Scaling Unique Ideas With Passion | Doug Smith, VP & COO, America's Best Restaurants (Podcast 454)

I notoriously get in the office about 7:30, 8:00 clock and leave at 6 or 7:00 o' clock at night. And I always call my wife before I leave. On days where I'm leaving the office at 4:45 or even 5, her first thing was, what's wrong? What do you mean what's wrong? I'm leaving the office. Why, what's wrong? What do you mean? You never leave the office early. I'm like, well, guess what? Because I'm delegating because I've got sick. There are days where I look at the clock and I go, it's 4:30. You know what? I'm done.

On today's episode of Second in Commands.

We are joined by Doug Smith. This was a really, really fun conversation. Doug is a dynamic CEO of a company called America's Best Restaurants. But his journey into that role is anything but typical. He actually spent over 30 years in radio broadcasting, sales, sales, management, before he took a bold leap into the restaurant marketing space in 2019, where he partnered with one of his lifelong friends, Matt. Since then, they have been building America's Best Restaurants into what is now an essential partner for independent restaurants, offering a unique blend of customer acquisition, loyalty programs and social media driven storytelling. Doug officially took on the COO role in early 2024. They had seven employees and they were doing seven figures in revenue and now they have over 50 employees and they're doing eight, eight figures in annual sales. So pretty rapid growth. And while Doug humbly calls himself an infant coo, his commitment to learning, creativity and bold leadership has been absolutely instrumental in the company's growth. So on today's episode, he shares his insights on trying unconventional ideas, being brave, mastering the art of delegation, and inspiring his team while aligning them with the company's vivid vision. Get ready for an inspiring conversation with a leader who's redefining what it means to lead with courage and creativity. Please welcome in Doug Smith.

Okay, here we go, Doug. Welcome to the Second in Command podcast.

Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this.

Yeah, it's going to be a good one. We've already been talking for a few minutes here. Your energy and excitement is just feels lovely to be on the other side of. So I think today's going to be a really great chance chat. I would love to just jump in. First off, tell us a little bit about your transition into becoming a coo, because it sounds like what you were saying. You didn't really have experience as a CO before the position you found yourself in. So give me a little bit of the journey.

No, not at all. And it wasn't something that I was expecting as well. I mean, my, my background for 30 years I worked in radio, so it was on air sales, everything else. And marketing became a big part of it. And I've always just looked at myself as a marketing kind of guy and being involved in sales, getting your hands dirty and essentially doing all the work, which has been my biggest obstacle as a coo, which I'm sure we'll probably get into. But delegation was something that was just not in my vocabulary. It was, I'm here, I'm just going to do it. And I've been with this company now. It's America's best restaurants in Driver. We do restaurant marketing and we focus it mostly on independent restaurants. And when I partnered up with our CEO, who I've known for 20 plus years, we were small, we had about six employees and we had a decent client list. But what we've become in five years was never on the radar. So I saw myself as I'm going to do sales, we'll help run this small company, we'll make some good money and kind of ride off into the city sunset. And as things have grown and we've increased now to over 50 employees and we've become, you know, pretty big, the role had to change and matter. CEO said, look, you're my right hand guy, you're now coo. And I'm going, what exactly does that mean? I mean, I have absolutely no clue. So in the past year, it's really been just trying to learn what that role is. And as I've quickly found out, there is no defined role with it. I mean, a COO at one company is completely different from another company. So it's just been a real transition, part frustrating, part exhilarating. Just trying to figure out how I can grow into this role because, you know, I certainly didn't get into this job thinking one day I'm going to be the second in command and you know, one step away from the big seat or any of that stuff. It truly has been a learning progress day by day. I've done a lot of stuff wrong, I've screwed some stuff up, but I've also done some things right. So that's part of the challenge and part of the frustration is that every day just trying to learn. And one of the hardest things for me, and this is where, you know, coming across Cameron's book Second in Command, I couldn't find anything on how to be a coo. I mean, I understood sales when I went into sales. Here. This is what a salesperson does. And there was training and there's all kinds of books about CEOs and chief marketing officers and chief financial officers. I couldn't find fiddly squat on coo, and that added to my frustration. But there was somebody I'm connected with on LinkedIn who had shared a post about the Second in Command book. And I'm a big Cameron fan. Matt and I are on our second vivid vision. I've read the book, but I'd never heard of the COO alliance or that book. And when I saw it and I read it, it was like the heavens opened. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. There isn't just. I'm not the only one going, why am I lost? Why do I feel like I have no direction? And so while I'm continuing to grow, having conversations with people like yourself and other COOs, whether they're in the all or not, has really helped kind of ground me and helped me understand that I'm not going to learn this role or be an expert at it in six months or, shoot, maybe even six years. But it's nice to know that there are other people out there who have the same frustrations and issues that I have. So that's, you know, I like to say I'm an infant coo. I still have a long way to go, but it sure is fun trying to move along that path.

Let's do a little bit more defining of what your company does, because it sounds like this was your friend that brought you in. Tell us like a little bit about the company that you work with.

Yeah, the marketing side is what laid the foundation for what we do, and that's called Driver. And Matt, back in 2015 had a small agency. There's a lot of small marketers out there, and you have 30 different verticals. You work with every type of business and you. Digital advertising per se? Well, one of Matt's clients was a restaurant, and it was a small chain. They had locations in Cincinnati, where I'm out of, as well as Pittsburgh and Columbus. And one of the biggest issues they had was trying to build a database and track sales. So Matt created this program that we call Acquisition using social media. And he was able to build a database but actually track sales and track results. And that led to kind of a. A epiphany for him where he goes, wow, wait a minute. I'm working with all these different verticals, but I can't take What I do with a restaurant, into the automotive space or into the lawn care space. So I'm going to focus on just restaurants. And that's where the acquisition engine was, was born. And he started to really grow that where other restaurants were starting to grow, to tap into it. They wanted to learn more about it because everybody's looking for new customers now. Everybody wants more people into their sales funnel and in a restaurant space. Matt created that. So him and I, we like the joke that even though we've been friends for 20 plus years, we kind of danced a little, we kind of dated. He would tease me and say, one of these days you've got to come over and you're going to help me run this thing and we're going to grow this thing. And I'm working in radio, making good money, going, yeah, be quiet. I want nothing to do with what you're doing. I, you know, I'm old, I got my ways. Let's just leave me alone. And one day he sent me a text and just said, I got it figured out so you need to come on board and we're going to grow this thing. And so that's what I did. I left radio. I was going on 50 years old. I had no idea about restaurants, didn't know a whole heck of a lot about digital marketing and just jumped into it. And we were really starting to grow it. And then Covid hit and the whole world knows what happened when Covid hit that a hospitality industry. But we put, we took a different approach. Matt is the ultimate visionary. And while most marketing people and agencies were sticking their head in the sand or letting people off and pulling back, Matt put all his chips in the center of the table and said, let's go, let's hire. These restaurants need our help. And so that's what we have grown, is helping independent restaurants market and acquire new customers. And last November, so it's been over a year, we purchased the software company, which is a loyalty program, integrates in with restaurant point of sale systems. So now we've got the best of both worlds. We've got helping restaurants find new customers and helping them track their lifetime customer journey. So you know what lifetime value is. That's the marketing side of the company. The other side of the company is what we call the America's best restaurants roadshow. It's an idea that Matt had created back in 2018. And much like many visionaries, they've got 20 ideas a day. The majority of them go by the wayside. Well, this one had been Sitting there kind of percolating for a while. And again, Covid hit and we had haves and have nots in our marketing business. We saw a number of restaurants crushing it. Even though many restaurants were failing, we had a number of people killing it. We also had some people struggling. And we found one of the biggest points of differentiation for the restaurants that were doing really, really well was that they were telling their story. People knew who they were. So even though their budgets, per se of going out and spending money was down, if they had five opportunities to go get a burger somewhere, they were more apt to go to the. To the restaurant where they knew the owner because that owner was doing social media and everything the right way. So while we were growing our marketing division, Matt decided, let's get the America's best restaurants roadshow going because this is our opportunity to create a show that focuses on their social media page. We're not some big network. Let's drive attention to those restaurants pages and help them tell their story. So there were five of us that we bought a. Matt bought a Mercedes sprinter van. We started in Charlotte, North Carolina. We had a relationship with Cisco foods and they said start in North Carolina. We're based out of northern Kentucky, Cincinnati. So we weren't smart enough to do it local. No. We had to go, you know, eight states. Yeah, it made no sense. But we hit the road and we just. Trial and error. We had cameras and we were just doing it. We were doing it for free. We would do six to eight episodes a day, every day, Monday through Friday, Just hoping that restaurants would say, we don't know who you are. You guys look good in orange. Why don't you come in and. Sure, go ahead and shoot us. And it started to pick up momentum to where it is turned into where now we have filmed over 2,000 episodes and we have professional camera equipment. We've got two vans on the road. We have professional hosts. We have our own in house editing team. It has turned into five guys who had no idea what we were doing to where. Now we've got a team of over 25 professionals that we are really helping these independent restaurants tell their story and blow up their businesses in a positive way. So we've got two distinct verticals in our business and I help run both of them. And that's really kind of, I think, the best way to sum up what we do. It's really unique. Nobody is out there doing what we do on either side because Matt created both. So we don't have a blueprint. I Don't have a booklet I can go to to say, how do you run these companies? Because we're it. So I guess really the idea is if I get this right, I'm creating a blueprint for someone else who wants to try to copy what we do. I think that would be the best way to say it.

Wow, thank you for sharing that. That is such a cool story. I have so many questions that are.

Coming up right on.

One of, one of the things that I'm curious about is like to hear your thoughts a little bit more on the idea of like the theory of no, no dumb ideas. Which I think Rory Sutherland has a really cool video on how he teaches his teams to give me all of your dumb ideas. Because in that just like letting things flow, you can come up with really new, unique things. And what you shared about having never done it before, it kind of allowed you, I think, to have no boxes. Like, I built a sales recruiting company and I had people try to hire me to consult them on how to build the same thing at their company and ask me, well, if you're not going to teach me, like who did you learn from? I'm like, I didn't.

No one.

No one taught me how to do this. I just figured it out. I think there was such a gift in the ignorance that I had because there was no. I didn't come in thinking, well, we did it this way and we did it this way and this is the tool we use. And there was none of that. I just had fun. Full creative imagination. And it sounds like that's kind of where you guys were coming from. So in that I'm curious, like, have you guys been able to continue with that creativity and new ways as you built the company or what are the thoughts or the advice you maybe have for someone that is maybe a little bit stuck in a box or routine and trying to come up with more creative ideas?

It takes a lot of guts to do what we did and what we are doing. And it's not to pat us on the back, but it's by countless people telling us that we're nuts and people saying, I would have never done that. And that credit goes to Matt. As I said, he's the ultimate visionary and he has put several million dollars of his own money into this. The marketing side is pretty self explanatory. When we created the roadshow and went all in, it really was the Rob Peter to pay Paul. So the marketing company was paying for the roadshow and Matt has put in millions of his own dollars. We do not have sponsors, we do not have investors, we do not have a network, we don't have product placement. Every single thing we've done to achieve 2000 plus episodes has been self funded. And it's extremely stressful. There are times when we would have thought that it's just easier to pull the plug and just say screw it. But every time we've hit one of those bumps because there hasn't been a chorus of people behind us saying, wow, you guys are the smartest people ever. This is great what you're doing the majority of the time until we've kind of reached that tipping point about four or five months ago where all of a sudden you could see where people are going. I think you guys are, you know that, you know what crazy. But holy crap, it's working. When we start getting these restaurants come back to us, mom and pop restaurants in the middle of nowhere. We've been to all 48 states. We haven't been to Alaska and Hawaii yet, but we've got to figure it out. But we've been in the middle of Montana and we have restaurants in little teeny one stoplight towns who reach back out to us and say, my business is up 30%. My people are coming in now. I go to the grocery store and people say, hey, I saw your episode. Or hey, I saw this. Every time we've hit a level of doubt where you just go, how much more crap can we take? We get that boost of somebody saying, wow, man, you guys made a difference. And then it's right back where we just go. And we are, we are fortunate to have a team of people on both sides, the marketing side and the roadshow side, that they're just different. And I mean it in a positive way because we're not for everybody. If you want a company where you're set in structure, it's been around for 30 years and you know exactly what's going to happen every day. We ain't it. And we are, we, we are fortunate to be surrounded with people who, they're in their 60s and we've got people in, in their 20s that are just ballers and they just roll with the punches and they do whatever it takes. They get beat over the head, they face the obstacles and they're on board. And it's a, what do we have to do to make it work? And that's, that's really the biggest difference. And now it's funny when people go, wow, man, your show's doing so great. You know, the Overnight success type thing and we just laugh and go, if you had any clue of the crap that we've gone through to get to this point to where we're, you know, finally on the profitable side, really. I mean, for the longest time we weren't, it was just self funded and we got a long way to go. But that's the joy as well as the overall stress of it. And you have to be willing to take chances kind of, you know, it goes back to what your original question is. It's not for everybody because if you think that you're going to do something different or unique or something that hasn't been done yet or you've got this new idea or and it's going to take four or five months for success, you might as well just not even start because you're going to face ups and downs and you better have a team of people who know your vision. Let's go back to the vivid vision again. That was one of the biggest things is when we hire people or we talk about the roadshow, we're saying this is where we're going to go. And it's quickly able to decipher people who buy into that vision and people who aren't and the ones who aren't going to buy into it or don't fully buy in, you don't want them on the team. And I think our, our growth has been because we've been able to vet and tell that story and tell that vision and people see our passion, that we, we want the people who are a little off that go, oh hell yeah, I'm ready, I want to be a part of this. And that's been a big part of what makes this job fun is that we've got a visionary who isn't afraid to take chances. He's not afraid to crash and burn and he's not afraid to put his money into it and he's not afraid to pat people on the back and he's not afraid to fall on the sword and say, boy did I screw up but here's how we're going to fix it. And you know, that's what you have to be willing to do. You got to have thick skin. And I think most entrepreneurs anyway, they understand that it ain't for everybody but they just gotta be willing to ride it out over that first six months, 12 months, hell even two years plus to be able to try to get to the promised land.

Well, I hear a lot of acknowledgment towards Matt and his ability to be envision and try and self fund. And the other thing I hear too is there are still challenges that come with being a little nuts and casting such a big vision. What has that relationship been like, especially someone that you were friends with before. What's the relationship been like with being able to meet him in vision and also being in the position you're in? I'm sure there's catching the balls that might be dropping when you're, you're spinning so many plates.

Oh, yeah, there's for you. Trust me. I need about 10 catcher's mitts to be able to try to catch everything. Our, our relationship has been really unique. When I moved back into Cincinnati back in the 2001 and I worked for a radio station, I got the sales cube right behind Matt. Matt. Matt's about six years younger than I am, but he was the top seller. And most people in the, in the company didn't like him. And he'd be the first to tell you they thought he was egotistical. He was, they thought he was irritating. He was. But the guy just never stopped. And when I came on board, I had different pressures. I had a wife, I had a kid. I was moving back, I was getting out of being on air. I was 100% commission. I had a six month guarantee. And after six months in radio sales, you ain't selling tough crap. Crap. So I had the ball up and I was fortunate to sit behind him. And I'm thinking, okay, this guy's nuts. And I've joked with him, there wasn't a day that, that went by I didn't want to wheel my chair around from my cube to his and punch him in the throat where I'm like, dude, you were just driving me crazy. But he just kept pushing himself and he would show up and I'm not exaggerating, like every six months he would come into the building and he would go, dude, come down to the parking lot. I'm like, did you buy another car? Yep, I bought another car. So I go downstairs, I look at his car. But he had the same reason every time. He goes, I just bought this car. Now I gotta go sell to pay it off. He would always, he would always do something. And that was his motivation. And as soon as he paid it off, well, I gotta go buy another one. And he said car after car. And they've always escalated up. Well, I'm the opposite. I drove a Ford Focus for a long time. I care. I don't give a ratchet, you know, what about the Cars. I'm not fancy. I'm the complete opposite. Well, we worked together for about two years, and then he, him and his dad, his brother, opened a big boat and RV dealership. And then I moved on to different radio. But we just stayed in touch. And the conduit with us was that even though he was doing his marketing stuff, when he would drive back from Pittsburgh for the one restaurant, it's called Hofbrauhaus, he would call me and my phone would ring about 10:30, 11:00 clock at night on a weeknight. And my wife, every time when the phone rings, she goes, good God, what does Matt want now? Because we knew it was him, and he would bounce ideas. So it was kind of like I was just one of those sounding boards. And so I was there and I heard all the stories, the ideas, and how things were starting to evolve. And that's where he's like, you're coming over one day. And I'm like, no, I'm not, man. I'm making good money. You are. You were bet. You know what? Crazy. I love you to death. But now. And that conversation just kept going and going and going. So when I finally said, heck, yeah, I'm on board, I knew exactly what I was getting into. And he hasn't changed. And it's funny, because I have people who we know from the radio days going, God, I can't believe, man, you're still working with Matt going, you don't understand him. Once you understand him and you understand his type. Those ultimate driven visionaries, no, they don't have a lot of friends. No, they don't do a lot of social stuff. But when you get inside their inner circle and you have their faith and trust that you're on board to help them with their vision and accomplish what they've got in their head, he's the most loyal dude you ever want to meet. And it's funny because we still have some employees that they're like, well, I'll come talk to you. I can't go talk to Matt. I'm scared of him. Like, you don't need to be scared of him. I mean, I'm easier to talk to. But if you're here, it's because he trusts you. If he gets on you, it's because he knows there's more in you than what you're currently putting out. You just have to accept that. So the joke in the office is that I'm called the mat whisperer. Where, again, you know, I think that's part of being A coo. And you're supposed to be the one that can help have those conversations. Well, he thinks, like, the 1 percentile. You know, he's talking in calculus, and a lot of the employees are just trying to do subtraction. And so my job is to take his calculus and translate it to where they know and when they want to talk to him. They can't go in and talk and speak in three paragraphs. It's the facts. And so my job is understanding him the way that we become friends and everything over those 20 years and the days were in radio. I wanted the throat punching, but it's just the idea. It's like, guys, I know how he thinks, and if you just do what I tell you on how you approach him, he's the most loyal guy that you ever want to meet. And a lot of that has just come with, you know, 20 plus years of being friends and having conversations. It wasn't always that way. There were plenty of times when I first came on board that, you know, I was called, you're. You're a yes man. You're a yes man. Well, it's called picking your battles, you know? You know, when you're dealing with someone who's that high visionary, oftentimes you just can't get your point across. And there's times where you just go, okay, screw it, I got it. You win. But as I've evolved in this role and our relationship has evolved, as the company has evolved, he's become more open to being able to have those conversations to say, nope, I think that idea sucks, and here's what we need to do and how we need to do it. And so while there were kind of the term of pick your spots and pick your battles, I felt that's what I had to do. And over the past year, I've been able to be much more upfront because I have earned his trust to be able to say, just let me run this. Stay the hell out and trust me. And that's where we're at.

For any CEOs that might be in a position where they really want to be at the company, they believe in the.

The.

The vision of where it's going, but they're not feeling like their voice is being heard or they're getting overwhelmed. I think this is a really common thing for a lot of cosmic. Is lots of ideas, ideas and kind of the person to clean up the mess, not having their voice truly be heard. And then now they're fixing the problem that they knew was going to get created in the first place. What advice would you give to any CEOs that find themselves in that position to have their voice be heard or meet the CEO in the place where, you know, that can be received?

I think talk is cheap. You have to prove it. And if it's one issue, it's one item. Just go fix it and handle it and accomplish what and what goal it is they want. That's how you earn their, their trust. You know, if you're anything like Matt, talk is cheap. And so the idea that you might get 20 items that pick one and focus and knock that out and be able to go, cool, done, got it here. That's how you end up earning the overall trust. Because it is frustrating. You know, ultimate visionaries reluctantly lose grip on anything. They don't want to hand anything over. It's their baby. They've typically started it. It started as an idea. They nodded, they drew it down. I don't care if you have a thousand employees or you have five employees. It's still their baby and nobody's going to do it any better than them. And so the only way to prove it is to accomplish something. And if you put your own little twist on it, fine. But don't sit and you know, sorry. Don't sit and bitch about it or complain. Just get one of the tasks done and say, here, done. That's how you knock that wall down. And you know, it's like right now I'm 100% over our roadshow. We have had some issues with it. We've had some growth. We've had some people in place who completely dropped the ball and we had to let some people go. And the whole thing was, okay, how are we going to fix this? It's like, it's mine. I got it. Just stay out of my way and just let me handle it. And we've been able to make significant changes over the past two months that have been huge improvements. And I have 100% faith from that. But that wouldn't have happened without those small victories along the way. So, you know, while it can get frustrating and I've had, I've had so many different conversations with people, you know, in the COO lights, different one to ones and conversations which I love having. And it's all the same frustrations. And a lot of it comes from the frustration because the CEO is the CEO or the visionary. Things are different. They, they don't listen. You know, their ideas are the best. And I just think a lot of it has to come down to Overall, just earning that trust that you've got that one flag you can stick in the ground and go, you asked me to do this, I got it. I proved it to you. Now let me, let me do more, let me do more. And seeing that your second in command, they see you as an, as an equal of sorts, they wouldn't have you in that spot if they didn't trust you. But when they're relinquishing something to someone else who is typically going to be the second highest person paid in the company or the second highest, to me, I see it as, it's harder for them to relinquish that to someone who's two or three levels underneath because you're almost on that same level and that's some high level crap going on that if they give it to you and it goes wrong, there's a lot more that can crumble as opposed to something a little lower. So that would be my advice. And, you know, I'm still working on different things, but it's like, cool. I feel like I've earned enough small victories to be able to get this big victory now with the changes on the roadshow and we get that thing fixed and we still got a couple months out. I've got it mapped out, but we hit April May and I can step back and go, we've completely turned this thing around. What's next?

It's really, really good advice. Yeah, it's the small things, doing them really, really well. And then eventually it's like you, you want to start giving stuff away. It's like, wow, I have someone. This is actually something. So did you read Vivid Vision?

Oh, absolutely. Yep.

Okay, so you read the book. So Jen is actually a friend of mine. And one of the things that me and yes. Jen were talking about is the concept of being able to delegate and finding team members. If you're noticing that you're struggling to delegate things, it can. Often we think, oh, I'm a control freak. Yes, there could be part of that. And it could also be that you don't fully trust who's under you to delegate to. Because when you have a hundred percent trust in someone, you want to get that off your plate as soon as possible. So I think there's a lot to be said about one building the, building the trust from both sides for the team. And I know that's something you had talked about was being able to grow in delegation because coming from sales, you're used to just, you know, you're, you're getting stuff done and you don't really have anyone around doing anything else. Like, you are responsible for the food that you're eating on your table. What has been helpful for you in learning to delegate, you know, not from top down, but from you down to your team? What's that process been like for you?

Well, I will admit that sometimes it takes me multiple attempts to learn something. And it goes back to the first time when I was still in radio and I became sales manager at a radio station. First time ever having an assistant. I'd only been in sales. So I come in and I'm running four radio stations and got a sales team, and I was still doing all the menial stuff, filling out orders, doing all these little things. And the assistant, her name's Katie, she came to my desk one day, put her hands on my desk, and leaned over. She's like, will you stop doing my job? And I went, excuse me. She goes, I know you can fire me, and I don't care, but stop doing my job. I should fill out forms. And she rattled everything off. Give it to me. You do your job. And I sat there and I'm going, okay, I'm the boss. Someone's talking to me that way. I'm like, that's. You know what? I like it. She's right. And I delegate it. And all of a sudden, I could do my job. Well, here I am again. Because, you know, I just don't learn a whole heck of a lot fast. I guess when I got into this job, I reverted back to, you know what, back to my sales days. No one does it better than me. If I want it done right, I'm just going to do it because someone will screw it up. And then I got to go back and I got to do it again and everything else. And that's really been one of the things over the past, I would say, you know, five, six months. Especially being a part of the alliance that has helped is having conversations and learning that delegation doesn't mean that you're weak or that you suck at something or you can't do something. It's the ultimate sign of, I guess, you know, being an authority and being in charge and the fact that you are transferring, it's like sales. I learned a long time ago sales is nothing more than a transfer of trust. So if I believe in my product and I can convince you to believe in it as well, that's when a sale is made. If I can't convince you, you're not going to buy it, and I suck that transferring that confidence. Well, what I have learned on my aha moment with delegation is that's really what it is. It's back to my sales days. But I'm, I'm, I'm transferring the fact that you, as, as an employee in my department, I trust you enough that I'm going to hand this over to you, whether it's a small task or a bigger task. And what I have seen are the enjoyment of these employees, the fact that I'm trusting them, and I'm just go do it. Just, that's it. And then when they come back in the Office, whether it's 20 minutes later or it's two days or it's a week later, depending on what the task is. And they're so proud that they knocked it out. They're proud that they got it done. And you can see that energy level rise. And it's like, wow, wait a minute. Not only do my clearing things off my plate, and the more I clear off my plate, the more I can take off Matt's plate. So now I'm dealing with higher level things, which frees him up. And then the employees are so, you know, darn excited about what they're doing. And hey, man, you got something else for me? Hey, what about this? Hey, I've got an idea. It's like you unlock their creativity. Because now they know that, number one, we tell employees it's okay to screw up if you screw up. One of Matt's famous phrases is, did anyone die? No, no one died. Cool. Guess what? I don't care. It cost us money. Whatever. I got it. No one died. We'll fix it. Did you learn from it? Make sure it doesn't happen again? A mistake is an education unless you don't learn from it. If you keep doing the same thing over and over, that's been the joy of the delegation side. And what I feel is probably my biggest quality, Brooks, so far in being in this role is, number one, realizing I need to delegate. It's part of the job. I need to coach these employees up. But seeing the joy in them taking on more and growing in their role and growing in their opportunity, that's. That's a real joy part of it. And it's hard. And I'm the first to raise my hand because both, both of my kids and my wife will tell you I am horrible when it comes to asking for help. My son is. We were, we were working on his townhouse and I asked for his help regarding putting some flooring in. He's like, Are you serious? I go, what do you mean you don't ask for help? Well, yeah, I need your help here. And he enjoyed helping me put the different flooring down. But my brain doesn't work that way. It's get out of my way and I'm just gonna do it.

Yeah, sounds like it's a, it's a conscious choice for you. And I, I'm, I'm sure that now what I'm hearing is when you are clear on the benefit of it, it's a little bit easier to do it. I mean I have like sales brain too. Like if am I, if I'm gonna get the outcome then I'll do it. Otherwise like I'm just gonna do it. And one of the things that you said that I think is really key is it's also like it's not just that you're dumping stuff on your team. Your team like the right team, they want more responsibility, they want to grow especially it sounds like your team, lots of a players, if they're stuck doing the same thing every day and they're not being challenged and there's not a little bit of stress of the edge of oh, like how am I going to do this? Things get boring and when a players get bored, you know, you start, you start losing people. So I think there's a lot of value and the concept of not just delegating because you should be taking on bigger things, but also being able to give space for your team to step up and grow and be challenged. It's a two way win win.

Yeah, it is in it, in its, you know, for people, not in this spot. I've explained things to some non business type people, you know, they're just kind of in the regular day to day job world and they just kind of give me this, this look like I have no idea what the hell you were talking about. That sounds really stupid. But on people who were, you know, in this position, they get it and you know, it is the opportunity that yes, we've all reached a certain level because we bust the array in and we've a lot of work, we've worked those 13, 14 hour days. We've done everything in the business, we know it and it is an obstacle mentally because we've been there, done it before, we've done it a thousand times, we just know how to do it. So dang it, get out of my way, just let me do it. But to be able to, to delegate and then understand the long term effect of that is now you do it consistently you've got a better trained, better motivated staff underneath you. And as they elevate and you hire more people with it, I mean, ultimately it takes more stuff off my plate, you know, yes, I've got bigger things to deal with, but I have more free time now because I have people that are running their department or they're running stuff. I don't need to sit here and micromanage job on. I never did anyway. But it's like, cool, do your job. We've got a one to one. If you've got a problem, let me know. Otherwise we run on eos. We got our L10 once a week, bring it up then. We don't have a bunch of got a minute meetings or any of that other crap. Everything's like eos oriented.

Yeah.

And it really has taken time. It's taken things off my plate and I sam done, screw it. I'm going home. And I think getting that feedback where my wife is, you know, half joking, going, what's wrong? Even when I come home. Are you sure nothing's wrong? No, let's just go out to dinner. You're never home this early. Well, I am now because, you know, I'm learning how to be a better boss and that's all part of it.

Oh, that's beautiful. And the ripple effect, like people who say that work and life is separate, I disagree. I. It all blends together. And one of the most impactful moments for me when I was deep in the trenches is my best friend. She said, savannah, I feel like I'm a burden to you. I feel like I have to literally schedule a meeting on your calendar to hear what's going on with you. And that was such a eye opening moment for me. Oh my gosh. Like I'm putting everything into business and my best friends are being neglected in my family and my health and a bunch of other things. And so, yeah, I think that everything you just said is super key. And the other thing too that you said was you have one on ones with your team and it sounds like you're very supportive and a lot of the things that you shared, there's a lot of support and uplifting and encouragement, leadership that you are taking place with, with your team. What is that like for you? It sounds like you're in the CEO alliance, so there's support there. But do you, do you ever feel lonely in your position? What is that experience like kind of being the second in command?

Yeah. And it's funny too because Matt will often say being the Visionary and the CEO, he feels isolated. He's doing it, you know, alone. And there's been times, yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, you know, as we've gone through some different hardships in 2024, the last thing I want to do is bring it home to my wife. You know, it's like, I don't want to bring it home. So I have about a 40 minute drive and it's either listening to podcast, audiobooks, jamming out to some tunes, something before I get home, but there was never an outlet, there was never that valve to just let it go. And one of my biggest aha moments, though was, you know, things were pretty rough, especially with the roadshow several months back. And I'm sitting in my office and Matt walked by my door and he goes, you okay? I go, why? He goes, dude, you look like you're going to kill somebody. Go home. And I go, no, I'm fine. He goes, no, seriously, nobody wants to even walk by your office door. Go home. And he wouldn't let me. He's like, I'm dead serious. Close your blanket laptop and go home. And I shut my laptop, packed up my bag and. And I left. And that was really one of those. I'm like, I'm not bringing that home to my wife and you just can't let it, you know, get to you. And I was letting it get to me. And I wear my lotions on my sleeve. You can tell my passion, what I talk about and do everything else. And that really reverted me back to a lesson I learned a long time ago. When I've, you know, I've always been big in networking and I'm just trying to surround myself with people who have done what I want to do at a high level. I've always believed in that concept. And I cannot remember who to give credit to for this, but it's something that I've, I, I really try to fall back on every day. And it's about leadership. And they showed me an example. They took a piece of yarn. You know, yarn's very, you know, squishy, pliable, you can do whatever. And he put it on a table. And if you envision that you're. You put a piece of string flat on a desk or wherever you're at a dining room table and you want to get it to the other side, you have two options. You can push it, which, you'll get it there, but it's going to recoil, it's going to fight you, and you can't really steer It a whole heck of a lot. You can just push it straight or you can lead from the front and if you grab that piece of string, you can lead it anywhere you want. And not only across the table, but you can lead it anywhere and it's not going to fight you. And I have a piece of string hanging up on a whiteboard across my office. I found that piece of string and I, and I put it up there and it's a daily reminder. Lead from the front, don't push lead from the front. And it's funny guy. People come in, they're like, dude, why you got this nasty piece of string hanging from your board? And I tell them that, that story and I'll even say, hey, take it down, put it on my desk and I'll show you. And I show them that example and every person I've ever shown that they're probably like, oh damn, I hadn't thought of it that way. And that was really more of an eye opener for me. It's not just from a personal standpoint like family wise, my wife, my kids, but you know, mostly on the business side and if I'm second in charge of this company, I got people coming to me and you know, they want to come talk to me. They don't want to talk to Matt or they want to have that, that conversation. I got to lead from the front and I can't have anyone coming by my office going good God, if I stop in front of my door, he looks like he's going to choke me. But that goes through. You know, I'm going off 54 years old. I've been in business, I, I, I've had failures. I've, I've been successful in sales and you're always learning and that's the beauty from the networking side, whether it's the alliance or people I meet on LinkedIn or people I do one to ones with, I just got a small circle of people I want to be surrounded by like minded people that I can have conversations with that doesn't necessarily have to be about marketing or being second in command or business. Just people who have that same mindset that I can have a conversation with and learn from. And I hope I, I impart wisdom or ideas to them because I believe in the law of reciprocity. The more you give, the more you get. You may not get it from that person you're giving it to, but dang it, it's going to come back around. And so you know, that's kind of a rambling Answer regarding, like, leadership and understanding how people look at you, but how to lead the charges. And it's either from the front or from the back. And if you're leading from the back and you're pushing people and you're screaming and you're yelling and you're not giving them a chance to succeed, that might work for a little while, but you're going to crash and burn. And the best opportunity is lead from the front. Promote your people, give them support, give them a pat on the back if they screw up. You don't need to rip their rear end. They know they screwed up. Give them the support to know that it's okay. Did you learn from it? Cool. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again. Now let's go kick some butt.

Amazing. Well, I would love to know before we wrap up here, we got a couple more minutes. When you promoted people under you and you're moving them into leadership, what is maybe the number one piece of advice that you give them when they first are stepping into a new role?

It's okay to make mistakes, because if you already knew everything about this role and how to do it, you would already be in it. And we don't want people afraid to make mistakes because they don't necessarily have to be in our own department. It could be someone from the marketing side that has an idea for the roadshow side. You got to be open to those things. And by. By squelching somebody like that and not, you know, not allowing them to have failure, not allowing them to have confidence to speak up, you may be withholding the next big idea that propels your company to, you know, 15x growth. And so you got to be careful with that. And that's always, again, it goes back to Matt saying, dude, you look like you're ready to kill somebody. And what happens if somebody had an idea that day and they're going, man, I got this great idea. I'm going to go take it to Doug. And they were walking by and they saw the look on my face and they said, I'll bring it up to him some other time. And then they never brought it up to me. You know, those are the type of things that you have to be willing to give people the rope and the ability to make mistakes, but also put their own spin on stuff, because again, you never know where that next idea is going to come from for your company. And you've got to give them the opportunity to speak up and answer their questions and not feel like, well, that was a Dumb question. Now there are no dumb questions. There are no dumb thoughts. The one joke in the office is for some reason I love the phrase but hurt. And I, I'll say, look, my door is open. You can come to me with any idea, any thought, whatever you got. But if we don't use it or we don't, you know, implement it, don't get butt hurt that we didn't do it right. But you may give an idea that four months later we're going, maybe there's a variation of that, that's what we want to help. And it's also with people that are moving up in the company, getting them to understand that just because now they're the boss or they have a title as manager, you're not the be all, end all. You better be open minded and you better be able to coach and coach your people up because if you walk around with this crown on your head and everything starts and stops with you, you're not going to be in that position very long.

Beautiful advice. It sounds like a lot of just creating safety and communicating. I think there's a lot to be said about knowing I can bring ideas and like you said, not getting butthurt if they're not used because I've had plenty of conversations with people that have been so frustrated that they've brought ideas and then they haven't been implemented and starting to feel shut down. So it's like finding that balance of yes, bring all ideas and just know if we don't use it, it doesn't mean that we don't value your opinion or you're dumb or, you know, not good enough. But just that it may not be the right time. So I think.

Oh, sorry, but one last point on that that also comes in where, where the vivid vision, where a vision comes into play and if you've got somebody who comes in and they go, hey man, I know our goal by the end of 2027 is to be here. I think this might help. You're going to get my attention and Matt's attention really fast because now you put some thought into it and if people know your vision and you're transparent and you tell them where you're going and why you're, you're going there, you open up, I think their minds to start thinking that way. And so it all, it all comes together.

Yeah. Well, I love that you guys use vivid vision. So if anyone's listening, Cameron has a book called Vivid Vision. He's partnered with Jen Hoodie who owns Vivid Driven Vision. Driven all the V words over here. And so yeah, there's, there's a lot of really amazing things that are that come as a result of getting super crystal clear on what you stand for, where you're going so that your team is on the same page. So thanks for bringing that up. Anywhere that our audience can find you if they have a question or want.

To reach out to you after the show, business wise. LinkedIn I'm all over LinkedIn. I am a big fan and user of it and if you do it the right way, LinkedIn is a gold mine. So you can find me. My email is Doug and AmericasBestRestaurants.com It's a long email and I'm always open for conversations. I love to connect, I love to network and I love to share ideas. The only thing I ask and it happens all the time. I love to connect. Just don't come at me selling stuff. You know, let's connect and let's share ideas and let's figure out how we can help each other. Sales will come down the road, but networking and masterminding is all about how can I help? Not what can you do for me. Love it.

Well, thanks for that little tidbit. If anyone wants to reach out, find Doug on LinkedIn. Really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much. I enjoyed this.

Me too. Bye now.

Bye.