How To Dominate Your Digital Game with Rev Ciancio

Hey, welcome to the Restaurant Coach podcast. It is a cure for the common restaurant. Today I am honored to have Rev Ciencio. Did I butcher it again?

Totally fine.

All right, all right.

That's why I go by Rev. So much easier.

Just go by Rev. Yeah. So, you know, I meant to ask you. I mean, I know, like, when I send you an email, it says David. How'd you get the nickname Rev?

So my name, my birth name is David Ciantio. My father's first name, different last name, long story. Anyway, in 1997, I learned how easy it was to get ordained. I'm gonna use hashtags here, quotations on the Internet, and I thought it would be really, really funny if I was a reverend. And when I learned how easy it was to become one, I did it. So in January 22nd of 1997, I was ordained as the Reverend David J. Ciancio. I used to call myself the potentate of heavy metal, or, sorry, the maharaja of heavy metal. Originally, I was a reverend of heavy metal. And then it just, like, I started signing my emails and my checks and everything, you know, Rev Dave Ciancio. And people didn't realize it was a title. They thought it was my first name. People just started calling me Rev and I went with it. So.

All right.

But I did. I want to be very explicit. I did not do it for religious purposes.

You know? You know, I'm thinking right now, you know, if I ever get married again, I might have you do it.

I have done 16 weddings. I do. Really? I do have that power. Yes.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So, you know, for the people listening to the show and the first time they've kind of been introduced to you, tell us a little bit about where you're stationed at, you know, where you're living at, you know, and how you got kind of into this crazy business. Sure.

So I am a. I'm two things. I'm a serial agency owner, and I'm also a failed restaurant operator. So I was in the music business for the first part of my career for like 12 years. I did. I managed rock and roll bands, like, world touring rock and roll bands. You know, recorded albums with Dave Grohl. Like, I had that life.

Wow.

You know, airplanes, you know, VIP backstage. I live that life. One day I woke up and I was like, God, I hate musicians. Like, I really hate musicians. No offense to musicians, but I hate you. And I say that jokingly because I was getting so many. Like, I would call my bands on the road and Be like, how was the show last night? What I want to hear, okay, is how many tickets we sold, what were merchandise sales? Was there anything crazy that went down? What was the crowd's reaction? Right. Like, I want business signals because I'm not there, because I'm running your business somewhere else. Okay. What I would get more often not was, we really don't like the color of red that the printer is using on the back of our T shirts. And I'm like, you get. You pay me 20% commission, and that's how you want to spend your time. And honestly, I got fed up with those kinds of conversations. And I was like, I'm going to go buy a. I'm going to go buy a bar because you can't download a cheeseburger. And what I've learned, and I segued my career, and I'm sort of taking some stabs there. I actually love that part of my career, and I love musicians and I love music. But it was very frustrating, is that chefs and restaurant owners are actually very similar to touring rock musicians.

Exactly right.

They prioritize the art, which is incredibly important, and they deprioritize the business. And what I learned in that business, as it relates to what I do now, is that the really, really successful or wealthy artists and musicians were one that learned that the business was as important as the art.

Right.

And so my career since then, I've been basically in the hospitality business as an operator. I worked for a ground beef manufacturer for a while, and I've worked most recently selling marketing, hospitality tech to restaurant owners. I was recently the head of marketing for Single Platform. I don't know if you're an audience, know who that is. They're a technology company that helps restaurants manage their menus all over the Internet. Google, Facebook, Yelp, Bing, Yahoo, et cetera. Very powerful. We had 40,000 customers. We were doing millions of dollars of business. It was very exciting. They got purchased by TripAdvisor, which is a great move for both those companies. And with all acquisitions, there's a reckoning. And I was in the first reckoning, they literally got rid of almost the entire senior management. Head of tech, head of it, head of finance, head of marketing. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go back to being a consultant, and I'm going to go back to helping restaurants and tech companies. So I now run a consulting company where I basically have two clients. Part of my client base is hospitality tech companies that help restaurateurs to be more successful. I help them generate leads and acquire customers. And another part of my business is helping restaurant operators with their awareness, acquisition and retention, marketing, as well as their tech stack. So that's who I am.

Awesome. Awesome. And you are a man. You are a food connoisseur. Your Instagram page, I mean, when I go there, man, I feel my arteries clogging up. When I look at your Instagram, some of those sandwiches, those burgers and stuff like that, there's that one. That one stuffed grilled cheese one. Oh, my God, that's like a heart attack calling me.

I think that. I think the grilled cheese you're talking about is from Melt Bar and Grill. Yeah, that's cool. One of them, it has, like. It's a. It's called a potato bacon bomb. So it's a grilled cheese with basically, like, potato skins inside of it. There's that side of my life, too. I run a couple of food Instagram accounts. I've about 650,000 followers total. So I also have some insights in a B2C scenario. So there's a lot of insights I can offer a restaurant operator there.

Yeah, yeah. So if you want to, you know, connect with Rev, I mean, his Instagram is. I mean, it's the bomb. I. I like following, like, Rev, because, I mean, I always. And I. I use your. Actually, your Instagram as a great example for a lot of my clients because I say, if you want to see what, you know, really good, you know, pictures is good content, good engagement, you know, improper use of hashtags, that's the one to, you know, follow Rev. He's the guy you got it down.

So that's funny because. And I appreciate that. Thank you. I look at your account, and I look at, like, Doug's account, and I look at Bruce from SmartPizza marketing account. I'm like, I could be better at marketing myself. Like.

I mean, we all follow each other and we're all friends because I think we all, you know, we all respect each other and we all, you know, I love what you're doing. I think your stuff's great. You always have such animated pictures, too. Really good stuff. So let's jump into some questions. You know, COVID 19 really has shaken the industry down to its total core. What is your view of the industry right now as you see it?

So let's remove COVID 19 for a second.

Okay.

I think the restaurant business was heading for shrinkage anyway.

It was.

If you go look at the stats and I can't quote them from the top of my head, but. But there were more restaurants than mouths that had the money to afford their business. And I think shrinkage was coming regardless. And where it was coming from, I can't predict that or tell you, but I think we were kind of headed for a bit of a crash no matter what. And if you look at industries, if you look at like, home services or hotel hospitality or auto mechanics versus the restaurant business in a pre Covid world, the restaurant business was pretty behind when it came to tech and marketing. Right. The hotel business 10, 20 years ago was like, we're putting it all online. We're getting expedias and you're going to book online and you're going to order room service from your phone and like, we're all in. And the restaurant business was like, oh, I opened my doors and my pizza is great. I don't need anything else. Right. So I think this, like, sort of tech reckoning was. Was coming anyway. Okay. And the need for a digital ordering suite and Facebook advertising and communication tools for your customers was literally, it was on the doorstep, and restaurants that were growing were using it, and restaurants that were not growing were not, okay, insert Covid. And I think all it did to the business was fast forward. Okay. It literally almost like a time machine. And it's like Bill and Ted showed up and said something is a foot of the circle K. We're going to get to the end of the story immediately. Right. And so what do I. I think that Covid is basically put a magnifying glass on what you need to do to be successful. And the things that you need to do to be successful as a restaurant aren't any different than they were in a pre Covid world. They might have changed a little, but from a mindset perspective and from a technology need perspective, all they've done is put a magnifying glass on it.

Exactly. You know, I had someone, actually, I wrote an article late last year, around December, about how to survive the upcoming restaurant apocalypse. I wrote this last year. I had people actually write me letters saying, you caused this because you kind of. You foreseen this and you. Like, I didn't foresee Covid. Give me a break. You know, no one can see this coming. I knew just like you, the market was oversaturated. It had. The bubble was going to burst. It just like you said, Covid just kind of like brought it to the front and center real fast.

Yeah, well, I mean, look, when people are choosing where to eat a meal, they're looking for primarily Two things, right? Either convenience, I'm busy. I don't want to cook right now. I got nine kids at a soccer game, right. So where are you? How fast are you? Blah, blah, blah, Right. So that's one. And the other is an experience. I want to get out of my house and leave my body for an hour and have you pour my glass of wine.

Okay?

So when you take those two things and you add Covid to them, well, you really. Convenience is kind of is the king there because you can't. There is no. There's no in store. There's no experience. And most restaurateurs have not figured out how to deliver the experience. Right. I talk about how do you put in store in bag. How do you deliver that experience when all they get is a seamless bag? They haven't figured that out. So convenience is now actually the king. Right. How fast can I get this? What? You know, can I get a family meal? When can the pizza be here? Feed my family of four. You know, I'm a single parent doing school and work. Like all it did was put it put put in a necessity on those things.

Yeah. I'm a single parent doing school, my own school. I'm doing work and I'm homeschooling my kids.

Yeah. So I don't have time. I don't have time to cook boiled noodles.

You know, instant ramen is too slow, basically, you know, but being able to pivot and change is really paramount right now. What are some ways you've been recommending to your clients that they kind of shift their business models?

So, you know, I've been telling my clients, and really, anybody that'll listen, thank God, is align your business to the customer journey and the needs of your community. Because if you're not supplying them with what they need or what they want, you don't have a business. Right. You have a creative outlet that's going to bankrupt you. So when you think about how to pivot or what to do, how can you serve the needs of your local community and your local customers better? I think that really does come down to convenience. Right. Does price really matter? I mean, I don't care if I want Farazoli's pizza, which great pizza, I would just order Farazoli's because that's what I want. And I will use the most convenient way to get it that is possible available. Right. And if Farazoli's and I'm not picking on them, I love them. It's actually my favorite local pizza place. They actually removed A lot of third party delivery. If I want them, I have to go to their website and order it. Good for them. Right. That's the type of pivoting you do. Right? Make it convenient, make it easy, and give the people what they want.

Exactly. Yeah. I think the days of people thinking that they know best, you know, I always have that ownership. I know, I know what the. I know, I know what my guests want.

I would argue differently. I would say that technology, I don't know why this industry has such xenophobic people in it.

Like, they hate tech.

It's like you could typical scenario. Okay, I'm a restaurant operator. Somebody has called me and said, listen, here's this thing where you send a delivery to your customer and 30 minutes later you text message them and ask them how it was and if they respond, it was great. You say, cool, you want to leave me a reply on Google. And if they say it was bad, you have a private conversation about making it better. Okay, that sounds like a great piece of technology to me. Because if the customer was in the store and they said I had a problem, my meal was cold, the server was rude, the bathroom was dirty, what would you do? You would take care of it on the spot. Now you have communication that allows you to do that at scale on delivery. Well, that's putting the experience in the restaurant. Here's my scenario. You bring that to a restaurant operator, like, nah, I don't want to do that. Doesn't make sense. And on the next full phone call, they're going to haggle over the 5 cents that per pound difference that their meat purveyor is asking to put on their steaks.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. Focus on what you. Where you can make a difference. Not focus. I always say the most. The biggest problem with restaurant owners is that they're focused on the wrong. They're focused on the wrong things.

Somebody said to me today, oh, another consultant I'm friendly with, he's, he's like, yeah, my customers aren't buying this service. Like, they're too slow. And I was like, they're not too slow. You haven't given them a compelling reason why they need this. Because I'm sure if their toilet broke today, they have a compelling reason to fix that thing. Right. And so you're like, I know we're beating up a little bit on restaurant owners here, but we're trying to get them to think differently. Right.

You have to.

The idea here is like, look, there are really successful restaurant models out there and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just look at what they did and borrow.

Exactly. Yeah, it's called. I study nlp, neuro Linguistic programming and they call it modeling. You find someone getting the results you want, you find out what they did, you reverse engineer it, and then you get the same results. I would say restaurant success is not rocket science. It's people science.

I journal. I don't know if I think you do that.

Yeah, I love to journal.

In one of my journals, I have a picture of the white convertible Mustang that is not yet in my driveway, but one day will be right there. And whenever I see people driving a Mustang convertible, I'm like, see, I can do it. I don't act like I'm poor. I'm just spending money on other things right now. But the point is, like, if someone else has done it, you can do.

It, you can do it. That's the truth. That's so true. You know, leadership right now is real critical for. Especially this time in restaurants. What do you think's the number one trait that a leader needs today?

I think they need trust. You have to trust, first of all, you gotta trust yourself. Right. And part of that is trusting yourself to know what to do and how to treat people. And then you have to trust your people to do the right thing. But that comes with a caveat. Right now you'll go out for days about this is you have to teach them the right thing first. Right. And then you can trust them if you've taught them badly. If you haven't. I think this is a donalism. Treat them till they can't fail or train them until they can't fail.

Right.

If you've trained them till they can't fail, then you can trust them.

Yep. Yeah, I think it's up on my wall behind me. It says, you know, don't train them until they get it right. Train them till they can't get it wrong. Yeah, we train them like one or two times. You got it? Yeah, I got it. And we leave them and then we come back, hey, what happened? Everyone says, I got it, you don't got it.

Yeah, I remember when I again, I told you I'm a failed operator. We had a. We had the two bar concept. There's a bar upstairs and a bar downstairs. We ran downstairs and another group ran upstairs and the guys upstairs were just absentee owners. And they installed the general manager that like, they kind of half trained. And then one day when it was too late, they were looking at the books and this guy had spent like $17,000 in cheap vodka. And he was hiding it around the bar. Wow. He basically was not doing inventory every week. Was just like, yeah, we need three cases of this, like crappy vodka. And we had so much vodka that it almost looked like we were some pre. Some prohibition style. Like we're waiting for a car to show up. So we like offload these bottles. And we owed so much money to a distributor that like, we actually couldn't come out from under it. Because they didn't train him.

But.

But they trusted him. Right. So trust without training isn't actually trust, that's stupidity. But I think trust is relying on your ability to train.

Yeah. Trust without training is blind faith. And that doesn't work out sometimes too well, especially for restaurants.

No. But if you trust yourself to train them the right way, then you can trust them to run the business.

You and I are big proponents of great food. We love to eat. And I'm also a big believer in self care. Do you believe in self care? And not necessarily physical, but I mean like you journal?

Yes.

Would you say that form of self care.

I exercise this daily. I exercise the rest of this not so frequently.

Well, so what do you do for your mental conditioning? Give me some things that you do for mental conditioning.

Oh, boy. I love that you asked me this question. So I get out of bed. The first thing I do is I have a couple of. I don't get out of bed until I've generated a state of gratefulness. Like sometimes it takes two minutes, sometimes it takes 20. But I will not get out of bed until I feel grateful about my life, my family, my opportunity, my abundance. Like, that's number one. Then I have a couple of tasks that I do. I take a shower, whatever. Then the first thing I do after I've like cleaned and prepared, shaved, you know, comb the hair, whatever. I sit down in front of my computer or on an iPhone and I have a daily practice. So I have a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. They're all different. Where I read myself a high level thinking note about a frame of mind I want to be in when I'm done with that. Then I read what I call my to be list. I don't have a to do list. I have a list of what I want to be that day. And it starts with an affirmation that I've written to myself. And I recraft every morning. It takes me five minutes to read it. Here's what I want to be, here's what I want to accomplish. Here's the person I am. Here's what I believe. I then take two minutes to write out not a to do list, but I look at my day and I go, how do I want this thing to turn out? What is the result of. And I write those down. And I write those down. Then I go and do my day. Then at the end of my day, like end of my workday, not the end of my full day. So like six, seven o' clock I go and I take five minutes and I write down three to four things that I'm grateful for, three to four things that happened that day that made me feel good for what I did and how I accomplished it. And then the last thing I do before I go to bed other than update Instagram, is I think I ask myself, what is it do I want to accomplish tomorrow? And I write that down and that is it. That is a date. That is a Monday through Friday practice. I don't do it on weekends because I have one thing I want to accomplish on weekends and that's be an awesome dad and husband. And I don't need to journal that. So that's great.

I mean, that is amazing. You know, mindset to me is the big differential between people that are, you know, just good, great, or outstanding. You know, And I talk about it in both of my books. Either in your restaurant sucks and your restaurant still sucks. Mindset is a huge thing. And you know, if I just, if I just came out and said this was a book about mindset, no one.

Would buy it, right?

So I have to, I have to.

Hide it in there little strategic spots.

And give people like little, little, I call them little gold nuggets that I'm just leaving about. You know, your mindset really, really impacts the way your restaurant performs.

Yeah, I have a, I have. So everybody listening. I have a hack, right? Here's a way to change your mindset. It really simple. When you talk about your future and the things you want to accomplish, don't talk about them as future, talk about them as present.

Oh yeah, that's good.

So let's say you want to get your sales up to a million dollars a year. I'm just making up a number here. Let's say you're currently at 600 and you want to get to a million. Don't say it as when I get to a million. Say it is now. I'm so happy and grateful now that I've achieved a million dollars annual in sales. And with that I do X and Y. If you tell your mind you Already have the thing. Your mind will subconsciously figure out how to get the thing.

Exactly. Yeah, no, it's. Your mind is actually. It's a. It's a servo mechanism. It seeks what you want. And if you say, that's what I have and I'm happy and I'm grateful for it, it will find a way to make it true for you. It's amazing.

The mind is so powerful. Yeah. Take a picture of the white Mustang convertible. You want. Put it in your journal. Look at it every day.

Yeah, do that. You know, or like, you know, like this weekend I'm going up to. I'm going to go test drive a Tesla.

So that's one. Here's another one I do. I don't know if you can see this on screen, but I. On my phone, I have a picture of my bank account. Right. Can you see the number on it? What does it say?

Yeah, one million. Over a million.

Yeah. I don't have a million dollars in my bank account.

But you put it there because. Yeah, currently.

But I've actually made a physical representation of what a million dollars looks like in my account. And every time I pick up my phone, the first thing I see is my account with a million dollars in it.

Yeah. So when I'm at the gym, I would be doing, like, I do this exercise. It's a abdominal exercise. It's like a twisting for your obliques. And every time I'm twisting, I close my eyes and I visualize, like, my online sales. Just roll the number. Rolling. So every time I do a rep, it's like. Instead of like, one, two, it's like 1,000, 2,000. And I always go up to, like, a hundred. So I'm like. I see the dial changing, and I see like, 100,000 every month, you know, and that's how I. That's how I visualize is I just. Every time I'm doing a rep, I'm seeing, like. I'm seeing the dollar, just the, you know, a thousand bucks every time I.

Do a rep. That's awesome.

You.

That might give me motivation to work out more.

There you go. Every time you put in this. Putting that burger up to your mouth, 5,000 bucks.

That's not exercise. That takes work.

That's exercise. It's a curl.

It's kind of a curl.

I always say, be mindful when you're eating. That's all. Just be mindful. Mindful eating is the best. So talking about food, what's the best.

Meal you've ever had? Oh, God, the Day that I can answer that question, shoot me, because it's over. I have had so many great meals that it's hard to pick one. I can tell you a story of one of my favorite restaurant experiences.

Okay, that'd be great. Yeah.

So the wife and I went on vacation to Italy, and we're in Florence, and I'd heard about this restaurant called Il Latini, and everybody should go look it up. It's like the hardest to find restaurant ever. It's down an alley, down another alley, down, like, another alley, right? And they're so busy that basically you have to wait outside till you can get in. And they have these, like. It's like a bar outside, just like in the cement, like. And every half hour, they bring out, like, wine and cheese to, like, keep you happy while you're waiting outside, which is great customer experience. Right. You don't pay for that. It's just part of it. You get brought in and it's cavernous. There's like room after room after room. And they're dome shaped, like, it's a really old building. And hanging everywhere in the ceiling is, like, cured legs of pork. Right. Prosciutto, But. And so my wife and I sit down and we'd heard the great things about this place, and we were super excited. We sit down and the server comes over and he looks at the wife, he goes, madam, how about a pork shank and a nice orange demiglaze, blah, blah, blah. Like, it describes the dish. My wife goes, yes. He goes also to share farfalla, very light tomato sauce. Tomatoes are grown 16 miles or 16 kilometers outside, about little base on top. Very simple. And my wife goes, yes. And he looks at me and goes, signore, extra thick, medium rare, nice and juicy. I bring for you. You like? And I was like, yes, right. And he comes over and he drops a bottle of red wine on the table. And he goes, ah, this is my family's vineyard. It's on the system here. Latini. You drink whatever you like. You tell me later, we take care of it, right? I realized what's happened. He read us. Oh, there was no menu. He came over and sized us up and guessed what we were going to order. And whether he was right or not, like, he nailed it, right?

Yeah.

We never saw a menu. We're drinking the wine. The wine is excellent. One of the best steaks I've ever eaten. That pork shank was delicious. The farfalla was amazing. Right? Like, the whole experience. Oh, I forgot. We also. He's like, oh, you want some prosciutto? I was like, yeah. Reaches out, pulls it off the ceiling, shaves it right on your plate. Puts it back up on the. Like, one of the. We walked out of there that night, and my wife was like, can you take a picture of me hugging the restaurant? Il Latini in Florence. Unbelievable.

Latini in Florence.

Yeah. When and if we can ever fly again.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. It'll be soon. I'm. I'm. I haven't. I'm having faith. I'm putting that positive frame of mind that we're gonna be back to flying pretty soon.

God bless. We're all going to Litini.

That sounds great to me. We should do it. We should do a big. We should do a big culinary tour.

I call those culinary safaris.

That sounds awesome. We should plan one.

Yeah. We kept. We've been doing them. Me and a couple of other local influencers have been doing them every Friday in the summer. So. Really?

That's pretty awesome.

Yeah. So what we'll do is we'll literally go. Last week, we did four restaurants in a row, but the prior week, we did nine restaurants in 10 hours.

Wow. Restaurant safari. I like that idea.

So the idea is you go and you have, like, one or two items, you eat it, you get up, you go to the next one, you have one or two items, you get up, you go.

It's a pub crawl, but with food. Yeah.

You definitely have to do a lot of exercising the next day.

That would, like, wipe me out. But, you know, that's actually. That's how I like to eat. I mean, I like to go to restaurants and I order, like, a couple small plates, you know, try it out, and then I like to go to another place and try a couple things out. Like when I go to a city to speak, when I could go to a city and speak, you know, that's. That's why I like to eat. Like, because, you know, every time I go to some big city, everyone that gives me, oh, you gotta go here. And they give me, like, eight, nine places to check out. And I'm like, all right, I can't go and have a meal at each place. So I'll go and, like, I'll have, like, one or two appetizers, and I'll go to the next place, and I'll try to get as many as I can. I usually can hit four or five in a night. Without. I'm like, before. After that, I'm like, I'm tapping out. I'm out. I'm going back to the hotel.

I gotta, yeah, I, I do that. That's how I travel as well.

It.

I call them eat cations.

Yeah, they're awesome. I love it. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, and you know, to me, I think, you know, mentorship is really cool and really big. Also. Who are some, maybe your mentors you've had in your life and rebel restaurants here? Just mentors in your life that just made you a better man, better person.

Well, I mean, look, you are on our podcast on the restaurant executive Mastery podcast. My co host, John Shaw, he's an inspirational thought leader and career coach. I pay him, right. He's my coach, but he is, he's been made a world of difference in my life and how I got to him is what I actually want to talk about here. Prior to John, there was always somebody in my life who was an inspirational leader. Jeff Roars, who was the CMO when I worked at yext. He's a genius. He was at Exact Target. Working under him for two years, I had unbelievable amounts of inspiration from Jeff Rohrs. Right. And Jay Baer I think is also incredible. But I'd always had somebody in my life that was an inspiration. After I left Yext, I didn't have an inspirational leader. There wasn't somebody who had been down my path or who had done what I wanted to do or had a model for what I wanted to accomplish. And I was failing Donald. I was running marketing for a $44 million publicly traded company. And every day at the end of the day going, I have no idea what I did today and I have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow. I was frantic, okay. And I realized what I needed was an inspirational leader in my life because I've always had one to that point ended. Long story short, I found John. It changed everything. But I believe in, you know, whether you want to look at it from a mastermind model model or one to one model. But having somebody that you can ask questions to that knows the answer or has seen the movie, even if they pay for it, is invaluable, man. And you can get that from books, you can get that from podcasts, you can get that from a one on one coach. But I believe that you need somebody who can help you define your own path, even if it's just evocative. It's true.

Yeah, I still have. So I got into coaching in 2008 when the market crashed, you know, the economy crashed in 2008. I actually, I hired a business coach to help me kind of remodel I was just doing consulting exclusively back then, and, you know, all my consulting clients start up. So I actually hired a business coach to help me kind of do a, you know, kind of a. Kind of rework my business model. And, you know, he took me through this coaching process.

I was like, I really love this coaching stuff.

You know, I think. And I was like. And then I actually googled restaurant coaches back in 2008. No one was saying they were a restaurant coach back then. So that's why I got the name the Restaurant Coach. And so I actually. I asked him, you know, do you do certification? He said, yeah. So I got certified as a. As a coach, an executive coach. And then I just. Him and I rebuilt my whole brand around this coaching kind of model. And ever since 2009, I've been the restaurant coach, and I still have the same business coach to this day.

That's awesome. Yeah.

Same guy, 11 years, man. He's been there. And I tell you, every time I talk to him, I learn something new. You know, he challenges me, he pushes me, and I've. I always say I'm a better man and a better person, a better human being because of his kind of his coaching and guidance.

So that's awesome. So I'm going to directly answer your question now. Okay. So John Mark Shaw is my current inspiration. Okay. Jeff Rohrs was a crazy leader in my life. I happen to love Guy Kawasaki, right?

Oh, yeah.

If people do not know who Guy Kawasaki is, go listen to his podcast, which is incredible. Or read one of his books. He was one of the original people at Apple. He is much like you. He's a tell it like it is kind of guy. He's very, very funny. But, like, if Guy Kawasaki is speaking at a convention, Guy Kawasaki puts out a book or Guy Kawasaki puts out a podcast, I listen to it. That guy has an unbelievable way of making really smart things really digestible. I aspire to be that person.

Yeah. One of the people I really admire is Simon Sinek. I love his stuff. I love his. Kind of straightforward, too. Yeah. Yeah. Having mentors is great. And you might not really think you have a mentor, but you probably do. You have probably a couple people.

Yeah. I mean, my dad at one point was, you know, you can get inspiration from a lot of people, but I believe in having. Calling people like that into your life.

Yeah, exactly. What do you kind of see as the new normal for restaurants?

Digital marketing. You know, I think that this concept of, like, I open the door, my food is great is. Is it was a failing concept and this going to fail faster. So, you know, I think if you want to be a successful restaurant, first of all, you got mindset, right? You got the right people. That's what. That's what, that's why they call you, right? You got to have the right model. But after that, like, if you're not thinking about how to raise awareness, acquire and retain customers, you're going to fail. And I think the new normal, so to speak, has to have some sort of seamless, frictionless customer journey that is easier to use than seamless. Right. That is easier to use than Uber Eats. If you make it easy and compelling for a consumer to do business with your restaurant the same way that Doordash does, you will win.

Okay?

And I think that that is a technology enabled business.

I'm going to go out and tell everyone right now, if you need help getting your technology up to speed and getting to the modern world, contact Rev. He's the man you need. You want help with your culture, your mindset, your team, stuff like that, I'll help you. But when you get to that point where you need help with, you know, I need to get, you know, kind of escalate my digital game. You want to call Rev. That's the guy I recommend.

Thank you. We should just form like the Justice League. That's it.

That's the Restaurant League.

Yeah. I realized, I tell you this, you know, I owned a bar for six years and we were horrible operators. Horrible. But you know what? There's like, that's easy to fix. It's actually the acquisition and an awareness and retention that's really hard. And I realized that we were actually. That was the part we were actually good at. I was like, wow, I'm gonna go do that because I think it's fun as hell, man. Like, I really. I'll never forget, I was sitting around one day, I was angry. We're getting negative Yelp reviews. And I was like, why are we a 3.5? You know, we're the top. We're the number one checked in bar for whiskey on Foursquare. We get glowing reviews from Thrillist and Timeout. And, you know, I got rock musicians who sell at stadiums who only come to this bar, like on TV. We had 1500 Facebook followers before we opened our doors. We follow, like, why? Like, why are we so bad?

Okay?

And I was like, oh, you know why? Because we don't show Yelp the respects it deserves. And so I literally started having my servers or my bartenders at the End of a transaction, go. Did you have a five star experience? And if they said yes, Right. We would say, cool. If you want to share your thoughts, we love Yelp. Right. And if they said no, they'd be like, cool, what can I do right now to make it a five star experience? And they would say, I thought my appetizer was cold, you know, whatever. And we would make up. We went from a 3.5 to a 4.0 in a matter of months.

Oh, wow. That's amazing too.

Super fast.

Yelp is brutal.

And we would take really positive reviews because there's a share link right. On a Yelp review and we put them on our social media. Thanks, Jane. We super appreciate you too. And glad you liked the whiskey. Right. When we prioritized asking for those things, like when we actually used Yelp the way it's supposed to be used, our reviews skyrocketed and you could see people walking into our business that had never been there before. And anecdotally, we would have somebody say, oh, I found you on Yelp. And when I went and confirmed it with analytics, like, I'd look at our website and our number three source of traffic was Yelp, I was like, this works, right? I realized I was good at that piece and I was bad at operations.

Stay with what you're good at, right? So what advice would you give your younger self? Because you've done a lot of stuff in your life.

Oh, man. You know, I don't live in. I don't. So I don't live with regrets and I don't live in the past, mostly because it's a time of my life there's nothing I can do about. If there were two things that I think I might be interested in giving myself advice, one. One would be I would go back to high school and tell high school year old me that this guy Gary that was in my English class who only wore Iron Maiden shirts, was way cooler than I thought he was at the time. But I was pretty hard on Gary, and now Iron Band's one of my favorite bands, so I would go do that. And the other thing is, I would have probably told myself to start writing a book a while ago. Yeah, right. Those would probably be the two things. Other than that, you know, I'm pretty happy with where I am and what I've done. And I hope that the experiences that I have and the inspiration I can bring to the table are helpful to other people, you know?

Exactly. Perfect.

Thank you, Gary Martell. If you're listening, Iron Maiden, right, yeah.

Gary, sorry, dude. Gary, sorry. Meet up. I'll buy you whiskey.

Whatever he's into, Gary's into.

So how should restaurants shift their menus right now?

You know, it's interesting. You talk about a restaurant menu shift whatever your community needs, right? Like somebody might say, family meals are a good idea. Is that what your community needs? And if they are, then yeah, that's a great idea. I was talking to Bruce earlier today and he's like, oh, we have this bakery near us where they basically tell you how to bake all the things and you can get a bakery kit and make their cakes and cookies like they are do. I was like, cool. I don't want that. People in that community think that's awesome. And that's a great way to deliver the in store experience in the bag. Right, do that. But I think you have to experiment a little and find out what your customer is like. And, you know, it's a really great way to find out what your customers like.

Your POS system. Ask them and look at your POS system. It tells you what they're buying.

Look at your data and then send out a survey.

Yeah, ask. Nothing wrong with asking. I think one of the things that holds a lot of restaurants back is that they think they know better. They think they know better than the guest. I'm gonna tell you right now, you don't.

You don't just ask, ask people and.

Then look at your POS system. Your POS tells you exactly where people are spending their money.

Yeah. I have a friend who owns a really fancy steak restaurant in North Jersey. He's doing $1,000 a day in delivery orders of T bones. You know what I'm not gonna do? I am not gonna order a T bone because I'm not paying a hundred dollars to bring you a steak. But he found his community wanted it. So God bless what they want. Give them what they want.

Give people what they want, not what you think they want.

You know? Now look, this is probably advice you would give, but I would tell people to pare down their menu right now. This is a good time to reduce the fluff. This is a good time to remove the dogs. Right? So it's a good time to test what happens. Another menu pivot I would suggest for people is if you're using third party delivery services, and I'm an advocate for them, if you have a system in place to convert them to first party. Otherwise I'm not an advocate. A couple of my clients are doing this. They have actually removed Some of their items from third party and only made them available first party. So the pizzeria as an example, because it's easy, they'll leave the cheese, they'll leave the pepperoni, but if they have a really cool chicken Frances a pie or like a really interesting penny a la vodka pie. No, that's only available from the restaurant directly. Right. I think that's interesting. Menu pivot is only putting a. The things that are really, really popular on the other one. And the other pivot I would suggest people look at from a delivery lens is if it delivers poorly, should you be delivering it? Right.

That's the truth. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the first thing you should look at. If you can't deliver it, you know, it's just, you know, like you said, how do I put that experience in a bag if I can't deliver it and have the same experience and it's going to get to the place and be just disgusting, then don't do it.

My wife is like, I don't understand you. You love hot wings. I was like, I do. How can you never order them? Delivery. I was like, because everybody sends them Rubbery.

Yeah, they're all nasty. Yeah. So what's your favorite social media platform?

I mean, I'd be remiss if I didn't say Instagram. You know, between my five accounts, I have 650,000 followers. So if I didn't answer Instagram, I'd be making a lot of people angry. But I actually really love Instagram.

Any social media platforms up and coming you're kind of looking at or playing.

Around on, you know, people are kind of hot on the TikTok. I'm not. And I'll tell you why. If you're a restaurant operator, look, we primarily speak to independent restaurant operators. You know, we're not talking to executives at McDonald's all day. But, like, marketing is hard. Marketing takes a lot of time. Content creation, it's. It's not, you know, it's not rocket science, but you got to figure it out. There's an art to it.

Yeah. You got to put in the. Where you put in some consistency behind it.

Yeah. Take TikTok. I think the level of creation is a little harder. Right. And there's very little trackable roi. There's no link in bio. You know, you can't get people to sign up for your email address. Like, it really is just broadcasting a message. And while I'm a fan of that, if the content is good, I think it's hard to Measure the effectiveness of TikTok on your business. And so I wouldn't recommend it for a business unless they know how to leverage it. That is why I like Instagram and Facebook.

Very cool. Now I'm going to, I'm going to kind of sideway here. One of your posts on Instagram that I want to kind of dive into, you mentioned, you know, how can people use hashtags to grow their following? And then how many hashtags should they use?

So I love this question because it's easy to answer. Instagram allows you up to 30 hashtags. Use them all. There's no reason to not use all of them, right? You will not be penalized if you use all 30 or if you use 1, you only use, really be penalized if you use none, right? So how many to use is 30? The other question is how to use them to grow your account. So you know the algorithm is a beast, right? I mean, I have 100,000 followers and lately I've been getting 700 likes. Man, that is small. But here's the thing. Hashtags work okay? And they may not get you a ton of growth and they may not, they may not boost you on a per post basis, right? But if somebody happens to go to a hashtag looking for something like NYC Pizza, I used the other day, like, if somebody actually wants to click on that hashtag and look for NYC pizza, you want to be there, right? And so using hashtags gets you in the stream of people who are searching, right? It may not get you a lot of engagement on your per post, which obviously what you like because you want to grow your account. But for somebody who's using hashtags to discover, you want to make sure your content there, it's similar to SEO, right? If I search best pizza near me and you don't come up and you own a pizza shop, what'd you do wrong? Hashtags, the same thing. If there's a pizza, if there's, if there's a hashtag that's relevant to your community or your business, then you should use it. And where people go wrong, where restaurant operators go really wrong is and we're picking on pizza pizza shops today.

But nothing against pizza places.

Using the hashtag pizza is a bad idea. You know why millions of people use a minute. The chance of you being discovered on hashtag pizza is infinitesimal, right? But if there's hashtag best in your town's name, like I live in Rutherford, New Jersey. If there's best in Rutherford, That's a relevant hashtag. Or if you're in Jersey City, they use jc make it yours. Find those local hashtags that are relevant for a restaurant owner. Those are the ones to jump on. Those are really the ones to jump on because they're going to help connect you within a mile radius of your store.

Definitely use a local hashtag. Whatever city you're in, make sure you're using something local. And then make a unique one, too. A couple unique ones like Rev mentioned.

Yeah. And the last one I would mention is a branded hashtag. Right. Your restaurant or your business should have its own hashtag. And it could be just your name. Right. It could be. Again, I'm picking up Ferritzoli's here, but Ferrizoli's Kitchen, like, that's their hashtag and it might only have a couple hundred uses, but it doesn't matter. Those are high value uses. You should determine what your brand hashtag is and you should put it in your bio. That way you're giving a signal to your followers to use your hashtag and to populate it. So when somebody else who's not had a transaction with that business ends up on that hashtag and all they see is beautiful pictures of food or people having a great time, and it just confirms the purchase. Right. It completes the customer journey.

Now, and when you're putting hashtags in, do you tell people to put hashtags in the. When they make the post or put it in as a comment?

The question is captions or comments, right?

Yeah.

So Instagram doesn't care. It doesn't matter.

Okay.

Okay.

I hear a lot of people say, oh, don't put it in there. Don't put it in the. In the caption. Put it in the comment.

It's been debunked. So here's what I do. Okay. I put three or four in the caption in the caption, and then I put the rest in the first comment. Now, why do I do that? I aesthetically think that looks better. Okay. I just. Rather than seeing a cloud of hashtags in the post, you don't see it. So, number one, I think it's aesthetically pleasing. Right. Number two, I use branded hashtags. Revs. Marketing tips. That's my hashtag. Burger Roti. That's my hashtag. So in the caption, I will put the hashtag I want you to see and I want you to use so that if you see my post and at the bottom, the only hashtag you see is Revs. Marketing tips. If you tap on that, you see all the other content that I put out there. So that's why I do it. The other one. Now, this is a hack that Jen's Trends, Jen Herman taught me, is the way the Explore tab works, is it works on activity. So if you use a hashtag, like hashtag pizza, the only chance you have of getting juice on that is the quickest possible way. So if you're gonna put some in the caption and some in the comments, when you put it in the caption, it goes live quicker. So for that one or two or three seconds, you have a chance to jump on that big hashtag. You put the big performing hashtags in the caption, in the, in the, in.

The caption, in the caption, and then put your other ones in the comment. Oh, very cool. Very cool. And, you know, a lot of people don't know that on Instagram you can actually. You can follow just hashtags.

Yep.

Yeah. So I have a few key hashtags I follow all the time. You know?

Yeah, you should follow ones relevant to your industry and you should follow your own hashtag because that's also a way to find out users that are using your branded hashtag that maybe didn't tag you in a photo or didn't, you know, geo locate you, but they use your hashtag killer. You want to see that?

And how do people drive engagement on Instagram?

Oh, man, that's a whole. How much time do we have?

That's a long time. Give them one hack. One, One. One short one that they could use today.

Reply to your DMs. Right? Check your DMs. Reply to your DMs. That's people that want something from you. Right. And another one is, I would say if you're a restaurant operator and you're following some of your customers, go like. And comment on their content. I'm going to give you one. We'll do three. The last one. If a consumer or a customer shares content about your restaurant forward, just put it in your stories. Right. Go look at East Village Pizza. Frank's a master. If somebody. Yeah, if somebody. If somebody posts content and tags East Village Pizza, he instantly shares it to his. His stories and it gets him insane amounts of engagement and is really a way of thanking the customer.

Awesome. Yeah, Frank is awesome. He is. He's one of the ones I always recommend people follow. Yeah, that guy just does it, right? Yeah.

Frank the ball. I love Frank.

Frank's. He's a. He's a Badass. So, you know, to me, I always, you know, I'm a big believer in culture, and culture is very influential in restaurant success. What would you say is the key to creating culture?

Oh, man, I would say have a purpose. Right. What is the purpose? And I love speaking through examples. Farazole's Italian kitchen. Boy, I'm gonna have to ping that. There are four pizza places in our tiny little town here. Okay? Tiny towns. Three square miles. Okay? There are four places. Tiny. There are four places where you can get pizza, and one of them is Domino's, right? And Matt. Matt from Farrazoli's, Literally, he's across the street from one and next door to Domino's, Right? Like, could you dial in competition? Even worse. Okay. But Matt did something interesting. What is his purpose? So this town where. The next town over from where the Giants and the jets play. So you can imagine this is a big football town, right? And in our high school in town, the Bulldogs, people are very passionate about high school football here. Like, you know what? We're going to be the high school football pizza place. And he hires people that work for the team. He works for players. He hires the cheerleaders. He hires them. And his decoration is about the Bulldogs. And whenever they need support, they're doing a fundraiser. Whenever he's there with his pizza, right? And he has a very flexible hiring schedule. If you're a high school student and you work for Matt and you get a hot date on a Friday and you want to call out, it's cool. Here's the list of other employees. See who will take your. Your. Your shift, right?

Yeah.

So the point is, he has a purpose. He has figured out how to serve his community. Now, you don't go there, and it's not called Bulldog pizza or, you know, Rutherford football team pizza, but he found a purpose, and. And he's got the rest of his staff to care about that purpose, right? They care about the high school, they care about the community. They care about doing good, and they care about making good food. And so you go there and is it the best pizza ever? Don't tell Matt I said this. It's not. But it is the best pizza experience, right? And that outshines food quality every single time. And please, Farazole makes wonderful food. That is not what I'm saying. But I choose to go there because he has given a purpose to the business, and he has taught that to his employees. And when I interact with his employees, I feel that they feel the intentions and the purpose of serving their Community.

That's awesome. Yeah.

I owe Matt an apology.

You might have to go buy some pizza tonight for me.

We'll order some today, Grandma. Vodka pie. Is bananas good?

So let's kind of look into the future. How long do you see this, kind of. How long do you see the restaurant world kind of recovering from this pandemic?

So I don't like to think of it in terms of recovery. I look at it as a term of a reset. Right. How long is the reset going to take? Well, I would tell a restaurant operator that's up to you. I have a client who has four locations. They've seen a 200% lift in business.

Yep.

Okay.

I have clients, like, just killing it right now.

We figured out how to do one day a month, 13 to 18% one day lift in business. Like, literally, it's like pressing a magic button. We literally will have a meeting in July about what's the day in August. We'll have a meeting in August about what's the day in September. And it takes $300 and a couple of focus days of promotion. Like all of this just reset and figured out. The timeline is up to you. Right. And I understand it might be harder if you're LA Bernardin, if you're like some super high end place that like, okay, that challenge is a little bigger. Right. Than a pizza place that needs some iteration. But the timeline's up to you.

Very cool. No, that's the truth. I like to look at that again. I think words are very powerful. And then, you know, the word reset is so much better. I think. A lot better. A lot better. So how do you, how do you deal with stress when you get stressed out?

I drink beer by myself six nights a week. That is. That is actually true. I allow myself two beers every night. It calls me down. Also. I'll tell you what I do throughout the day. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm into spinner fidget. Spinners. Yeah. I've been spinning this whole conversation. I don't have one, I don't have two. I don't have three. I don't have four, I don't have five. And there are two more upstairs. I spin all day. Okay. And each one of my spinners aligns to a different level of thinking. So when I need to be strategic, Ironman spinner comes out. Okay. When I need to think like a leader, Captain America comes out. When I need to remember to be friendly, Spider man comes out. When I need to really power through getting Something done, the Hulk comes out. And when I need to be benevolent and grateful, the benevolent fox comes out. Okay. I spin all day. It keeps me focused. It keeps me stressed. If I have a moment that I just blank out, I'll stop for a minute. I'll take a couple deep breaths, I'll spin, and it just focuses my energy. So beer and spinners.

You mentioned spinners. Because, you know.

Hey, there you go.

Yeah, I got one too. Yeah? Yep.

They're great. They're great for transition. If you have, like, a really busy day and you literally have to, like, change hats between a meeting. If you assign your spinners to. And you don't have to use spinners. This is what I use.

Like, I need to know where you got that Captain America. I like that Captain America one.

Oh, I bought them as a set. I got all three of my. And I have a Thor's hammer. And just the top of the hammer spins.

Does it really?

Yeah, it's badass.

All right.

But so the spinner link for that. The journaling helps me relieve some stress. I do drink craft beer by myself, and every once in a while when I'm really, like, bananas, I would just go play a song I really like.

Oh, really? Wow. Do you play instruments?

Horribly. Horribly. That's why when I was in the music business, I was a manager, not a musician.

Yeah, for me, for stress, I have to work out. And I always kind of make the joke. I tell people I work out for your benefit, not mine. Because you don't want to be around me if I don't work out. Trust me. Do not want to be around me.

Yeah, my catharsis is helping people. If I did something good to help somebody that day, that actually alleviates a lot of stress.

Yeah. So name one book. An audio book or a podcast. And in fact, of course, mention your podcast that you have.

Restaurant Executive Mastery. So we talk to C suite leaders and founders of multi unit restaurant brands about mindset and envisioning. It's not intended for everybody. It's intended for a very small audience. But the people that we've had. Your episode was incredible. If you want to think about mindset and growth and visionary leadership in the restaurant business, that's who it's intended for.

Definitely. Yeah, definitely. Check it out. How about a book? What book or audiobook would you recommend?

The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Waddle.

That's an awesome book.

Actually, I think it was written in 1916. Yeah. The old book weekly is the timing at which I listen to part of that book. I like the audio version, but I listen or interact with that book on a weekly basis.

Do you really? Every week.

Yeah. There's a secret and I'm going to tell. You're not supposed to know the secret till you've read the book, but I'll tell you, since we're on a call. But you're supposed to read the book, and then you're supposed to go back and read chapters 4, 7, 11, and 13 every day for 90 days.

Okay.

Okay. And it's supposed to retrain your mind. I actually.

11 and 19.

4, 7, 11 and 13.

4, 7, 11, 13.

I actually went and created an MP3 of just those in the audiobook. So I'll listen to them. Yeah, so I'll just listen once a week. I'll listen to it, but I'll do that.

I wrote it down, so I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna implement. You know, I have a similar book, you know, think and Grow Rich.

Oh, amazing.

I look at every week and I read something out of it every week. So amazing. I'm always. Do the affirmation. There's an affirmation he has in there. I always do my affirmation in the morning.

I bought that book on tour with a band called Thursday when we headlined a stadium in the jungle in Manila. I'll never forget the day I bought that book.

That's crazy. Yeah, that's probably a whole story right there.

It was crazy. The security guards for that show were military personnel. So standing at the edge of the stage were dudes in full gear with rifles and, like, bayonets and, like, you know, they're like an emo punk band from Jersey, like, playing songs about, like, hating your teenage life. I'm knocking them a little bit. They're very intelligent guys. But it was crazy to have, like, basically military, the military standing into the stage. But I bought that book the next day, and I'll never forget it.

Damn, that's amazing. So give me a. Give us one quote you live by.

Be awesome at two things and outsource everything else.

There you go. That's a good one.

Figure out what you're good at, figure out something else you're good at and all the other things. Have somebody else do or learn from them.

Yeah, that's a great one. And then how can people contact you?

Whatever platform you like the best, I monitor it. Right. So Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever you want. But I'm most active on LinkedIn and Instagram and on the screen name is the Same on everyone. Revciencio. For people who are listening to this and going, I don't know how to spell that. The easiest way to find me is I have an Instagram account called Fun with fries. There's 370,000 followers and is just pictures of french fries. And my revciancio is in the bio.

There you go. Awesome. You know, Rev, I want to say thank you so much for taking time to be on the show today, and thanks for sharing your insights. And like I tell everybody, if you need help getting your digital kind of marketing up to speed, you want to really learn how to engage and turn, you know, just regulars into loyal. I mean, loyal, loyal fans. Get a hold of Rev. He'll help you out.

Thank you. I. I want to have better restaurant experiences, so I started a business where I can help restaurateurs to create the experience I want to have.

Exactly.

So egotistical. Thanks, Don. I think you're a genius and a true leader in the space. I'm grateful to speak to you and your father.

Thank you. I appreciate you so much, my friend, and you make it a fantastic day. Be safe and be healthy. Make sure to mask up.

Make it a great, tasty day, all right?