Turn Your Marketing into Media with Shawn Walchef

Hey, welcome to the Restaurant Coach podcast. It is the cure for the common restaurant today. I am so honored to have Sean Walshef on the show. He is the founder of Cali Barbecue Media. Sean, welcome to the show today, man. I'm so glad I got you on here.

Donald. Thank you so much for having me. I'm a huge fan of your work. I've been following you, your digital content and what you do for the industry. It's inspiring. So thank you for having me on.

Oh, thank you. So, hey, give people a little of the four one, one about what, you know, what is Cali barbecue Media?

So Cali Barbecue Media, we are a barbecue business and a media business. And what is exactly does that mean? We are a single unit barbecue restaurant. We've been in business since 2008. We just opened our first ghost kitchen location. But we also produce media content and we teach other restaurant owners how. How to do the same thing. There's never been a greater time to get your message out as a single unit barbecue restaurant, as in any kind of restaurant. Doesn't matter what business you're in. The smartphone has enabled us to share our story, and it's all about storytelling. And what we do is demystify the Internet. I think too many. We get wrapped up in the idea that social media marketing is difficult and digital marketing is difficult when ultimately all we're doing is telling stories.

It's the truth. I mean, emotions drive everything. Emotions drive marketing and emotions drive sales. And I think you and I share the same kind of thing as that. You know, the last thing you want to do is just there's so much noise on social media. The last thing you want to do is just contribute to noise. You definitely want to stand out. And so, you know, Covid itself, I mean, really shook our industry upside down. And especially, I mean, you're out in California. I mean, California got hit really, really hard with some of the restrictions. I mean, severe lockdowns opened up the lockdown. Again, what are. What is kind of your view as you see it right now for the industry as a whole?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's never been a greater time to be in this business. You know, like, we opened in 2008, the height of the economic recession, in a very difficult location in San Diego was, you know, I had professionals that are in real estate, professionals that were in restaurants, professional business advisors that told me it was a terrible location that we picked. And, you know, ultimately we made that decision. We opened up a sports bar and an entertainment business and turned it into a barbecue concept. And, you know, the only way that we were able to survive was by utilizing that thing that we all have in our pockets. And that's understanding that the smartphone is where people's attention is. The Internet is where people's attention is. So utilizing Yelp, utilizing Google, utilizing our website, figuring out Twitter is what's Facebook all about. You know, I made fun of my business partner when we opened because he had a Facebook account, and I thought he was just trying to pick up chicks. You know, we had a very hard time. And when I realized we couldn't pay payroll and couldn't get people to come into our restaurant to support our business, I went in and I claimed a Facebook page. And think how far we've come in only 14 years since the first iPhone came out in 2007. It's remarkable. Now you and I have become friends over Clubhouse. It's a new app that's only available to Apple users at this time, but it will come onto Android. And the ability to learn, which is something that inherently is the greatest gift that my grandfather gave me was curiosity. That's that I'm always a student. So no matter. Anybody that says they're an expert in anything, you are an expert. But you're also somebody that's humble enough to come onto my podcast to tell me every single day you're learning. And that's so inspirational, Donald. I mean, honestly, listening to your con, your content, listening to your podcast, reading your book. I just got your books.

Oh, awesome.

It's something that. It's inspiring when somebody that's a leader that's helped over 2,000 restaurant owners understand their numbers, understand marketing, get back to why they opened up their restaurant, but you yourself, you're willing to learn. You yourself, you're willing to have a mentor. And I think that's really the thing that's exciting for me is that you can have thought leaders that typically you never had access to, but now you can listen to them on YouTube, you can hear about them on a podcast. You don't have to go to the trade shows to hear them, and you can hear them discuss great ideas with other people. I mean, Seth Godin, the marketing genius that's written, you know, 20 books that I absolutely love, you know, him interviewing Simon Sinek, they're going to have a conversation that before would only be between them, but now it's available as a podcast. So it's. There's never been a more exciting time to be in the restaurant business. One of the things that we Talk about. Our podcast is called Digital Hospitality. And what we talk about is digital hospitality is every business needs to be digital first, and every business needs to be in the hospitality business. What exactly does that mean? I mean, as restaurant owners, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably own a restaurant. You want to own a restaurant. We take so much time and care and effort. We run a marathon before we actually open up a restaurant. And figuring out what do we. What is our design going to be? What's the name of the restaurant going to be? What's the menu going to be? What's the sound going to be in the restaurant? How many TVs are going to be there? What's the, you know, what's the uniform going to be? There's so many decisions that have to be made to make that in person, experience. Incredible.

Yes.

Doing the same thing online. And the answer is no. You know, the answer is we need to be doing better. And even for somebody like me that hosts a digital hospitality podcast, I know every single day I have to learn, I have to go questions, and I have to find people that are doing things better than I am. Somebody that understands clubhouse better than me and say, I'll get on a panel with them, or I'll just come in the room and I'll listen. And that's the thing.

Yeah. A lot of times, you know, in clubhouse, man, it's been a huge, huge game changer for, like, you know, listening to content. And I'm like, you, I'll jump into a room just to, you know, I love to look. I like to listen to how people interact, and I love to listen to what they're saying and how they're saying and the words they use. I'm a big, huge believer in the power of words. So I listen to the tones. They say, you know, number one thing I say about coaching is always, it's not what people say, it's what they don't say. That's where the magic is.

Yeah.

You know, yeah, same thing. Like when I'm looking at people's social media, I see what you say, you know, and you're, you know, I'm telling you those. A lot of people out there, most restaurants, 95, 99. Beautiful, beautiful food. Post. That's just noise.

Correct.

You know, I mean, what are you doing? What are you telling me about your team? What are you telling me about your culture? What are you telling about your community? What are you telling me about, you know, what drives you? Those are the things that I want.

To know you know, the things that connect us with the brand we love the, the most. You know, those memorable moments, that's what, that's, that's what hospitality is. I mean, hospitality is kindness to strangers. But it's, it's that memory that you have, it's how they made you feel. Restaurant owners, we, we, when we do it right, we get those incredible five star reviews. When we do it right, we get those people that come in and say, you're a generational restaurant. Generational restaurant. I was like, well, I grew up because my mom and dad, they took me to restaurant and now I'm taking my kids to the same restaurant because I want them to have that same experience. That, that's what we all strive to be. You know, that's what we need to do, but we also need to do it online. You know, you're talking about social media and people going on social media and posting, just to post, just to check the box and say, hey, I posted something on Instagram, picture of my burger or it's a picture of ribs or whatever it is, like that's fine, you can pepper that in. But also tell the story. You know, the most powerful thing, you know, I talked to restaurant owners all the time. I talked to other small business owners and tell them, you have the gift, it's in your pocket. All you need to do is to go into the app, the camera app, and turn it on. Less than 60 seconds. Literally every single platform is rewarding, native, organic, raw, real video.

It's exactly right. And let's break down the word hospitality. I'm a big believer in the study of words. Hospitality comes from the Latin word hospice, which means to host. So when you're actually acting in the spirit of hospitality, you are acting like the ultimate host. And that's the thing. And here I'm going to share and Sean knows this already. And everyone gather really close to the microphone and gather really close. I'm going to tell you what the secret to social media is. Everyone ready? It's about being social. You know, that means conversations, not just one sided things like, well, here's my ribs, here's my burger, come and buy it. That's a one sided conversation. If you approach social media as a conversation, how can I create a conversation? How can I get people to come into my story? How can I get people to come into what I'm doing? Now you've got social media.

Absolutely. And I think that's the, you know, the hardest thing. When I talk to owners about posting, you know, they, they Want somebody else to do it. And, you know, I'm a firm believer of leaning into your strengths and doing what. Doing what you do best and building a team around you to do the things that you don't do well. But no one, I repeat, no one will tell your restaurant story better than you will there. There is no social media magician out there that is going to tell the story of why you opened up the restaurant, where you opened it, what you care about, why your community matters. You are the mayor of your village. You know, you are the mayor of your village.

I like that one.

Get in front of the podium and to get in front of that smartphone and to post content.

I like that. The mayor. You are the mayor. You run the show. Exactly. So, you know, leadership, to me, is real critical in restaurants. And you've mentioned a couple of the traits earlier in the conversation already, but what do you think is the number one trait a leader today has to have?

I think it's curiosity. I mean, I honestly do. I think it's understanding what you don't know and your willingness to ask for help. I mean, I can't tell you how funny it is because I talk about this a lot. It's something my business mentor, David Meltzer, has been teaching me. It's something that my grandfather taught me early on. Never met my father. My grandfather raised me. He was born in a Bulgarian village. Born to be a farmer. His grandfather taught him a love of reading and a love of curiosity. He read every single book in his village, made him go to another village to read more books. Eventually became a medical doctor in World War II in Germany while he was getting recruited by the Nazis. Instead, he had to learn GE German in order to learn medicine. So it's like this incredible mentor of somebody that against all odds, you know, moved our family to the United States and, you know, accumulated wealth and to the point where he, you know, ultimately raised me as a father. That endless curiosity. Understanding that even though we've been in business for 13 years and, you know, we've done really well and we've opened up another ghost kitchen, we plan on opening up 10. We're repurposing our restaurant. We have these huge ambitions, but. But knowing that I don't know everything, even though I have a plan for what our brand is for the next three years, I have to be willing to continue to ask questions, to ask for help, to find out. People like yourself, people like Kyle and Senra, people that are in real estate. I have to ask questions of the things that even Though I think I know it, maybe I don't know it, or maybe somebody in my network, if I'm willing to ask for help, I can save myself so much time and expense, which I didn't do. Honestly, when I first opened the restaurant, there were so many mistakes because I wanted to be the entrepreneur that just got it done. You want to be the guy that. Oh, yeah, I figured it out. You can figure it out the long.

Way or you can figure, which most of us do. I would say ego, pride, and denial take down more restaurants than anything. And that's. And I was actually, I was there, you know, when I first restaurant, I knew how to run a restaurant. I didn't know how to build a business. I didn't know how to. How to market effectively. I didn't know how to build a brand. And so my restaurant suffered until I got a mentor, you know, basically a coach who told me. He basically told me pretty much what my book says, you know, hey, listen, man, you're. He told me, donald, you're a talented chef, but, man, you suck at running a business. And I was like, you know what? You're right. I hate to tell you this, but yeah, you're right. And then, you know, and it takes, like you said, curiosity. It also takes courage, I think too, is that you gotta have the courage to say, you know what? I don't know it all. And, you know, it's okay if I don't know it all.

Yes.

And say, you know what? And then reach out to people like Sean. I mean, Sean's like my go to guy. I've been, I've been listening to his podcast, and if you want, like, inside tips how to take your digital marketing to the next level. You want to get a hold of Sean, you got to find Sean. Follow him on Instagram, follow him on social media, go listen to his podcast, Digital Hospitality. But you have to immerse yourself in learning, and you got to be curious. Like Sean said, you have to be curious every damn day. You got to wake up and just say, you know what? What can I learn today? What can I do to make myself 1% better? Just think about that. If you just did 1% improvement every day, where would you be in a year?

Yeah. Compounding interest.

Whole different person, right? Whole different restaurant, whole different life.

Yeah. It's one of the things I talk about with my business mentor. He inspired me to start what I call sunrise gratitude. And that's something. Every single day, I wake up and I'm up before 4am At 4am I start. I do a morning journal, and then I read, and then I spend time on myself. I actually get outside before the sun rises and I exercise. And that 45 minutes to an hour of walking, hiking, even, sometimes I get on the peloton or running. Spending that time for me to prepare myself for the day, you know, by preparing myself for the day, if I don't take care of myself, it's a crazy thing, but if you want to be selfless, you have to be selfish.

Exactly.

And it's so counterproductive. You wouldn't think like, well, I want to help people, so I'm going to spend all my time helping people. But it's. If I'm not. If I don't take care of Sean, I can't be a dad. I can't be a good. I can't be a good leader. I can't be a good restaurant owner. I can't create content. All my creativity, I have to protect that time. You know, I went to. I had some difficult times with my brother, was facing some serious criminal charges back in 2007. And one of my closest friends, his father, he came to me and said, sean, you know, I love you, I care about you. I know you're going through a very tough time. You're taking care of your grandfather as he's aging. You're taking care of your daughter. You're taking care of all these people. You know, I will be here to listen and to be a friend, but you should go see somebody. And I went to a therapist, and therapist told me was something that, you know, I had never thought about, but it was, you know, I'm an enabler. I'm always the person that's trying to help, you know, And I find this true with so many restaurant owners. We're in the hospitality business. All the time that we spend helping others, literally helping our community, helping our customers, helping our staff, very rarely do we help ourselves.

Exactly.

Therapist told me is she's like, sean, when. You know, when you go travel on a plane and you're traveling with children, they go through the safety instructions and they say that the oxygen mask comes down. And when the oxygen mask comes down, what are you supposed to do?

Yeah.

Man. Are you thinking that you should do. You're thinking that you should put it on your children?

Yeah. Yeah. You think you should. Yeah.

But if you don't put the mask on yourself, you're no good to anybody.

Nope.

And that's ultimately being selfish in order to be selfless. And that's something That I think is very important for restaurant owners to start to really understand. And I know that's what you do in your coaching, which is why I'm so compelled to your content because you focus on self care is everything.

Self care is critical to long term success. I mean think. And you, you probably like me think of like some of the most successful people. You know, they all have some kind of self care routine. You know, it's either their journaling like you do. I journal in the morning, I do meditation, I do breathing exercise, I do primary exercises, I work out in the morning. You get outside, you gotta have some self care and you have to have some kind of routine and you have to be committed to it.

Yes, it's, you know, it's part of that. You know, when I started the sunrise, gratitude, I'm on day 435.

Wow, that's amazing.

Which, yeah, thank you. It's been incredible. It's, you know, it's been just this incredible. I've had other people, I document it too to hold myself accountable. But what I didn't realize was I never wanted to be, especially on social media. I always made fun of the people that would post of themselves working out. You know, it was like, oh, okay, great, you went to the gym. Like big fucking deal.

Big deal.

No, what actually happens is by me posting that I went, I was on the peloton or I was out on a run hike, it's actually by showing what I'm doing is more inspirational. You never know who you're going to inspire the curtain back. And by saying, hey, I'm taking care of myself, you have no idea who else you can inspire. Which is the power of social media.

Exactly. And here's the thing a lot of people say, well, you know, I don't want to get my phone out, I don't want to post anything because you know, no one cares. No, there is, there, you're, you're doing it because there might be one person. If I can help one person have a better day, then my life was that I lived my day the way I should have. You know, and that's my always goal is I, and I always write down in my journal and I have a question, it prompts me a question every day. How did I know I had a great day? And I always write down, if I can help just one person have a better restaurant, have a better life, then I had a great day if I can just help one person. That's all.

Yeah, I think that's, it's so Important, Donald, when you think about everyone wants the viral video everyone wants and thousands of likes and the hundred subscribers, like, ultimately, it's an audience of one. It is audience of one. If you can impact one person, if you listening to this podcast, if you can take something away from, you know, what we're talking about as far as self care, as far as using your smartphone to post content for your business to share. Because ultimately you're talking about, does people, do people care? Well, who were you five years ago exactly Years ago, you were either a restaurant owner and now it's five years later, or you wanted to be a restaurant owner. Well, if you saw a restaurant owner that only posted how hard they were working and burning the candle on both end, would that still inspire you to be a restaurant owner? Or if a restaurant owner was actually showing you behind the curtains, hey, this is me trying to lose weight. I'm on a weight loss journey. I'm trying to lose £70 before I turn 40 years old. Why am I doing that? Because I want to have a good heart. You know, I have high blood pressure, I have high cholesterol. I want to be here for the long term for my kids and hopefully eventually their kids. But like, I'm sharing that I'm being vulnerable.

Take it from someone who died twice.

Oh, really?

Two years ago, cardiac arrest. Died twice. Really died twice. How bad? I had blockage in my heart, you know, and it's from 40 years of being a chef, eating heavy cream and butter and lots of red meat, and it was a wake up call that, you know, I, I needed to make some changes and I made some serious changes to my diet. I made some serious changes to my lifestyle. How I, you know, yeah, don't, don't be, don't be, you know, you don't have to die.

The example, please don't. Yeah, but I think that's important. And it goes back to what we're talking about and something that, you know, I've been contemplating. You know, I'm planning on writing a book about digital hospitality, about all the things that hopefully help another restaurant owner, another small business owner understand, you know, how powerful the smartphone is, how powerful the Internet is, how powerful all the apps are, because you can do just incredible things and it's so much bigger than your restaurant, you know, it's so much bigger than any of us can comprehend. But understanding that, you know, we all want to be the rabbit in the race. We all want to have that viral video. We want to be first, we want to be the rocket Ship. But ultimately, life is about being the turtle, and it's about being that tortoise. And every single day, like you said, 1% better every single day. And then learning and asking questions. But then gradually that compounding interest along the way gets you to the point where, you know, we are so confident in what we're doing because since 2008, we've been literally asking questions of how do we do digital marketing, how do we do digital media, how do we create content? How do we become better storytellers, how do we help other people to learn exactly the things that we're doing? And, you know, it's such a powerful thing. When you go from digital marketing to digital media and digital marketing, you have to learn how to talk about yourself. You have to learn how to talk about your brand, you have to learn to talk about your restaurant. Digital media is when you understand how to do those skills. But then now you start talking about your customers, you start talking about your partners that you work with, your vendors, you start talking about your community, you start talking about the charities that you work with. And you're always doing it, and you're always on and you're always publishing and you're always branding. Now you're top of mind with so many different people because of the content that you're creating.

Exactly. And that's the biggest misconception I think most people have about marketing and just social media in general. It's not about getting a sale. It's about keeping your brand top of mind. And I use the example of McDonald's. Everyone in the world knows who McDonald's is, but do you ever see them not marketing?

No.

Now, there always are, because you want to keep your brand top of mind. That's the whole purpose I put out. I'm like you. I put out so much content, and I'll get. I'll get emails from people like, man, you put out a lot of stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's. I do that on purpose, you know, because, you know, I want you to know I'm here, I'm out here, and. And maybe you might not need help today, and that's great, but one day you might say, you know what? I just can't live like this anymore. I can't run my restaurant. I can't have my restaurant run me anymore. And then you'll call me, and then when we do, we'll have a conversation.

And what's even more powerful is sometimes it's not even the person. It's some other person that's seen Your content that loves their friend who owns a restaurant.

Exactly.

I've seen this guy, the restaurant coach. He helps restaurant owners follow him on Instagram or listen to his podcast. And like, that's the biggest thing that people don't understand is, you know, recently I was fortunate to go on Amazon Prime TV show called the Two Minute Drill that David Meltzer, my mentor, I saw that on. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And, you know, it was a. It was an uncomfortable practice to do a two minute pitch for a $5 million raise to build our master smokehouse and our media center and build our 10 kitchens. But it was an opportunity for me to hone our messaging into a two minute story, into a story of what is Cali Barbecue Media. You know, and it's something that I'm working on putting out another podcast, hopefully coming out soon, you know, in partnership with Yelp and hopefully Entrepreneur Media. But I'm asking other restaurant owners to use two minutes to tell me who you are and what you do. You can't use it in two minutes. Like, two minutes is a long time, but also not a lot of time. But we're in an attention market, like everything. We all are attention merchants. So you've got to be able to tell your story in a quick fashion, in a compelling fashion, so that people go, I want to listen. I mean, you give keynote speeches all around the world. Know that there's speakers that are great and compelling, that get the audience fired up, that make them want to do something. And then there's other speakers that they care too much about themselves. They're not focused on helping the people that are actually sitting in the room. And people tune out. You know, what are you going to do with your opportunity? And I think, you know, there's never been a better opportunity for someone that's listening to this podcast. If it's you listening to this podcast right now, you have all the opportunity. If you, if you're in business. Do you know how many people want to be in business? They dream about being in business.

Exactly.

An entrepreneur.

You've already done it. Yeah.

And you understand hospitality. That's the key. You understand hospitality better than technology companies understand hospitality.

I would challenge everyone listening to this podcast or watching the video on the YouTube. I would challenge everyone to do what Sean just talked about and make a two minute video. And you can send it to us. You know, you can send it over to Sean or you can send it to me. Send to both of us. Reach me at donalderestaurantcoach.com you can reach Sean. Here's his website, Cali Barbecue Media. Just go over. But here's the thing, just do it. You know, take. Have the courage and the curiosity which we've been talking about all day today. Have those two things and make the leap and actually do something with it. Actually put the, put it out there and let us, you know, and we'll be more than happy to take a look at it and help you out.

Well, if you, if you tag me, if you.

I'll repost the hell out of it, you know.

Yeah, Sean P. Walchef. I will.

Yeah. So if you want to connect with Sean on social media, this is his is at Sean P. Wallchef.com just se. John P. Wall, Chef. Social media. That's like everywhere for you, right?

I was Tick tock. Instagram, yeah. LinkedIn, anywhere.

We'll challenge you. I mean, we, we have, we have pretty good networks. Yeah, we'll help you get some exposure, but, you know, just tag us. You can tag me. I'm just Donald Burns at Donald Burns. Tag me. Tag Sean. We will make sure that your message gets out there. But here's the thing. Yeah, do it. You gotta take some action.

Well, that's the crazy thing is, you know, my grandfather, he was. When I was, when he was getting older, I was helping him write his book, you know, about his life story. And we, I was studying in Spain. He came over to Spain to help me, to pick me up for my time abroad. And we went throughout Europe traveling, him essentially going back through where he went to medical school, where he studied, you know, gathering materials for his book, ultimately back to Bulgaria, where he's from, way we went and we visited all kinds of places, you know, incredible monuments. We went to the French Open, we went to the Wimbledon. But along the way, he was always in the front of the bus. He was always in right next to whoever was the person, the guide for the, for the tour. He was always pulling all the pamphlets. He was always asking all the questions. And when I was a kid, it was uncomfortable. And so I was like, grandfather, why are you doing that? You know, why, why are you. Because he's like, I want the information. I don't want to miss out. And I want to make sure that I'm going to give you the experience. You know, I want you to have the experience so that you don't miss out. If you're listening to this and you get, you all know, you've all been in school, you've all been in athletics. The people that ask the questions. The people that stay after, the people that, you know, follow up, the people that do the work, they're the ones that stand out. So be that person.

Be that person, and you can do it. Today, like Sean mentioned quite a few times, you have in your possession the most powerful tool in the world. And it's your smartphone. You just gotta use it for more than text messaging and checking out your TikTok feed. Put the power back in your hand.

Well, I mean, it's one thing that I'll challenge the restaurant owners that are listening to this podcast. You have your personal Facebook page, and you have a business Facebook page. And, you know, this is something I talk about a lot because it's. It's true, it's near and dear to my heart is when we started, I was hesitant about posting any kind of content on my personal Facebook page. I would put restaurant content on Cali comfort BBQ's Facebook. But eventually I got to a point where I was like, I'm just going to post whatever I want on either platform at all times. And I had friends that were on Facebook and they go, you know, why do you keep. We know you own a restaurant. Why do you keep posting on your personal. On your personal feed? Like, well, if you have a problem with me being a restaurant owner, then maybe we shouldn't be friends. You know, an aha, oh shit moment. Being like, you know, maybe I don't give a shit about these people. And I talk to restaurant owners all the time and they tell me, you know, I'm scared of what, you know, I live in a small town and I don't want to post something. You know, I don't want to be vulnerable or I don't want to seem like I'm asking for somebody to come and support our restaurant. Like, why not? You've already done all the work.

Exactly.

Why not like Facebook? Like, the platform is as great as it is or it's as bad as it is. All of these platforms, the problem that we have is that we, we, we. We take a subjective feeling towards a logo. So I don't like Twitter because I don't like, because I don't like Facebook because ultimately there's people that want products and services on all of those platforms. And if you can tell a compelling story, which I know you can, because you opened up a restaurant, then you should be telling that story on all of those platforms.

You should be all the time.

Yes.

Yeah. A lot of people think it's a one and done. I told my story one time. I Did one video. How's that work out? It's like. It's like you and me going to the gym one time and saying, that's it. We never have to go back again. Right.

I don't know why I don't have a six pack.

I went to the gym Monday. What the hell, man. Yeah. I don't know why I'm not in shape anymore.

Correct.

So, hey, I'm gonna kind of break up a little bit. If you came, if you came with a warning label, what would your warning label say?

Do not kill my creativity.

That's a good one. That's a good one.

Yeah. I think, you know, some of the toughest relationships, business relationships I've had, were a misunderstanding of who I am and what I should be as opposed to what I want to be. You know, I know what my potential is. I know we're a barbecue media company, and I explain that to anybody, no matter how many naysayers there are along the way. I know why we, in a San Diego market, you know, try to do craft barbecue. I knew deep down that that's something that we should do. You know, why should we partner with sports teams like the San Diego Chargers and Los Angeles Chargers, do all kinds of stuff that doesn't make sense to people. We're going to do it because ultimately, it's me. It's me brand. It's who we are. And, you know, the times that people have tried to take me away from me being me, that was, you know, times where it was bad decisions, didn't work out. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Now I've been the same thing. Anytime relationships or business relationships where they try to suppress me from being me or if I've gotten pulled off of my mission, you know, in my vision for where I want to be, it's never been good. Never been good. Follow your heart.

It's difficult, too, because, you know, I have to do a good job of articulating that vision and articulating why and what I'm doing. But ultimately, I know my intentions are good. I know my intentions are good, and I know, you know, what our brand is doing, what we're trying to create. Why we have, you know, the team that we have at Cali Barbecue Media, why have you a writer in Austin, Ian Stonebrook, that's doing incredible work? I've got my producer, Stover Harder, in Portland, Oregon. We keep adding to our team because we know that the content that we're creating can help somebody on the other side of the globe. It doesn't matter where your restaurant is, it doesn't matter where your small business is, doing incredible work, not just with your primary work, but with media work, with showing another person that is an attorney, you know how to create content online. Somebody that's, you know, Kyle and Sinner, like we talked about before, he's been on. Oh, he's going to be on my, my podcast. He's in commercial real estate, but he's creating media content every single day, building his business. But it's also helping other people that are in commercial real estate understand. This is like, how are you going to connect with a restaurant owner like me? I can guarantee you it's not through a cold email. I can guarantee you it's not through spamming me through LinkedIn. But if you can create some compelling content on Instagram or TikTok or you show up on Donald Burns podcast, now you have my attention.

How many times. So you got me on a sidetrack here. How many times have you connected with someone on LinkedIn and then within like two minutes they send you some spammy email?

I actually laugh about it. It's, it's.

Are you serious? I'm like, are you serious? I give you an opportunity to connect with me, to build a relationship with me and the first thing you do out of the gate is you spam me.

Correct. No foreplay.

I mean, just. It's not even. I didn't even get a hello, a warm up. Nothing, nothing, nothing. What do you do when they do it to me? I automatically, I automatically disconnect. That's it. I really.

I haven't done that. No, I haven't done that.

But I disconnect right away.

I'm always a fan of the reverse sell and that's something I've always been practicing. Since we first opened the restaurant. It didn't matter what kind of telemarketer was calling, but if somebody was calling and trying to spam us, I would try to sell them a catering.

There you go, That's a good one. Yeah. And I would like, sometimes I would like send a message back like, are you serious? You just connected with me on LinkedIn. We have an opportunity to network and find out about each other. And the first thing you do is you send me some spam email.

Yeah.

About getting on your calendar and setting up a call.

Yeah. And you know, the scary part is a lot of that too goes with automation.

Yeah.

Something that, you know, there's even personalized automation, which I'm a fan. Like, trust me, there are technology and there's Automation, that is, there's great stuff not to help, but there's time and place for it. And you have to have that one on one connection. You know, if you have the technology to have that one on one conversation that, you know, if somebody gets your email newsletter from your restaurant, you have 10,000, you know, 10,000 people in your email list. But if somebody took the time to respond to your email, you better respond back. You know, respond back because they care enough to write an email back to you. I mean, but when you do, you can develop this deep relationship. And we've done that multiple times. And it's something. It's one of the things that I enjoy the most about the work that we do is it's oh, shit moments, you know, like, I can't believe the. I mean, it shouldn't be shocking for a restaurant owner to respond to a review on Yelp. Yet every time I respond to a review, I can't tell you how many times I go, I can't believe the owner responded to my review.

Oh, I know. Freaked out.

Yeah. Or you respond to somebody's comment on Face on the Facebook, posted something that was engaging to them and they wrote something. So you wrote something back. And they go, I can't believe you responded. Well, I can't believe that people aren't responding.

Exactly. That's the way I look at it. I can't believe people are not responding.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you, you know, you run a huge media company. What's your favorite platform?

Favorite platform? That's a great question. I would have to say it would be right now. Favorite platform would be. It might be LinkedIn. It's either LinkedIn or Instagram. I've always been a fan of Twitter. Twitter is a powerful tool for getting media attention. One of the things, when I first started podcasting, I went to a podcast conference in Anaheim and there was a woman, she had half a million Twitter followers. And she went into the room and these are all podcasters building their podcast. And she's asking them, you know, how many of you are on. On Twitter? And, you know, I was one of, you know, out of the room of 50, I was one of five, raised their hand saying that I was on Twitter. And she was asking, you know, well, why are you all on Twitter? And everyone had a different, different answer. She asked the room, how many people want media coverage for their podcast? The whole room raises their hand, yes. Well, where do you think the media their primary platform is? It's Twitter. Forced to be on Twitter by all the all the news stations, all the radio stations, newspapers, magazines. You have to be on Twitter when you're publishing content, you know, especially when you're talking Web 1.0. But when we're on Twitter and we're having a conversation, you learn that you are your prep. You are the. You are the PR agent for your firm. You know, essentially every single piece of content you make and relationship that you develop with somebody that is a news anchor in your town, is a local reporter in your town, is a writer, is a food blogger, is somebody that takes, you know, food photos. All of those people, no matter what platform they are, if you're following them and you create compelling content, do you start a relationship with them? Guess what? We don't have to send out press releases anymore. All we do is post content on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn. And we already have those people that are coming and asking us, hey, can we do a story? The answer is yes, absolutely. I'd love to do a story. We spent five years getting ignored by all of the media in San Diego. Now all of those media, we have personal relationships, and we have the opportunity to share our story to more people.

That's so cool. Yeah, Twitter was actually huge for me when I started blogging. Actually, I got my career. I got my started on blogging through Twitter. I had put out some stuff, and then Paul Baron from Foodable reached out to me on Twitter.

Nice.

And hey, you know, I'd love to have you, you know, would you think about doing some contributions to our, you know, Foodable tv? And I'm like, yeah, I'd love to. And then that sprung. But Foodable got me started. Then that got into toast. That got me into, you know, Restaurant Canada. It got me into upserve. It got me into writing nightclub and bar, but. And it all started with Twitter.

There you go.

Yeah. LinkedIn, I think so. A viable, very, very valuable platform that I don't think restaurant owners look at.

Yes, I couldn't agree more. And it's. It's never been more viable because of the technology that is coming into restaurants.

Exactly.

Of tech and SaaS, products that we're bringing into our restaurants. All of those companies, guess what they need? They need owners and operators to give them feedback, to use their products, to be brand ambassadors. And the more that you use their products, the more that you, you know, develop relationships with their sales team, marketing team, with their content team. Guess what? They're all writing blogs, they're all podcasting. They're all things. And they want to Share stories, success stories of local restaurant owners. That's an opportunity for you to get your business into more media.

See, and that's the, that changes the game when you, when people start looking for you. Now you got. Now you've changed the whole game.

Yep.

Yeah. And. And you only get that way by being consistent, curious, and having courage.

Correct? Yeah.

Yeah. So far I think we're up to three Cs. Consistency, courage and curious. We're at three Cs.

Like three Cs.

We're at three Cs so far. So, you know, I'm a big believer in culture and I think culture really makes or break restaurants. What do you, what would you say is like. And you've worked with a lot of successful us, what do you think is the key to culture and success? Having a great culture. What do you think is the key to it?

That's easy. It's you.

Exactly. Yeah.

From the top. I mean, it comes from the top. You're only going to be as good as who you are as a man, as a woman, as a, you know, as if you're a couple. How, however your ownership structure is, but how you treat your people, how you hire your people. I mean, we hire for hospitality. It was when we first started, we hired for experience. And the biggest shift that we had in our restaurant was, you know, we're sick and tired of trying to train people that are untrainable. We want people that are coachable. We want to hire people that love to take care of people. We want people that love that inherently in who they are, they want to do a good job. And the more that we reinforce that good job, the more, the better job that they will do.

If someone's coachable and trainable, I can teach them anything. But I can't change people's personality. No. Yeah. I can't make people care.

No.

If you don't care, I can't make you care. Doesn't matter how bad I want you to, how much desire I have to make you care, you know, it's not going to happen. So what's the one thing you think restaurants can do right now to really stand out in 2021?

I think the most important thing is as much as I talk about social media and posting content, you have to have a mobile first website. Your website has to be optimized for mobile. If not optimized for mobile, you are leaving everything on the table and nothing else is important. You are an E commerce business. I mean, nothing is more important than that. Guest checkout Experience that guest browsing experience. And easy. There's a book by Donald Miller called Building a Story Brand all the Time. Because it's so focused on the website, you confuse, you lose. So all the time and effort that people put into their website, a lot of restaurant owners, they have an incredible impeccable Instagram feed, they've got a great Facebook feed, but they haven't updated their website in a year. You know, obviously a lot of them have gone back now during COVID and addressed their website in ways that they haven't. But if it's not mobile first, it's unacceptable. It has to be mobile first. It has to be optimized for online ordering. It has to be optimized to build your email list. These are just, it's mission critical. It can't be ignored. And the content that you create, whether it's video, audio, written word or images, that's basically what the Internet is. Video, audio, written word and images. Those are the things that all the social media platforms need. That's how the Internet runs. That needs to go on your website first. Yeah, that on your website first. And then take that photo and then put it on Instagram. Update that on your website. So, hey, this is my menu item. Now it's going on doordash. Now it's going on Uber Eats. Now it's going on grubhub Update that. Now you're actually doing something that's building local search, it's building something for Google, it's building something for Safari, it's building something for being all of these search engines. It's the most important thing that a restaurant owner can do.

Perfect. And you mentioned, you know, when you're interviewing, you're looking for personality, looking for hospitality over experience or just skills itself. What would you say? What's your favorite interview question? Do you have like a secret, A secret interview question?

You ask Secret interview question. That's a good question.

I have one. I'll share with you if you want. You have one. All right. Well, my favorite one is I always ask people this, do you respect yourself? And then of course everyone always says, yeah, I respect myself. Then my follow up question is, give me some examples of how you respect yourself. Because I want to listen to them. Do you really respect, you know, well, you know, I set boundaries with my family. I don't go out on Friday night. If I know I got to work Monday, Sunday morning, you know, I study. I dedicate myself each week to, you know, learning something new. How do I, how do you respect yourself? What do you. Do you know, I eat healthier now. I take care of myself. I work out three times a week, whatever it is. But I want to see if you respect yourself, because here's my debate for it. If a person does not respect themselves, they're not going to respect you, they're not going to respect your restaurant, they're not going to respect the team, and they're not going to respect your guest.

Couldn't agree with you more. That's why you're the restaurant coach.

My favorite question, though is like, yeah.

You know, stealing my questions that we do ask is give us an example of when you have gone out of your way to be kind to someone.

Well, that's a good one. Yeah. See, I love that one. When, when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a sports stadium owner.

Did you really? Wow, that's awesome.

Yeah.

I want to be a zoologist. I want to be like. I want to be like, I want to be a zoologist. I want to be like, remember Marlon Perkins, Wild Kingdom? I want to be like that guy. You know, there's Jim getting. Wrestling the alligator. That's what I wanted to be that guy.

In some ways, you kind of are a zoologist.

Just the zoo is restaurant.

The animals are animal owners you get to work with.

Yeah, yeah, that's actually true.

Some.

Some are very organized. Like some animals, you know, very, very organized. Very. Some are like a. Monkeys. And it's like, it's like watching the. The fight at the zoo with the monkeys. You know, it's like, oh, my God, are you kidding me?

Absolutely. Yeah.

So name one. A book, audiobook, or podcast you recommend.

So we already mentioned Donald Miller's.

Love that one.

Building a story brand. The other one would be John Hall. Top of mind. So those are two great.

I heard that one.

Yeah. Top of mind. It's actually just incredibly powerful. Powerful book. And then the last one would be Power of Moments by Dan. But that's basically gets to the essence of hospitality. It's why we do what we do.

Power moments, huh?

Creating those powerful moments. I mean, when you. They go through all these different case studies, you know, one of them being taking your kids to Disneyland. And, you know, if you go and you surveyed 100 people that took their kids to Disneyland, you know, what were the experiences of, you know, well, checking out of the hotel room, you know, where was your level of satisfaction? Like, it was frustrating that to get the kids dressed, it was a six. And then, you know, waiting in line, you know, that was a seven. And, you know, but ultimately, when you go through the whole day, you know, getting the kids, the. The Mickey Mouse ears, but ultimately, when you go through the whole day, it's those little moments that Disney does that goes. That overall experience. That was what the memory was. What do we all remember? We remember the day we were hired, the day we were onboarded at our job that's so magical that a restaurant owner could easily do is stand out, make that onboarding, that first day at the job. That is ultimately incredible day to bring somebody into who you are and what you do.

Yeah. I mean, look back on your life and your relationships. You remember your first date with your wife?

Absolutely.

Like it was yesterday, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Creating those moments. All right, I'm gonna put those books. I'll put those in the show. Notes for people so you can. On Amazon, so you can download things. What's a quote that you live by?

Stay curious, get involved, and ask for help.

There you go.

How we end every podcast. That's what my grandfather taught me. You have to be curious. I mean, the. The fact that you're listening to this podcast puts you in a class in front of so many people. People are spinning their wheels. They don't know what to do. But you're listening to this podcast because you respect Donald Burns. You respect the work that he's doing. Somebody's recommended it to you. You are curious. You're in the curious class. But now what do you do? Are you going to be one of the people that actually tags us in a selfie video that you make about your restaurant? Are you going to be one of them that's going to put you, you know, that's getting involved, and then finally it's asking for help, knowing what we don't know. You know, if something's compelling, reach out to me and reach out to Donald. We're here to help you.

My favorite, my favorite quote, I got two of them. They're on both sides of my bookshelf behind me. The one quote behind me on this side is Mario Andretti, and it says, if everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.

I love that.

And then the other ones on the other side of my bookshelf is from Zig Ziglar, and it's actually the quote I've used to build. I built my whole. Into all my brands around this quote. And it's like, you can have everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want. And I believe that with 100 of my whole heart. Yep. Which I'm look, I'm looking at your shirt, too. What's the diagram on your shirt?

That's the smartphone.

Yeah.

It's digital hospitality.

Digital hospitality. I went to ask you, like, that's pretty good.

Hieroglyphics in emojis.

Digital hospitality in emojis. There you go. That's it. And if people want to contact you, the best way they can get on social media is you can find him at Sean P. Walshef. He's on Tick Tock. He's on Twitter, he's on Instagram. And if you want to go to his website, please go over and check out www.calibarbecue.media and that will take you to the website. And again, your podcast, Digital Hospitality.

Correct. Digital.

I know. It's available on itunes, Spotify. It's not all of them, right?

Yep. All the podcast platforms. We will be everywhere.

That's it. Gotta be everywhere, man.

One final quote, and that's from the famous philosopher Winnie the Pooh.

Okay.

We will be friends forever. Just you wait and see.

There you go. That's a great one. Hey, Sean, I want to say thanks, man. Thanks so much for taking time. Thanks for sharing a lot of your insights about mark marketing, but the difference between marketing and media and also too, just giving, you know, the listeners today some really, really good, solid advice about how they can take their brands, how they can take their restaurant, how they can take their life to the next level.

So grateful for you.

It's been my honor to have you on the show. And again, everybody wants to reach out. Please reach out to Sean. He's more than happy. He's like me. He's more than happy to help you. All you gotta do is, you gotta take that first step, though. You gotta reach out to us.

We'll be friends forever. You just have to. First step.

Awesome. Thanks, Sean.

Thank you.