Interview with Restaurant365 CEO Tony Smith about bringing numbers to life with software, the value of in-person events, and how to avoid burnout.
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00:00 - Welcome to Restaurant Influencers
00:01 presented by Entrepreneur.
00:03 My name is Sean Walchef,
00:04 founder of Cali Barbecue Media.
00:06 In life, in the restaurant business,
00:08 and in the new creator economy,
00:10 we learn through lessons and stories.
00:12 Today we are coming to you live from the JW Marriott
00:15 in Austin, Texas, at the Restaurant Transformation Festival
00:20 hosted by Restaurant 365.
00:22 Sold out event, two day event.
00:24 What I can take away is that the restaurant industry
00:27 is yearning for more education,
00:30 is yearning for more connections,
00:32 and it's yearning for an ability to ask other operators,
00:36 other people that are in the digital hospitality space,
00:39 how can we improve?
00:40 Very grateful to Toast,
00:41 our primary title sponsor for this show,
00:44 for letting us tell stories in the hospitality business.
00:47 And very grateful to our guest today,
00:49 Tony Smith, CEO, co-founder of Restaurant 365.
00:53 Tony, welcome to the show.
00:54 - Oh, thanks for having me, Sean.
00:55 Every time our paths cross, I love it.
00:58 So, I'm looking forward to today.
01:00 - Well, I'm very excited because the last time,
01:02 we've seen each other for the last two years,
01:04 but the first time that I met you
01:06 was at the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago
01:09 two years ago, and that's when I first really learned
01:12 about the vision, I learned about the mission,
01:14 I learned about the people, about Restaurant 365.
01:17 Let our audience know who you are and what you do.
01:20 - Yeah, so we are restaurant enterprise management
01:24 platform, software, right?
01:25 We do accounting, store operations, workforce,
01:29 as much as we can to help them manage the store in one spot.
01:32 Our passion is to help restaurants thrive.
01:34 We love good food and we want to make them
01:36 as successful as possible,
01:38 so we can all get as much good food as possible.
01:40 - So, I'm going to ask you my favorite random question
01:42 on this show, which is where in the world
01:44 is your favorite stadium, stage, or venue?
01:47 - My favorite, it's probably a pretty weak answer,
01:52 but SoFi Stadium, because I live down in Southern California
01:55 and that's the most expensive stadium in the world,
01:58 like two times over.
01:59 - 5.5 billion dollars.
02:01 - It's pretty phenomenal, so I don't know
02:03 if you could beat that, that's not like
02:04 a really creative answer, but man,
02:06 I am blown away when I go there.
02:07 - All right, so we're going to SoFi Stadium,
02:09 Restaurant Transformation Festival is now,
02:12 instead of 500 people, 70,000 people
02:15 from all over the globe that are coming
02:18 for this kind of transformation,
02:20 for this kind of programming, for keynote conversations,
02:22 TEDx style conversations about hospitality,
02:26 and I'm going to put you on center stage,
02:28 and I'm going to ask you, Tony, can you tell us
02:31 how do you make data, how do you make numbers come to life?
02:35 - Well, I love numbers, so I'm a numbers guy,
02:38 but I've come to learn over time
02:40 that your numbers have to tell a story,
02:42 they have to lead people to action,
02:44 and unless they do that, they're kind of worthless.
02:47 So, everything that we do in our tool
02:49 is trying to do that, it's trying to present numbers
02:52 to restaurants and allow them to make real,
02:55 actionable decisions that make them better.
02:56 And so, a recent book that I read that I love
02:59 is "Making Numbers Count," and this book
03:01 gives some thoughts around how you can make numbers
03:04 more useful for people, and it's very simple things
03:07 that you bring to life, like a super simple example
03:09 would be a million and a billion both sound big,
03:12 but if you counted a million seconds,
03:15 it would be 12 days, which is a while.
03:18 If you counted a billion seconds, it would be 33 years.
03:21 It's like that, and so, I just love the opportunity
03:24 to put things like that into perspective,
03:25 and sometimes that helps us make much wiser decisions.
03:28 - That's amazing, so you came off,
03:29 you gave the keynote to kick off this festival,
03:32 and you talked about numbers,
03:34 numbers specifically to Restaurant 365,
03:37 to give a scope to all the customers that you have,
03:39 potential customers that you have,
03:40 and I think it's, for me, sitting in the audience
03:43 that now we do use Restaurant 365,
03:45 we're a proud partner, proud client.
03:47 - Right on. - It was very impressive
03:49 to me to see a leader lead with that transparency.
03:52 Can you share with the audience
03:53 about what those numbers were that you presented?
03:55 - Yeah, some of the things we shared today
03:57 at the conference is just around
04:00 how our organization has evolved, right?
04:02 And so a couple numbers, we're over 100 million in revenue,
04:06 we have, we're coming up on 800 employees here pretty soon.
04:09 - Impressive.
04:11 - We just raised some funds, so that was great,
04:14 to have a successful fundraise of $135 million,
04:17 and we believe in advancing our product so much,
04:21 we invest about $30 million in R&D
04:24 to develop the product every year.
04:26 - That's impressive.
04:27 Let's go to the raise, 135 million,
04:30 you said you could have raised more, but you capped it.
04:33 - Yeah, you know, it's, I'm grateful
04:36 that there were a lot of groups out there
04:37 that believed in us, but what it really shows me more,
04:40 they believe in the restaurant industry,
04:42 'cause I love this industry,
04:43 and there's some people, when we started in the early days,
04:45 you gotta imagine, like in 2011,
04:47 there were groups when we'd go out and talk to them
04:49 that would say, "That sounds like a bad idea,
04:52 "lots of restaurants go out of business," right?
04:54 And so it was really hard to get believers in some of that,
04:57 and so, for me, it's not as much
04:59 just that they believe in me,
05:00 but that they believe in the whole industry.
05:02 Like, for example, when we did that,
05:04 the New York Stock Exchange sent me a picture
05:06 that they had put up on their floor,
05:08 congratulations to Restaurant 365.
05:09 - Vision boarding, I love that,
05:11 the Stock Exchange giving a vision board to founders,
05:15 like, "Hey, do you see yourself here?
05:16 "You could be ringing the bell."
05:17 - Yeah, it was so creative of them,
05:19 but the thing I loved about it is,
05:21 they weren't shying away from the restaurant industry
05:24 like years ago, I think a lot of people were,
05:25 and it just showed that at all walks, people believe in it.
05:28 - Do you believe there will be a time
05:31 that you'll be ringing the bell?
05:32 - You know, it's possible.
05:34 I don't have a set roadmap,
05:36 but the way I try to lead the business
05:38 is so that we are capable of a lot of outcomes,
05:42 and so we're ready.
05:43 So there's a lot of controls and things we put in place
05:45 to make sure we're fully a grown-up company
05:48 for whatever comes.
05:49 - I'd love to talk about the co-founders,
05:51 Morgan Harris, John Moody,
05:52 how has the relationship evolved
05:56 from this seed of an idea to now,
05:59 as many employees as you have,
06:01 as much revenue as you're doing, as much as you've raised,
06:03 and to see how many people are excited
06:05 about the future of the product.
06:07 - Well, cool, guys, I hope you've had a chance
06:09 to talk with them too.
06:10 Morgan and John are fantastic,
06:12 and the three of us get along so well,
06:13 and it was a blast from when we started this
06:16 all the way to now.
06:17 They're both still engaged in the business fully,
06:19 which you don't always find at this stage.
06:21 And they're so helpful and collaborative,
06:24 and the three of us work together.
06:25 You know, sometimes if I'm speaking,
06:27 let's say at a university or something,
06:28 a lot of the things the students want to know is,
06:31 how do you start a business, right?
06:32 And one of the things is,
06:33 you don't want to start it by yourself, it's hard.
06:35 Some people do that, but it's hard.
06:36 So it's great to have folks with you,
06:38 and then they'll say,
06:39 "Okay, well, what do you want out of those people?"
06:41 And I say, the best is if they're people
06:43 that you already know and have experience with,
06:46 people who are humble,
06:47 because there's going to be a lot of times along the way
06:50 where each person thinks their idea is right, right?
06:53 And you don't want to fracture this relationship,
06:55 and so you have to find the ways to disagree,
06:57 but advance things.
06:58 And those two guys are guys
07:00 that totally have those qualities,
07:02 and I couldn't have started the business with better people.
07:06 - Talk about partnerships.
07:07 When we're talking about technology companies,
07:09 you have so many different partners.
07:11 I learned you have multiple tiers of partnerships.
07:13 I had one of your partners on earlier on today,
07:16 and they said they were one of the first partners,
07:18 and they remember going to a dinner in Vegas,
07:21 and it was a couple of the first four partners
07:24 that were there,
07:25 and you guys were so nervous about spending all this money
07:28 at this first Vegas dinner.
07:31 I'm like, "Oh, I'm definitely talking to Tony about that,"
07:33 because they're spending a significant amount of money
07:36 here at the JW Marriott.
07:37 So bring me back to there to where you are now.
07:40 - Oh, yeah.
07:41 So just a tiny bit on money.
07:43 We started on our own dime,
07:44 and we ran for seven years that way.
07:46 So we did seven years before we raised any funds.
07:48 Now we've done seven fundraisers,
07:49 but before that, I mean, it was lean times, right?
07:52 I mean, 'cause I didn't have a lot of dimes,
07:54 so if you're on your dime, then that's it.
07:56 And so it was pretty exciting early on.
07:58 I remember the first time we had a marketing budget
08:00 was about four years into the business.
08:02 Before that, we didn't have any,
08:04 and it was $10,000, right?
08:05 And for us, this was like a huge deal.
08:07 Now it's a little bit different, right?
08:09 - It's a little bit bigger, yes.
08:10 - 'Cause yeah, like the lunch here was probably, yeah.
08:12 It's a little different, but yeah, it's a blast.
08:13 - The dessert was.
08:14 - Yeah, exactly.
08:15 - It was today.
08:16 - But yeah, and so then thinking about the other side
08:19 of that question, which is the partners, we do.
08:21 We have an awesome ecosystem,
08:23 and we've really put a lot of care over these,
08:25 I'd say last five years,
08:27 to really solidifying and growing that out.
08:29 At first, it was just partners.
08:31 If we needed to integrate with them, they became a partner.
08:33 But over time, it became much more deliberate,
08:35 and we have partners in all different avenues.
08:38 So we have point of sale partners.
08:40 We integrate with 115 of them.
08:41 - Amazing.
08:42 - So a lot of partnerships.
08:43 - I can't believe there's 115 point of sale companies.
08:44 - There's 170, but we've chosen to integrate
08:46 with 115 of them. - 170, wow.
08:49 - We have hundreds of vendor partners, right?
08:51 - 170. - That we're connected with.
08:53 We have bank partners, and then we have accounting firms
08:56 that are both customers of ours,
08:58 but also will partner with us.
09:00 They'll do onboardings.
09:02 They'll help their clients to use it.
09:04 So all kinds of different partnerships these days.
09:06 - And what is the key to successful partnership?
09:09 - For me, it's value on both sides.
09:12 I mean, that's it.
09:13 If you can find something where there's value on both sides,
09:15 it's gonna be successful.
09:16 Otherwise, one group is always just asking
09:19 the other group for money,
09:20 because that's the only value they get from it,
09:22 and those don't usually build
09:23 into a really strong relationship.
09:25 - On stage, you shared that something
09:28 that you've rolled out recently
09:29 that's gotten the most traction
09:30 out of anything you've ever rolled out is intelligence.
09:33 Tell us more.
09:34 - People want to be told more about what's going on, right?
09:40 And there's so much going on,
09:42 especially in the restaurant industry,
09:43 if you have multiple stores,
09:45 then you really lose visibility to that
09:49 unless something's serving it up.
09:51 And so while we've always had a system
09:52 where you could run reports
09:53 and it could give you information,
09:55 this one is next level insights
09:57 and being able to see so much in one dashboard
09:59 that really is a little more actionable
10:01 in telling you what to do.
10:02 And we've just found that right now,
10:04 the world is ripe for that type of intelligence.
10:08 - When you think about storytelling as a founder, as a CEO,
10:12 and you think about all the different social platforms
10:14 and all the different places that your story can be found,
10:17 how do you prioritize the content that is going up?
10:19 Because I admire,
10:21 I'm fortunate with digital hospitality restaurant influencers.
10:24 I get to meet with a lot of incredible people.
10:27 Not all of them are willing to share their story
10:31 the way that you are.
10:32 You're very active on social media.
10:33 You're a great follow on LinkedIn.
10:36 You go on podcasts.
10:37 You do a lot of the things
10:38 that we teach other founders to do
10:41 because no one's coming to tell you straight.
10:42 It doesn't matter how great your PR firm is.
10:44 It doesn't matter how great your product is.
10:46 The truth is if you build something great,
10:48 you still need other people out there sharing it,
10:51 not just in real life, but also online.
10:53 How do you prioritize storytelling on the internet?
10:56 For me, I am not a master of social media,
11:00 but luckily, I've been able to build some presence there
11:05 because what I do believe in is people knowing you,
11:09 really knowing you for who you are,
11:11 not some fake persona
11:13 and not putting up a big curtain in front of you
11:16 and hiding what you're doing.
11:17 So you'll see that I'm pretty forthcoming
11:19 with numbers of our business
11:20 and what we're deciding in our business
11:22 and how we arrived at those decisions
11:23 and also my background and where I came from.
11:25 And I just feel like when people know each other,
11:28 then it's way easier to lean in
11:30 and find how you can have a relationship together
11:32 that's valuable.
11:33 And so because of that,
11:35 since I've always done that in my life,
11:36 now on the social side,
11:38 I've tried to foray into doing it there as well.
11:41 And then part of it,
11:42 in terms of podcasts I'm on and that kind of thing,
11:45 I have an awesome marketing team
11:46 that's able to help me make some of those decisions.
11:48 And because I am, I would tell anybody,
11:51 I am probably the worst marketer.
11:53 And so I need a group around that is really knowledgeable
11:57 telling us where we should be going,
11:59 what we should be doing, and they nail it.
12:00 - If you have any advice to founders
12:03 or people in the hospitality space
12:04 that are starting out that are dads,
12:07 what kind of advice would you give?
12:09 - Oh man, so I am a father of four daughters.
12:12 - Girl dad. - Yeah.
12:13 And so let's see-- - Girl dad through and through.
12:15 - Let's see what I could rattle off.
12:16 Yeah, I am a girl dad.
12:17 So I think I would say,
12:19 one, if you have kids that get motion sick,
12:22 carry bags all the time.
12:24 That's okay, that's the first one.
12:26 I may be speaking from experience,
12:28 you know, it might be hypothetical.
12:30 - Can you share what you told the stage?
12:32 - Oh, today. - You just went to Paris.
12:33 - Okay, yeah, so my wife grew up in France,
12:36 so we went back to visit for her,
12:37 and between all the flights and the trains that we had
12:41 and all of my kids somehow get motion sick,
12:44 there were 14 vomitings throughout that trip.
12:46 So pretty unprecedented, yeah.
12:48 - Unprecedented.
12:49 When you go, are you able to turn off?
12:51 Are you able to go into airplane mode?
12:53 Or do you have to have connection to Wi-Fi
12:55 to the pulse of the business?
12:57 - Yeah, I try to run where I'm still connected to the pulse.
13:01 I don't ever try to turn everything off
13:04 because I've been able to strike a pretty good balance
13:06 of not letting myself get sucked all the way in either.
13:09 So it's not really a switch on and off.
13:11 For me, it's just a little piece of my life
13:13 that is always existing.
13:15 And because of technology these days,
13:16 you can get a text and respond to a quick text
13:18 or Slack message or email and still be in the moment.
13:22 - Huge news, Toast, our primary technology partner
13:25 at our barbecue restaurants in San Diego
13:27 and the primary technology partner
13:30 of so many of the guests that we have on this show
13:32 have announced they are expanding
13:34 their business offerings with Google.
13:37 So now if you search on Google Maps
13:40 and you sign up for Toast Tables or Toast Waitlist,
13:44 you will have the opportunity
13:46 to improve the digital hospitality experience of the guest,
13:50 allow them to book through the maps
13:52 into the Toast reservation system.
13:55 One of the biggest difficulties that restaurant guests have
13:59 is when they search for your restaurant
14:00 and they want a table,
14:02 they do not have an easy solution to book a table
14:05 or to get on a waitlist.
14:07 This is huge news for the restaurant industry,
14:09 huge news for guests and huge news for you,
14:12 the restaurant owner.
14:14 Check out Toast Tables today
14:15 and find out the new integrated solution that they have.
14:19 This is something that we've wanted for a long time.
14:21 How do you integrate reservations, waitlists
14:24 into your point of sale?
14:26 Toast has done it, check it out.
14:28 - I'm fascinated by growth of technology companies,
14:32 how you start small, I mean, any organization really,
14:34 you start small and then you grow and you add departments
14:37 and you don't want to get to the point
14:39 where people aren't connected,
14:41 where you have a sales side and a marketing side
14:43 and they don't talk to each other.
14:44 You want to keep cohesion in this group.
14:47 How do you grow an organization?
14:49 - You talking about silos,
14:51 you're nailing something that I think about all the time.
14:55 Not because we're doing a terrible job at it,
14:57 but because I think at every stage of growth,
14:59 you have to be deliberate about avoiding those silos
15:03 or they're going to creep in.
15:04 There's been times in our organization
15:05 where I take my eye a little bit off of that ball
15:07 and they creep in.
15:08 And so we're constantly making tweaks.
15:11 Sometimes that's leadership tweaks
15:13 where you change the purview
15:14 of what certain people are over.
15:15 So it forces them to be connected to one another.
15:19 And sometimes you're just doing it
15:21 through putting some software in place
15:23 or other mechanisms that help some of these groups
15:25 to connect, but I'm constantly in that.
15:28 - Do you have any stories of aha moments
15:31 when you're developing products
15:32 or trying to bring things on
15:34 where you're having a conversation with a restaurant group
15:37 or a restaurant owner and you go, we need to do that,
15:40 we need to build that.
15:41 - I'll tell you a bad one.
15:42 I'll tell you the opposite of that.
15:43 - Okay, I want the opposite.
15:44 Lessons and stories, that's perfect.
15:47 - What I would like to drive is exactly what you said
15:49 when you're talking with a customer.
15:51 So my negative one is going to be in the really early days.
15:54 If you don't talk with a customer
15:56 because you think you know it all, I apologize now.
15:59 In the first six months, I thought what would be awesome
16:03 is for us to build this other module.
16:05 And so we were building accounting
16:07 and then I had this idea to build a marketing piece.
16:10 And marketing can be really powerful for restaurants.
16:13 You have to be really serious about it
16:15 and really building it out.
16:16 And I was just looking at it as this little side project
16:19 and I hadn't interviewed customers about it.
16:21 I hadn't talked to people.
16:22 I had just thought it would be great.
16:24 So me and this other two developers
16:26 and we set off and we build this thing for like two months.
16:28 And remember, we're on our own dime.
16:29 So we don't have a lot.
16:31 And we spend two months on this thing
16:32 and then we take it out there and nobody wanted it.
16:35 I mean, it was worthless.
16:37 And so we ended up having to scrap it.
16:39 We tossed it.
16:40 Sometimes you're able to reuse the code in some other way
16:42 and you have a good story.
16:43 Like Amazon has one of those, right?
16:45 With their phone didn't do very well,
16:47 but they were able to foray what they used on their phone
16:50 to then go into Amazon Alexa
16:52 and drive all the success they've had with those devices.
16:54 So that's a great learning.
16:55 For me, I took everything we learned
16:57 in building that marketing tool
16:58 and then I threw it in the garbage.
17:00 So sadly, we aren't a success story on that piece.
17:03 But because of that, that helped us know early on,
17:05 you really need to be broad about who you're learning from
17:08 and then build to add value,
17:10 not because something seems cool.
17:12 So that's the main thing I would say on that
17:14 is always add value.
17:15 So I drive that home to our team.
17:17 AAV is what I say all the time.
17:18 - What is AAV?
17:19 - Always add value.
17:21 - We say ABB, always be branding.
17:23 - Oh, I like that too.
17:24 - So why is brand?
17:26 So how do you think about brand as a tech company?
17:29 - Yeah, I think a lot of tech companies,
17:31 just because they're a tech company,
17:33 have this feel that they're probably hip or,
17:36 you know, that's probably the worst word.
17:37 Now I'm not hip.
17:38 I'm sorry, I've exposed myself.
17:40 - That's fine.
17:41 - Yeah, but--
17:42 - Just tell us a dad joke.
17:43 - Yeah, right, I've got plenty of those too.
17:45 What has five fingers and isn't your hand?
17:47 My hand.
17:49 Okay, so let's keep going here.
17:50 So I am not hip, but yeah,
17:52 there's a piece of tech companies
17:54 that just makes them feel a little bit cool.
17:56 But I do think that the thing that's more important
17:58 in branding a tech company is two things,
18:01 growth and learning.
18:03 I think if you're based in that and you're always growing,
18:06 and I don't just mean by getting more money
18:07 from your customers,
18:08 but I mean growing the product especially,
18:11 but also growing in employee account, in knowledge,
18:14 and then learning,
18:15 if you're always out there trying to learn,
18:17 I think it denotes a humility
18:18 which makes you a lot easier to work with.
18:20 And if you actually learn,
18:22 you're that much better next year.
18:23 And so those are the two things
18:24 that I think are really important around the brand.
18:27 - Are there any business leaders that you look up to
18:30 that you follow, things that you like to emulate?
18:33 - Man, there are so many people I've been impressed with.
18:35 Really what opened those doors
18:37 is the first time we took investment,
18:39 kind of opened this world of other people
18:41 that I could get introduced to and connected with.
18:44 And I was really lucky to get connected with a lot of them
18:47 and learn so much.
18:49 One person I will call by name here is Tui,
18:52 who's the CEO of Procore,
18:55 super successful vertical SaaS technology company
18:59 in the construction space.
19:01 And he has had a lot of valuable advice for me
19:04 over the years.
19:05 So many, so I hate to even name a name,
19:06 but yeah, I just got off the phone with him
19:08 from a week ago, so that's freshest in my mind.
19:10 - Do you remember a story that he shared with you?
19:13 - Well, at each stage I'd meet him
19:15 and they were about five years ahead of us in the journey.
19:18 And so then he'd tell me something
19:20 that was a nightmare for him.
19:21 And then he reshifted his executive team
19:25 so that it would solve something.
19:26 And I'd note that down thinking, that's not for us today,
19:29 but I wanna revisit that later.
19:30 And so there's been things like that
19:32 where I take a ton of notes
19:33 and then I'll file them back
19:36 and then come back later when we're a little larger.
19:38 What was it I learned again?
19:39 And there's a lot of those you can put to work.
19:41 - I mean, the fact that you talk about that
19:43 is exactly the reason why I think this event is so powerful
19:47 is exactly that.
19:48 You have other restaurant owners,
19:50 you have other partners that are,
19:52 we're all in the same playground.
19:54 But once you go to the playground,
19:56 you're willing to play and you're willing to share,
19:58 hey, I fell down on the swings.
20:00 Hey, I fell, you know, hey, come try this thing out.
20:02 This is what I'm doing.
20:03 Can you talk about why in-person events
20:06 are something that's important,
20:07 especially coming out of COVID?
20:09 - Boy, it changed things on us in 2020, right?
20:12 It changed the whole world.
20:13 We've seen that in our own company where post pandemic,
20:17 we have our offices because we're in seven-year leases.
20:20 So we've made it available for employees to come back,
20:23 but it's optional.
20:24 And most of them don't.
20:25 And I'm okay with that
20:27 because there's a lot of productivity
20:28 and gains from no traffic and things like that
20:31 and some value and quality of life.
20:33 So I support all that.
20:34 But the only part I do get sad about
20:36 is not getting to know people quite as well
20:38 in that one-on-one personal connection type of way.
20:41 And I think that some of that
20:42 really does come best in person.
20:44 And so an event like this,
20:45 where we bring in hundreds of customers together,
20:48 you really can just rub shoulders with someone
20:50 and swap a quick idea that otherwise,
20:52 they're not going to schedule something on your calendar.
20:54 It's too formal to do a lot of that.
20:56 So I love the type of conversations you can have in passing
20:58 or who you can sit by at lunch.
21:01 So one of the things we talk about on the show
21:03 is something my grandfather taught me,
21:05 the basic principles is to stay curious,
21:07 to get involved, to ask for help.
21:09 For me as an entrepreneur,
21:11 the hardest part was to ask for help.
21:13 I'm a curious person.
21:14 That's why I love podcasts.
21:15 I love reading books.
21:16 I love going to conferences, getting involved.
21:19 I have no problem making mistakes
21:20 and looking stupid, sounding stupid,
21:21 which is why I podcast.
21:23 This is how we got to where we are now.
21:24 - You are doing a great job.
21:26 - Thank you.
21:27 - No, I mean at the podcast.
21:28 - Thank you.
21:28 Well, you should have seen the early podcasts.
21:30 They were not good.
21:31 No one was listening.
21:32 But we're fortunate now
21:33 that we have a stage with entrepreneur
21:35 and we've reached millions of people
21:37 and we get to interview the greatest minds and thinkers
21:39 in the hospitality and storytelling space.
21:41 But when I think about asking for help,
21:44 I try to internalize why was it so hard for me.
21:47 Is asking for help hard for you?
21:48 - Oh, it is for sure.
21:50 Here's a great example of it.
21:52 I didn't have even an executive assistant
21:56 that might help me with a little bit of calendaring
21:58 or travel or a chief of staff
22:00 that would help me with some of running the business
22:02 and the executive team,
22:03 all the way up through a hundred million in revenue
22:06 where a lot of CEOs do that earlier.
22:08 But it's one of these things where I felt like
22:10 I'd be giving up something.
22:12 I'd be stating to the world that I'm lazy
22:14 or something, right?
22:15 And I didn't want to give that up.
22:16 But then finally,
22:17 from talking to some of these wise people,
22:19 like I mentioned before,
22:20 and they shared with me the benefits.
22:21 And then I thought,
22:22 it's really selfish of me
22:24 not to have a good team that does the things
22:28 because I actually don't do the things that well.
22:30 And there's people that do them better than me.
22:32 And so that has helped me to ask for help.
22:34 Another thing that's really helped me
22:36 is every year I draw a quadrant.
22:40 And so the quadrant will have love it,
22:43 don't love it,
22:44 and then great at it,
22:45 not great at it.
22:47 And so I end up with this upper corner
22:50 that is love it and great at it.
22:52 And those are,
22:53 and I put all my job responsibilities into this quadrant
22:56 and I see which things are really fueling me
22:58 and really doing well.
22:59 And then I find the things that I'm not as great at.
23:02 And I understand I need to ask for help on those things
23:04 because I'm doing a disservice to the company
23:06 if I try to do all those.
23:08 'Cause I have to be honest and admit,
23:09 I'm probably not the best person here
23:11 to do that thing anymore.
23:12 And so that helps me.
23:13 And then as well as,
23:14 if there's certain things I don't love anymore,
23:17 then I also have to think about,
23:18 what do I need to change about me to love it?
23:20 Or what do I need to change about who's doing that
23:22 and how it's happening so that it's more effective?
23:25 Because if you do too many of those things you don't love,
23:28 that's the burnout zone.
23:29 That's the danger of burning out.
23:30 Everyone has to do a little bit they don't love.
23:32 But if you do it for too long,
23:34 then it really puts you in a tough spot.
23:35 So some of those things,
23:37 that exercise really helps me to see
23:38 where I need to ask for help.
23:39 - What's something in the love it box
23:41 that you'll never give up?
23:43 - Ooh, I think I will never give up
23:46 going to lunch with employees.
23:48 I love connecting one-on-one and I love eating out.
23:52 And so you put those things together
23:53 and you're never prying that from my hands.
23:56 - It's fantastic.
23:57 So every single week on Wednesday and on Friday
24:00 on the Social Audio App Clubhouse,
24:01 we meet so you, the listener,
24:04 somebody that's listening to the show,
24:05 if you're watching on YouTube,
24:06 if you found the content,
24:08 we wanna hear your story about your restaurant.
24:10 If you're a content creator,
24:11 if you're in sales, if you're in marketing,
24:12 if you're a hospitality professional,
24:14 this is a micro community of digital hospitality leaders.
24:17 Come on stage, share your story.
24:19 We also give a social shout out.
24:21 This week's social shout out is going to Alex Elman,
24:24 who is responsible for helping organize
24:27 this incredible event.
24:28 He's part of the Restaurant 365 team.
24:30 He's been working very hard and I'm impressed to see him
24:34 where he is now versus when the first started
24:36 working with him at the Wiltern in Los Angeles
24:38 where he had a lot of things going on,
24:40 but now the infrastructure is around him
24:43 to help him do what he does best.
24:44 But Alex, he's also been on Clubhouse.
24:46 So everything that I've asked of him, he's done that.
24:49 So this shout out goes to him.
24:51 Can you give me a shout out?
24:52 I want you to single somebody out,
24:54 one person in the organization.
24:55 - From my team?
24:56 - Yeah, I don't want 800, but it's not a team.
24:58 I need one person from the team today
25:00 on entrepreneur that gets a shout out.
25:02 - Okay, one shout out today goes out to Mr. Chris Sundberg.
25:06 Chris Sundberg is our senior VP of customer success.
25:10 And I just saw him in action 10 minutes ago.
25:13 That's why he's on my mind first.
25:14 Just jumping in with a customer who had some complaint
25:19 that they felt they weren't understanding in the system.
25:22 And Chris didn't just send someone else in,
25:24 but he just walked in and dove in himself.
25:27 And by the end of it, they were in a great spot.
25:29 So I'll shout out Chris because he's always so caring.
25:31 And I hope that our whole organization replicates that.
25:35 - Awesome, so I'm going to real quickly ask you
25:36 about smartphone storytelling.
25:38 Are you an Android user or an iPhone user?
25:41 - Android.
25:41 - Android.
25:42 - Because I have the Galaxy Fold.
25:44 - Okay.
25:45 - And I love the big screen and it has changed my life.
25:47 - Okay, fair enough.
25:48 - But I don't recommend it to anyone.
25:50 People always ask me and I say,
25:52 I love it, but I don't recommend it.
25:54 And the reason is because it's hefty.
25:57 And so you have to really be committed
25:58 to having a brick in your pocket.
26:00 But if you want one, it is an incredible piece of technology
26:03 and I would never get another phone myself.
26:05 - Are you, do you prefer text or email?
26:08 - Text.
26:09 - Slack or email?
26:10 Are you on Slack?
26:11 - Email, I am on Slack.
26:13 I'd go text, email, Slack.
26:15 - Text, email, Slack.
26:17 Where do you listen to music?
26:19 - I almost always just listen to books
26:21 and it's through Audible.
26:22 - Through Audible.
26:22 - Yeah, if I listen to music, it's Amazon Music.
26:24 - What's your favorite social media platform?
26:27 - LinkedIn.
26:27 - What's your least favorite social media?
26:29 - X.
26:31 [laughing]
26:34 - There's a lot I don't use,
26:35 so I guess they'd be my least favorite,
26:37 but I have not Snapchatted anyone in my life.
26:39 - Okay, fair enough.
26:40 And what is the most useful app that you use on your phone?
26:46 - Maps.
26:47 - Maps, which maps?
26:48 - Google Maps.
26:49 - Google Maps, that definitely counts.
26:52 And are you more of a photo taker or video taker?
26:55 - Photos, but I'm pretty obsessive
26:58 about the world has too many photos,
27:00 so then I will go back through and delete like 90%
27:03 because I only want the photos
27:05 everyone should look at 10 years from now.
27:07 - But you don't publish the photos,
27:08 they just stay on your camera.
27:09 - Yep, they just stay on my camera.
27:10 That's right, I don't share them.
27:11 - That's fantastic.
27:13 - So I guess it's just for me.
27:13 - Your own curated photo list, that's fantastic.
27:16 All right, that's Tony Smith.
27:18 Thank you so much.
27:19 If you guys want to follow me,
27:19 it's @SeanPWalchef, S-H-A-W-N-P-W-A-L-C-H-E-F.
27:24 That's on all the platforms.
27:27 We appreciate you for listening to the show.
27:29 Please check out Restaurant 365.
27:31 You guys got some upcoming tours.
27:32 Where are you guys going to be?
27:33 - Ooh, I don't know where we're going next.
27:34 - Chicago and New York.
27:36 - Okay, you know where we're going next.
27:37 - I know where you're going.
27:38 - Thank you.
27:39 - You're going to Chicago and you're going to New York.
27:40 - Like I said, I have an incredible marketing team.
27:42 - So they're going to be there.
27:44 We'll put a link in the show notes,
27:45 but thank you so much for your hospitality.
27:47 Thank you for your leadership.
27:48 And please follow Tony on LinkedIn
27:51 because he's posting some great content.
27:53 - Yeah, congrats on everything you're doing.
27:55 It's just all top notch
27:56 and I really appreciate you spending time with me.
27:58 - Absolutely, thank you.
27:59 Thank you for listening to Restaurant Influencers.
28:02 The best way that you can help us with the show
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28:07 We love the opportunity to connect with you
28:10 no matter where you are on the globe,
28:11 no matter what restaurant you are running.
28:14 Please send us a DM on social @SeanPWalcheff.
28:18 If you are interested in toast,
28:20 if you want to improve your digital hospitality,
28:23 please send me a DM.
28:24 I will get you in touch with a local toast representative.
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28:31 is share it with a friend
28:32 and we will catch you all next week
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28:37 that we call social media.