5-Day Grow Your Restaurant Challenge Pre-Game with Bruce Irving

Hey, and welcome today to the Restaurant Coach livestream show. I am honored to have on the show today. Joining me live from Boston, the one, the only, Bruce Irving from Smart Pizza Marketing. Bruce, hello.

Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be on the show today.

It's awesome to have you here. I always, like, in my glasses, my eyes are so bad. I'm like, what's this hat say?

It's Carmine's pizza. My friend Carmine's pizza sent me a shirt and a hat, and I like the hat. I don't usually wear hats, but I'm like, you know, I dig this hat.

So that is a nice hat, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. It's comfy. Makes me feel like I'm not working even though I'm at work, I tell you.

Are you sure? Well, you know, talk about working from home. You and I have always kind of worked from home a little bit. Yes, but this is a lot more. I mean, you used to go out and do a lot more stuff, too, like, I used to do a lot more stuff out. Have you kind of. Have you adjusted to this new kind of standard about, you know.

No, no, I've not adjusted yet. I'm still trying to. You know what? I've always been kind of a homebody, and I work, like you said, I work from home or from wherever I am. But I did use it, you know, do a lot of speaking at conferences, go visit a lot of pizzerias, and. And I haven't done a whole lot of that in the last. I'd say since what, beginning of March, I think my last trip. I came back from San Diego the first week of March, and then Corona hit, and I haven't left my state since then. And I'm used to being somewhere once a month, but it's been a little bit of adjusting. I am starting to now, like, come up with a plan. I went to a restaurant for the first time. It, like, I've been going. Getting takeout from restaurants.

Yeah, yeah.

And actually sat in a restaurant and ate for the first time last week, which is awkward. It was actually nice.

They.

They had their together. Like, they were really on top of it. They did a great job of making you feel safe while still making you feel comfortable and not, like, showing you all of the things that could go wrong. Like, you know, there. There's probably restaurants who are trying to do make you feel like you're safe, and then that takes away from the hospitality part of it. They did a good job of having both, like, I felt like I was out at a restaurant and kind of normal. But they also made me feel safe in the fact that I wasn't too close to people.

Did they wear the face mask or they wear the shields?

They were face masks. No shields.

I saw some people. I saw some restaurants people wearing shields.

I think it's. I think that I. I don't know if it's just me, but I think it depends on, like, the person. Right. Like, a lot of these were younger waitstaff, and they were all wearing kind of face masks. I think maybe the shields are for those overly sensitive people who are concerned. I don't know. I feel like the mask I'm kind of getting used to. I could totally see a world where everybody wears masks in the future around large gatherings. Like, we. I could totally see a world where we go to conferences and everybody's wearing masks. Shield is a different level.

Yeah. Because the shield is kind of, like. Still freaks me out. I don't know why.

I'm not used to that yet.

I'm not used to shield. I was at the gym the other day, and, like, you know, now. Now in New Mexico, you can go to the gyms, but you have to wear a face mask. Right. And you have to have it on all the time. So I'm finally used to working out with a face mask on. In fact, I got these really nice ones from Under Armour. They have actually a little pocket. They're nice to work out in.

Yeah.

But I was, like, at the gym, I turned around, I saw this guy in the treadmill, and he had. At first glance, you know, when I work, I don't have my glasses on. At first glance, I didn't think he had a mask on, but he had a shield on. And I had to give him a second look because I was just like.

I'm not ready for that yet. I think the shield reminds me, like, that movie Outbreak. I feel like I'm, like, going through. I'm like, all right. If I see the shield, I feel like I got to go home. If I see the mask, I'm like, all right, this is the world we live in now.

Yeah, but I've been going out to restaurants, and, you know, and I go to restaurants again. I go to restaurants. I know. I trust that are doing right, you know, good safety precautions and taking care of stuff.

So, yeah, I'm gonna start coming back out. Like, that's my goal now, is to get. Start getting back out there and going to visit my friends and pizzerias, and I'VE always been supporting them doing takeout, but now I'm gonna go back into, like, talk to them in their restaurants and stuff.

Ron Bryant made a comment. You know, I like the shield, he says, because I can see the smile. That's the one advantage I would say about the shield, is that I can't see your face. I can see your facial expressions.

You could totally fake a smile with a mask on, though. You just squint your eyes or you.

Get a mask with a fake smile on there. Like a Joker mask or something like that. Just like, you know. You know, I. I think the shields. I'm not used to the shields yet, but I see the shields making their way more into food service because of that. Because you can see people's face.

Yeah. I don't know. I still get freaked out with the shield. I think I could see it acceptable for like the cook staff and like a bartender, but like, when your waitress comes over to your table and hands you the food you're gonna put in your mouth and has a shield on, it makes me feel like I shouldn't be there.

Really? Yeah.

Like you have a shield on. Like, it's that bad. You have a shield on your face. Might as well just put the whole body armor suit on and be like, all right, here you go. Come over like, with a, like a pole and hand me my food.

Oh. Oh. Ron said there's a chin shield that only comes up. Only covers your chin and your mouth.

Huh. That's interesting.

I actually think I saw that. And the nose. I think I actually saw that at the New York restaurant show when I was there back in early March. It was like the last show I ever traveled to. They had. There were some people coming out with the big. The thing was, people were starting to show off masks. And there was one that was kind of cool. It was interesting.

I bet you they'll come up with like, better looking shields. Like, if SHIELD is going to be a thing, they'll come up with one that look better than, like the. The shield that comes down looks like I'm gonna weld something.

I think the one Ron's talking about, Bo's talking about is it's kind of a cool one. It kind of attaches and it leaves like a little space in front of you like this, but it's clear.

Yeah, that would be different. That would be. I'll be fine.

Yeah. Like sits in front of your face like this and it's clear. It's kind of cool looking, actually.

Yes.

Yeah. And it's not put any like, because a lot of them, you know, put pressure on your head or they hang down. This one comes from actually hooks over your ears and comes down by your jawline.

Yeah. I mean, that's the world we live in now. I gotta get used to that.

Yeah, that or designer mass, man. I don't know how many times now I see like, I see people remember it used to be like on the corners, like people selling flowers or pen, you know, all kinds of, like, stuff. Now on the corners is like people selling masks.

Yeah, that and like you walk down the street now and there's like all of those disposable masks all over the place all the time.

Oh, I know. They're like, I saw like four in the parking lot this morning. Yeah, you're coming back from the gym. Like, come on, man, make it in the trash. Yeah, because the last thing I'm gonna do is bend down and pick up somebody's dirty mask. Like, okay, you need those. Like, draw the line there. I have to say draw the line there. Draw a line. Pick up dirty mask.

100%.

Either that I'm after carrying like gloves, like nitro gloves in my car, a bag of them, and just like have gloves available to be able to grab stuff on the floor. It's gonna be good. So, hey, you're part. And so actually, you know, Bo is too. Beau Bryant is part of our grow. Your restaurant challenge is starting off this Sunday. I'm so excited. It's gonna be five days, eight speakers, ten live sessions. And. And here's the beauty of the whole thing. It's all free.

Amazing.

Amazing, huh? Well, you know, it's a world we live in that people need help. And I was very lucky to have people like you and Bo and some other great speakers volunteered to jump on and give some value. And you're on day two. Day two. We're kind of focusing on a topic each day. So just to kind of give everyone a kind of a rough kind of overview. Real quick. So day one on Sunday, we're going to talk about operations. I'm doing two sessions. I'm doing one on your hiring. Sucks. You know me, I'm just brutal. And then I'm also doing one on the ultimate restaurant sales formula. And then day two, Monday, marketing Rev is going to be doing one about third party delivery conversion strategies. And you've had Rev on your show a couple times.

Multiple times. Yeah.

Yep. And then also then you're going to be doing this afternoon session on how to build your local market. And Then day three, we're gonna, on Tuesday, we're talking about menus. I got Doug Ratke, he's gonna be doing how to build a better bar menu. And then I'm gonna be doing one menu design that makes more money. And then.

Can I step in there for a second?

Yeah, yeah, you.

So you just recently in our mastermind group did a menu design session and the feedback was amazing. So if you're watching this right now, if you're gonna sign up for this five day event, the menu design session that you're doing is one worth the price of admission, whatever it is alone. So if you just sign up for that one alone, that was amazing. If everything else is better than as good as that one, they're in for a treat.

Cool. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's gonna be, it's gonna be very similar. I got some new stuff actually that I'm adding on with, especially with the, the COVID stuff. So it's gonna be a good one. And there's lots of, you know, you know me, I like to deliver lots of value, lots of downloads, lots of bonuses, lots of stuff you can, you can use that actually will kind of get you set up for success. And then day four, we're gonna be talking about sales and profits. I got Matt Plapp. Have you ever had Matt on your show yet?

I have not.

Matt's a really good guy. He's based out of Cincinnati. He's really good at, you know, with email marketing. So he's gonna show people how to kind of drive people, you know, put butts in seats, kind of using email and stuff like that. And then of course, my business partner in restaurant KPI Mastery, Darren Mansari, he's going to take people through a session called control your numbers or they will control you. This is a guy who actually, you know, when Darren and I started working, he opened, he has a restaurant. He went from losing money to now averaging 17, 18% profits every month.

Wow.

Using the same, the same stuff he's going to be showing you on, on Wednesday in the sales and profit session. And then day five, which is Thursday, we've got a good friend of ours, Ava Ballerin from Barcelona, Spain. She's gonna be, she's like a branding guru. She's gonna be showing people how to build a brand that dominates in the morning. And then in the afternoon session, we've got the one and only Bo Bryant is going to be showing, talking about new restaurant models. He's going to touch on ghost kitchens and other things that you need to Know, Bo is just one of those guys, like whenever Bo talks, I just sit back and take notes because I always learn something new.

These are all live, right?

These are all live too.

Wow.

Yeah. And it'll be streamed into our private Facebook group. There is a VIP option available for people if they want to, you know, get the, you know, recordings and stuff like that. But it's going to be pretty awesome.

That's cool. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to it.

So talk about a little bit about, you know, growing your local market. Where are some of the things? You know, don't give away the show, but there are some things you're going to talk about on your session.

I'm going to give some examples. I love recently giving examples about other restaurants or local businesses who are doing really good marketing to grow their brand and to grow sales. So I'm going to share a lot of examples from restaurants who I think are doing a great job. And there's a lot of them that are doing a great job and there's a lot of them who are doing a great job.

Right.

And you know, I think a mistake people make most when it comes to marketing is there's a few things. Number one, they're boring. That's number one. Oh, number one, there's a lot of boring marketing going on out there. There's been a lot of talk lately about attention span and how social media has diminished attention span. And I, I, I really disagree with that. I don't think humans attention span has decreased or increased over the years. I just think that social media has made us hyper aware of what we want and what we don't want to make a connection with.

Yeah.

And it's just sped up that process. So a lot of people in their marketing just are just boring. They're just plain old boring. They're not really bringing their personality out. They're not showing what they really do. They're just trying not to offend anybody. And by doing that, you're not really attracting the right people who could be your potential customers.

Exactly. Yeah. Boring. It doesn't matter. And you and I and I think we share this kind of same philosophy. We know a lot of restaurants that post.

Yes.

Very few market.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. Posting something to check it off the list is okay. It's better than doing nothing.

Better than doing nothing. But still.

But not much better than doing nothing.

No, it's, it's just noise. I would say you can either stand out or you can just make noise. And when you're Just posting that same boring goddamn picture of your food every day. You're not really enticing me to, to really get excited about your brand. Yeah.

There's a couple things you can do, right? Like you, if you are not. Because there's a lot of restaurant owners who just. They're not. They've been a restaurant owner for a long time. Even though social media has been out for a while and online marketing has been out for a while, they're just not comfortable with it. And their excuse is I don't know how to do it or I'm not comfortable with it. Well, there's a couple things you can do. You can hire somebody, right? Like most restaurant owners, don't sit there and wait on the table. Make the drink and make the food.

Exactly.

Seek out professionals who are experts in that particular field. They have a system and a training plan and then they let them execute on the plan. You can do the same thing with marketing. Find someone who is really good or creative or has a good personality and tell them what you want them to do and train them and follow up with them to do your marketing for you. Or you can use ugc, right. User generated content that's really popular when it comes to influencers. Or there's ways that you can get people to send or post about your business and then you can share that business. Those are just a couple ways that you can generate content to use in your marketing that doesn't require you to be the person that coming up with all the ideas. Right.

And then once you do get some content together, you don't have to be on social media every day. You can use, there's social media management tools like Buffer Meat, Egger, Hootsuite that actually can schedule your stuff. People think, you know, I put out a lot of content and people think I'm like, well, I just can't. I don't have like two hours a day to spend on social media like you do. And I say I spend maybe an hour on Sunday.

Yeah.

Just basically reloading up some new content. And then I just schedule it. And then my, the machine I use and I use, I use a, I use one called Meet Edgar. It just kind of just goes. And the machine runs all day, all night. Because, you know, like you, I've got people all around the world listen to my podcast, you know, tune into my, read my stuff. So I've got stuff going 247 all over the world.

So yeah, it depends on what your goal is, right?

Yeah.

Your goal is brand awareness. All over the world. So you need to be on social media, and I mean on social media, even if you're not physically, have phone in hand, posting yourself. You know, you have people across the world where Right now it's 3 o' clock in the morning.

Right.

So they're not watching this right now, but they'll watch it 12 hours from now when it's 3 o' clock in the afternoon, their time. So you need to be on all the time. A local business who has one spot in one area doesn't need to post at 3 o' clock in the morning. They need to post at, you know, in the morning, the afternoon and night in those times when they are people and their customer base is on social media. So, yeah, use a, use a tool like Meat Egger or Buffer or Hootsuite or Agorapulse. There's so many out there that you can sit down for an hour or two a day, come up with your content and then schedule it up, but then just like monitor it. Right? Like, you don't want to be in a spot where all your stuff is scheduled out and then there's a protest that happens. And during that protest, you post something about your special on Tuesday night for 9.99, when they gotta be sensitive. Yeah. Going on outside. So just be aware of what you have scheduled and be able to pause that schedule if it's not appropriate.

That's one thing I have to, I have to watch too, is like, yeah, it's like, when stuff's going on crazy, I have to like, make sure I go in and like, put a pause on things for a while. Because.

Yeah, I know you, you, you have so much content because you're a content machine. So you need all your content in there and it's, it just recirculates.

Right.

Because even if you post something to Twitter today, by tomorrow that's gone and by next week, that's been a year. So you need to repost that again at some point because your content is evergreen. What you talk about is happening all the time. So I know that you need to repurpose that content. You just have to be aware and make sure that it's the right content at the right time.

Yeah. And you talk about, like, frequency and stuff. Like, too. Like, would you, you make a comment like, if you posted back in, in March of 2020, that's like posting in 1984, you know?

Yeah. I mean, look at how much stuff changes. Like, think about where we were in February. I mean, maybe February we were Kind of aware of the corona.

We were aware of it, but I was. I was in Madrid. I was at a conference. I traveled. I traveled to New York at the beginning of March. And it just started, like, there was like maybe four cases in Manhattan when I was in New York. Four cases. That was it.

And every year we have something, right? It was the swine flu, the bird flu, whatever flu. It's coming on. You know, there was always something, but it never really got to the point where we are today, where it, like, took over the country and made us have to hunker down in our house. This was the first time anybody who's under the age of 80, it's the first time in their life where they have had to deal with something like this. Where, you know what? You couldn't go out for three or four weeks and the government shut down everything. So we've never been through this before. So think about where you were in February and real life circumstance six weeks, nine weeks ago, when you post. No one. No one remembers what you posted.

No one not gonna ever. I don't remember what I ate. I don't remember what I ate six weeks ago. You know? Yeah.

Not only did they not. Do you not know what you ate six weeks ago? You don't care what the restaurant down the street posted:3 weeks ago?

I don't care. No.

Or yesterday.

Yeah. You know, there's like. There's so many emotions in marketing. I think people just play the hunger card too often.

Yes.

Yeah.

I like to. So here's the thing that we do. So we have a calendar, right? And we have. And I know you talk about emotions in marketing a lot. We have four different categories, and we look at them as. These are the high categories. Now. They all have subcategories of particular topics that you could post about that has to do with that topic headline. But it's like food, people, community, funny. Those are the four categories that we look at. And each one of those categories has as many subcategories as you can think about. So funny could be a funny video. It could be a funny meme, it could be a funny something that happened funny in your restaurant. It could be a joke. It could be a question. Food could be every single menu item on your menu. And then what we do is we. We have a content calendar that goes through the month and it says 1, 2, 3, 4. In each one of those is a category, and you just think of 1, 2, 3, or 4, and then you lay it out on the calendar, and then that's how you start the process.

That's so easy. But, you know, then that's a. That's a. I hope everyone was taking notes if you watch this replay, because Bruce has dropped about, about five gold nuggets right there.

So in the session I'm doing, I'll show you the content calendar and. Oh, yeah, organize it. Yeah, I'll show you the content calendar.

You'll walk them through it?

Yeah, I'll walk them through it. I'll share my screen and I'll share you, like, the subcategories. And then also, like, we'll give you a couple tools that we use to post.

Oh, I'll tell you right now right there. That's again, you talked about. You talked about my menu workshop. I'm telling everyone right now, if your marketing sucks, okay, show up for Bruce's session at the Grill your restaurant challenge. He's going to give you a calendar that's going to help you get on track.

We'll share it with you. And I, I like. So what I do for marketing is more brand. Not. I don't want to say it's not necessarily like conversion, because obviously when people go to social media and they follow you, they're going to convert. But I, I work on marketing for the long term. Like, I want people to think of your business when they think of your category of food. So when they think of pizza, they think of you. Because you're the person who is constantly showing up every single day and producing content that is funny, educational, entertaining, or informative at the right time. Right. You're not, like, just posting about your special every night. So people get like, all right, enough's enough.

That's so boring. I hate that.

I want people to interact.

Like, come on, man. Because to me, you're just then. Because I tell you right now, you put your special up. There's five other places in the. In the same market. They're doing specials, too. So now you're just a commodity.

Yeah. The best marketers as restaurant owners that I see are building people who engage and follow them, even if they're not gonna order tonight, which is not the goal. But the goal is to get them to order, but the goal is to always be watching you.

Exactly. It's like McDonald's. Everyone knows who McDonald's is.

Right?

But do you ever see them stop marketing?

Never.

Never. It's not about brand awareness. It's about keeping your brand top of mind, consistency.

Domino's Pizza sucks. But they're master marketers.

They're master Marketers, they have you, like, every which way. You know, I mean, I have apps, I mean, they have everything, but they are master marketers. Yeah. And their pizza is, I mean, talked about the epitome of mediocrity.

Their pizza is the equivalent to a McDonald's hamburger when it comes to hamburgers.

Exactly.

You want a great hamburger, you're not gonna go to McDonald's.

But they're not going to McDonald's.

Right. You know that Domino's and McDonald's have one thing in common. They're always going to be near you because they're everywhere. They're going to have a good ordering process and their food is going to be consistent. I didn't say it's going to be great. It's going to be consistent across.

It's always consistent. Right?

Yeah.

And we talked about consistency a lot. And consistency not only just in your food, but also consistency in your marketing. Start off great, right? All gangbusters. They're all excited. Then two weeks later, crickets. Yeah.

They'll post 17 things in one day. And then.

And then you won't hear from her. Two weeks.

They wasted all of their ammo on the great content because they got so excited. They put it all out in one day.

It's like they're like, so excited. They just drop it all.

The time.

Yeah. You know, I used to be. I had to say, I used to be guilty of that, too. I'd post like five things on Instagram right. In a row. And then I just realized it didn't, like, you know, you gotta, like, you gotta have some patience. Drop it, and then see what the reaction is.

Yeah.

Before you drop something else.

There's a difference between brand awareness and conversion. Conversion doesn't matter. Right. Because you posting when you run an ad on Facebook or Instagram that's made to get people to do something, whether that's give you their email or place an order, you're pushing that in their feed. That's conversion. Right. Brand awareness is getting people to engage. And you have to give the algorithms. And every social media platform has algorithms. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Gmail has an algorithm. That's why there's three tabs. And depending on how you email, put you in one of those tabs, TikTok, which has one of the best algorithms. They all have algorithms. You have to give it a chance to see how your content produces. So if you post something organically on social media, you have to give it time to get into people's feeds to see what they're going to do with that content, if they're going to like it, if they're going to share it, if they're going to respond to it. And the more people do that, the more likely your future content is going to be pushed into their feed. If you post five or six things in a row, it doesn't give it a chance to do that. And it thinks it's bad content.

Exactly. Yeah. I want to kind of. I want to cover a post you put up today on smart pizza marketing on Facebook. And you're in this. I think it kind of ties into what, you know, the whole grow your restaurant challenge is about in your post was always be improving your products, your service, your communication, your health. Never get complacent.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of places that got complacent in January. And where are they now?

Yeah, I mean, that's the number one thing I think. I think Covid was an awakening for a lot of people because, you know, and we talk about this a lot, that, you know, volume hides a lot of sins, you know, and when things are jamming you, you miss sometimes, you know, you're not on top of your food cost as much. You're not. Or you're not. You're not on top of. You're not on your. Your social engagement like you should be.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

And then what happened when, you know, when the. When the shoe dropped, there was a.

Lot of people who thought social media or listen, social media is just the modern form of marketing. Right. It's just how we market. If you were in the 90s, you did direct mail, you did postcards, you were in newspaper, you were in the yellow book. That's not because you wanted to, but because that's where you put your marketing dollars. Television, radio, newspaper ads, postcards, mailers. That's what you did. The 2020 version of that is Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, email marketing. Those are all the places you spend your marketing dollars. Now if you want to spend them wisely, you can't ignore that. And you can't just say it's a fad, because it's not. That's where people are hanging out. I was doing a podcast earlier today, and if you have anybody under the age. I think it was under the age of 18, they don't know what it's like to go anywhere without a cell phone. Think about it.

Oh, wow.

My daughter's 18. She's had a cell phone pretty much since her entire teenage life. She doesn't know what it's like to go anywhere without her cell phone. You and I do, we remember.

I remember those days.

She doesn't. There's never been a time in her life where someone didn't have a cell phone where she went somewhere. So she doesn't know what it's like to not have communication right at her fingertips like we do. So that's where she goes. That's her comfort zone. And that's where business owners need to be.

Exactly. That's the truth. So true. So, hey, you got some new, exciting stuff rolling out. I want to kind of share the screen here real quick. So if people have not been to Bruce's website, he's got a brand new, new and improved smart marketing page. And you can always connect with Bruce there at www.smartpizza marketing. So, hey, man, this is a beautiful new look for your thing and you got some new projects coming out. You want to kind of give people a little teaser about what you got coming out.

Yes.

So we do.

We're going to have a new magazine coming out, Smart Pizza Marketing Magazine. It's a digital only magazine and it's just going to be a little bit longer form content than what we put on the website. We have guys like yourself, we have so many other contributors. I think Rev's writing an article and I really want to make it a place where people can go to learn about marketing. You know, there's a lot of tactics out there that people teach which are great, but tactics are very in the moment, right. They're very short term. Worked six months ago, doesn't work right now. But branding in marketing and talking about your business always works no matter where you are. The, the distribution method just changes. So I really want to ask the experts. And that's what we do in our podcasts, both podcasts, have them come on, share their insights. And the one mistake that I made when I first started Smart Pizza Marketing is I'm not a big reader. I don't read a lot. I listen to podcasts and I watch a lot of videos. So I assumed that everybody did that.

Yeah.

And a mistake that I made was there's a lot of people out there who love to read and they don't listen to podcasts and they don't watch videos. So that's who the magazine is going to be for.

Yeah, See, and I made the other mistake. So I made the mistake of I thought because I'm a reader and a writer, I thought everyone wrote, read everything, right. So I focused on my blogs and then I realized that, you know, people like to be able to watch a video and people like to listen to the podcast. So then I started amping up my podcast, you know, channel and also amping up my video channel to my YouTube channel.

So one of the examples I'm going to share on the session on Monday is from Habib from Young Nails.

Oh, really?

I'm going to share how he does content because he is phenomenal and at taking content and doing exactly what we're doing and using all the different forms and platforms I'mma share. You got to tune in. I'm going to share his. I'm going to share his story, I'm going to share what he does to market his business and you're going to see where he started from to where he is today and it's going to blow you away.

Oh, very cool. That's going to be awesome. Yeah. But if you get a chance, you know, head over to www.smartpizza marketing, check out Bruce's new, new and improved. I mean, I love the layout. It's a beautiful format. Really easy to see. Yeah. And you're killing it on Instagram. 16,000 followers.

Thank you.

Damn.

I mean, pizza, pizza is very photogenic. It's very easy for us get some followers on Instagram. People love hearing about pizza and sharing the stories behind how they get it. You know, food is a very photogenic item. So if you are in the restaurant business, it shouldn't be that challenging for you to grow on Instagram because your food if done well. And by well, I don't mean super photograph, super professional, I mean done with good lighting in your iPhone, you can grow a pretty good following on Instagram.

That's true, Very true. Yeah. So again, if you haven't signed up yet, sign up for the grow your restaurant challenge. I'll show the page again. Yeah, that's me talking, of course. Five days live workshops, eight speakers, 10 interactive sessions. Some of the topics we're going to talk about marketing, hiring operations, menu design, strategy, social media, ghost kitchens, third party conversions and profitability. You can go to the website www.growyourrestaurant challenge and you can sign up for free. It's got the agenda broken down for everyone too. And also too, if you like to have a little background on the speakers, I put a little bios in here for everybody also.

So great speakers.

Yeah. I'm really lucky to have great friends that are also amazing people that like to like to contribute and like to give back to the restaurant industry. So I'm very, I'm very fortunate.

I'm humbled to be asked to do it. I try to just share whatever, listen, I'm a cure. I, I try to live my life with curiosity and that's how I even in the podcast, I ask a lot of questions and that's how I've learned a lot myself.

So please, you know, again, it's, it's all free. We just want you to grow your business. And, you know, I picked out topics that I felt that could really help a lot of restaurants based on a lot of emails I get. So I wanted to help people out. So again, it's totally free. Sign up. It's gonna be great. Bruce is gonna be there on what day you on? You're on Monday. Monday. Day two, Marketing. Bruce is going to be there. He's in the afternoon session, 2pm my time, which is basically 4pm, what we call Bruce time. We have a little joke story behind that. Bruce. I used to be in a mastermind group together and every time it'd be like the time conversion, like, what's that in Bruce time? So he's on the east side.

I always get confused by the time zones because I'm always like, I just assume everybody's on.

I got confused today. I was like trying to make a schedule, a call. I was like, what time? East Coast. Oh my God, it's gonna mess me all up.

So what time is it where you are right now? Is it 1:30?

Yeah. 1:30 now. Yeah. All right. I mean, I'm in Mountain time.

Okay.

Yeah. You know, it gets really crazy when I have to do calls overseas. Oh, wow. I imagine especially like I have, I have clients in Australia and like they're like yesterday. I mean, it's like third day ahead. I mean, it's like crazy.

Future.

They're in the future. They're a day ahead. It's like crazy. And then if I have clients in Dubai, I mean, that's another like seven, eight hour difference. And then Spain, I have clients in, in Spain. That's a seven hour difference. I mean, wow. It gets crazy when you have to get up at 5am to make a phone call with somebody.

That is crazy. I think I'd pass on that one.

You'll be like, you know what if you're not close to my time zone, I don't really want to talk how.

Don'T mind getting up early. 5am is a little bit too early.

5Am I'm up at 6 usually.

I like to get up at 5am. I don't want to talk to anybody at 5am yeah.

Are you a coffee person, morning coffee person?

I am. I get up, have some coffee, do a little bit of work. But like, it's my quiet time.

Yeah. So I get up, you know, you know me. I'm a big believer in routine. So first thing I do is I get up, I do, I do a visualization exercise, I do my affirmations, I do some breathing exercises. And then I usually get up, take my vitamins, and then I usually head to the gym, workout. If I don't work out in the morning, I always tell people I work out for your health, not for mine because it's for your benefit, not for my.

I'm the same way.

I'm a nicer person to be around.

I'm the same way. I don't work out. See, I try to push my workout to about 11, 11:30, because I find like, if I don't, if I work out early in the morning by 11:30, 12:00', clock, I get a little lethargic. So I try to go, yeah, I get like that afternoon slump. So I try to work out 11. That way. I never have that. So by the time I started getting a little tired, I go to my workout, I work out for an hour, and I'm ready to go for the rest of the day.

Well, I've been doing this intermittent fasting lately.

Me too.

Yeah. Have you really? Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah. So like I, I like to work out on an empty stomach because it makes the time go faster. And then I kind of time it where my fasting is usually done, just about when I'm getting a reroll in the office. So then I can do a protein shake with coffee in it.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah. And that's usually my first meal. Like protein shake with coffee, that's like the best thing in the world. But anybody want to hook up with Bruce, please you connect with Bruce over at www.smart pizza, smartpizza marketing.com. let me say that again. Tongue twister. And again. Join up. Please sign up for our live stream sessions. The grow your restaurant challenge over at www.growyourrestaurantchallenge.com. bruce will be there on Monday. He is going to drop a bunch of knowledge bombs on you. So. And what we've been telling people too is this. It's 10 sessions. We know sometimes, you know, you might be busy and it might be hard to get 10 sessions in. Here's what you can do. It's free. Sign up. Have your manager Sign up too. Assign them, have them look at the, look at the agenda. Have them pick a format or pick a session they want to attend. Have them attend that and then have them write a report and they report back to you and your group. That's a great way to learn, share knowledge. And that way everyone also feels like they participate since it's free. I mean, sign up as many people as you can in your restaurant. Have them all participate. Give them a session, you know, give them a, you know, one of the sessions to attend and then make them give them a book report on it.

That's a great idea.

Yeah. And I got tons. All my clients have like four or five of their restaurant managers signed up for this thing and they've all like, I'm going to this one. Which ones are you going to? And everyone kind of picks which one and then they have to report back as a group and then share the knowledge they've learned.

Yeah, you could probably break it down in 30, 40 minute session. If you really take notes and like come up, you can probably break it down for everybody else in three to five minutes, easy.

Yeah, you know, hit the highlights. But that's a great way to learn, a great way to share information with your team and a great way to grow. Remember, this whole thing is called grow your restaurant challenge. If you don't grow, restaurant won't grow.

That's true.

So awesome.

Love it.

Thanks, Bruce. I appreciate you stopping by today. I know you're a busy man, so every time, every time I talk to you, I always learn something new and I always appreciate your insight and your friendship and all your knowledge.

So I love it. Happy to be here anytime.

Thank you so much again. Don't forget www.grow your restaurant challenge. And we'll see you starting Sunday the 20th. Go through the 24th, and we'll see you live in our private Facebook group.