
professional dancer here with me, so, anyway, I'm excited to
chat, man, let's do it.
So talk to me a little bitabout breadth, and one of the
(01:05):
things that I would love to getyour thoughts on are what do you
see a lot of restaurant brandsgetting wrong when it comes to
marketing?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So, zach, I mean there's the basics right.
More than anything, it dependson the size of operators, but
usually small operators.
The problem is that they justdon't have a plan.
There's no structure.
They're just kind of wingingmarketing with whatever they
have, like there's any emails,there's maybe collecting some
customer data there, maybe havesome promotions going on, just
because they come up with it,but it's just very disorganized
(01:33):
and there's no structure.
And I understand, because itcould get busy once you're
operating and let's say youdon't have a marketing team or
anybody that's helping you.
You really don't have the time.
So you're just kind of jugglingand just putting things
together as you go.
And then you plan late, right,let's say they're doing
something for Valentine's orMother's Day, whatever it is.
They're planning way late andthey're just going out with what
they can and they're justexpecting for that to work.
So the thing is, and it's likeeverything in the restaurant
(01:56):
business, it's like right, it'ssystems.
You're going to fall below thelevel of your systems.
So if you don't build those,then you're not going to be able
to get marketing right.
And it's not that complicated.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's really interesting.
So systems you rarely hearsomeone who talks about
marketing also talking aboutsystems.
Isn't marketing the fun thingand systems the boring thing?
Like why is a marketing guy?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
talking about systems .
Yeah, yeah, because it'severything right.
Because everything out there,man, like all the shiny stuff,
right, tiktok, whatever platformcomes out, is a channel.
That's all that is.
So if you don't have the rightstructure and systems in place,
you're not even going to knowhow to leverage that channel
properly.
So it's about buildingsomething right Again, a
(02:42):
structure where you can say,okay, this is where my
restaurant is at right now,these are the opportunities.
Let's say, if it's going to beone of my day parts, if it's
going to be private events, ifit's going to be what revenue
center, is there an opportunityfor my type of concept in my
restaurant?
So once you identify that, okay, now let's build a plan that's
going to address thoseopportunities that I find and
(03:04):
it's going to vary, of course,by concept, because a fast
casual is going to be verydifferent than a full service
restaurant.
So once you do that, okay, howare we going to address this?
Okay, we need to generate,let's say, more private event
leads for a full servicerestaurant.
Hey, we need to really do ourholiday promotions, execute them
really well.
We have a great chef, let's do amenu, let's do all these things
.
So once you start putting allthose things together, then you
(03:26):
can create a plan and you cancreate now a calendar of the
things you're going to be doingevery single month, because,
really, restaurant marketing isabout having always an excuse to
bring people back and talkingto them, engaging with them.
That's what we're doing here.
So once you have that in placenow, okay, how am I going to
communicate these things to myaudience?
So you need to, first, ofcourse, define your audience.
(03:46):
You need to leverage all yourcustomer database right If
you're collecting data.
If not, you need to go back tostep one, which is collect all
your customer data right.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Step zero, right.
It's almost like you needcustomer data before you even
need like food, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
A hundred percent, exactly.
I know you're all aboutcustomer data, so like that's
the name of the game.
So, again, going back tosystems, you need a system to
gather customer data.
Now, once you have that, thenyou say, okay, what channels am
I going to use to communicatethis?
Do I have a customer database?
Okay, email, great.
I can use the data also forretargeting, for ads.
Okay, my Google listing mywebsite.
(04:21):
I need to be in all thesedifferent channels where people
are seeing my stuff, basically,and send all that messaging.
It needs to be coherent, itneeds to be cohesive, it needs
to be the same messaging forevery channel.
It's not that complex, butagain, it just requires planning
and then systems.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I love that because systems are so key and, at the
end of the day, when we look ateverything we do in restaurants,
systems are so key and, at theend of the day, when we look at
everything we do in restaurantsfrom the systems we put into the
team to the ingredients that wechoose it's all about creating
a great guest experience, and soI'd love to dive into that a
little bit with you, sebastian,as you're looking at the guest
experience in restaurants.
What do you think is the mostimportant aspect of guest
(05:01):
experience nowadays?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Listen, I think it still goes back to the same
thing as it always meant.
We're in the hospitalitybusiness, in the people business
, so it's about being presentwith your guests, learning about
your guests, understanding yourguests right so we can provide
the best guest experience.
And, as you know, I've been inthe restaurant business.
I was in the restaurantbusiness for a really long time
(05:22):
guest experience.
As you know, I've been in therestaurant business, I was in
the restaurant business for areally long time, yeah, so it's
about foreseeing those needs andmeeting them.
You can have great food, a greatplace, a beautiful restaurant,
but everything that reallycreates a guest experience is
that personal touch.
Now technology we're going toget into that, of course.
You need to leverage it now soyou can create the best possible
(05:44):
guest experience and I thinkthose two can coexist the
personal touch and technology soyou can even provide a much
better guest experience.
And I know that's what you guysare about as well,
understanding that you'rebuilding relationships with
people.
It's not just about atransaction, and I know that can
(06:06):
be challenging when you have afull restaurant, right,
no-transcript.
Again, going back to systems,if you've developed them
properly, then you can providethe proper guest experience when
people go visit you at therestaurant.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Even if it's tough, even if it's tough to train on
that, even if it's tough toimplement some of these things,
when you can understand who isyour guest and why are they
coming in, so when you can startwith the desire of the guest
and then you create that thingthat's going to fulfill that.
And a lot of times, what peopleare doing is they want to feel
(06:40):
heard, they want to feel seenWill Guderia talks about that
all the time is helping yourguests feel seen, and that's
what hospitality really is.
And technology can either bethere to distract your team and
distract your guest or theycould be there to enhance the
team and the guest experience.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
When I was running restaurants.
Again, it's about buildingthose relationships.
Every guest that came to ourrestaurant, I was appreciative
of them, because it's aboutappreciating that they're coming
to see you among all theseother options that they have,
and they're coming to check youout.
They're recurring guests, evenmore so, because now it's like,
dude, thank you for coming tosee you among all these other
options that they have andthey're coming to check you out.
If they're recurring guests,even more so, because now it's
like, dude, thank you for comingto see again.
(07:21):
Like, yes, we're providing anamazing experience, but they're
choosing to see, to go see right, to spend money at your
restaurant.
So it's really aboutacknowledging that.
So, of course, you, as the owner, can go and like talk to any
guests and you can do thatreally quickly, right, because
those, as owners, like we, justknow how to connect with their
guests.
But how do you train your teamto do the same?
(07:41):
Yes, exactly how do you scalethat?
I think, zach, that goes backto hiring.
It's just finding the peoplethat are in line with your
values and who you are as aperson and as a concept.
So then it's going to be mucheasier for them to deliver on
your promise and deliver thatguest experience.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, and I think that that's what it really comes
down to is so many times onthese podcasts where we're over
350 episodes in, and so often wetalk about the people because
we understand you got to hirethe right people.
It is too expensive to hire thewrong person.
So if you're choosing between amaybe good fit and no one, pick
(08:27):
no one, because no one isbetter than the wrong one.
And I think that's somethingthat in restaurants and in life
and in business in general, thecustomer experience can never
exceed the employee experience,and that employee experience it
doesn't mean you don't hire thisperson.
It's okay, in fact, to go anextra month without a hire
(09:02):
because hiring the wrong personit's too expensive, it creates
really negative guestexperiences and it hurts the
team morale.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
A hundred percent.
And if you want to circle itback to marketing your team is a
representation of your brand.
Any experience that they havewith anybody from your team,
they're going to associate itimmediately with your brand.
So that server sucked.
No, they're going to say thatrestaurant sucked, their service
sucked.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yes, exactly, it tarnishes way too much.
And so, thinking about this andthinking about the marketing
and the systems and the peopleand all of this boils down to
the guest experience what aresome tactics that you would use?
So what are some things thatrestaurant operators that are
listening right now can walkaway and say, oh, that's
something I could do?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So it's developing a system because the guest
experience is going to beaffected in every single
touchpoint, not just in the fourwalls but also through any
contact that you have, anytouchpoint that you have with
them.
So may that be through somebodycalling the restaurant and
asking a question about whatever, just trying to make a
(10:09):
reservation, just trying to makea reservation.
You know, listen, you don'tknow how many times we've ran
campaigns for clients and forsummer restaurants and they
would have, let's say, forMother's Day and they had a
special or whatever it is theycame up with and people would
call and the hosts would answerand we would record the call.
So we know we can track theguest experience where we're
listening into what's happeningand it's like, sorry, what menu,
what is it?
And they wouldn't even knowwhat is it and they wouldn't
(10:33):
even know.
So that already messed up thewhole guest experience right
there.
It's mapping out all yourcustomer touch points and making
sure that all of these arecoherent and that everybody that
has a contact with a guest ison the same page.
Now, if that's a text messageand automation, same thing.
If that's somebody responding.
A community manager respondingto your social media comments,
(10:54):
same deal.
If that's somebody responding acommunity manager responding to
your social media comments samedeal.
If it's somebody replying toyour guest's feedback same thing
.
There needs to be a process inplace for every single
touchpoint in the restaurant andoutside the restaurant, with
all your guests right, or evenpotential guests.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I love that because the worst time to train your
staff is when they go back tothe manager and say a customer
said this.
What does that mean?
Right, it's like it seems soobvious.
But again to your point, andthis is why I love that you
started with systems.
If you don't have a good systemfor training your team for
getting that communication outthere, it's impossible.
(11:31):
There's too much of a game oftelephone is if you get it from
the top all the way down to thebottom, but you have to
streamline that.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Again, it's SOPs, right.
Develop SOPs for every singletouchpoint and so everybody
knows what they need to do andsay hire the right people, of
course, so they can do and saythe right things, and so
everybody knows what to do atevery touchpoint.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, and if it's?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
going to be all the other touch points that are not
somebody actually interactingwith them.
If it's your website, if it'syour private events page, they
have all the information thatthey need.
Whatever it is, everythingneeds to have a process, a
system and a way of consistentlybe able to respond to your
guests in the right way.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
This is just a masterclass right now, listening
to you in terms of how to thinkabout marketing and it not just
being this creative, fluffything, because you're coming at
this as a restaurant operator,like you've done this, you've
been there, you're not justspeaking at this from a
theoretical hey, I got my degreein marketing and here's what we
should do, but, like, you'verun restaurants before and
(12:38):
that's why I think that when youthink about a restaurant, a
restaurant really is 90%operations and 10% marketing.
If you were going to bucket itinto those two things because
it's good, you can come up withthe most creative campaigns, but
if people aren't executing onit consistently to meet the
expectations of the guest, youwon't be around for long.
(12:59):
So I think this has beenawesome.
Now, sebastian, wrapping uphere, you know so many people in
this industry still having agreat career.
Who's someone that we should befollowing.
Who's someone that deserves anovation.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I would say there's a couple of people that I really
like in the industry man that Ido follow.
David Scott Peters is one.
He's a restaurant coach and Ithink he's fantastic.
Dsp is the man.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I just hung out with him last week in Vegas.
He's just so cool, so sharp.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
He is man, he is super sharp.
And then there's another greatguy we interview actually on our
podcast.
His name is Arjun Sen.
He goes beyond just restaurantbranding.
His deal is branding.
His life story is spectacular.
He went through, I think, 23surgeries beat cancer, like all
these things.
So, his wisdom beyond marketing, beyond strategy and branding,
(13:47):
is something else.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
What's his name again ?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Arjun A-R-J-U-N.
They even made a movie out ofhis life.
Arjun A-R-J-U-N they even madea movie out of his life.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
It's called Arjun.
His name is Arjun Sen.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, so check him out.
I would definitely have him onyour podcast if you can, because
you're going to really enjoythat conversation.
I did a lot From Zen Mango Yep.
Okay, he used to be VP of PapaJohn's at some point, so he was
up in the corporate ladder atsome point with big restaurant
chains and then he founded hisown company.
There's a whole story behindthat and there's a story he
(14:20):
wrote, also a book.
He wrote about experience withhis daughter and how he helped
them see that he was not beingpresent in her life and showed
him that he was just so focusedon climbing up the corporate
ladder so he really changed hiswhole philosophy and it was just
a beautiful story man, sodefinitely recommend to talk to
him.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Well, I'm excited to go chat with him because we got
our MBA from the same place.
We both went to BYU to get ourMBA.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So small world here.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, yeah, awesome.
And now, Sebastian, where canpeople go find and follow you
and where could they find yourpodcast?
It's the Restaurant LeadersUnplugged podcast.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, restaurant Leaders Unplugged podcast.
Yeah, restaurant LeadersUnplugged.
You can look it up anywhereYouTube, spotify, apple podcast,
whatever any of those channelsit's there.
And then you can find us.
If you need help with themarketing for your restaurant,
building your systems andstructure and execution, you can
find us on breathmarketingcom,and that's it, zach awesome well
, sebastian, for helping us stayplugged into Restaurant Leaders
with your Restaurant LeadersUnplugged podcast.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Today's ovation goes to you.
Thank you so much for joiningus on Given Ovation.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Thanks, Zach Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
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
(15:47):
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
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