From Bleeding cash to Banking Profit with Matt & Stepahnie Dunken

And welcome to the Restaurant Coach podcast. It is the cure for the common restaurant. I am. I am beyond, beyond being honored. Having my guests today have been. Oh, my God. These. These two have been one of. They've been full disclosure coaching clients of mine for six years now. Matt and Stephanie Duncan from Slam Dunk Pizza out in California. Matt and Stephanie, thank you so much. I am. I can't believe it's been six years to get you on the show, but I finally got you on.

Thank you.

Yeah. So, hey, give everybody a little background about who you are, what you do, and where you do it at.

Okay. We're Matt and Stephanie Duncan. Obviously, we are in northern California. We have two brick and mortar restaurants, one in Ukiah, California, one in Willits, California. We have two food trucks catering, an ice cream counter, arcades. We have lots going on. We have been in the business now for 11 years, 12 years. And Matt actually. Matt and I actually met in the very room that we are. Started dating in the very room that we are sitting in in 1989 when Matt worked here at a high school.

It's been a while, huh?

Yeah, it's been a while.

Yeah. Okay, who asked who out first?

That's a long.

That's a long story.

I asked him out in this very room right here because he kept asking me out, not following through. So I finally made it happen. Imagine that.

Matt, Come on.

I wasn't the most outgoing person when I was younger. We'll just put it that way.

Yeah. I mean, so I just tell you, I know these two for, like, again, six years now. Yeah, Matt is a little bit. A little bit. Once you get to know him, Matt, he's a little more outgoing, but normally when you meet him, he's a little shyer. So it's definitely more than outgoing. Go get them, you know, kick butt, take names. So, hey, so you've been with the program now, the TRC method, six years, Tell people kind of like what was. Like, what was life like before you jumped in the coaching program?

Before we jumped in the coaching program, we were just kind of all over the place. We didn't really know. We got into the restaurant business not knowing the restaurant business.

Right. And.

And we did so well, right, at first because everybody knew us, all kinds of money coming in. But when we got to that point where we didn't know enough to keep this place going, well, Covid really hit us hard. And without getting into the coaching, the restaurant coach, we would have never made it because we actually learned how to run a restaurant. Through the TRC method.

Yeah, yeah. What would you add, Stephanie?

I would add that my favorite statistic to give is that our prime cost pre TRC were about 94%, and now they're down to an average of 53 to 55%.

Yeah. Consistently, too.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we always talk about leadership, and leadership is probably super, super critical. What do you think is, like, the number one trait leaders need today?

So I really thought about this a lot for myself. We've learned a lot thinking that we had good leaders in place. Good leaders in place. And we've had one consistent leader in place pretty much through the whole TRC program. But there's been a lot of growth for all of us. And what I've seen is that our best leaders are the ones who have humility and will let their ego go.

There you go. What would you add, Matt?

That's really it. I've had a lot of trouble letting my ego go.

We all do.

But, yeah, if ego. There's just no place for ego in the restaurant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't. Can't have that at all.

Yeah. It's funny you talk about this. I was on a coaching call earlier with someone out. Out in California, too, and we're talking about the chef, their chef having an ego. And she says, I used to be a chef. How did you deal with this? And, yeah, I was a typical chef when I had my first restaurant and I had the big ego. And I was lucky. I got a business coach, and he's the one who actually really got me in alignment. And he basically told me something I'll never forget. He says, donald, you can't. You can't bank your ego. You can't put it in a bank account and tell you if you. If you keep cooking for your ego, you'll eventually go bankrupt. And that was like, yeah, you're right. I just. I can't put my ego in the bank account. I got to make people happy. And that sometimes you got to suspend your ego and you got to do. Got to do what the guest wants. It's more about. You got to make. Goes back to that hospitality aspect. Are you really, really embracing the essence of hospitality from the heart or from the head?

Well, where we preach ego, especially, I just actually, I do a leadership training every Monday morning. And this Monday, our training was about ego, and it was about how you can't build your team if your ego's in the way because then you're trying to do it yourself instead of grow your team, and that. That's where your ego has to drop or you'll never be able to grow your team.

So let's. That also brings a really good topic, and especially this. One of the things I think you do at Slam Dunk that's really, really different than almost all the brands I've worked with over the years is that you really focus a lot on training, and you spend a lot of time on training. Where a lot of restaurants do the typical just shadow program, you know, like, Matt gets hired, you follow, you know, so he goes, follow somebody around the kitchen for three or four days, and they turn them loose, and that's it. Try to talk people through a little bit. Like, Slam Dunk is, like, so dedicated and so invested in training their people. Tell me, like, what is, like, the whole, like, just, you know, to give you details, but, like, the outline of, like, how many. How much training do you really give?

We never stop training. We never stop training. That's something that we've learned because obviously, before we got into the TRC program, we were like every other restaurant, and you trained in the fire of Friday night, you know, and now we have a training program, and it's constantly evolving. It's always evolving as we get new people or we come across new things. But we have sheets, really, and everybody has a sheet for everything they get trained on, and we bring those sheets out constantly, and we retest and we retrain. And that's one thing that we've learned, especially because what happens with all people is as we get. If you've been here six years, three years, you start doing it your own way, slowly but surely. So we pull them back into what we call the SDP way, the Slam Dunk pizza way. So it's just a good thing, and it's good for all of us, because then we sometimes find out that we're all training a little different, too.

That's why you have the leadership meetings and the training every time. It's like, just to make sure everyone's on the same track.

Yep.

How important is that, having that leadership meeting? I mean, it's extra time. And, you know, a lot of owners will say, I don't have the time. I don't have the time. It's just. That would be an extra time. But how important is that to have that leadership training every week with your team?

I think it's huge. Stephanie wasn't always involved as much as she is. Since she's been involved a lot more, she's shown me how much training means and these leaders need it just as bad as everybody else. For us to show them and get everybody on the same page every week makes all the difference in the world.

It also keeps camaraderie, too, because they're all in the room together, even though they're in different restaurants or different food trucks. So it gives them a camaraderie together, too. That I think is really important because they don't feel like they're just kind of off in their own world. So I think it's kind of twofold, really.

Yeah. Because we have all the leaders from both restaurants in the meeting.

Yeah. And then in the TRC method, we offer a lot of training options for people. We have, like, leadership roadmap, Becoming a positive leader. We have lots of material, lots of modules that your leadership team has access to so they can actually start developing those soft skills. How critical do you think some of that training has been in the TRC method for your leadership team?

I mean, it's been critical for Matt and I. Yeah. You know, I had another career prior to owning a restaurant. I really had no desire to own a restaurant. So I 100%. I mean, I'm a Buffalo, and I know that. And I. It's taught me that training itself has taught me, you know, some of the soft skills that I needed to perfect to be able to be a leader. So people are walking by me, and I'm not just either pushing them or just like, peace out, you know, you guys are bugging me. Get out of the way. Because that's the kind of person I am. I can admit it. But it's also, you know, leaders, people who are our true leaders are buffaloes generally. And so soft. I always say people are not. People think you're a natural born leader. You're not. I think people definitely have leader tendencies, but we all have to refine those soft skills. And so, you know, we do make our leaders do the. The leadership blueprint and different things. And it definitely. You can definitely see a change in them as they go through. Through the program.

So cool. So cool.

Yeah, you'll get. Once in a while, we'll get to the leader meeting and one of them involved. Okay, I went through this. I went through this. This section of Donald's training. This is what I got out of it. And they're excited.

Yeah.

You know, see the difference.

That's awesome. That's so awesome. And. And, you know, one of the things I preach a lot in the TRC method is like, self care. Now, when I throw the word self Care Automatically people think that you gotta become like a gym rat and live the gym for two hours a day. Self care. To me, when I explain self care, self care is just taking care of yourself, whatever that means. And for a lot of restaurant owners, that means spending time with family, spending time with friends, and spending time with like as a couple. What. What do you guys do? And you guys have had such a radical change. And I'm so happy when you guys take vacations because, like, before you started with me, like, you guys hadn't taken a vacation like in seven years.

Y.

So tell me, like, what is. What is it? What does it really mean now, self care to you as far as like spending time with. With family and stuff like that?

So we have had this explosion of grandchildren this year. So, you know, and they don't all live in town with us. So it's nice to be able to go for a day to go see the grandsons or, you know, be able to take some time off to hang out with my mom or we can go on date nights, you know, we're going to Hawaii in two days, things like that. So that's pretty cool. But it has also not just spending time with family and friends, which actually we lost. I won't say we lost friends, but we lost touch with a lot of friends through the years because you're just so busy working and people are always afraid you're busy. So we've been getting back into friendships and, you know, doing things with friends, which is really cool. We actually created a travel group with several, several of our friends and a couple own restaurants and things. So it's kind of cool that we can all get a break together. But the other thing that I think for us is like, Matt does do pretty good at getting out up and going to the gym in the morning. Yeah. So he's realized for himself how important that is to get his day started. And the whole team will tell him, oh, you went to the gym today. Because they can tell by the mood he's in that he's in a really good mood. But for myself, you know, I get up every sing and I take a bath, I sit in the bathtub, I do my, my Bible study app. And sometimes I'll go through emails or I'll watch videos while I'm in there trying to get ideas of new videos to create for the restaurant. But as silly as that is that self care for me because it's something I enjoy. So.

And that's what self care really is. It's about Taking care of yourself, whatever that means. I mean, it could be physical, it could be mental, could be spiritual, could just be, you know, just that relationship, stuff like that. I will say right now, one of the things. And Stephanie, you really touched me months ago, like when your father got ill and he was in hospice, and you said to me, you said, thank you, because you said, if it wasn't for the stuff we had taught you, you would not have been able to walk away from the restaurant for a month and spend that. That precious time with your dad while he was in hospice. And I just, you know, I don't know if you want to talk about that, but how did that make you feel to be able to walk away and, like, spend time with your father and knowing that the restaurant was good?

So my mom and dad are silent owners of the restaurant. And so, you know, this restaurant meant a lot to my dad as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, he. He was so sick at the end that he got to. I mean, he didn't want to hear about the restaurant. He just was trying to process what was happening. And he needed 24 hour care the last three or four weeks. And I was able to go with my mom and, you know, of course I had my computer and stuff with me if something came up. But really, the team took care of everything. And I got to spend with my dad that last pretty much two months. But I was with him full time for a month. And I'll never regret. I was with him 24 7. I was with him until he took his last breath. And then I was with my mom for quite some time afterwards, helping her get everything done. And it was. Honestly, it was a godsend to be able to walk away and do that.

Yeah. And most restaurant owners couldn't do that.

No.

I remember, like, when my father passed away, I had my first restaurant open and my father passed away. I couldn't go to the funeral. Yeah, I was. I was. I mean, basically, I hate to say I was chained to the restaurant. I couldn't even go to my father's funeral because I had everything like you guys. I had everything invested in the restaurant, all my savings, all my everything. And I just couldn't walk away. And it took a year before I finally had a. I mean, I broke down like a year later, just had a. Just meltdown in the office of the restaurant one day. It just finally all caught up to me. Yeah, I just, like, I just broke down and just fell to my knees in the office and just start crying. Crying, like just bawling. It was just, man, I'm so happy that you could. You could get that opportunity that's really. That means the world to me as a coach, is that you had that opportunity to do that, which is really, really awesome.

Now I'll never. I will never. If I get. If we've got nothing else out of this, which isn't the case, but that's the one thing, because I have no regrets whatsoever.

Awesome. All right, so change the subject a little bit. Let's lighten this up a little bit. So as far as, like, the TRC method, implementing changes, how have you seen this? And how do you say, like, how would you say this sets you apart from other restaurants in your market as far as how you look at operations now, how you look at teamwork, how you look at culture.

Yep.

Sets us apart from everybody.

I mean, I don't.

I honestly couldn't tell you another restaurant in this town that has the culture we do.

Yep.

I mean, there's some, you know, there's a couple other pizza restaurants, chains that they could care less if you're there or not. You know, our family knows that they are family here. They know they're our family. The culture's that way. No toxicity, nothing. It's just. It's just a fantastic place to be. And I've never worked at a place like that ever, until now.

We have lots of people that come in from other restaurants or other, you know, food places, and they say they've never felt, you know, the. Like, the training mattered. They never felt like they mattered.

Right.

You know, unfortunately, the saying is, we're not here for the money, because unfortunately, it's a restaurant. There's not tons of money. But they. You know, we've had people get offered jobs to go elsewhere for more money, and they do appreciate. Which is great. They do appreciate the culture here and the safety here, especially because we do hire recovering addicts. So it is a very big, safe place for them. And they. I mean, they give us the feedback. I never really worked in food, but it didn't all. It wasn't always like this. It definitely came from the trc.

Yeah.

Cool. Cool. Yeah. And that's one thing I think is in any market. Like, you know, pizza places. I mean, a lot of pizza places do similar stuff. Right. You buy from the same vendors. You know, you usually. Your products are very, very similar. I mean, you have some unique toppings, unique specialty stuff like that. You do some really cool stuff. But the thing I always think separates most restaurants is the culture. Culture is always like a magnet and your culture, really, really, that vibe does attract your tribe 100%.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So as far as, like, people struggling with like guest satisfaction, what tools or strategies do you find in the TRC method that really helps you improve that area of like, guest satisfaction and just basically getting also team satisfaction too?

My favorite story that I will ever share, and I've shared this one with you, but when we first started in the TRC method and we work on our core values and our mission statement and we, you know, really preach the core values and one of our leaders one time actually pulled the core values out on a customer.

I remember that.

So that was kind of funny. But it also got the, you know, it got the customer in a place where at that time it was so new, where, you know, there could be a conversation. But I think the thing that we have learned, really, there's two tools that I'll say we got working with the TRC method, but is the first one was, you know, there's something to learn from every review. Even, even the ones that are sound totally off the wall. I mean, once in a while there's no truth to them, but a lot of times there's a, there's a grain of truth to it, you know, and so learning how to deal with those better through the program, learning how the team doesn't feel like it's, you know, like people are just being stupid and attacking them, they actually are looking like, okay, they said that we forgot their topping, the pizza was soggy, you know, whatever. And after a while, you start figuring out what's the actual bottom line here. And so it gives them tools to work on and future training to do. And then of course, I'll have to give props to Zach Oates because you introduced us to Ovation and that's been huge. Yeah.

Zach Oates says he owns Ovation up. He's also, he's always a speaker at my restaurant success summit. Every October, I have a big three day event here in Scottsdale. It's called the restaurant success Summit. It is a game changer. Everyone loves it. You've been to quite a few of them. And this year, this year we're back in Scottsdale and you guys are making the drive down. Yeah. Yeah. You're not flying down, you're driving down.

Yeah.

But hey, you know what? You got ingredients, book, audiobook to listen to. That'll help you out.

There we go. There we go.

Yeah. And then so at the summit, let's just kind of talk about the summit. Real quick. So the summit's every year, three days, always October, usually last towards the last week of October. What do you say is the benefit of coming to the summit?

You're with other restaurant owners that sharing the same, same values you do. That's why they're there.

They're there to learn.

You learn something new every year. I mean we go home, we go home excited every year after the summit thinking, okay, let's go make some more changes. Let's make it even better because I mean you have great speakers, you have great quality in your summit and it just really makes all the difference for me.

Yeah. And I have of course, a huge fan of your friend Beau Bryant because we always learn lots from him. And it's just, it's just nice to be in the room with other like minded individuals that are going through the same things that you are and they can share their experiences and we can share ours and the friendships and camaraderie that come out of it as well. So it's just, it's all around awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean we still have friendships and talk to people that we've met at summits every year. We haven't seen them in, in years, you know, so.

And then I have to give Stephanie props. Stephanie, I had a speaker a couple years ago named Yagala Dado. He's a good friend of mine, he's a leadership expert. Stephanie said, you got to bring your girl back. And so I reached out to your Gollum said, hey man, can you make the summit this year? And he said, yes. So Stephanie, I gotta give Stephanie props. She, you said you gotta bring your girl back. He was awesome. I would love to see more stuff with him. So I do like. Yeah. And so he actually has a really, he kind of gave me a little sneak peek. He's got a really good one interactive one this year where he's going to have everyone up and doing stuff together. It's going to be really, it's not more of a lot of times when we do the conferences at the summit, a lot of times it's more lecture. This year we're integrating a little more interactive in breakout sessions too. So we're going to break people up into smaller groups. People are getting a chance to work, talk to more other restaurant owners. Also you guys going to have people doing stuff in groups. It's going to be really a lot more interactive, a lot more up and down stuff like that. I think I warned everybody this year like bring your tennis shoes because we're gonna do what we call walk and talks, we have. The building we're in has a rooftop track. We're gonna go up in the rooftop track. We're breaking into pairs of twos and threes and do a walk and talk and talk about a session, and then have a little kind of way we can just, you know, and then, you know, halfway through us, switch partners, walk with somebody else, talk to them, ask them what they thought, what was their takeaways. It's gonna be a really good way, number one. Because the thing I find about these kind of these walk and talk things is, like, if I'm listening to a session, I see through my lens and I hear what I want to hear, and I get what I want to hear. But now Stephanie will hear something different. Matt will hear something different. Now, if I said, like, hey, Stephanie, what'd you get from that session? She might start rattling off some stuff I didn't even see. I'm like, oh, wow, you know, that's cool. I never even thought about that. But now you gave me a new way to look at things, which, again, we open our eyes to more possibilities. We have more options, and with more options becomes a lot more results. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to this year summit. It's going to be run a little bit differently than before, but I think it's going to be really, really a really good experience for everybody this year. Awesome.

Great.

So looking ahead and, you know, in the TRC method, how do you see it kind of really evolving to meet the future needs of the restaurant industry?

Oh, there's so many needs of the restaurant industry that it helps. I think the TRC method right now, because we have been with it for so long, I really see right now it's evolving a lot into. I was so on Monday, I use this analogy, and pardon me by using this analogy, but when we had our leadership meeting, because we're so far into the TRC method and our operation is so big that it's taken some time. It hasn't gone as fast as some. But also, I'm super picky. So I don't like to move on until we're solid in one space before we move to the next. Because I'm one person that likes to run through things really fast. So that's something I've learned is to slow down. But I said it's. It's so like, okay, prime costs are fixed. That's great, you know, fix for now, because we obviously have to stay on all the time, but okay, those are good. Now, like I told them the other day, I said, we're. To a point, it's like we're picking bugs off of each other, you know, like monkeys. Because now we're getting down to such the nitty gritty.

Yeah.

It's frustrating, you know, in some ways, because you're like, golly. But when you look at when your restaurant can get down to doing that kind of picking, you know that you've come super far. And every time I think, okay, what else is Donald gonna actually teach us? You teach us something or have us see something in a way that I'm like, holy crap. Now, now he just opened up a whole other realm that we never even thought about. So I just think it's. It's constantly evolving, and I don't see an end, you know, in the aspect of how we can move forward with it.

You know, the one I'm really happy we've done lately is that 6040 protocol.

Oh, yeah.

In the training thing, I think that's gonna change the game overnight in the training aspect as far as, like. And so when people talk about 64, so. Well, I'm talking about 6040 protocol. We teach a new. I. I teach frameworks. Stephanie always. You got. No. Yeah, but you have a frame for that. Yeah, I got a frame for that. You know, we have a frame for a frame for a frame. It's always a frame within a frame. That's basically what the TRC method is. It's a frame within a frame. That's all it is. And then we have horizontal frames. We have vertical frames. We stack the frames so we have. We start. They start getting advanced stuff. We can start doing what we call a frame stacking, which gets crazy. But 64 to protocol is that most restaurants train mostly for hard skills. What we say is that you should train 60% for soft skills. Those communication, time management, just. Just teaching people how to be better human beings. And then 40% should be the hard skills. Where most restaurants are like 90, 10 or maybe not even 95. 10, 95 hard skills. Only 5%, like, teach you anything. And then what's the normal problems we have is that they can't manage their soft skills. They can't manage their communication. They have outbursts, emotional outbursts. They can't communicate. They don't know how to manage their time to show up late. They don't have any accountability for themselves. So we've been making this big switch in our training protocol to this 60, 40 switch, which I think is going to really help change the Game. I mean, Peter, you know, Peter from Solu in Baton Rouge, he actually texted me right after that call. He goes, this is a. It was all caps. This is a game changer. It was all caps. I was like, all right, we're gonna get there. We'll get there. Yeah.

There we go.

So you guys have been traveling a little bit and stuff like that. What do you say is, like, the best meal you've ever had?

The best meal that we've ever had. I would say our steak dinner.

Our.

What do you call it? Steak. What's it called? I can't remember what it's called. The one that we have in Reno.

Oh, I've got.

There we go. Steak Diane. And it's in a. It's in a restaurant in one of the casinos in.

In Steakhouse at Pepper Mill.

Yeah. And it's super. It's fantastic. They have the best French onion soup ever.

You know, they come. They come right to your table. They cook your steak right at tableside.

Do they really? Yeah. Oh, that's really cool. Steak Diane's a fun steak too.

Yeah. So it's. It's a lot of fun. And it. I always thought it wasn't my favorite. Well, I knew it was my favorite, but I thought it wasn't my favorite. We had it again a while back. I was like, yeah, it's my favorite.

The whole experience adds to the meal.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That tableside stuff is like that. That's a showstopper. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I probably had the best drink I've.

Ever had, and it was served.

Served at the side of the table also.

Really? At that place? Same place.

Yeah.

Smoky, old fashioned.

Yeah. Yeah. And what do you think is like, the biggest problem you see in. With restaurants when it comes to profitability?

Not managing your numbers or not knowing your numbers. Not knowing your numbers or managing them both.

Because how many restaurants have we talked to, like, you know, in our group, like, don't even know their food cost?

Yeah.

I was like, oh, okay.

We've gone into restaurants around here and we're looking, going, oh, okay. There's like five. Five customers and ten employees wandering.

Yeah.

We're like, wow.

Yeah.

Or do you go in those places? They do those huge, I mean, super sized portions and are charged like 8.99. You're like, there's no way they're making money. No way. They're upside down. Like, their food cost has to be in the. In the 50, 60% easy.

Y. 100%. Yeah, we see. You could just see. Unfortunately, you know we were restaurant owners, that we were restaurant owners.

Didn't know.

We didn't know. And, you know, when we. When we came to the TRC method and we started learning all this, I was just like, how in the heck are we even open?

I remember you said that. I remember, like, years ago, you said, donald, I look at you, I don't even know how we stay alive. I don't know how we survive. But what happened was you were like, the number one, like, thing. A lot of Russian. Do sales hide sins?

Yep.

Yeah. And you had really big sales before COVID And that hides a lot of sins because, hey, the cash is coming in, right?

Exactly. 100.

Yeah. You don't notice it when it's coming in like that.

Yeah. When it's like that much, you don't notice it. Yeah. But then when it gets tight, you're like, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

We would not be in business without the TRC. 100%. No way.

And here's the thing. I always. I always tell restaurant owners, it's not your fault. Like, there's no real playbook for running a restaurant. I say that's what the TRC method I wanted to create was. I wanted to give restaurant owners a step by step playbook on how to run a restaurant that made you the money you want to make and also gave your life back where you didn't have to be handcuffed at a restaurant where you actually could work. You know, you hear every consultant say you need to work more on your business, less in your business, but they don't give you a roadmap to do it. Does that roadmap step by step? What do we always say? If you want to win the game.

Gotta know the frame.

It's followed. Frame. Just follow that frame. It won't go. You can't go wrong when you follow that framework. You can't. You just can't. Yeah.

Yep, that's right.

You know, a lot of people complain about labor and say there's a labor crisis out there. What do you think the real problem is?

I mean, it's a culture issue. Unreally, I think. So we. I mean, knock on wood, we don't really have any issues now. We used to. Our. Our ROI, I guess we'll call it, is Pre TRC. We would run about 240 W2s for 40 positions. And now at the most, we run is like 70.

Wow, that's a huge. I didn't know that. That's a huge stat.

Yeah.

Yeah. Our people stay on.

I have.

I Have so many people here that have been here two plus years right now.

Yeah. Hello, Frank. And you have a couple leaders with your team, Frank and Jen. How long they been with you guys?

Frank's been with us seven years, and then Jen's been with us. She just had her five year. Yeah, yeah.

And then who's the longest tenured employee.

Besides you right now? It's Frank.

Oh, Frank. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Frank's our longest. So.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

Yes. Yeah. Because we made what that is. One thing about the TRC method is that when you start something like this, you definitely will see people you think are your people that will not stick around because they don't want the rules. They don't want the accountability. And that is something that we found, is that some of our people that have been with us for a long time, it was. They didn't. They didn't get to run amok anymore.

Yeah, I remember that a couple years ago, you had that one key employee. We had you. You decided that. And it was a hard decision for you, but you knew it was the best decision for both of you. For them.

Both of us. Yes.

Hey, this is just not working anymore. And you. And the beautiful thing is, like, Stephanie did mention this, like, when you commit to, like, getting in a coaching program, you have to be committed to doing it and going all in.

Yep.

Not halfway, because if you go halfway, you get half. Half results. But Stephanie was 100% committed, and she's like, no, we're. We're going. We're doing this thing the whole way. And I'm like, I'm committed to the process. And if I hit a bump in the road, I always say, like, obstacles, I either I either go over them, around them, or I remove them. That's all I do. I was like, I don't worry about obstacles. Yeah.

Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. So it's, you know, that is, like I said, so we have our team. Our TRC team is what I like to call them, is the ones who are on board, you know, and sometimes I still have to prod them a little bit and remind them, because as humans, we all want to go back to what's comfy. And so that's one of the reasons.

That'S the number one culprit. Matt is a prime example, what we call the shift and the drift.

I'll call myself out on it. I am.

And I love that you call yourself out on that. And, you know, the beautiful thing is that you know it. And. But here's the thing, like, you know, hear me say this all the time. Awareness proceeds choice. Choice proceeds change. Matt knows. And we call it the shift. And drift is this like, the shift is like people come to the summit and they see all this new stuff, or they jump into coaching program, or they buy my books or they listen to my audiobook and they get all fired up and they make this shift. I'm going to make these changes down. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And then they get going and then they hit a little resistance, couple of bumps in the road, and then they just drift right back into their comfort zone. Everyone does it. Everyone does it. Even me. Like, even, like working out. Like, I can go great, and all of a sudden I'll hit this little kind of bump or I'm just. I feel like the workout's not really going good and I'll just kind of drift back. But I have a coach who just pushes me back the other way really quick. That's why having a coach is so powerful, because when you start experiencing the drift, you start drifting back. The coach can recognize that and say, hey, what's going on with you?

Yeah, I have a coach that does that, too.

You have a coach who's like, really? Really? I knew about that. Yeah.

Yeah. That's funny.

You get double coach. You get me and Steph. Yeah, yeah, I know. I do.

Believe me. I was getting some coaching this weekend, let me tell you.

See, I don't get. I don't. I don't smack upside the head, though.

You know, there is no physical altercation.

If I was close to you, Donald, you know, you'd give me a little pat on the back.

I would give you a pat in the back. You and I would definitely have a little. Yeah, we'd have a little. We'd have a little walking tour.

Okay.

We'd have a little discussion in the. Walk in. Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you a fun question. So if you came with a warning label, what would your warning label say?

You first. Mine would say proceed with caution.

Yeah, that's definitely.

Mine would probably say handle with caution.

Handle with caution. Proceed with caution. Handle with caution. There you go. Yeah, that's cool. What do you think is one thing that restaurants can do, I mean, now to make more money?

Market Real marketing.

Real marketing and marketing. You know me, a lot of restaurants, I say this all the time. A lot of restaurants post. Very few restaurants market.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, we're not the greatest at social media. We're active we're very, very active on it, which luckily the town we live in or the towns we're. We're in. It does get a lot of attention. And we're, we're trying, not trying. We are switching over to a new way of marketing. But I, I will say our, we're excellent, excellent at our community participation, which.

Is our good about that.

Yeah, that's our top marketing.

Yeah. Yeah, you guys are really, really community focused. So when we teach marketing, we have a program in our, our TRC methods called the Restaurant Marketing Machine. We teach a thing called the 13 emotions of marketing. And I'll tell you that I found that as a big game changer for people because most people when they're marketing, they only play one or two emotional cards. And it would be like, you know, it's like you have two cards and like you're playing poker and you only got two cards. Like, oh, I can't even win because I only have two cards. So we try to give you more cards that you can play that way. You're playing like different emotions, like nostalgia, humor. Maybe you're doing like education. Maybe you're talking about, you know, maybe you're talking about food. Maybe talk about culture, maybe talk about family, talk about core values. Maybe we're talking about community, we're talking about charity. We have a lot of different emotions that we play. How has that helped you as far as, like, coming up with content for your marketing stuff?

It helps a lot, actually, because it's a good guideline and there's a worksheet that you gave us that helps also, as we're mapping out our marketing for the month to use those. To use the 13 emotions and how to stack them too. Because like you said, to use more than one or two is key. Because then you're hitting kind of multiple spaces out there.

Yeah, yeah. Because if the only card you play is just the food and beverage card, which, like you go to, like most restaurants, social media posts, it's just a plethora, a feed of just food pictures and drink pictures. That's it. Now, if I'm hungry and thirsty, it might hurt, but I'm not hungry, thirsty. Right. Then I just, it's just noise and I just kind of tune it out. Yeah, right?

Gotta be different.

Gotta be totally different. So how do you guys deal with stress?

My bath.

My workouts help.

Yeah, my workout. If I didn't work out, I would not want to be around. People tell you I always, I always make the joke. I work out for you. Not for me. Me. It's for your safety, not my safety.

And I really use a lot of. Another thing that I've learned in the program is breathing techniques, too. So I use a lot of breathing techniques.

Yeah, you got a lot of stuff in the TRC method. You think you're just gonna learn how to run a restaurant? Yeah, we're gonna give you a lot of other stuff, too. I always make the joke is I. I give you what you want, I get you what you want, but then I give you what you really need.

Exactly.

And, like, we do a box breathing. We do an exercise called priming. We have meditation apps we share with people and stuff like that. We have lots of tools in the toolkit. My job as a coach is to give you more tools. And the thing is for you to do is, like, just look at that tool and say, does this apply to me? If you like the tool, keep it in your toolbox and then use it. If it doesn't apply to you, you don't think you'll use it. It's useless. Just toss it aside. It's like. It's like those people who collect keep the boxes after they buy some that are never going to use again. And, like, this holds. It just fills up a closet, and they're just empty boxes that they're never going to use. I have to say, I'm guilty of that. I'm so guilty of that. When I moved to a new place here, I purged out, like, I could not believe how many boxes of stuff I had that didn't have anything. There's just an empty box. I'm like, man, I got, like, 40 boxes here of stuff I need to see.

Might need it someday.

Yeah, I thought. That's what I thought. You know, it's like, yeah, there's always a possibility, right? No, it didn't happen.

That's funny.

So, hey, when you guys were kids, what'd you want to do when you grew up? I knew you didn't want to be in the restaurant business.

I don't think you said, it's like every kid. I wanted to be a professional baseball player.

There you go.

You know? But I really didn't know what I wanted to do when I was a kid, really.

I wanted to be a mom and. Or be in the military.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

If you were in the military, what you have gone into Air Force.

Because that's where my dad was.

Any kind of job you would have done.

I didn't have any.

No.

No thoughts there.

Yeah.

Yep.

What's One book, an audiobook or a podcast that you recommend? Stephanie is a podcast aficionado. Stephanie will list a rattle off to five podcasts.

So I really didn't even have to think about this one for me. And you already know, because I preach this one. I am all about. Because I am about being good with yourself before you can be good for everybody else. I am 100% all about Mel Robbins, the Let Them Theory.

That's a great book. Yeah, great book.

It's helped me a lot, even managing the team members and customers and. And Matt and, you know, diff. Because everybody has different emotions and they're all valid. So it's taught me not to try and control everybody's emotions.

Cool. How about a podcast besides the restaurant coach podcast?

Besides that one?

You like that one? This is a slice one. You like?

I like the unsliced, the micro slice, and any podcast that Gary Vaynerchuk is on, I am all about that. Yeah.

How about you, Matt?

Yeah. I'm not a real big podcast.

Not a big reader.

That's not a big reader. Not a big podcast guy.

Not a big podcast guy. But you do have ingredients on audiobook.

I do. I haven't started listening, but I will.

I haven't.

So I have, like, certain. Certain members in my coaching program. They love the audiobook. And so I always roll out a book first, and then it usually takes, like, a month or two to get the audiobook done because I have an audio guy who does it. And, like, every time a new book rolls out, it's a constant flow. Just, when's the audiobook coming out? When's the audiobook coming out? Stephanie's like, I'm waiting for the audiobook. I'm waiting for the audiobook. I know it's coming out, Steph. I know it's gonna help you and Mark in Australia. Mark loves audiobooks too. He's like, when the audiobook. When the audiobook. Mark is coming out, man. Just be patient.

Well, Stephanie will go on a trip and she'll come back. I made it halfway through the book.

There you go.

She's all had her on the whole time.

That's it. Yep. What's it? What's a quote? You guys live by a quote.

Oh, my quote is, why'd I just forget it? Just as you said that. It's a wick. It's from Wicked, the freaking movie, and I just totally forgot it. I haven't thought about this.

Yeah, Matt, your quote. You live by Matt?

Not really.

No. Any TRC quotes? You Like.

I do. Let me think about it. Totally drawing a blank. You threw it down, and we're like.

Throw it down on them. And now they hit a blank.

I'm like, I had it.

What's your favorite?

I do, I do. I do. Like, don't train till you get it right. Train till you can't get it wrong.

There you go. I love that one. That's one of my favorite ones. How about culture flows?

How does coach. Culture flow?

Yeah. Downhill.

Downhill. Yep. Coach flows down, not up. Yep. All right. What's that wicked one? You got it.

No, I. I. For the life of me.

You got a blank.

I am a wicked freak, too, so.

Oh, my God. This is like the first time also too. In the. In the. In that. In the report that this is the first time Stephanie was got speechless.

Yes. I'm all saving on my bracelet that I wear usually, and I don't have your bracelets.

Oh, no.

Yes.

Hey, when people want to get a hold of you guys, what's your website?

We're at www.slamdunkpizza.com.

Cool. You got two locations. Where?

One's in Ukiah, California. One's in Willits, California.

Awesome. And they have a couple food trucks. A lot, if you're in that area probably in the. The. In the fair season, you will see them at probably all the affairs in that area because they love doing events, and they bring their food trucks out, and they love to just. They love to serve people.

We are getting big into catering, too.

That's it. That's it. I want to say thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show today. I want to say it was always a pleasure having you guys here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I want to say have a fantastic day, and you guys enjoy your time in Hawaii.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Donald.