How to Increase Profits with Darren Manzari

Hey, and welcome to the Restaurant Coach podcast. You know, I am honored to have on the show today not only a amazing guest, but also a friend and also a business partner of mine, Darren Mansari. Darren, how are you today?

I am doing wonderful. How are you today, Donald?

I am awesome. Outstanding. How are things? And you know, now people don't always, like, think, well, you guys live and work in the same now. We live in different parts of the country. I live in Albuquerque and Darren lives in South Dakota.

That's exactly right. I am up in the Black Hills of South Dakota. So we're in like that northwest corner where all the mountains are. And it's just a great, great place to live, especially if you like the outdoors. You know, if you don't like the outdoors, it's probably not your cup of tea. But if you're into hiking or mountain biking or fishing or any of those outdoor activities, it's just a great place.

It's heaven until they have hailstorms. I have to say I've been to South Dakota quite a few times and I have to agree, it is a beautiful, beautiful area. It is very, very beautiful. Lots of wildlife. I mean, all those things he talked about are perfect there. But you've, if you've never seen hail the size of a baseball, you will see it there.

Go see it here, you'll see it there. We have some interesting storms for sure. And a lot of people just get used to driving around with dented cars. Our cars look like oranges.

All right, now, in full disclosure, I want to tell everyone they're listening, that, you know, you and I started a company together that helps restaurants track and improve their key performance indicators, or KPIs. Give a little background about what kind of got you started in KPI consulting.

Okay. Well, we, when my wife and I got married and we got married very young. My wife and I met when we were 12, started dating when we were young, know 16, 17, engaged right around that time and then married quick, not married quick. I shouldn't say that. We had a three year engagement. We were married. We were engaged by 17, married by 20. So we were engaged for three years and then started a family. We moved to upstate New York. You know, a year or so later we had our first child and our second child and we started in the automotive repair industry. So I started at a time, this was back in the late 80s when computers just started coming into automotive vehicles. Right. So now cars are being run by computers for the first time. And my background is I have a degree as a computer programmer and I also have a degree in engineering. But my love, my passion was always in the automotive field. So I was in a unique spot where I loved working on cars, I loved everything to do about the automotive industry and I understood this new technology that was just forced upon the industry and that caused us to open up our first business and the Lord blessed very quickly. And we went from running a one bay shop with just me as the only mechanic and my wife answering the phones to within a very short period of time. We had three shops, they were dealership sized facilities, we had 100 people working for us. And now life was running really quickly, right, with all these businesses going and when the kids turned about roughly 10 years old and you know, let's say one was 10 and one was 11, they're only 20 months apart. Nancy came to me one day and she said, you know, I want to have a talk with you tonight. And you know, by the way, she said it was like, oh yeah, correct. It had that little twinge of seriousness in it, you know, so I knew something, what needed to be discussed and it wasn't as bad as I thought, you know, but she said to me, she said, look, you're a great husband, you're a great provider, you're a great father to our children. But, right? There's always a but that comes after that. She said, you're working a lot of hours. She said, and our kids are now like 10 years old and in 10 more years or eight more years, they're going to be out of the house. And she said, I don't want you to look back at that point in your life and say, you know, where did this time go? How did I miss this? She said, so consider it your halftime warning. She said, do with it what you want to do with it. So I said, okay. And I took those words very seriously. So, you know, the next week I went into work and I said, I'm going to figure out a way to, to separate myself from this facility so I don't have to work all these hours like this. You know, one thing we did at the time, we were, we were, we decided to, for, for the Sabbath, to enjoy the Sabbath with our family. And that caused us to close on Saturdays. And to do that, that's, that's closing your business for two months. You know, if Saturday is a big day for you and you close, that's 52 days a week, a year, you're closing, you know, so I didn't think there was any way we could survive this. But what I did was I did this deep dive into KPIs. I did this deep dive into figuring out exactly where does profitability come from in a business. So many people don't do that. They just think more customers equal more money. That is so not true. Right? More customers could put you out of business that much quicker if your KPIs aren't where they need to be. So I figured out exactly where the profitability comes from. And much to my surprise, a year later, I had worked myself out of the shop. I didn't have to even go to work anymore. We were doing less cars because of the, you know, not working Saturdays, but we're actually making more profits. So where I had less gross sales, I had more money at the end of the year. And I was like, wow, this is really interesting. And that was kind of like my first deep dive into KPIs. And I said, I really have to start studying more of this. So I continued to do that. We moved to Florida. I continue to do my research into that. And, and, and as I perfected this system more and more and more through a little project with Porsche and General Motors, all of a sudden GM saw what I was doing. They said, you know, I had to fly out to California for this project I was doing. And they said, how is it you're living in Florida, running businesses in New York? Like, that's not really done in our industry very often. And, you know, silly me, I like, say, oh, let me show you. I just opened up my laptop because back then it wasn't like you download a program like today, anything that was on your laptop back then, you built it yourself. And, and they said, we've never seen anything like this. This is pretty amazing. They said, could you teach this to our dealerships? And I said, yeah, absolutely I could. And next thing you know, now I'm more of a consultant and trainer than I am a business owner with my shops. I still had the shops, but now they're in New York. We're living in Florida. I'm teaching classes around the United States for gm. And next thing you know what, some of these dealership owners suddenly said, hey, could you come and work for us out in Barbados? That was the first country that took me out of the United States was Barbados. And. And a couple of years later, Now I'm in 25 different countries. I'm working with vehicle importers, I'm working with dealerships, I'm working with, you know, large, large facilities on. On. How do you Optimize your operation. How do you identify what are those profit centers and how do we build on them? And, and that's really how it started, you know, and then I did that for the next 17 to 20 years, you know, still doing it today.

And then you decided it'd be a good idea to help your wife open a restaurant.

Yeah, I was talking to someone the other day, and, you know, if you grew up in, in the 80s, you know, you probably heard of a band called Pink Floyd, and Pink Floyd has an album called Momentary Lapse of Reason. There it is right there. So, so now I could really relate to that. But no, in all seriousness, we're living up here in South Dakota, and I'm still a consultant, I'm still working, and my wife has been, she, you know, this is, I'm a little biased here, but my wife is a fantastic cook. She, like the, the food she produces is just incredible. Incredible.

I can actually second that. She is an amazing.

Thank you. And, and one day we did it. We have friends of ours that were running an event for their business. 125 people. At the last minute, they realized they had set everything up but forgot to call a caterer. They forgot to arrange for food. So Nancy is like, oh, it's no big deal. I'll cook it for you. And they were like, you could cook for that many people? And she said, yep, with my eyes closed, it's no problem. And she put on, like, catered like a full dinner. I mean, we had dish after dish after dish. It wasn't just appetizers. And the feedback she got from that was really amazing. And, and she loved that because she's always wanted to open a restaurant, you know, so this kind of gave her the courage to do it. And I said, hey, if that's what you want to do, I'll support you 100%. Let's do it. And, you know, we found this little place in downtown, Spearfish, and we opened up a restaurant. It's called Nona's Kitchen. And the rest is history with that. Right? There's a lot. I'll tell you, there's a lot more hours involved in running a restaurant than there is and running a consulting business in 25 countries.

That's true. That's very true. So now, now you're, you know, world KPI consultant, now a restaurateur. And, you know, you've seen. And you, you actually, we, you know, and I, I actually was, you know, I, I, I, I work with you also on Nonnas too. And we opened Nonna's before COVID Yes. And it really shook the industry down, you know, just like, just shook the industry upside down. I always say Covid's like a snow globe and just shook the out of everybody.

Right. Yeah.

So what's your view on the industry right now as you see it?

You know, if I look at the view on the industry as a whole, I'm a very optimistic person. So you have to realize that everything I say is always going to come from that attitude. Like, I don't. I don't view problems as problems. I believe that, you know, there are no real problems. They're just challenges. And there's just, you know, and if I say to you, hey, I got a challenge for you, you don't get all upset. Sometimes you get like, except, okay, I'm ready. Like, what's the challenge? You know? But if I say, donald, I have a problem, you know, then. Then it's like.

The words automatically. What?

Yeah. And mindset's really important. So. So Covid is just a little challenge. Right. It's not the end of the world. It's not the end of life as you know it.

Right.

And for the businesses that figure out a way to thrive in the post Covid. And I shouldn't even say post Covid, should I? Because we had pre Covid. Right. That's when we got the idea to open the restaurant.

Right.

Timing is everything, Right. A couple months before COVID hit, let's open a restaurant. A couple weeks later, let's close the restaurant. Right. But now we're not even post coveted. Now we're in Covid. So we are in a Covid economy right now.

Yeah, we haven't gotten to post Covid yet.

Yeah, we haven't gotten to post Covid yet. Right, Right. So. So living with COVID and. And that's something that, you know, I kind of coined that phrase the other day when we had a little incident at the restaurant. And what happened was we had one of our bartenders who had worked the day prior tested positive, and it was our first time. Like. Like, you hear about COVID but you don't know anyone who has Covid. You know or you don't. You're not.

I never knew anybody had it. Yeah, you're not the first one I heard of. You know, you guys were like, the first one.

Correct.

So.

So just because of that, we were like, okay, what do we do? So within a minute of hearing this, I went from table to table to table and told every customer in the Restaurant. What had happened? I said, look, I had my phone in my hand. I, like, look, I just got this phone call right now and found out that a bartender who was working here yesterday just got tested positive with COVID You know, in the effort of full transparency, I just wanted you to know that. And I thought they were going to, like, get up and run, like, ah, I'm getting out of here. And their biggest concern was, does this mean we can't order dessert? Like, we don't really. Correct. And you know what was great? That was the first table I went to that said that to me. And. And it did kind of make me laugh a little bit. And it broke the ice because now I wasn't afraid to go to any of the other tables. And not one client got up and walked out of the restaurant. Everybody just finished their meals, Even if they were just on the bread. They were. They hadn't even offered ordered appetizers yet. They still didn't leave.

Right.

They still stayed there. And what we did was we did close the inside. We didn't take in any other people that day. And. And then we closed for the next couple days, but we shut down for a whole weekend and said, what's the best way to handle this? You know? So what I did was I had all of our employees test for Covid, and everyone else really came out negative. If someone didn't want to test or for some reason, let's say they got a test result that did test positive, which is another thing I found out. You could test positive, and then you know what the doctors say, Come back in three days, because we get a lot of false positives. I know.

That was like, the craziest thing in the world. It's like, well, what? And you're making some money because it's like a hundred bucks a test, you know, Correct.

I'm like, can't you just tell me if I have it or not? This is like, okay, you might have it.

Right?

That's really what it is.

You might have it, you might not have it.

Yeah. If you fail two out of three, then we'll say you have it.

Exactly.

But. But, yeah, so that was interesting to find out. But what we did was we. We tested everybody, and if they didn't want to get the test, okay, you can't come. 14 days. You have to self quarantine for 14 days. And now we reopened today, like, so this is living with COVID right? This is today, and we just reopened today. And the restaurant is busy, busy, busy. And I put out videos on Facebook, our Instagram. I literally told everybody. The truth is exactly what's going on. This is exactly what we did to combat it. And if you, like, went to our Instagram or our Facebook account right now and read some of those comments, they're great. This was, like, a great advertising thing to do because, yeah, here you thought it was going to destroy you, and everyone was like, thank you for your transparency. Thank you for this. And that's when I realized that it's not if you get Covid or what happens. No, we're living with COVID now. We're learning to live with COVID And apparently all my customers are like, hey, as long as you're keeping us updated and you're telling us the truth and we know you're doing the best you can, we're not stopping coming to your restaurant. We love you guys.

You got to be transparent. And I think you did a great thing getting online and showing people and telling people what you're doing, and then that you reaffirmed your commitment to health and that, you know, you reaffirm that you're doing temperature checks, you're keeping things sanitized. You actually invested in something that kind of sterilizes the whole restaurant. Right?

Correct. Like, it's funny, you see these things come out, and you hope that they do the job that they're supposed to do, and they're not just like, snake oil or something, you know, But. But yeah, it's a fogger. I bought it through a restaurant supplier, so. So it came through like. Like Cisco or supplies on the fly. So it's made specific for our industry. And you go around the restaurant every single night, and it's like a fogger. Right. And it literally fogs the whole restaurant, but it's 100% food safe. So they don't even want you to wipe the tables down after you do this. Like, don't have dishes and forks on the tables. Have just a table.

Right, Right.

But let it hit all the surfaces, let it hit the floor, let it hit the bar, let it. Everything. And it kills 99.999% of many, many different bacterias and viruses. But the One specific is SARS 2, which is the one that actually causes the COVID 19 virus. So it does kill.

That's awesome.

Yeah. So I'm doing. There's nothing I could have done more other than put a lock in the door and just shut down. Yeah. To try to combat this. Right. So we're going to do everything we can. We're going to remain open, we're going to do social distancing. We're going to wear masks, we're going to do temperature checks. We're going to do a questionnaire. If you could think of it, we're going to do it. And, and we're not just doing it in the background. We're not, like, hiding it, saying, we're doing this, like, behind the scenes. No, we are doing this right out front. It's on social media. I'm telling everybody about it, and my customers are loving it. They're really responding very, very well.

So that's the key. Get out there and tell people what you're doing. You know, and transparency. People like authentic, clear communication.

Absolutely, they do. And it's funny, if you, if you look in spearfish, like, we did this, we put all this out, and then all of a sudden, like, one day later, this run, this restaurant closes, then this one closes. So they're following suit. But it kind of positioned us as, like a leader in the community again. Again was very helpful. You know, like, we're kind of. We're setting the standard for the other restaurants in our town. Leadership. Yeah.

You know, and I, I, you know, and you and I both are huge proponents of leadership. Leadership is critical at this time, especially in restaurants. What do you think is the number one trait that makes a leader?

Oh, boy, that's that. How much time do we have on this podcast?

Number one. One trait that.

The number one thing you need to know about leadership is there's a lot of traits about leadership. Right. It's not just one, but. But if I had to pick what's one trait that could, could make you. That could differentiate you as a leader? I would say it's your, your visionary you're setting. You know, leaders have to be able to see the big picture, right? Like, if I can't see the big picture, then. Then I have nowhere to leave. Cause I have nowhere to go, right? So it's not like I just see, okay, well, what's today? So many people will say, okay, today's Wednesday. And what's on my schedule for today? Well, I have to go down. I have to open the restaurant. I'm never thinking about Wednesday. Like, I'm thinking about what's coming in the next six months. I'm thinking about, you know, what projects can I do together with Donald? Like, what. How can we help the industry? How can I. How can I help my clients better? How can I better serve my customers? Like, I'm never satisfied with just today. I'm always looking for that next step, next step, next step. And, and that's really important to a leader to be able to do that, you know, which would then lead to your second trait, which is, I guess, vision casting. Right. Getting your followers on board. Because John Maxwell would say if nobody's following you, you're just taking a walk. You're not really leaving anybody. Right? So, so you have to be able to see the mountain and then get everyone excited that we're going to take a trip to this mountain together.

Right.

And how are we going to get there? What's that trip going to look like?

Hey, do you believe in self care?

Yes, tremendously. For, for self care. I mean, I try to eat. Right. Like now if, if you're listening to this and you're not watching this, this is like, this is no judgment, right? There's judgment free zone. Right. Don't you know, we're not like any of those Internet trolls or anything like that. So this is just me personally. But I try to eat healthy, I don't do drugs, I don't do drinking. I exercise, I take care of myself, I try to sleep right. I try to, I journal as much as I can. I try to journal every day. I'd be lying if I said I did it consistently every day, especially when I get busy, but I always try to journal at least a couple times a week or every day if possible. So there's a lot of things you could do with self care. I believe in a higher power, so I pray. Not just once a day, like kind of all day. Always praying, you know, God help me through this. Give me the direction, give me the wisdom, tell me the words to say, you know, so things like that. But yeah, self care is super important. If you don't care for yourself, how could you possibly care for people following you? How could you care for anyone else?

Yeah, yeah, I always, I always make the joke or, you know, if you can't lead yourself, how can you lead others?

Yeah, you can't.

Is it possible?

Correct. Yeah. The hardest person to lead is yourself. Right? So. So that's a very true statement you.

Made there over the last 15. I'm going to say last 10, 15 years. How many, how much do you think you've invested into mastermind groups and coaching?

A lot of money. I could tell you there are seminars I go to. Right? So let's just start with the seminars. And the seminars are $10,000, you know, for a ticket to a seminar. And not only do I go, but I've Taken my wife to them. And I've been to. There's one of them I've been to a three times now. You would think I learned it all the first time, but yeah, there's like so much going on that. That you. You're always learning, always learning, always learning. So just in that. In the last 10 years, like, I could say 50,000 and just seminars, right? When. When I met you, Donald, I met you as. As coaching, right. As development. Because now my wife wants to open this restaurant. Beautiful. Nothing better than a guy in the car industry opening a restaurant. Right?

Right.

So. But I know the value of consulting, and I know the value of coaching. I know the value of seeking out experts. Right. So when we found Donald, right? And I had my team working on this, like, who could we call? Who's the best in the industry now? Now everyone that we hired is now looking, and we keep coming up with this name. Donald Bars. Donna Bar. So we called Donald or went to your website first, then called you, and, you know, it's like, yeah, you have courses out there. You have, you know, programs out there, online programs, like, all different levels. But what did I say? No, how much is it to get you here, Donald?

I want you to come here and work with me one on one.

Yeah. I don't want to read all this information. I want to be able to talk to you on. I want you to be able to see, touch, and feel what we're doing here, because I know the value of that. And. And when you gave me a price, it was an expensive price. How long did it take me to think about it?

Like, two seconds.

Two seconds. I was like, okay, okay, that's it. All right, cool. When are we scheduled?

Then you said, like, check your calendar.

Right.

All right, let's go.

And then what? Hired. What happened is we hired you for, like, three visits to come out or two visits to come out.

Right.

And then we re upped that. We rehired you again. And then we rehired you again. And now it's just like, my life is just like, when's Donald coming back? You know, it's. Even though Donald come back every other month. Yeah. And even though Donald and I are friends and business partners, that's still separate. You know what I mean? Like. Like my restaurant still pays Donald separate as a coach, his consulting salary. Like, don't think just because we're friends, Donald's like, oh, yeah, sure, Darren, I'll come out. No, it's not like that. Because you have to have respect for each area of a person's life, you know, you can't just say, hey, we're friends now, so could I have that for free? No, it doesn't work that way. Like, that would be an insult for me to do that.

Yeah. And then you started talking about. What got me impressed with you is that when I first met you, you were, like, one of the first restaurant owners I've ever met who had, like, a full spreadsheet already done about their KPIs. I was like. I was like, who the hell are you? Right?

Who the hell are you? What the.

I've never seen but have, like, their numbers down. Like, this is how many people I need. This is my table turn. This is my guest check. I'm like, oh, my God, it was amazing.

And that was just from, like, research. And me, I guess, being in business so many years, trying to figure out, is this even a viable business, right? If these were my fixed expenses and I needed X amount of employees to run the restaurant, and I have to invest so much in equipment and, you know, how many. How many people would I have to serve each day? And is that even possible? You know, so. But you're right. I put all these numbers together, but they were all theory, they were all theoretical because I didn't own a restaurant, right? Like, this was prior to us opening the restaurant. This was prior to even ordering a refrigerator, right? Nothing was done yet until I knew the project was viable. And then I sent that to Donald, and I said, hey, what do you think? And he's like, oh, really? You're not open yet, Right?

And then we started talking about how you were doing KPIs for automotive industry. And you showed me what you were doing. I said, you know what? This would be awesome for restaurants because it's the one thing I think restaurants could really have a problem with is dialing in their KPIs, and then really, really pushing it to where they can actually maximize their profitability. Because most restaurants struggle. I mean, the national average, United States, is 5%. And to me, that's just. That's criminal to work that hard to make so little.

And you know why they struggle. And, you know, it's. It's funny. People will say, really, you have an answer why all these restaurants are struggling, right? And I hate to say it, but we do. Because when a restaurant is struggling financially, what they do is they go into the restaurant to try to solve the problem, okay? The problem's not going to be solved in your restaurant. The problem is going to be solved here. In your office, sitting at your desk, trying to look at numbers and trying to say, okay, if this is my income and these are my expenses, and obviously my expenses are too high to leave that profit, how do I change this? And sometimes it's not about raising your prices, and it's not so much about saying, well, where could I. Maybe I don't need insurance. No, you need insurance. Maybe I don't need. Yeah, really, I don't need to buy tomatoes anymore. No, you need tomatoes. So it's not like that. We're not going to find one magic item that's going to fix all your problems. But what we're going to do is we're going to go through these hundred different variables or more in your business, and we could pick up a half a percent here, a quarter of a percent there, you know, a tenth of a percent here, but before you know it, those add up to 2%, 3%, 5%, 10%. Right? And now you take a restaurant that's doing, you know, $3 million a year in business, and then they're not profitable. Right. Have you ever seen that, Donald? Like, no. You know, it happens all the time. And not just, not just in your business. Like in a lot of businesses, you know, they just run, run, run. They're not profitable at all. But they have other ways to supplement these departments or these parts of their business or their life. And so before you know it, they're not realizing. And I always say, businesses don't just go out of business, they go out of business by $5 a day. That's what they.

Exactly.

If I could take a restaurant or a business that's doing 3 million a year in revenue and not making any profits and suddenly get 5, 10%, well, now you go from 0 to 300,000 a year. That's pretty good. Right? Now that's the difference between being in business or being out of business.

And sometimes quickly. Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah. So, you know, when we look at KPIs, what are, what are. You know, you and I have our favorite KPIs. What are your three favorite KPIs that you like to look at?

I love to look at guest check average, because guest check average is a game, right? It's, it's, what we do is we try to raise guest check average, but, but we're not raising prices. Like, I could raise guest average by changing my, my lasagna from $15 to $16. Right. And that'll change.

Yeah, it could. Easy.

But that's what I want to do. If I want to bring. If I want to bring my gas check average up by, let's say, a dollar. Okay. Let's say I'm at 25, and I want to go to 26. Well, if my. If my average guest check is $25 and I want to come up by $1, and let's say I sell a dessert, that this dessert or this cup of tea is a $5 cup of tea. Well, if I could just sell this cup of tea to one out of every five guests, my average guest check average comes up by a dollar. So it's not anything about raising prices. It might just be about educating your customers more about what you serve. Hey, did I tell we have a beautiful raspberry cheesecake today that's on, you know, that we're doing as a feature today, you know, or, you know, we have. We have this wine that we sell. It's a port wine, which is. It's a little bit sweet, and it's more of like a dessert wine.

Oh, I love that one.

Yeah, it's great. And that's a great item to sell where let's say you have a table and a couple of people are getting desserts, and there's one person there that's like, no, I'm just kind of full, you know, I've had enough. Well, how'd you like to try a little of this port wine? It's really, really good. It's a little sweet. It's like a dessert wine. Well, yeah, that sounds good. You know, and now all of a sudden, if you sell that to one out of every ten people and you sell the cup of tea to one out of every ten people. Well, now. Now you've increased your guest check average by a dollar. Right. And people like, well, it's just a dollar. Yeah, it's just a dollar. You're right. But how many people are you doing a month? Well, in our restaurant, we have a small restaurant. We're serving 4,000 people a month. Right. So 4,000 people a month. $1 is $4,000 a month or 48,000, you know, dollars. Right. And that's just a dollar on gas check average. Right.

That's adding. Any more labor, you know?

No, my labor is paid for. My fixed expenses are paid for, you know, so the only thing coming out of that dollar might be your food cost. Right. So let's say you're at a 30% food cost. Okay? So take 30% off 48 grand. Right. No big deal. But you're still making, like, thousand extra profit Right. So. So that's where you want to start fooling around with these things.

Right?

So guess average is a big one that I love to look at.

Right. Another one you like?

Well, another one that I like is. Is prime cost. Right. We. We talk about prime cost, and. And people hear of prime cost, they know what prime cost is. But how is it usable? Like, how do I really understand prime cost? And prime cost is really giving you, like, an overall picture. Like, if I said to Donald, hey, my prime cost is a little high, right. And it should be down around, let's say, 60% and I'm at 68%.

Right.

Well, knowing that Donald can't prescribe me the fix yet, he can't do that because prime cost is looking at multiple things. But it's giving you an overall picture to say, hey, wake up, your food costs are too high or your labor costs are too high, but something's out of proportion here. Right. And now that's an indicator to me to say, let me look closer at this. Right. So rather than having to look at multiple things, I could look at one KPI prime cost and say, if prime cost is good, I know this, this, and this are all good. I don't even have to worry about looking at that. So I like that because it gives me. It's a. It's an overall indicator.

Quick. Yeah, quick reference. It's like. And we look at KPIs, and when we. Actually, when you. When you created the, you know, the Restaurant KPI Mastery dashboard, we set up, like, gauges, like, on a car, because, you know, I don't want my car to tell me, you know, actually, you know, the temperature of your engine is getting up to, you know, just tell me what the temperature is so I know what to do.

Right, Exactly. Turn the light on.

Yeah, turn the light on. So, yeah, we wanted the dashboard to be, you know, I'm a visual kind of guy. I wanted to be able to look at the dashboard and right away know where I can help someone help our clients get right away. And then what's the number one KPI I always harass you about every day?

Oh, you. You harass me all the time about discounts and comps and comps, like to the point where I know the call is coming at the end of the day.

It's like, soon I see that dashboard. Yeah.

When I look at my report at the end of the day. And. And I have to say that. And I hope you're looking at your reports daily. Right. I hope everybody here who's listening to this, is checking things daily. But it's like that. My eyes go there almost first because I know the phone calls coming, right?

You know, I'm going, you know, I'm.

On you at night, 12 o' clock at night. Yes, Donald. Yes, I know my discounts are too high today.

All I ask you is like, just tell me why.

Correct.

Yeah. I just want to know why.

But you know what? That's another thing that we lowered our discounts huge. Huge, Huge.

Right when we first started this thing, you were running, like, around 8%. Eight, 9%.

Yeah. And you're talking, you know, 250, 300, $400 a day in discounts. And you don't realize what was happening is everybody had control of our discounts, which. One of the biggest things we needed to do was take it out of the hands of the servers and put it in the hands of the managers, right? So this way, if someone needed a discount for a real reason, they'd go to the manager, it would get discounted. But I think when it was in the hands of the servers, you know, their friends come in, they give them 10%. Family friends, they give this one, this, you know, and. And it's. Everyone's too loose with it because it looks like, you know, you see a busy restaurant with, like, every table booked, they think, well, what's the big deal? It's only a 10% discount. Well, Donald, what's the national average for profitability for restaurants in the United States? It's not even 10%.

5.

Yeah. So if you have a restaurant that. That's showing a 5% profit, and you discount a table by 10%, guess what? You just lost money on that table. You just paid 5% of their bill. You know, think of it that way. And, and when. When you really think of it like that, you start saying, okay, I really got to get a handle on this. And we dropped our discounts by over a hundred dollars a day, right. Probably 102,550. Another 4,000amonth. Right. Familiar figure, right? So now we're up 8,000amonth. Now, again, do the math. We're close to $100,000 a year because of two things, right? We. Because we're selling an extra cup of tea to every couple of tables, and we're just controlling our discounts. And that's 100 grand in your. In your profits, right to the bottom line. Right? So this is really, really important.

Yeah. Share with me. So before COVID hit and you were open, I mean, the first month you were open, you did a hundred thousand in sales. Yep.

How much did it cost you to do 100,000 sales? We did a hundred thousand. And it was funny how I told everybody because, like, like it was our first month. Right. So your first month as a family in your restaurant, you bring everybody together. Hey, guys. We just ran the numbers. Can you believe this is our first month? And we actually did a hundred thousand.

Dollars in business, which is amazing for us. Small town, like you guys are. That's actually a really amazing numbers to run.

Yeah. And we, we only have like, our town is a population of 11, 000 people. So we're not talking about a big town.

Well, seasonal town too. I mean, touristy.

Yeah. There's a small town, usa. And that was in February. That was in the middle of winter. Right. So. And that's not our tourist season. So after everyone got done celebrating, I said, but let me share another piece of information.

Let me say the bad news.

And it cost us like 107 or $109,000. I can't remember now what that figure was to do that. Right. So I said, basically, I could have delayed the opening by a month. We could have opened tomorrow, and right Now I'd be $9,000 richer than I am right now. It literally cost us 9,000 out of our bank accounts to do to produce that 100,000. And then all of a sudden, all the cheers went to this look, like no one could understand that, you know?

And, you know, that's the problem a lot of restaurant owners face with their staff too. And that's why I'm a big believer in transparency with your numbers and telling and talking to your team about it, because they think, they think you're a restaurant owner. You're like just, you're just, you know, you're stacking, you're stashing the cash in bags and dragging it to the bank. It's not like that because they see, they see the volume, they see all the people and they see the sales, and they see, you know, their sales. You think, oh, this guy's just like, he's taking bags to the bank.

Correct.

Not like that. Transparency helps.

And that's what people think. They really do. People who don't understand business. All the money goes in your pocket. I can never, I can never forget this is. This goes back, you know, at least 30 years ago, right? So Nancy and I are just in our. One of our first automotive businesses. And I remember a lady came in and she needed like, let's say a $500 repair or something. And this was like two weeks before Christmas. And she literally said to my wife, who was staying there behind the counter, she goes, well, I guess your kids are going to have a good Christmas. Like, that $500 goes in our pockets, and we're like, no, you know, if. If we're lucky and we're profiting 10%, which at the time I was young and not into all these KPIs, so probably were a 5%, you know. No. Out of your $500 might go, you know, 25 bucks, you know, into our pockets. Like, the rest is all expenditures. It's labor is fixed, expenses as parts. It's just a million things.

Yeah, people just, they don't understand. That's why, you know, we're a big believer of, you know, transparency with our staff. And also sharing the KPI dashboard with your team, too, is huge.

Absolutely. You know, one thing I do is with my floor managers, front of house managers, back of house managers, is I open up the reports right in front of them and I explain them. I don't just let them read the reports. I said, you know what this number means? And do you know what it means if we increase this number? I remember when I was talking about guest check average, and now my staff is getting pretty excited about guest check average, and they're, they're making it into a game, you know, like. Like they want to be the highest. Right. And we actually put a reward program in place that if you do have the highest guest check average over a certain amount, you know, we're going to share that with you. We're going to reward you for that. So we have this one person. He's a guy who works there, and he got beat by this girl, and he goes, oh, she beat me. He goes, but it was only a dollar. He said, and I remember saying to him, yeah, it was only a dollar. No big deal. I said, how many people did you serve tonight? And we looked on the report and he had served like, let's say 60 people. I said, oh. I go, so it was $60. It was, it wasn't just a dollar. I go, but it's just a dollar. I said, but, you know, a dollar per person, that's $60. And he goes, yeah, I guess so. And I go, and if this is an average day, it's really like $300, because you do like 60 people a day. So 300 people a week, it's just really 300 bucks. And then I go, I guess if we look at it a month. It's only $1,200 a month. Right. It's only that. And then I took it to a year.

Yeah.

Now we're. We're almost at $15,000. And I go, but it's really just a dollar. I go, you're right. Just a buck. I said, don't worry about it. We'll talk about it later. Yeah. And now I just left them there standing there to, like, digest the fact that, no, it's, it's. It's $15,000. Right. Like, it's not. Don't look at it as just a dollar. It's so much more than that.

You also have a great lesson I remember you shared with me about, you know, a lot of times people think just because the restaurant's busy, that's good, but sometimes being busy is not good. I mean, there was a time that you guys, like, crushed it on numbers, but the guess check average dropped.

Absolutely, we did. It was a. It was like, not the first time we went over 200, but, you know, we average 150 to 175 people a day. That's our average. But on those busy days, we could break 200. We've only broke 200 three times in the last six months that we've been open, and this time we had hit 236 people. So this was our best day. We did 206. That was our first record. And then we've. We have a 219 in there somewhere, but this was 236. And everyone was like, wow, 236 people. But we did, like, 236 people at, like, a $22 guest check average.

Right.

Where the day before we had done 190 people at a $27 guest check average. Right. So now let's do the math together. Right? And. And what. What they're realizing is, and it's. It's funny how businesses could be so different and so similar, you know, and in the automotive industry, if you take a technician and you give him a six cars to work on that day, he's gonna have a bad day of production. Because what happens is he's just shuffling cars in and out, in and out, in and out. And he's not really getting to the heart of the problem. He's not really doing a good job checking over the vehicle because you've overworked him. You've overloaded them. And that's how this is. If I give a server too many people in a day, what happens is they don't have Time to say, you know, how are you enjoying that steak? Donald's. How is everything? You know what would pair great with that steak? If you tried this wine. They just go great together. And know, make sure you save room for the dessert, because after a meal like that, you're going to want to try, you know, the cheesecake or you're going to want to try the cream puffs. They're. They're light and airy. You're really going to love them. But they don't have time for that because they're so busy. They just got to get this table to turn the table, turn the table, turn the table. And now their guest check average is dropping. They're running the kitchen crazy like. Like it doesn't just affect your numbers. But now my kitchen has to put out another 40 different dishes. Right. To go from 195 to 235. Let's say they're putting out 40 more meals. It's 40 more orders taken. It's 40 more people that we have to serve drinks from the bar. So we're overloading the bartender, we're overloading the kitchen where the bus staff and the cleanup staff and the poor dishwasher can't even keep up yet. We're making less money.

Yeah.

You know, yeah, let's back it down. Let's limit our guests to 175. And guess what? Serve them correctly.

Right.

You know, like, like, let's take the pressure off all the different departments here and let's give the people the experience they need, and then we can be profitable the way we need to be profitable. Everybody wins. It's a win. Win. So don't more people equal more money? It does not.

What do you think is. What do you think? Most restaurants don't have a grip on their KPIs and their numbers.

Well, I'm gonna have to over generalize a few different things here.

Okay.

But most restaurants or most restaurateurs start a restaurant because of their love for food. They're a great cook. They. They don't start a restaurant because they're like, hey, this would be a really good, profitable business. I love numbers sheets. Yeah. Yeah. Not too many people do that. So they start.

You're one of the sickos that does. I have to say that you're one of those weird anomalies that love that.

Because it was a good challenge. Right. I love a good challenge.

But.

But most restaurateurs are. They're either great cooks, they love to feed people. Like, like, take my Wife, for instance, feeding people is one of her love languages. She, she feels like she's caring for you. She is showing when she feeds you, her brain has linked up, that she's expressing love for you. That's what it is. Right? And, and nothing's more important to that than her. For her. Than that. Right? So, so this is a lot of restaurateurs. They have a love for the industry, they have love for food, they love to cook. And that's how they're expressing themselves, is, is in there, is in their culinary skills. And now they want to share that with the world. They want to share that with, with people. So they open a restaurant. They're not numbers people, you know, and, and right away we're in the mindset, wow, look at all these seats. If I could fill all these seats and sell them all my, you know, my steak or my, my tartare or whatever it is you're serving, they think that that's. But they haven't really done the food costs correctly. They, they're not looking at their labor numbers. They're not looking close enough at their fixed expenses. There are so many little hidden expenses that just chew away at that profitability, you know, and the way I try to tell people this, you know, and they'll look at food costs, you'll say, what's your food cost? And probably most people go, I don't know. Or it's about or, right? It's like no one's red flag to me.

As soon as they say, well, it's around, I'm like, correct.

Like, like we don't want to hear around, right? So because I know that as soon.

As they say it's around, I know the next words out of their mouths, a lie. Because they're going to like, give me some numbers. Really? To. It's around 30%. Bullshit.

Right? And because you're talking in percentages, it's not real. It's no longer real because it's a percent. Right? It's almost like when you go to the store and, and why do you spend more money if you use a credit card to pay for things? Because it's not real, right? Like, yes, you get a bill in the end of the month, and that's real. Right? But, but when you're putting that plastic in, like, you're not really attaching this. Your brain hasn't linked this to money, if you want to see what I mean, walk around with $500 in your pocket and for a couple of days, pay for everything in cash. And suddenly you'll be like, maybe I don't need that because.

Exactly. Yeah, Right.

So instead of percentages, let's talk money. Let's talk $100. Right? So if your food cost is 30%. Well, take $30 away. How much do we have left? 70. And now your labor costs are 30%. Right? So take another $30. We're down to two 20s. We have two 20s. Okay. Well, out of that, those two 20s, you have to pay your rent, your electric, your insurance, your advertising, your, like, everything else that's in your fixed expenses. I could go on and on here with this, right? Even your credit card fees, your. Everything you're paying toast. You're paying your open table to make your reservations. You're paying seven shifts to run your scheduling, right? Like, these are all payments, payments, payments that are all coming out of that last $40. And then if there's anything left, if there happens to be 50 cents or a dollar left after you pay all that, that's your profit. That's what you got, right? So when you make it real to people, you're like, man, I only have 50 cents. Yeah. Could I. Could I at least have a dollar fifty? Well, yeah, all we have to do is make your labor $29 instead of 30. Or get your food cost to $29 instead of 30. Or maybe, God forbid, your food cost really is 33. If I could get you from 33 down to 30 where you belong, I could give you three extra dollars. How would that sound? And suddenly that sounds good to a person, right?

Definitely.

Yeah. And it's that simple, Right? And if you could just take that and put it on a bigger scale. So instead of working with $100, we're working with $100,000. Still doesn't matter if my labor cost was 33,000 and my food cost was 38,000. This is why it cost Aaron an extra $9,000 that first month to keep my restaurant afloat, because there just wasn't any. You know, there was. There was too much month left at the end of the money. Can I say that.

What happened?

Right. Yeah. And we just have to reverse all this, right? We have to figure out. No, we need to know that at the end of the month, if I did a hundred thousand in sales, I want to know that it cost me 85,000 to do those sales. And now I put 15,000 in my pocket, right? I put 15% in my pocket. And that's what we want to do.

So let's talk real quick about the power of Masterminds. Mastermind group. Now we run a mastermind group for our KPI Mastery people. What are some of the benefits you see out of a mastermind group?

They're countless, right? So first of all, what happens in a mastermind group is the people running the group don't have to have all the answers, right? All we do when we run mastermind groups is we're going to introduce a topic and we're going to teach you about this topic. And maybe it's KPIs, maybe it's menu construction, maybe it's advertising, maybe it's social media, right? Maybe it's Covid.

Right?

We're going to talk about COVID today. And what we're going to do is we're going to share some different information with you. You. But then what ends up happening with the mastermind is, you know, you have 20 people, and all of a sudden, this guy who's running a restaurant and, you know, in New Mexico says, hey, you know, let me tell you how I do it. And now, even though you're running the master, you're like, hey, you know what? That's a great idea. I'm gonna. I'm gonna take a piece of that. You know, I don't have to take the whole idea, but maybe there's something he just said that resonates with me. And I say, you know, I can implement that in this part of my business. And then all of a sudden, we got a guy from Florida and he's telling us the way he does it. And then now the mastermind has gone from a training, right, where you just have an instructor teaching to know. Now everybody's contributing, right? And then the synergy starts building. You know, how many people have heard, you know, one and one is not two. One and one is whatever you want to make it, right? And when you put two people together, like you put Donald and I in a room together with a couple of whiteboards, it's like having five people there, right? It's like.

It gets crazy.

Yeah. We're not just two people sharing ideas. Because I'll say something, and then Donald will build right on that, or vice versa. And then all of a sudden, you know, that's great. I didn't think. But if you're saying, do this, we could do this, and before you know it, your idea is now growing, growing, growing, growing, growing. And then it becomes from a good idea to a great idea, right? And once you have a great idea, and then you could figure out a way to implement that great Idea. Now you see all these differences. So that's where the power of Mastermind comes. It's a place where you could not just share ideas, but get other people to build on these ideas. Right?

Yeah. There's beauty in the power of a mastermind. In fact, Napoleon Hill talks in Think and Grow Rich. You know, it's one of the key principles is to, you know, to be the mastermind, to, you know.

Correct. So. So now I'm going to give you like an analogy. And my dates aren't correct. So for you fact checkers out there, I'm gonna get this wrong. Okay? But you could look it up on the Internet.

You know what fact checkers gotta do what they gotta do. You know what I mean?

Correct. But there was something written, and I saw this like a year ago. But it said, if you take all the knowledge that human beings have acquired up until 1986, let's say it was something like that, that knowledge then doubled between like 1986 and 2000.

Right?

Like, so what took almost 2000 years, we doubled that in another 15 years, and then we've doubled it again. And it's not that like, we just got smarter. The Internet connected the world together. So now I could have an idea and I could discuss it with my friend in China or I could discuss it with an engineer over in Europe. And all of a sudden, now we're in a Mastermind together and we're discussing an idea, and his ideas are building on my ideas and. And boom. And our knowledge is increasing, increasing, increasing. Why do you think like. Like all these, where all these ideas are coming from? It's like, it's not just for one person. You know, John Maxwell says one is too small a number to achieve greatness. You can't do it. You know, it's like when you see. Again, there's another example it gives. But you ever see the picture? It's a turtle on a fence post.

Yeah.

Well, what do you think of when you see a turtle on a fence post?

Like, how'd that turtle get up on the fence post?

Exactly, exactly. And you know how he did? Someone put him there. The turtle didn't climb the fence post by himself. Someone helped him get there. And. And that's how life is. Okay? Someone could come to me and Nancy and say, boy, you know, Nona's Kitchen. What a successful restaurant. You guys did a great job. If it was just Nancy and I, we couldn't have done this. It wasn't Nancy and I. It's Nancy and I. It's a staff of 50 people. It's Donald as a consultant. It's. It's all the books, it's all the reading, it's all the manuals, it's all the research. It's all. Our restaurant is successful because of hundreds of years of knowledge that we've been able to acquire through friends, through masterminds, through people, through coaches, through consultants, through the Internet, through research, through. That's what did it. If it was just Nancy and I opening a restaurant, it wouldn't be what it is today. Like, someone put us. We're turtles on a fence post. Someone put us there, and that's how masterminds are.

And congratulations to your restaurant. Not even open six months. Just run like the Best of the Black Hills award. I mean, that's amazing to be open so short and already win a major award. So that's amazing.

We were very, very honored for that.

And.

And, you know, that was something that comes from, you know, the people in the area, in the community voting for this. You know what I mean? And we're. We're just new, you know, so it's not like we have this joint social media following. It's not like there are people that come in every day. I didn't even know about you. Like, and they live in our town, you know, where are you? What do you mean, where are we? Like, we're right on Main Street. Oh, I haven't known yet.

You know, I remember when I had my first restaurant, I used to go around the tables and I used to ask people, where are you from? And they say, oh, we're from here. And it's like, is this your first time here? And they go, yeah. And I knew right then I did not have market, you know, acquisition. I did not dominate in my market because I still. Every week, I had new people that lived in my town that had come to my restaurant. Never been there before.

Okay, now I'm gonna interrupt you and take you back to your first question you asked me. And you said, what's a trait of a leader? Right? And that's it right there. Right? Because the trait of a leader is always looking forward to the visionary. So you ask a question. Oh, oh, you live in town. Is your first time here? Yeah. Some people will go, oh, that's great.

Well, welcome.

Right?

So me, I'm like, oh, damn. It means I got more.

There's something wrong. If you live in this town and didn't know I was here, what am I doing wrong? Right? Because everybody in town should know that I'M here. Right. And, and right away, like, yeah, you're focused on that person. You can talk to them for a minute, but your brain is already working on. By tomorrow, I'm going to have this problem solved.

I'm working to make sure that everyone knows who I was. And then, yeah, my restaurants were back in the 90s. The Internet wasn't as big thing as it was now. I would just, I would start booking demonstrations. I would go like, bar, you know, this, this one like Barnes and Nobles and Borders was big. I would go and I say, what cookbooks are you, Are you marketing this this month? And I'd say, they'd say something like, you know, we're doing this, this, I'll come and do a cooking demo.

Correct.

And I would just, I would do everything and anything I could to get my name out there. You know, we have, nowadays you got a mobile studio in your pocket with your phone and if you're, if you're not using video, shame on you. Okay. Video is the way you have to start using video.

Yeah. You know, in the next Mastermind, you could use this as an example. But we post, we have a pretty good social media. We post to Facebook all the time. All the time. I. So we put a post out there and it gets like day one, 30 likes and then 40 likes and 60 likes. I put a video up the other day, it was like in two hours, over 100.

Like you didn't even boost. That's all organic too.

Yeah, well, totally organic. Yeah.

Now see, someone could take that and say, I got 100 views organically. I could boost that within a five mile radius of my business to get me some visibility. So, I mean, there's tons of things you can be doing if you just push it to do it.

Yeah. And it's funny, I didn't boost it at all because, you know, I'm talking about COVID and how my restaurant is dealing with. I didn't know how that was going to go over. You know what I mean? Like, is this going to scare people?

It's transparency.

Yeah. So now that it's getting such good feedback, you know, maybe I could consider boosting it and just let everybody know, you know. But it's kind of like still one of those scary things. Like, oh yeah, we had Covid, you know. Yeah. Not it. I'm not it.

You're it.

Right. It's like, remember when you were a kid, like you're in kindergarten, right. And they would say, oh, you have cooties, you know. Oh, yeah. Something like that. That's how Covid is right now. Like, if people think you have Covid that they don't want anything to do with.

You got cooties.

You got cooties.

Yeah.

The truth.

So name one book that you recommend for restaurants.

Well, I have to. Your restaurant sucks. I have to give you.

In the.

Background there, by the way, right there in the back. I can see it. No, but. But that's a great book. Like, if you're a restaurateur, right? And I could give you lots of books to read, right? So if you say to me, what I want to open a business, what's a good book to read? Read Blue Ocean Strategy. I want to learn about leadership. Okay, Beautiful. John Maxwell's got Intentional Living. He's got the 21 laws of leadership. Laws. Right? But if you want to learn about restaurants, right, I have to send you over to Donald's books, right? Because Donald is. Can I make everybody laugh? Can I get up and get something.

I got one, too. Right? So.

So this is if people can't.

If people aren't watching the video. If you're listening to the podcast, this.

Is a brick, right? But if you look, it's covered in velvet. It's soft, right? And the reason it's covered in velvet is because if I said to you, yeah, there's Donald's. Wait, Donald needed that. And I almost giving him a regular brick sometimes gave me a real brick.

This thing is heavy as hell. Yes.

Because if you think about a brick, right, A brick. If I said to you, describe a brick and just close your. If you're listening to this or you're watching this, just close your eyes for a second and think of a brick, right? And if you think of a brick, you'll probably come up with words like, it's solid, it's rigid, it's non movable, it's non pliable. You can't take a brick like putty and mold it into something you want. A brick is a brick. If you try to mold it, you're going to break it, Right? But. But what happens if you take that brick and you, like, rub it on your hand, or you rub it on the back of your hand, or you bump into it, well, it's going to leave a mark. Because a brick is rough. It has that rough surface that's scratchy. That's how a brick is. And. And sometimes that's how leaders are. Leaders are strong. They're solid. They're not pliable, they're immovable. And they have values. That, you know, there are certain things that are non negotiables, right? That's how a brick is non negotiable. But a good look at a leader takes a velvet covering, because a leader has to be approachable. Like, if I'm a leader, I could be in what I want to talk about. I could be immovable. Immovable on my values, right? So my values are non negotiable, especially my core values. Some of my rules, I'm not going to bend on them. Right? This is it. Right? But if you need to talk to me about something, don't be afraid of me. Like, you could come to me. I'm not going to scratch you. You're not. You're not going to get bruised if you come talk to Darren. And that's the velvet covering. Well, Donald's books are a little bit rough and sometimes people need that, right? Like. Like Donald doesn't mince words in his book. He's not going to say, oh, I love your restaurant. I love the flowery look when I come in. Now, his. His book gets right to the point and it says, look, you have to do this. You have to do this, you have to do this. If you're not paying attention to your core values, shame on you. Because this is why it's so important. If you're not paying attention to your numbers, shame on you. Like, there's nothing going to be held back. So when you read that book, it's almost going to be like reading the brick without the velvet on it, right? Because you're going to go, ouch, that hurt. But what he's doing is he's being honest with you. He's telling you, this is it. I'm not going to flower this up. I'm going to tell you what you need to hear. So that's why I recommend it as a good book. Right. The other reason it's good is because it's not just theory. Like, Donald is a restaurateur. He's owned restaurants, Right. He's been doing this 40 years. It's not just someone who came up with these good ideas. You know, it's like the other day we were talking to someone about parenting, and I said, don't you love getting parenting advice from people who aren't?

Exactly.

I love that.

Or I get relationship advice from my single friends. It's like, wait a minute, what? You're not even in a relationship. You're giving me relationship advice? No.

Correct. So. So if you're watching this, you're listening to this and you have children, right? You know what I'm talking about. Because it's always the people when you're having trouble with your kids, and, yeah, they want to give you trouble with their kids. From time to time, that people come to you and they go, well, look, it's because of this, this, and this. And these are the people that don't have kids. Do you really take their advice seriously? Do you? Like, of course not. As soon as they leave, like, you're friends with them, so you go, oh, that's a good idea. And then as soon as they leave, you'll never do what they say because, like, it's all theory. Well, that's. That's what it is. Taking advice from someone who doesn't own a restaurant. Because, yeah, if you've never done it, you just can't. You can't understand it.

And we all have those people close to us. They think they know what's best for us.

Correct.

Every restaurant owner in the world has that person. You know what? Oh, you know, and this is where I. This is where we get into what I call brand delusion or brand confusion. You know, Darren, here's what you need. You know what? You know what you guys need? You need to start doing tacos, you know, because tacos are great. Everyone loves tacos. No good taco place in town. So you got an Italian restaurant. Now you start adding tacos to your restaurant, right? And then, oh, you know what you need? You know, good Mediterranean man. No one has falafel in your town. You should have some falafel. And then next thing you know, your menu is this huge hodgepodge of shit that no one even now, you know, we know who your brand is anymore. And here's the thing, is, when you're confused, you lose.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, write that down for your next book. When you're confused, you lose.

You lose. Confused, you lose, baby. Every time. You know, and opening my book, I always have, like, a disclaimer in the front of my book. And the first. My first book, your restaurant sucks. My opening quote is, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

Yep. That's the truth.

That's the truth.

Yep. Yeah. And you know why? I mean, you know why you wrote the book. But maybe. Maybe the listeners don't know why. Because it's. Okay, everybody get ready for this. This is a little bit of the brick coming out here. It's your fault. Most likely, it's your fault. If you're a business Owner and you're not making the profits you want to. And your business isn't running. It's not your employees fault, it's not your manager's fault, it's your fault. And you know, there's a saying in the Italian community. This thinks the fish stinks from the head, right? And that's what it is, you know, take full responsibility. One thing that that's helped me in life is I've been a pilot since my early 20s. And in the aviation industry, there's no wiggle room. If anything happens to that plane during that flight, I don't care if the wings fall off, right? No matter what happens, it's the pilot's fault. There's. The pilot is in charge. It's his responsibility for the safe execution of the flight. Doesn't matter if it gets hit by lightning, it doesn't matter if it gets hit by a missile. It doesn't matter if a guy parachutes into you. No matter what happens, birds fly into your engines. Is your fault, your fault, your fault. As the pilot, you are the, your pilot in command. It's your responsibility. And that's the way businesses are, okay? It's the owner's responsibility to run that restaurant. It's not your staff, it's not the people. It's not. This is the way it is. I work in different countries and sometimes I'll work for two different businesses, but the same industry, right? So two automotive dealerships, they're literally two miles apart. And I go into one dealership and it's a mess. And they're like, well, Darren, this, this is the way it is here. You know, this, there's Jamaica, let's say, for example, and the people in Jamaica, they just smell. This is the way we are. You can't change it. Oh yeah, take a ride with me for a minute. I take him two miles down the road to another dealership. Things are spotless, things are in order. People show up on time, people wearing uniforms. Their benches are neat, their tools are neat. Now what's it? Aren't we still in Jamaica? Not only we're still in Jamaica, we're still in your town. Like, like we're two miles away. So really it has nothing to do with the people, it has nothing to do with the culture. It has everything to do with what you're willing to accept, right? And if you're willing to accept mediocrity, that's what your restaurant's ever gonna be. It's mediocre, is the best it's gonna get. You know, and, you know, one thing I learned a lot of years ago is who wants to. Let's say you want to, you know, take your significant other out on a date. Right. Do you want to just go to an average restaurant? If they said to you, hey, let's go out to dinner tonight. Well, where do you want to go? I just want to go to average restaurant. I just feel like an average meal, like, with average service. If you've worked all week and now you're going to go out on this special event. I want to go to a nice restaurant with exceptional service, where the food is amazing. That's where I want to go. Right. Like, people don't pay for average in life. People pay for outstanding. People pay for excellent. Right. So that's what you have to.

And they pay premium for it, too.

Yes. I'd rather you set your standards very high and miss than set your standards average and hit them.

Actually, that's close to a Michelangelo quote.

Yeah.

So what's one quote you live by?

One quote I live by probably the main quote that I live my life by. And this is like everything I even have. I have one set of business cards even have it on. It is people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Okay? Care for the person first, love the person. Like, like my employees.

Yeah.

They're. They're people first, employees second. Right. And if the person has a problem, has a challenge, has something I could help with, let's talk about that. Because I care more for you as a person than I do as an employee. I could get another employee. Right. We can't make another you. And that's, that's what I live by. I try to let people know that, that I love them, you know, and when I say that, you know, people go, oh, you can't love everybody. No, but you. You understand what I mean? You could care for people. You could love people for who they are for. Don't look for other negative in people. Always look for the positive. Look for their potential. Right. Everybody is really a diamond in the rough. Right. And you. And it's up to you to help them achieve that. It's up to you as a leader. Right. If we're talking, let's go back to leadership now again, right. To help them achieve their dreams. Everyone deserves a chance to live their dreams. Right. And you want to help them with that. Right. So at least I do. Right. So that's something that I live by, is I never try to tell people what I know. I'd rather tell people why I care for them or how I care for them. You know, it's kind of like this podcast, right? You're asking me a lot of questions, and I don't know who the viewers are, but I care for them just by the fact that they're tuning in. Like, we've been talking for. I don't know, has it been an hour yet? I'm not really watching the clock yet, but if you're listening to me talk for an hour, thank you. That's a lot of time. But hopefully I'm giving you good information here. But. But I really care for you, and I really, sincerely thank you for tuning in and listening to this, you know, and listening to me for an hour. Right. That means a lot to me. And if. And I hope some of the words I'm saying help you. I really, truly do.

So let's talk about. Let's wrap this thing up with, you know, restaurant KPI mastery. So we have a new website. It's www.restaurant kpimastery.com. and we have a thing called the Challenge. Tell everyone what the challenge is.

Okay, so the KPI Challenge. And it's so funny. Like, some people respond well to that word, and some people want it, hear it, call an assessment or something like that. But really what the challenge is, is. And I came up with this from any automotive industry. When I would do KPIs with automotives. I could walk into a dealership, I could almost guarantee 99 out of 100 dealerships, especially here in the U.S. and I could say, how do you think your dealership is running? How do you think the service department's running? Oh, it's running really good. If I asked you to score it, like, in efficiency, like, what do you think? You're 80%, 70%. And they're like, yeah, we're probably 80, 85%. Like, we do really well. Okay, would you mind answering just a couple of questions for me? Just answer four or five different questions, and then suddenly they put in their numbers, right? So this isn't my numbers. They're putting in their numbers, and then suddenly they realize they're at 45%, they're at 50%. People, They overemphasize or they just think too highly about what they're doing. It's not reality. Right. And you could go into a restaurant and same thing. How do you think your restaurant's doing? How do you think you're performing? Oh, we do great, man. We do great. We're profitable. We make Money? Well, yeah. What do you think your profits are? We're probably 20, 25%, 30%. You think? So would you mind just answering a couple of simple questions for us? Right, and these are very simple questions, right? This is like, you know, what's your average monthly revenue? Right. What is your average monthly guest check average? Right. Just a few questions. Do you serve breakfast? Do you serve lunch? Do you serve dinner? And very quickly, we could calculate exactly what your restaurant is capable of, right, Compared to where you are. And then a lot of times people see that number. And if I could just show you a video of us, of someone taking the challenge. It's shocking.

I've seen people's faces, like, they're like. Like, no way. I thought I was doing great. And then they realized they're only running, like, a 40% utilization of their restaurants. Yeah, yeah.

And you take a restaurant that's running a 40% utilization, and. And they're doing half a million or a million dollars a year, you show them what 80% could look like. Right now you're talking about you're leaving, you know, half a million dollars or million dollars on the table of profits. Profit. Thousand profits. Right. And this is a restaurant that's barely getting by, and you're saying, well, no, you could have another $50,000 a month in your. In your pocket right now. And they just don't believe that that's true, you know, but it is true, you know, and. And that's where the challenge comes from. It's a way of saying to restaurants, can I help everybody? No, of course not. Right. Not everybody needs my help. But let's see if you're even a viable business for me to help. Like, maybe you're doing fantastic, maybe you're excellent. Why don't you just answer these questions? Take this challenge really quick, and let's see where you really stand. And you know what? If you are 90, 100% beautiful, more power to you. Why don't you join our mastermind? Because you could probably help us a little bit, right? If you're really that good. But if not, then let us help you. Let us help you achieve what you want. And if you're listening to this podcast right now, or if you're watching this video, however you're tuned in here, I would encourage you to go to our website and take the challenge. There's no cost involved. There's no obligation. It's just going to tell you where your restaurant is, that's all.

How much? You leave it on the table, Basically, yeah.

Yeah. How are you really performing? And this is your numbers. Right. So. So we're not in control of this. You just. Yeah. You could do it in the privacy of your own own home. You could do it on your telephone if you want. Right. And nobody has to know. You don't have to share this with anybody. But it's an assessment tool that'll say this is where your restaurant is and this is where it could be. If you let us know.

Yeah. So all you gotta do is just go to restaurant kpimastery.com you scroll down, you'll see a big red button says take the KPI challenge and realize your potential. So you can go there. And while you're at the website, if you want, we. I have a new ebook that's available on restaurant KPI Mastery. It's nine ways to make more money in 90 days. It's a free ebook. You know, nice little one. It's going to kind of dig a little deeper into the cap. Some of the KPIs that Darren and I talked about today on the show. So check those things out. They're free resources again. You know, Darren and I started this, this whole thing because we saw that, you know, independent restaurants were struggling. And our whole goal is to help independent restaurants break free from average, average profits. I mean, you shouldn't be working so hard to make so little. It's. We think that we actually, we honestly believe with all our heart that's criminal. That, you know, you should be working smarter.

Absolutely correct. You know, and especially right now, living with COVID Right. We're not going to say post Covid. We're in Covid right now. You don't have to worry about it as much as you are. Right. You, you can thrive in, in the COVID environment. It's Learning to live with COVID That's going to be the next book you should write. Learning to Live with COVID Right.

Yeah. And here's the truth, too. We have clients in our mastermind group that are actually up over last year.

Yes.

We have clients that are up in their profitability. We have clients that are up in their sales numbers. We have clients that are basically, they're, they're actually doing more than they ever thought.

Yep. And. And the reason is because if you're trying to do this alone, if you're the turtle trying to get on the fence post, you're never going to make it. You can't climb up there alone. Let someone help you up there.

Let.

There are so many ideas for different revenue streams. That you could be implementing tomorrow, like not implementing a month from now. We could put this in place tomorrow for you and you just haven't thought of them yet. You know, that's why you need the mastermind. So we could expand your thinking. We could, we could talk to you and find out, okay, what is it that you're doing now and what is it that you're not doing? You know, there's a saying that says you don't know what you don't know. That's really very true. Right. So you could be good at everything, you know, but what are the things that you're not even considering right now?

Exactly. Yeah. I think the biggest, biggest problem most restaurant owners have, independent restaurant owners especially, is they self isolate.

Yeah.

They think that they have to do this alone. They think there's no one out there who understands their problems. Understand, you know, you understand my market's different. Donald. You know, you understand my restaurant's different. No, all business problems are people problems.

Doesn't matter where you are.

I talk around the world. Darren works around the world. All business problems. Doesn't matter what industry you're in. All business problems are people problems. Correct.

Yesterday I was on the phone with, I'll just tell you quick. An automotive dealership, and they own a Mercedes Benz, Suzuki Honda, Acura. They own a lot of different dealerships. And I was giving them an example of something they were doing wrong. And I was using guest check average in the restaurant to teach them about what they were doing wrong. But now I'm able to use restaurant analogies in the automotive sector. It shows you how business is business. Right. And. Yeah. And we don't have to say, well, that's a different industry. That doesn't work that. No, it doesn't. It does.

People. It's all people problems.

Yep, exactly. Yeah.

It all transfers. Yeah. Well, there I want to say thanks for joining me today.

Thanks for having me, Donald. I appreciate it.

Appreciate you having on the show. If anybody wants to go, you know, again, you want to go take the challenge, head over to restaurant kpimastery.com you want to grab my ebook, 9 Ways to Make More Money in 90 Days? It's available also on restaurantmastery.com you want to reach out and connect with Darren or myself. From there, you can always reach me at the restaurant coach brand or you can also reach me@restaurant kpimastery.com that's it.

And I just want to say I'm not only thank you to you, Donald, but if you've tuned in for this last hour plus show and you're still listening. Thank you so much. We sincerely appreciate you and I hope that some of what we said was able to help you today. I really do. That's from my heart.

Thank you so much.

Have a great day.