Restaurant Growth Launch! The Gold Standard For Restaurant Coaching

And welcome to the Restaurant Coach podcast. It is the cure for the common restaurant. I am so excited about today's call. This is gonna be, I mean, you want to talk about something game changing for 2024. I want to welcome today first Michael and Luke. Now you might know these two gentlemen. If you've, if you've ever been on the Internet at all and you've watched a lot of social media, you've probably seen their faces before. They are the face and also the co founders of a really, really great marketing company called Skytel Digital. And we're here today to talk about, we are forming together a new kind of collaboration and we are about ready to launch out this new program called Restaurant Growth. So Luke and Michael, thanks for being here today. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself and you know, how you guys got into this crazy game of the restaurant world.

Well, Donald, thank you for having us. Definitely.

Thank you very much.

Having us, being here. Where do I start? Mike and I are best friends since about middle school.

Really? I did not know your guys friends since middle school. That's awesome.

Yeah, it's been a little too long and now we're in business together and we've been doing this for about four or five years. Long story short, the way that it all started is I was working for a restaurant marketing company in Scottsdale, Arizona and we were selling marketing services and I realized during my time there that a lot of the clients that we had really weren't getting any results. Yeah, yeah, they're paying a couple hundred bucks a month and nothing substantial, nothing significant was helping their business. And so, you know, Mike and I have always wanted to be entrepreneurs and own our own business. And so I brought the idea up to him and I was like, hey, I think we can help. I think we can help our, these restaurant guys more than just selling them a software, but like we can implement things and do a lot of work for them.

Yeah.

So here we are.

Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest thing. I mean, so many people. I mean, and it's easy to find information, it's easy to find ideas, it's easy to get some, a little bit of, you know, this and that. But putting it together and having someone kind of hold your hand and kind of, you know, make sure that you're following everything in the right pattern and putting everything in right pieces together. It's like a puzzle. I say a lot of times, I mean, you can Google restaurant success and you can find all the little pieces to it, but putting them together in A cohesive kind of framework is always the thing. It's always been crazy.

Yeah, absolutely. And just to kind of go off of what Luke said, my, my background was in investment management. So earlier on I used to study things like, you know, Facebook and Amazon and these big platforms in general. And what I've seen soon realizes that these platforms are basically economies of their own. So as Luke was working for a restaurant kind of marketing software and we're thinking about starting our own business, I remember him saying, hey, we can really help restaurant owners implement these, these strategies that can help them grow their businesses and they have the ability to track and when we combine forces, it just made perfect sense. A lot of restaurants still today just think of themselves as a traditional restaurant where in reality, you know, they're an advertising company and they're entertainment company that sells food, the service and everybody needs to have a sales and a marketing department. Doesn't matter if you're in the insurance business or in the restaurant business. And most of the time restaurants don't think of themselves like that. But in today's day and age, you have to or else you're going to slip behind.

Cool. Very cool. Yeah. I mean, you guys have such a diverse and amazing background and I'm so, I'm so honored to work with you guys. I've, I've admired your brand from, for years now, since you guys really kind of crashed onto the scene and stuff like that. And you guys have done some great stuff with restaurants. So can you guys walk me kind of through the journey that led us to, you know, to merging that, the restaurant coach brand with Skytel and how we're kind of this creation of restaurant growth. You know, you guys had this really great story you told me about how, you know, a lot of your members were coming to you and like pitching you guys questions like we, we don't know the answers to this, so why don't you guys go into that a little bit? What kind of sparked this kind of ambitious collaboration?

Yeah, absolutely. So we wanted to become more holistic earlier on. At first we started with just with an advertising strategy and an advertising service to help our restaurant clients grow, have the ability to track their performance, get an ROI on their ad spend. Of course. And this was especially the case during COVID when things became a bit strange to say the least. And then as we continued in our journey, we've oftentimes found ourselves getting a lot of questions from our clients, like, hey, you know, can you help with this? Can you help with that? Or a lot of the times when we had conversations with them about performance of their campaigns, we found out that their profit margins weren't where they're supposed to be, or their menu wasn't optimized, or, you know, their labor costs were all over the place. And so, long story short, we realized that in order for us to better serve the marketplace, the restaurant clients that we work with, we had to become more holistic. We wanted to help restaurant clients with other aspects, like the profit margins and labor costs and things of that nature so they can have a healthier business. So we started looking around, we started interviewing different companies, different coaches, and of course, that's how we stumbled into you, Donald, and your company, of course. Shortly after we had our conversation, we realized that you are the perfect fit for us. You have the great track record, you have fantastic, fantastic reputation, and those are the things that we're ultimately look. Looked for. Right. We want to provide our restaurant clients with the best of the best. That's always been our mission, and we genuinely believe that our partnership is exactly that.

Yeah. And that's another thing I believe, too, is that, you know, a lot of my clients, like, you know, we do the restaurant stuff. You know, we have the restaurant game pretty well, but the marketing game is a totally different beast. And, you know, I have a lot of restaurant owners in my programs, and I think this collaboration is going to be great for everybody because, you know, I have a lot of people that, I mean, they get the. They get their organic game down, but if you really want to really just blow your brand up, you gotta get into the paid game. But you can lose a lot of money if you don't understand the paid game and how it's played. Right. So I think this is gonna be awesome because, you know, we can. I can actually now I can hand them over to it to a company that really understands and has dominated the paid game for restaurants for so many years now. I think it's gonna be a great, great kind of almost like a jab right hook, you know, that's right. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

So if you look at, like, you know, if we've got restaurant clients and their advertising results are really good, and they're getting, you know, thousands of leads and a bunch of customers come on in, but those sales are not as profitable as they should be, then it doesn't really help the restaurant that much. Right. So we. We, you know, in talking with you, Donald, have realized that, you know, you're obviously the perfect fit to help your company's a perfect fit to help our clients get their profit margins and get the fundamentals correct first. Then we can pour some fuel on the fire. So it seems like you said to be a perfect one, two punch.

I think it's awesome. Yeah. And a lot of times when I work with my clients, when we do talk about marketing, I would tell them, master the organic game first before you start dipping into paid advertising, because you can waste a lot of money. I know I've done myself is I waste a lot of money in the paid game by just jumping in, like throwing money behind a post and thinking this is going to be it. And then it didn't take off, and then I'm down, you know, oh, my God, I'm upside down on this marketing thing. I don't understand it.

Absolutely. The paid game is the Coliseum, right? At the end of the day, once you got to start deploying capital, you have to be very careful. It's one thing to have a strategy and a plan in place. Like Mike Tyson says, everybody's got to get. Got to get a game plan until they get punched in the face. And so with paid game, you got to be ready, you got to be sharp, and. And you have to be able to adjust on the fly.

So.

Absolutely.

That's very cool. So, you know, the TRC method is what I teach. And then, of course, we have lots of frameworks, and I love frameworks. I'm a big believer in frameworks. Everything I teach is in a framework. And we're going to be offering a kind of a new version of my number one coaching program called the Restaurant Accelerator. In fact, we're calling IT Restaurant Accelerator 2.0 because it's going to be like the best of both worlds. You have the restaurant, so plus the combination of restaurant growth and their paid advertising stuff behind it. So it's almost like 1, 2. It's going to be awesome. How do you envision kind of incorporating the TRC method with the services provided by restaurant growth?

Yeah, it's a great question. So as we envision the kind of the perfect service to provide for our clientele, what we realize is that there's really two big buckets that we need to help our clients with. The first one is what. What you are an expert on, Donald, is being able to help restaurant owners with the foundation. Again, we talked about making sure that you have, you know, the perfect brand. You have the right people working for you, you have the right processes in place. Essentially, you just have a perfectly laid foundation. Once you have all that figured out in your and your menu is optimized and you can actually, you're actually converting your traffic profitably. Right. Then the next step is to be able to basically dominate world, right, where you have the paid search and you have the direct response, whether you're doing organic content or actual paid advertising. Once you can mesh the two together, it's very difficult to not see massive success as a restaurant owner. We realized that quite a while ago. And that's why the partnership here has a lot of synergy and it's very natural. And it's also the way to run any business, not just a restaurant. We just happen to be helping the restaurant industry, of course.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. What are some of the biggest struggles you see or what are some of the biggest challenges you see as far as. And we talked a little bit about, you know, some of the restaurant stuff, but what are some of the big marketing stumbles or challenges you find a lot of brands have problems with as far as restaurant marketing?

Well, the biggest one I think is there's just a lot of platforms now like we talked about before, you know, you have the TikToks, you have the Meta, you have the X's, right? And so, and that's from a paid standpoint and from an organic standpoint. There's just so, so much going on. AI is now a big catchy word. You see it everywhere and it's just, you know, it just makes your head spin sometimes. Even for us, someone who is in the game every day, in the trenches, I can't imagine what it's like for a restaurant owner. And so when we have conversations with our clients, one of their biggest challenges is to figuring out where do we start, you know, how do we do these things, where, which platforms are going to be the right fit for us. We're more of a high, high end restaurant. Where do we begin?

Right.

And so I think those are the biggest challenges is just there's, like you said before, there's so much information. It's being able to actually take the information that's useful to your business and apply it effectively.

Very, very cool. Luke, you got anything?

There's also, yeah, I mean, there's also just the problem of having the time to do it.

Number one thing is that, yeah, it's.

Having the time to do it. And then once, if you do have the time to do it, what Mike said, now it's paradox of choice. You know, I've got all these different types of options, where do I go? And a lot of times that just ends up in like parallelization and they don't do anything or they're not doing enough as they should. So, you know, there's, there's so many options these days. And at least in, in, in our experience in our careers, some of the best advances we've made as a company is by hiring experts. Right. If we hire experts for coaching or hiring experts to help us with this or that, we've made leaps and bounds by hiring experts. And you're buying the secrets like you're buying years and years of time and skipping trial and error. So we want to be that type of a resource for restaurants as well, where they can pay or be a part of a community to skip all the wasted time and a bunch of money spent as well.

Yeah, I always say coaching compresses decades today, you know, because I, I've been in the industry for over four decades and I've been coaching now over 14 years, 2800 restaurants. I mean, I've learned so much. And, and you know, you hear me say it all the time, all business problems are people problems. And I would say, you know, restaurant success isn't rocket science, it's just people science. And that's what coaching really helps with the people science. When you get that framework, that kind of foundation. And I always look at the TRC method as almost like a house. You gotta have that foundation. Like you wouldn't build a house without putting a solid foundation down in the ground. I mean, especially if you're building a multi level house. I mean, put a weak foundation up and you have a four story house, you're not gonna move your family into the penthouse thinking that oh, it's gonna be okay. No, you gotta have that solid finesse or everything comes crashing down. So I think this accelerator program is gonna be really, really great about sending that fundamentals of people product process. The people part. We're gonna really dig into that culture piece. We're talking about strengths assessments, we're talking about core values. Get that culture wheel kind of going in the right direction. Talk about how to hire. Number one thing you probably hear from a lot of people nowadays is I can't find good talent, I just can't find good staff. Well, there's a process to making that happen. And then we go into the product part. To me, product is food cost first. Because if you don't understand your food cost, why would you want to like put together a menu? So many people just like start with a menu. I would say they have the pieces, but they have them in the wrong order. So they start with a menu, but they don't have it costed out. So now they're running this menu. And then they call you guys and say, hey, man, I just want to get some marketing going. All right, cool. Let's get the marketing going. And you guys can. Here's a. Here's a downside. When Luke and Michael turn the marketing machine on for you, it's gonna flood. I mean, you're gonna get tons of people in your restaurant. But here's the thing. Do you want to have tons of people and still have a just barely like 2, 3, 4, 5% profit, or would you be better served if you had a 10, 12, 15% profit margin? And then Luke and Michael turned on the machine for you? Now it's just more money. That's that money. Now it's flowing into your bank. Not like flowing through like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. And you're like, man, these guys are great at getting me marketing, but, man, I'm still not making no money. This is, like, frustrating. So I think that's one of beautiful things. And then once you get that profitability and that marketing machine just tuned in, then you want to protect it. And how do you protect it? With processes, that system, some strategy, and then really dialing into Those K, those KPIs, those key performance indicators that really, really move the needle. I mean, most restaurants, when they start with me, they're usually at around 5% profit. I say, just understanding your gap between theoretical and actual food costs, we can usually put 5% right to your bottom line right there. That's get you a 10. So if you're at 5, that's at 10. Now we get a really hot. Then we take a highly profitable menu. We do some menu engineering and get you up to 12, maybe 13%. Now you guys come in and throw in that marketing machine. Now I'm at 15%, you know, and when you get to 15%, you want to make sure you protect that. That's why we have to have insulated kind of processes in place. We're really, really protecting everything. So as we kind of like, as we're launching out and growing this restaurant growth kind of platform, how do you. How do you kind of see this program evolving? And how do you see it kind of all working together? I know we're going to do like a series of group calls. You guys have a Wednesday webinar series? We do, right? Yep.

Yeah.

So how do you kind of see this thing really kind of evolving for helping restaurant Owners.

Well, we want to have options for everybody. No matter if you're doing 100,000amonth or a million a month, or 20k a month, or you're just getting started. We have options for, for restaurants to get, to get help on whatever stage that they're at because every stage is going to present different types of problems.

Perfect.

So we'll have coaching programs, of course, where restaurants can have a call with us and we'll figure out if they're a good fit for the coaching program and then they can sign up and get one on one coaching help from you and some of your certified coaches. We also have a webinar group as well. It's a webinar group that restaurant owners all across the world can join. And in that, in that webinar group and community, they can learn literally hundreds of different ways to improve their business. A lot of the techniques that you'll teach, we'll be on there doing, you know, live webinar calls. We've also have trainings that we've had recorded and all of the techniques that we've implemented for about 2,000 restaurants in like 30 different countries.

Oh, that's awesome.

We have trainings that show step by step from A to Z, what buttons to push, how to set everything up. Like not fluffy stuff, but like actually, here's how to do it. So this, this restaurant growth webinar community, it's already the largest community online for restaurant owners to get the help that they need. And it's just going to keep getting better and better.

Yeah, yeah. The way I see it is kind of. So like the accelerator program itself, the accelerator has like 93 modules in there. So it's over 93 of content. Also like 380 downloads available. Every. Everything I took in, everything I know about running a restaurant and put it into, I kind of put it into this box, this restaurant accelerator. So I, I think this restaurant growth program, like Luke said, is great for anybody. Now, like Luke said, if your restaurant's not really doing the, you know, the sales volume you need start with the webinar stuff. I mean, start with something. I mean you got to have some kind of coaching. You gotta, you know, because the problem most people is, is they, they are a walking example of Albert Einstein's kind of quote is that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That is how most restaurants operate. They do the same thing over and over every day. Just thinking, if I just work harder in my restaurant, I'll break this. I'LL kind of crack the code somehow. And sometimes you just hard work isn't always the key to cracking the code. Sometimes you got to have some outside insert, you know, input and new. So that's one of the reasons I loved working and I love kind of partnering up with you guys is I know this went this Wednesday webinar is going to be powerful, powerful for people. And if they decide to go into a full grown coaching program, they're going to get a lot of resources. Like they're going to have three group calls a week. So they'll have a Tuesday accelerator call, which I'll teach. We have the Wednesday webinar that they'll have, we'll have access to. And then we're also going to have a Thursday Q and A call where you can go on and ask me and my certified restaurant coaches questions, get direct answers that rely on that apply to their restaurant. And then of course, we're going to have one on one coaching accountability calls too, where we actually talk to you about your restaurant, your problems, and give you specific coaching advice and coaching directions and tools to help you kind of break free from where that's at. So I'm, I mean, I'm really excited about this. And then not even to mention like the marketing services too. You know, once you get that thing really humming and you know, you guys are going to be able to like really crank it up for them.

Yeah, we want to. Exactly. I agree with you, Donald. And we want to build something where no matter what stage you are as a restaurant owner, there's not a problem that we can't help you solve. Now, it might not be yourself, Donald, or myself or Luke that's directly going to solve your problem, but we have thousands of restaurant owners in our network and there's a very high likelihood that somebody in our group, in our community has already been through the problems that you've been through or have already seen those problems that you're currently experiencing. And they can simply give you some advice or point you in the right direction and you can skip the trial and error stage. And so that's why what we've built here together is going to be literally the most perfect, the most perfect resources resource for restaurant owners by far.

I think it's going to be incredible. So, and the number one thing I would say is like, you know, change, right? Things can often be met with a lot of skepticism. What would you say, restaurant owners who are curious or cautious about restaurant growth? What would you say about restaurant growth? What would you say to them, to kind of, you know, help them kind of get. Navigate this change kind of thing in their head.

Well, I would say that we're here to. To be a consultant to the restaurants. Right. So if anybody is curious about how we can help them or if they're certain they're facing certain issues, join the webinar group and just get, you know, get your feet wet.

Right?

Get your feet wet. See if there's some things that can help you in there. You know, our company has great track record. So does yours. So us combining forces is just going to be even better. But at the end of the day, we just want to help. And so if a restaurant is struggling and they need. There's a gap of where they are now and where they want to be. And having, like, strategy consultation calls with our team, we like to take a very consultative approach.

Right.

So we don't ever pressure anyone to do anything or try to convince them. It's like, hey, here's. Here's where you are now, here's where you want to be, and here's the path to get there. Do it or don't do it. So I'm pretty confident that the marketplace will see that.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think, Michael?

Well, the change is always, like you said, it's difficult. It's not an easy thing to experience. But at the end of the day, you have to make a decision, especially in today's day and age, economy is not getting any better. Inflation is not getting any better. We know this. If you look at the macroeconomics. And so as a restaurant owner, as any business owner, if you know that you're operating underneath your full potential, at some point you're going to have to make a big decision. That decision is going to be, do I want to make massive changes for my business and take it to the next level, or do I want to phase out along with, you know, 80% of the restaurant owners and other businesses that go out of business in five years? Right. So making that decision, having confidence in yourself and your business and actually reaching out for help is the path going forward. We've done this, Donald. You've done this. You. You have coaches. Your life was changed by a coach. Like you said, that's how you started on the path. And so, you know, I encourage anybody who is a little bit afraid of change. First of all, it's normal. Second of all, take the leap. Take the leap.

I would say there's a. It's only one letter to go from chance to change.

Yes. There you Go.

One letter changes from chance to change. And like, like these guys said, you know, the webinar group. I'll be doing some webinars in April. Jump on the webinars, man. You know, that's easy. Low hanging fruit. Just jump in. You know, I always say that you should always get to know a coach and see if their style is good for you and stuff like that. I'm not right for everybody, you know, I'm, I'm, I hold people accountable. That's one thing I had my coach did to me is he held me accountable and he called me on my bs and I'm that kind of direct person. You don't hire a coach because, like, oh, you know, hey, why don't you just take it easy today? Hey, why don't we go. Instead of working out, why don't we go get some milk and cookies and just relax? Let's do the work, man. Let's, you know, let's get in there. Yeah. So I'm, I'm really looking forward to this. What, looking ahead, what do you say are some ambitious goals you've set for restaurant growth?

Well, we'd like to help 10,000 restaurant owners.

Awesome.

In the next, you know, foreseeable future.

Couple years, bump that to a million.

That's on the low end. Yeah. Well, there's what, there's 700,000 restaurants in the U.S. so there's.

That's crazy. A lot of people need help, you know, and the crazy thing about that is 50% of those will close their doors in three years. And then another wave, another wave will come in. Because everyone thinks opening a restaurant's easy. Right.

And that's the sad reality. And, and that's what keeps us motivated going forward. I mean, we can all look back and think of how many special moments we've had at restaurants. Right. Whether it's proposals or celebrating good things.

Oh, yes.

You know, and so when you look at the figures that you just talked about, Donald, it's, it's quite frightening. Right. And so what drives us moving forward in general is just creating, you know, creating a product and a service that, that helps as many restaurant owners to just stay in business, to continue serving their communities. And so, you know, moving forward, we just want to create the most perfect place where any restaurant can come and feel like there's a resource available for them, no matter where they are on their journey or what their revenues may be.

And so many restaurants only have one owner. They don't have business partners. So I know, at least in our Business, you know, one plus one does not equal two. You know, there's a snowball effect. Like, I'll have a good idea, Michael, build on that idea. And then we would just go. And we're able to move so much faster by having more brains on projects. And so I think, like, for restaurants, especially if you're listening to this and you're just a solo owner and you don't have any business partners, having a coach having, like, almost like an outsourced CEO or a co CEO at your restaurant, man, that can help a lot.

That is a huge game changer. That's one of the things I do say. A coach is like a sounding board. And like all my. All my coaching members always have my cell phone number. They can text me anytime and ask me any questions. And then we always have a group chat. We have a group community, just like the webinar kind of community. We have a group community where you can go in and ask other restaurant owners from around the world questions. Because like you said, there's probably somebody who's had that problem. And here's the thing. I would put out to any restaurant owner out there watching this or listening to this on the podcast, you're not alone. I know you feel sometimes you're in a silo and that no one understands your problems. Trust me, we've probably, between all of us, we've seen a lot of these problems before, and we just. And I. I like, like these. Like Michael and Luke said, someone helped me when I had my first restaurant. I was struggling. My ego and my pride. You know, I just felt like I just outworked the problem. I could fix this. I could fix this. And it wasn't getting fixed. Wasn't getting fixed. I was working harder and harder, getting more disconnected from my family more. You know, just killing my. Destroying my marriage, destroying my health. I mean, some terrible stupid I used to do. And then just somebody reached out to me, saw I was struggling, and offered me a lifeline. And I'm telling you, I swallowed my pride. I just like, yes, all right. I will do what you and I. And I made a commitment to the. To the guy I said I would do. He said, make a commitment to me for a year. Just meet with me once a week. Do what I tell you to do, and you will turn this thing around. And I said, all right. I mean, what I had to. I really had nothing to lose at that point. I was on the way to crashing and losing it all, and he saw it, and he saved not only my Restaurant. He saved my life, basically. I really say, I really think coaching saved my life. And if I can help one other restaurant owner out there just go from that place of desperation to inspiration and just realize that you're not alone, that you can actually, you can turn this thing around, actually, you can make really good money. The restaurant industry doesn't have to be a struggle. It doesn't have to be, but we all think it has to be a struggle. We have to fight our way like tooth and nail, you know, scratch and claw our way out of the pit to get to the top. And you don't have to if you work smart and if you have somebody especially has a good roadmap, like this accelerator program is the proven roadmap. 2800 restaurants over 14 years have used this roadmap. And I tell you, when you use the map, it works. It's almost like a one, two punch. I say, if you ever want to get anywhere, like, if I dropped you guys off in the middle of the woods, right? Just dropped it out from the middle woods and said, hey, good luck, navigate back. You probably have a hard time, but if I gave you a map, topographical map, and I gave you a compass and I showed you how to use the map and the compass, you could easily navigate your way out. And that's the same thing what coaching does, especially with this new restaurant growth program. We will give you the map, the proven processes. We will also give you the compass, which is the coaching to basically get from where you are to where you want to be. And we will help you navigate nowhere, no matter where your restaurant is. Trust me, there is a solutions. We talk about prime costs a lot, right? Prime cost is food costs and labor costs. And a lot of restaurants understand that. 65, is that that line in the sand. If you're at 65 or higher, you're bleeding out. Most restaurants, when they come to me, they're basically bleeding out. They have high prime cost and probably the highest prime cost I've ever worked with. I had a lady, she's still in my coaching program to this day. She started with me 143% prime cost. Oh, bleeding, bleeding out. I mean, calling every week. I mean, just. Just in tears because she was just like, just distraught. Didn't know what to do. I said, all right, let's calm down. Let's follow the process map. And we followed the process map, got her down. She runs now she runs a 53 prime cost consistently. It doesn't have any turnover anymore. Record sales every year, every Year. Her sales just keep building and building. So no matter how bad you are, trust me, we can help. Right? Reach out to us. Let restaurant growth help you. And again, we have something for everybody. You know, you're not ready to jump into a full blown coaching program. I'm just not ready for that yet. That's cool. Hey, jump in the webinar program. Okay? Reach out to us. Email me. I always tell people, email me anytime, Donald. Restaurantcoach.com Email me. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you have.

That's a great offer, by the way, Donald. I was very impressed when you, when we first had our conversation that you give your clients direct access to you.

Oh, yeah.

You know, there's an SOS code which maybe you've shared with people. They can text you.

They have a code to have to text me. There's a, there's a code word and they text me the code word. I know I gotta get a hold of them right away.

That's a great offer because a lot of, a lot of companies out there, you know, the way they do businesses, you send them a message, you shoot them an email and it could be several days before they even see the message. And then who knows who's replying to you and how qualified they are. So I always thought that that was a great offer that you had. And overall, as far as kind of what we built with our partnership, and we'll continue to build now, there's really no excuse for any restaurant owner to be successful. We've taken any little doubt or any reason for an excuse completely out of the picture. Right. Because now you have help at every step of the way. You have people who've done it, and you have people who are, you know, who've experienced some of the pains that you experience. And there's a price point for any of it. And so there's really no, no more excuses not to be successful as a restaurant owner.

Exactly. And that's the thing I'm really looking forward to is restaurant growth is being able to help more people. That's always been, my goal, is to help more restaurant owners because again, someone helped me and, oh man, it's. It changed my life. Saved my life, really did. And if we can help more, other. More, other. More restaurant owners out there, just realize, man, you're not alone. You know, there's a lot. And, and then you guys mentioned before, like, you know, in anticipation of the growth of restaurant growth, I've actually taken four individuals that were restaurant owners and I'VE certified them as certified restaurant coaches. So they're trained and certified in my TRC method. They understand the restaurant accelerator program. They will be using the same tools that I use. So we can actually help a lot more people because I understand the same thing. But one of my, one of my requirements was for a certified restaurant coaches, they had to be restaurant owners. Because. And you guys were really adamant about that too. It was like, that's really powerful because. Yeah, because I think if you want to understand the restaurant game, you should have been a restaurant owner. If you want to coach restaurant owners, you should have been a restaurant owner. Understand two in the morning, waking up going, oh, my God, payroll's due. Oh, and sales taxes do. Oh, and I. Oh, my God, I sent that check out to the vendor. Man, I hope we have a busy weekend so I can. Everything covers on Monday, right? Everything clears. I mean, I mean, if you're living like that, man, you definitely gotta get a hold of us because we can help you get past that anxiety and that. I call it the 2am oh, holy. Call and wake up. Wake up at 2am Holy. It's gonna tell. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then Luke and Michael. No one knows the paid game, especially for restaurants, better than they do. There's a lot of restaurant marketing companies out there, right? A lot of them. And I will tell you, I put 100% of my trust and my faith and I would recommend any of my clients in a heartbeat to Luke and Michael and their team in a heartbeat. Because these guys know, not only know marketing, but they know restaurant marketing, you know, and you, you'll see a lot of. There's a lot of these, like, marketing companies that they dabble, you know, and they're going to do generic stuff. They're not going to really tailor it. They don't understand your unique kind of angle of running a restaurant. They understand your pain points and stuff like that, or really how to connect with your ideal avatar, your ideal guest. These guys know it. You know, they, they've been doing this for years now and they've got the game dialed in super, super tight. So if you are ready to, like, you know, I mean, really, like, you know, you got the profitability game going and you say, hey, man, time to turn on that marketing machine. These are the guys that will help you do it. And then this combination of restaurant growth is just going to help you just kind of, Just kind of. I mean, definitely 4, 5, 10x everything in your life.

Yeah, we appreciate the kind words, Donald, and we've Put in a lot of work. But the most important thing is we continue to do it. We have a phenomenal team, and we're constantly learning new things. If there's something that comes out, whether it's technology, it's a software, or it's a new platform where we think it might really help our restaurant clients, we tap into it, we invest resources into it, we try out to see if it's going to really perform well. So we're constantly. We're on the battlefield, we're in the trenches, and we're always learning new things. And we definitely do have a phenomenal process in place currently, as we speak.

Yeah. Donald, thank you for the, for the flattering words. We've got some, some interesting, really powerful new, new tech coming out here soon as well, for restaurants. And, you know, I think, like, like Mike said, just us staying on our toes and keeping our ears to the pavement and making sure that we're implementing the best things for restaurants. Because it's always changing.

Right.

Like, every single day, things are changing and platforms are changing. And so I think, like, if we can have that one, two punch of pouring fuel on the fire with advertising. And then your coaching programs, I mean, when. When you told us that on average restaurants start your program at 5% margins.

Yeah.

And then they end their. Like, the ones who stay with it are at about 19.2% margins.

The average right now. Right now is like. Average is 19.2 right now. Yeah.

And it takes four vacations a year. I mean, what else do you want?

No, I'm a huge believer in having a life. Yeah. And you've heard all. Every consultant in the world, so you need to work more on your business, less than your business. But they don't tell you or they give you a roadmap on how to do it. I'll tell you, this restaurant accelerator program is the roadmap to work more on your business less than your business. Yeah. I'm a huge advocate of making decent money. I'm a huge advocate taking four vacations a year. Yeah. And all my clients, like most of my clients who start with me again, 5% profit. I have people that had not had a vacation in seven years finally take a vacation, and they just tell you, man, it was like, it was the greatest thing in the world. I have a client who's been with me for years and years also, and she was the same way. Her and her husband run these pizza shops in California, and they were handcuffed to the restaurant. They couldn't leave and just Felt like seven days a week all the time there and there. Finally, they start implementing stuff in the accelerator program, got free started, took their first vacation to Cabo. Totally just changed their life. Like, oh, my God. And then unfortunately, the client, Stephanie, her. Her dad got really sick and, you know, went into hospice. And she was able to spend a month with her father on his last days. And she. She sent me as heartfelt, just like, I just can't tell you how much I appreciate all you've done as far as our coaching program, because I never would have been able to do that before. I never would have been able to just unplug from the restaurant for a whole month, spend those last days with my father and really, really have some closure and some peace and be there with him on his, you know, on his. On his last moments. And I was like that. To me, that's worth more than all the profit in the world. You know, when you can have time to get away from your restaurant and spend it with those people that really you care about. I mean. Oh. I mean, that makes me inside, just makes me think, oh, my God.

It's a great story of true impact of what you've been able to accomplish, Donald. And, you know, if you. Most people doesn't matter what business that they're starting, I genuinely believe at least this was the case for me, they started in business to have more freedom to begin with.

Exactly.

To be able to spend more time with their families to begin with, to be able to have the financial freedom to take care of their family. And then once you, Once you get, you know, once you get in the thick of it, you realize you start losing a lot of those things. You know, you start. You have to. You have to work long hours. You know, your, Your. Your employees could quit on you at any time. And so, you know, being able to make this kind of impact and give restaurant owners a fresh breath of air, it's like, hey, this is what it was supposed to be all about to begin with. This is why you got in the game to begin with. Once they get, you know, once they really get a strong whiff of that again, it's hard to go back right to the old. So that's the impact.

Yeah, I would say it's like, you know, exactly what you said. Restaurant owners start with this idea about having freedom, but instead, your restaurant turns on you, and it basically, it kind of makes you a prisoner in your own business. And I always describe it and this way, it was, for me, I always said I felt like it was like getting thrown in quicksand. When you get thrown in quicksand, your impulse, your first reaction, your kind of knee jerk thing is to fight to get out of it. So, like, what happens when you fight when you're in quicksand? You just sink deeper and deeper and deeper.

Right.

And that's how most restaurants do. They think I'll just outwork the problem. I just, if I just work harder, I can fix this. And sometimes you just can't work the problem, you know? Awesome. Awesome. So finally, for restaurant owners and industry professionals that are listening to this, what message do you want to convey about the future possibilities and opportunities that restaurant growth is going to bring to kind of a global restaurant scene?

Well, I would. My message is to all restaurant owners is if you want help, if you're facing challenges, if you're facing issues, our goal is to solve anything that you're running into. So again, like Mike said, we might not have the answers, Donald might not have the answers, but there's a community of thousands of other restaurant owners who are very similar to you in our community. And we guarantee to solve any problem you run into.

Yeah, just like Luke just said, I know everybody loves the word guarantee, and I usually say whenever you hear that word in business, you gotta run far away from it. But we do have a phenomenal guarantee. So don't run away. And that guarantee is we can help you solve any problem as a restaurant owner that you're facing. Doesn't matter what the problem is. If it's not going to be us who's going to be helping you, it's somebody in the community is going to be able to help you. We haven't had a single restaurant owner who's had problems of any kind of magnitude that we couldn't help solve. And so that's our. That's our big G. That's our big guarantee.

Yeah, my guarantee is like, I know the system works. The restaurant accelerator works. It's worked for 2800 restaurants over 14 years. And if you do the. If you follow the process and implement the tools, it does work. And I've got thousands of testimonials that say it does work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is the website up yet?

A couple days.

Almost.

Almost.

All right, should we.

If you're listening to this, it's probably live now.

All right, so I can put, I can put the website on the, on the page to get more info. Go to www.restantgrowth.com and we will be happy to help you. And again, for myself too. And I always tell people, you got a question, you can always email me. I'm. People, like, always freak out when they call me. This is the weirdest thing in the world. They'll call me and I go, hey, hello. And they go, is this Donald Burns? I go, yeah. Answer my own phone calls, people. Yeah, so that's somewhere, you know, I'm not like having like 20, 20 layers of people info, you know, screening my calls for me. If you email me, I will answer you. You text me, I will answer you. I am approachable. So, again, I mean, I want to help people. I want to help you. If your restaurant is not where you want to be, if you don't have the restaurant in the life you desire, 100% reach out to us. We can definitely help you. I know we can. And like Luke and Michael and I all agree on if we don't have the answers, we have someone in our network who has the answers. Trust me. I have tons of friends that are really, I mean, well known. I mean, James Beard award winning chefs, I mean consultants. I mean guys that are, I mean, financial experts, real estate experts, Mark. I mean, I got digital guys, I got loyalty program people, you name it. We got people in our resources, in our network that we can easily reach out to. So just, just pull the, pull the trigger on it. And if, if you're scared and hesitant, hey, jump on the webinar. The webinar program is an easy one to jump into. You'll get to meet me too, because I'll be doing some webinars with, you know, with restaurant group, with the webinar group. So hey, man, just jump in, give it a try.

Yeah, take some sort of action. 2024 is the year of action, man.

You gotta take action, man. You just gotta jump, baby.

Get in there.

I say when the door of opportunity knocks, you got to open the damn door. You know, it's like pounding at the door. Pounding at the door. Well, you gotta go and open the door up, you know? But if you open the door, I, I, I will make a personal promise to you that your life will never be the same if you open the door and take a chance, right? What's the difference between chance and change? Just one letter. If you want to take that chance, we will. You will see some change, and we will help you get there. I know that is from the bottom of my heart, that I know. And that's one of the reasons I partnered up with Luke and Michael, is that they are committed, just like I am, to making sure that you get everything you want out of life and everything and everything you want from your restaurant. And we have the tools, we have the resources, we have the teams to help you get there. So, that being said, any final words for anybody?

I think we've said it all. I think this is going to be. I think it's going to be a phenomenal year. And I genuinely believe that it's, it's going to be something the restaurant industry is, is going to be very happy about.

Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Head over to restaurantgrowth.com again and you always reach out to me, Donald therestaurantcoach.com email me if you want. Hey, you know what? And I know we're going to be putting out some, all kinds of great new content on restaurant growth. We're committed again to not only just, I mean, I mean, we want to help, we want to coach you if possible, but if not, we want to get you some resources. So reach out to us. We got tons of lead magnets, we got tons of free content. We got tons of ways to help you get in, going in the right direction, you know, let us earn your trust. That's the biggest thing. I'll say, let's earn your trust. Let's help you get going in the right direction if we can help you. And then if you feel like, hey, man, all right, these guys seem pretty, pretty cool, maybe I'll do some coaching. And we're here to help you, too, with that. Right? Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate you both so much. And I'm really looking forward to restaurant growth and all the possibilities of helping restaurants, more restaurants around the world.

Thank you, Donald. Appreciate it.

Having us here.