Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Brett Ruffino from Georgia.
Now, this is an episode that we just recorded on the spur of the moment to address some of the opportunities that small businesses have to adapt too in the midst of this current shutdown.
Everybody is being asked to stay inside. Business locations are forced to close. Many of the businesses most affected by this, of course, are service businesses in local areas like restaurants, salons, gyms, all businesses that deal with people locally and in-person.
Brett is one of those businesses affected. He owns a restaurant, so we discuss how a restaurant can really adapt and serve the needs of the community and be best positioned to survive through what's going on right now.
This is obviously very timely, and I hope the thought process here will be something you can adapt for your business, and make a pivot at the same time.
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 178
Brett: Brett.
Dean: Dean.
Brett: Here we go.
Dean: Well this call's being recorded, so that can only mean one thing. We're recording a podcast right now. Okay, so I want to just set the stage, because we're just going to jump in and start brainstorming. You and I were talking a little bit earlier today about corona and what's going. Everybody's on lockdown and you happen to own a restaurant in what town in Louisiana are you?
Brett: Actually, the restaurant is in Ball Ground, Georgia.
Dean: Oh, I thought you owned the restaurant in Louisiana. You're in Georgia with the restaurant. Okay.
Brett: Yeah, yeah, Georgia with the restaurant, but a Louisiana-style restaurant, so authentic Cajun cuisine.
Dean: That's what it is. Okay. That's what I was thinking. Okay.
Brett: Yeah.
Dean: So that's the connection. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. The idea here is that I wanted to spend some time with you and brainstorm an idea that we started talking about on the phone. I was suggesting that I have a conversation another friend that owns a restaurant about what's happening right now out in the world that people are being forced to shut down, to stay at home. Restaurants are being shut down and there's a dual force happening that restaurants and restaurant owners and workers are being affected by this because of the slow-down in traffic, people coming to the restaurant, and at the same time, consumers, citizens, are being faced with some food anxiety in the sense of people stocking up and not knowing whether we're going to have enough supplies for everything, and so there's, I think, a neat opportunity for restaurant owners to be a reassurance in this and to really provide a great service.
So I suggested to both of you, and that's why I wanted to have this conversation with you, the thought that it seems like that you, as a restaurant owner, have access to a different food supply chain, as a commercial food supply chain, than consumers have access to, and they're at opposite ends right now. The commercial food supply chain has probably has a surplus of food right now because of slow-downs in general in restaurants, and the consumer food supply chain seems to be under a lot of pressure, and I thought it might be a neat opportunity for a restaurant owner to take a look at that situation and readapt to thinking about offering homestyle type of meals that could be something people could come and take away, to have and maybe eat later or that they're not just thinking about turning your regular menu into takeout only.
Brett: Right.
Dean: And I wanted to really have that conversation with you and maybe get your view from the front line of what's actually happening and how you're thinking about it.
Brett: Yeah, yeah, I think, well, I think all of that is right, and I think that it's the right time to have the conversation about it, because we're on, really, week one, and so yeah, it's certainly ... I view everything. I mean, this is just my thinking, but I view everything, and as you know, I've worked with you on a couple different projects in the past. I view everything as an opportunity. I don't view things as a problem. I just view things as a opportunity to provide a solution. Where's the pain, where's the pain point, find it, identify what it is, diagnose it and then obviously create action items to provide the solution to whoever it may be and really whatever service that you're offering. This is specifically in restaurant.
But I think that you're absolutely right, that the commercial distribution is in their mindset, you got to believe that they're thinking, "Man, we have all this surplus," and to the commercial restaurants, their traffic is going down, specifically their orders would go down, which would then cause a really bad thing to happen, which would be food spoilage in a situation where you have anxiety on the other side where folks are saying, "What do you mean food spoilage?" We have an opportunity. We got a empty refrigerator right now or close to or we're not sure, and I think that's just it. We're not sure, and how can we as really business owners and in this case, restaurateurs, provide the sureness, the solutions to that. So I think it's a really unique opportunity.
Dean: I think that's where you really look a what's going on right now, that number one or top concerns that people have are for their basic survival things. Two thoughts on people's minds right now is don't get corona and get food and toilet paper. I don't think anybody's stocked up on toilet paper for sure. But you think about that as an evidence that people ... I think it's a reflex thing to do what we can to feel like we're prepared, where stock up on toilet paper seems like a rational thing. This is where your mitochondria take over, right?
Brett: Yeah.
Dean: And this is where the thing that's really going on in this survival instinct is really taking over. If you can help ease people's minds there or offer a valuable -, it takes some out-of-the-box thinking in terms of not just say we're going to do our regular menu available for takeout, order ahead kind of thing. But what would be the most valuable thing, I think, is to adapt to what does that really mean, like what do people really need in a situation like this? They're looking for things that they can have on hand, not like a per meal type of thing.
Brett: Yeah, I'll tell you, I think that you're really hitting on something and to take it a step further, is what they really need is they need comfort and they need calmness and they need someone to step in and provide that to them, and I think that ... And so living in the South and even being from Louisiana, as you know, we've went through a tremendous amount of storms in the last 15 years, i.e., back to Katrina in 2005, really, so 15 years, and then all of the storms that have come through Louisiana from that and with the hurricanes and the massive floods and so on and so forth, there's this hysteria and this panic that we've obviously now seen show its ugly face, and I don't even think we've seen the worst of it yet, at least, certainly towards the toilet paper we have, but I don't think that that's it at all. I think that you have ... And then you have this massive, obviously, media jargon that people just don't know what the truth is anymore, and if we can provide them some truth and by way of the vehicle of prepared meals, to change their mood towards comfort, I think that that's the best that we can do.
And one more thing to add to that is I think the fear of business owners to pivot, so to speak, into this playground of preparation of basically family four-packs or whatever you want to call them, I think that the fear factor on business owners' standpoint would be, "Well man, if I start to try to get that price to be as close to it would be if they were to make it on their own, then what does that do with my takeout, to-go, and sit-down restaurant, dine-in, so on and so forth, integrity of my pricing on that?" And I think that that would be the worst mistake a restaurateur or any business owner could make.
Dean: Absolutely. We're dealing with special ... This what definitely would call an acute-onset special cause of variation, and that we're, statistically speaking, this is not your normal circumstance, and that's why I think making, it almost distancing it from your regular menu and your regular business is that it's a measure for this particular time to - what the need and reality of the marketplace is right now.
Brett: Yes.
Dean: I think that's going to be remembered because you'll be able to develop, I think, a lot of goodwill in this kind of situation, too.
Brett: No, I think absolutely right. I think the ones that when you're providing that type of service and that calm and comforting and ultimately they say the way to a person's heart is through their stomach, and I think that that rings true here, really, really true, especially when folks are really, at least in their back minds thinking, "Well what if this really gets worse than what it is right now?" I think the more that you can help them understand that at the end of the day, we are living in a, at least living here, we are living with so much surplus that if we could provide the essentials without friction, then I think that the feel-goods will certainly be going on for quite a while for whoever decides to take their business into a special situation, at least temporarily.
Dean: Yeah. So let's brainstorm it, because what could this look like in terms of something that you could offer menu-wise that might lend itself to that. A lot of your things in a Louisiana-style might be things that you could serve with or over rice. That would be a staple. Somebody could prepare the rice at home and this is the staple of it. What kind of things do you make that would lend themselves to that?
Brett: Yeah, so I think that, and as we were talking earlier about this, rice is one of those things that should be abundant and plentiful. It's also, obviously, one of those things that as things get tougher, those are things that rice is used all over the world as a filler so to speak, so talking about Louisiana cuisine specifically, all we would have to do is really pivot our kitchen and our staff just a bit to really be producing in bulk crawfish etouffee, chicken and sausage gumbo, even seafood gumbo. Jambalaya dish is also available, crawfish and sweet corn chowder. I'm going to make you really, really hungry.
Dean: I love good jambalaya. I mean, the chicken and sausage and the ... I can taste it right now. My mouth is watering. - that be the other thing. UPS ain't shut down yet, are they?
Brett: Yeah, no man, I'll ship you some right now, but I think that's it.
Dean: Right.
Brett: When you start talking about preparation, I think you could a couple things, because you don't want to assume that they want a meal prepared or not prepared, and so I think if you could ... You could do a couple different things. You could provide unprepared, protein-based, seasoned shrimp and fish and things of that nature, if they so chose to do that, obviously at a discounted, bulk-type situation to where that you take the preparation strain off of their to-do list, and then on the other hand, with all the dishes that I just mentioned, you provide them all of those things in bulk for, say, a family of four, and with cooking instructions, just how to prepare it and how it's going to be ready in 15 to 20 to 30 minutes.
Dean: Right. I think that could be interesting, or a lot of these things, like the gumbo and things could be ... I think that the most comforting thing and the easiest thing is things that could be reheated, rewarmed, right?
Brett: Yeah.
Dean: Where that's all they need to do, not that they're cooking these things, but that they can take this out, they cook the rice and then warm up the gumbo, warm up the jambalaya.
Brett: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these are things also that can be frozen and then they have a lot of legs on them. You can -
Dean: That's what I mean, yeah.
Brett: Yeah.
Dean: But that's what I mean, is that kind of thing, and I think that the simpler the better in that situation. I think for the efficiency of it and the sentiment of it, I think would be to have rolling menu as opposed to multiple options on one day, like maybe there's two things per day kind of thing, or for two things per three days or something, where people can come by and stock up on jambalaya, jambalaya Wednesday or whatever. Might be a more ... I'm thinking about efficiencies of it for you.
Brett: Yeah, the other thing, and this is in order to make really just tie it all together, really drive cost down, drive anxiety down, and drive comfort up, and then utilize all resources, right?
Dean: Right.
Brett: So utilizes more resources is something as simple as providing a washable Tupperware-type dish where maybe they even bring their own and stock up at a certain and then it's just -
Dean: Right, I wondered. Yeah, we talked about that, bring your own Mason jar or-
Brett: Yeah, yeah, but - as much as we giggle about it, that's really-
Dean: No.
Brett: ... something that absolutely, that would be what folks would do if you teamed up and you just say, "Hey, let's utilize every possible tool that we currently have and all the tools that we all have combined," then you would say that. There would be empty dishes underneath their cabinet at home that we could utilize that they could wash and bring back and we could fulfill and that would drive cost down at the restaurant because we are not having to provide to-go-type ware, so to speak.
Dean: Right, which would, in my conversation with my other friend I was telling you about, that they started looking into to-go packaging, which is in short supply right now, commercially.
Brett: Right.
Dean: Because of the ramp-up of that.
Brett: Because of the demand of all of the to-go orders and curbside orders and so, I mean, it's the very first thing that we did as a restaurant is we went and bought five times the amount of to-go supplies as we would normally have to have, specifically for this reason.
Dean: Yes. So I think that that really is going to be a wonderful thing, almost like, because remember how in McDonald's, did you see the founder, that he was Tom Hanks as the ... Or no, not Tom Hanks, Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc?
Brett: I don't know that I know what you're referencing, but I'm interested for sure.
Dean: Well there was a movie about McDonald's and the story of the McDonald brothers and how they simplified the menu so it was only hamburger, cheeseburger, and fries. That's all that was on the menu, and that I think that this sort of maybe two or three options that would be easy to do in bulk and ongoing, that might be a really good thing, coupled with - biscuits or nothing - like a southern biscuit.
Brett: Well we got a line most of the time for our hot southern biscuits. We got a line most of the time for our hot beignets right out of the grease with the powdered sugar on top.
Dean: Beignets, that was where I exactly was going to say. Exactly as how that you package it with the beignets so it's like one price that comes with the packaged up kind of thing, and simplifying that you've got ... You can order for two people or four people or ... And then I probably, I was going to say eight, but if you just ordered multiple four or two-
Brett: Yeah, right.
Dean: ... I think that would be the things if they could just order multiple of those, that's going to be, I think, a really good thing.
Brett: Yeah, it's interesting until you have like the other day. We posted and we were almost to this conversation, so it's almost like we've been beating around it but not quite on it, and I think that's pretty unique in and of itself as things evolve. I really don't like being reactionary and I think that this space allows, again, the opportunity to do things that you've never done to create avenues and relationships that you've never had.
The other day, we were talking about orders over $60 so to speak would come with beignets or bread pudding, whatever you'd like. But we weren't quite to the, I'll just refer to it as the family four-pack or the four-night special or whatever we're going to name what we do. But I think that it presents, again, on the abundance of things, I mean, we can almost even get down to the part of if you start to think through, well, if you provide all of these things, what does the customer have to do then? What does the guest have to do then? Well, at the end of the day, you've provided them all of those dishes. They still have to stop at the store and get rice. So if you even provided that-
Dean: I mean, do you have commercial rice? Do you have raw rice or ...
Brett: Yeah, yeah, so we can, yeah, certainly. That's just one of those things when you talk about social distancing, as we're brainstorming this, I'm thinking as a former customer experience executive, I'm simply thinking sometimes we go all-out with big bangs and fireworks, but at the end of the day, the friction comes to if you really think through providing them all that at a great price and all of that's great and they're all happy and everything like but you get home and then you look and you go, "Where's the rice?"
Dean: Yeah, exactly. I think that's-
Brett: Because if they had to go get the rice then that means they just think through that, they have to stop at a store. They're supposed to be social distancing as much as they possibly can. They have to stop at a store, enter another possible unsanitary situation, confront others, meet others, touch other things, so if we can even remove that friction from them, that's just another unexpected, in my opinion, thing. They would expect to get the food. They would never expect that we'd provide them with the bag of rice.
Dean: And the possibility to redeploy the service staff as delivery as an option for people, instead of the-
Brett: Yeah, absolutely.
Dean: If the restaurant's closed and the waiters and servers, they're not able to do anything, that might be a good thing to help keep them productive, too, for their own sake.
Brett: Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those things. We were talking about this a little bit earlier, you know?
I told you it wasn't a registered trademark or anything, but I was talking with one of my guys, one of my lead managers at the restaurant today and he was talking about the delivery and I said we would talk through it a little bit and he was a little bit concerned and what came to mind was just to tell him, "All right, man, we'll just stop, drop, and roll."
Dean: Yeah.
Brett: We laughed about it, just because it came to my mind right away, but when you think about it-
Dean: It's so good.
Brett: ... we stop at the house, and you would not text at arrival, and the simple reason you wouldn't do that is because if you're in the car and you would text, then by the time you get to the door, the door might be open and then you're closer than six feet, so to speak.
Dean: Yeah.
Brett: So if you stop, you go out to the door, you drop, you knock, and you get back in your car and you text and you roll, stop, drop, and roll, well then we're still providing another service at the same social distancing that's being asked for, you know?
Dean: Yes.
Brett: - everybody-
Dean: And the way to the word out here would be to do, you could do live video view ads on Facebook with a three-mile radius of your spot and let everybody know. And the ad, that could be comforting, coming from you, from inside the kitchen with the big pot of jambalaya and the big pot of-
Brett: Gumbo.
Dean: ... gumbo and the beignets, and show it, just explaining everything that you've got and the phone number to call or the website to go to, ask - do it. I think that that's going to be an amazing thing.
Brett: Yes. It's one of those things that it's we were talking earlier and so I knew that you wanted to talk a little bit broadly on this today, but I was already speaking with, because I was on the way to the restaurant when we were talking earlier this morning, and just got with the chefs and talked to them about what we had been speaking of and got their minds thinking bigger and bolder and broader.
Dean: Yeah.
Brett: We have, not that we would need to do this, but we have a interesting dynamic that the community has always known that we are closed on Monday and Tuesday, because this is a small town community, I mean, population maybe, I don't know, 1,000 to 2,000, max, inside city limits. So very, very small, beautiful town in Ball Ground, Georgia, and so Monday and Tuesday we'd been typically closed.
Well, this is an opportunity to mass produce on days that we were normally closed, then we at that point, because we're going to draw down the entire menu and basically mass produce what it is that we're talking about, the dishes, the jambalayas, really there's six dishes that come to mind right away that are long-term, sustainable dishes that can be eaten now, reheated, and frozen, and just as good in two months if they decided to thaw it and have it.
Dean: Right.
Brett: Our staff is really rallying around this thought right now because ultimately they don't know either, and I think that's an important piece to all of this is the staff, you know?
Dean: Yes.
Brett: And getting them to rally around that.
Dean: Yes. Now do you think, how close are you to other marketplaces, or is it self-contained kind of thing or how many people would you be reaching in that three-mile radius?
Brett: In a three-mile radius?
Dean: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah, so we're at the very top of the county, but it's a three-mile radius. Pretty significant. Pretty significant because it's just a beautiful little town in between, it's the gateway to the mountains of the Blue Ridge, so just location-wise, if you've heard of Jasper or Ellijay, Georgia, and Blue Ridge, as you get going into the north towards the mountains, Ball Ground is the gateway to that. You have to go through Ball Ground to get there, and that's only 15 to 20 minutes really away, and it's just south of that is really where you get into really suburban, north suburban Atlanta, which is by Georgia, Canton, Georgia, so three miles that really in this case you would probably expand it out to five miles and you would capture a pretty big audience.
Dean: Right. And so you can imagine, so let's really brainstorm through the communication about it, because that, we often talk about sometimes the best way to sell a horse is with a sign that say, "Horse for sale."
Brett: Right.
Dean: But in this situation, I think you could have the video that would show that, or a carousel ad with pictures of what you're offering. I think that would be a good opportunity as well, to show the gumbo, like what the actual package comes with, like a serving for two with the gumbo, with the rice, with the beignets, or do you do biscuits or do other things that go with it?
Brett: Yeah, so hush puppies are a-
Dean: Hush puppies.
Brett: ... substitute for biscuits.
Dean: There you go.
Brett: And it's a really good substitute.
Dean: Yes. Perfect, so just seeing that, that this is what you got, the practicalities of it, that's a big opportunity. I think that's going to be a fantastic thing. I'll get my team. We can help you put this together and start getting the ads running. Let's brainstorm. Right now we've got some time as well. Let's make it real and make it work here. How soon do you think you guys could pivot to this or to work this through?
Brett: I mean, we, the answer is right away.
Dean: Yeah, okay.
Brett: Yeah, the answer is right away, because if you don't, then you're risking too much.
Dean: Right.
Brett: At the end of the day, preparing for one day, ultimately, if you're going to prepare for one day, you would make a certain amount. If you're preparing to pivot into a full-scale, you know-
Dean: Yes.
Brett: ... family four-pack kind of deal, you just scale it times four. So I mean, doing more of what we're already doing, but yet less of what we're not able to do right now, which is serving a dine-in situation, so you have excess capacity right now from a personnel standpoint that doing this is not going to be terribly difficult from the resources that we already have as far as personnel, you know? And equipment to do it.
Dean: This'll be a fun exercise, because the way that I go about this enough that when people hear me talk about creating a word palette, when you're going to create any kind of communication or ad, and I think that would be a good thing for you and I to do right now. As I'm looking, how I typically start out with something like this, I have a remarkable tablet, but it could be a yellow pad or a journal or whatever, and I just start writing words and phrases that are positive benefit amplifier type of language about what we have. So the first thing that I put on my line is ready-t- serve meals. Just start looking down four phrases like this, like pickup or delivery. We're not trying to make these make sense right now, but what are the messages that we want to convey to people in this ad? So ready-to-serve meals, pickup or delivery. Let's use what would you think the three things that we would offer would be?
Brett: As far as dish? Are you talking about as far as dishes?
Dean: Yeah. Dishes.
Brett: Yeah, so jambalaya, gumbo.
Dean: Jambalaya.
Brett: Yeah. Gumbo. Red beans and rice.
Dean: Gumbo. Red beans and rice.
Brett: Crawfish and sweet corn chowder.
Dean: Crawfish and what was the last one? Crawfish and-
Brett: Sweet corn chowder. Crawfish and sweet corn chowder.
Dean: Sweet.
Brett: And a Cajun chili.
Dean: And a Cajun chili. Okay. And so when you look at those, what's in the jambalaya?
Brett: I can't tell you.
Dean: Oh. I don't want to know the secret ingredients, just the ones I can see, yeah.
Brett: Yeah, so chicken and sausage, so chicken and andouille sausage. Andouille might not be a word that you're familiar with, but that's a specific Louisiana sausage, andouille sausage, so that's what is in there. Obviously, crawfish, it's in season right now. It's a delicacy for sure in North Georgia. We've had tremendous success with our recent crawfish boils and so we have that. That is just a very, very authentic dish as well as a very comforting dish. And I think authentic, but yet also convenient is really two really good words, because they do match to what we're doing.
Dean: I'm going to put those, yeah, comfort and convenient.
Brett: Comfort and convenient and authentic, as far as a word palette. Made from scratch is just a, it's a term, obviously, that a lot of folks use, that they feel is just anything made from scratch. No matter who you are or where you grew up, you always had an aunt, an uncle, a grandmother, a mother, a father, whoever, that made their homemade whatever dish it was or whatever dessert it was and so made from scratch is something that is not something we say, but it is who we are. There's no one else in the world that has our recipes and does it the way that we do it specific to Les Bon Temps Louisiana Kitchen, so authenticity is a big part of who we are.
Dean: What about the gumbo?
Brett: Yeah, so in gumbo, different because it's more of a, for sake of understanding, more of a soup, if you will, but chicken and sausage gumbo, same thing, with all sorts of other ingredients, but just different spices. It's more of a liquid, obviously, based, than a rice, so it's poured over rice or not, so folks who want that can have it, but it would be just served, it would taste great by itself as a just a chicken sausage.
Dean: So it is a jambalaya, jambalaya's a little bit thicker or is it-
Brett: Yeah. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah, okay.
Brett: So there's a density to the jambalaya that just makes it whole, so to speak, that makes it a mass on your, you know.
And then there's the gumbo is obviously serviced ... Jambalaya, for example, is not served in a bowl, whereas in typical, you would serve on a gumbo in a bowl, jambalaya has its own place on a dish.
Dean: So chicken or sausage gumbo and red beans and rice is pretty self-explanatory, too.
Brett: Right.
Dean: The Cajun chili.
Brett: Yeah, yeah, so the Cajun chili, obviously, with unique spices and some secret liquid ingredients that makes it authentic to Louisiana.
Dean: Yeah.
Brett: But these are all specials, and I'll tell you what's unique about this is we don't have these on our every-day menu, by the way.
Dean: Right.
Brett: All of these are not on our every-day menu, but they are absolutely the driving force behind big weekends because we typically rotate these in as our Friday or weekend special. We would have one of them but we wouldn't have all of them.
Dean: Right.
Brett: And I think that's what makes this unique is when you actually say, "Hey, you can get four times what you would normally be able to get in one time sit down, to where not only are you comforted once but here's the dishes that you cannot get on a regular basis at Les Bon Temps Louisiana Kitchen but you can get them served this way times four."
Dean: Yeah.
Brett: That would be really, I would think that that's five-star stuff right there.
Dean: Yes. Could you image then that this would be something all of these ingredients are commercially available and going to remain available? You're probably not going to run into a supply chain issue for anything there, it feels like.
But might be the kind of thing where people might feel inclined to stock up a little bit. You don't want to turn people into hoarders or whatever, but it might make sense that they get a meal for now and maybe one for later or some food to put away.
Brett: Yeah, I think the option's either way, so and that's their choice. Right?
Because if you order for a family of two, then that would typically mean that you would have that meal for that night plus one more night because of typically the volume that we're going to be able to give you or offer you. And if you're a family of four, and it's a family four-pack, so to speak, then you at least are in a situation where they're telling you buy a week at a time is what all the authorities are. Don't hoard anything. Buy a week at a time. Well, at that point, somewhat could have one or two weeks, right?
Dean: Right, right.
Brett: One week and then the rest is frozen so then there's a choice on what amount they would want, but they can either have four nights' worth of meals or they could have four nights' worth of meals plus next week's in the freezer that they could then thaw out or the following week or whatever week that they decided, however they decided as consumers to consume it, and when they wanted to.
Dean: That makes sense.
Brett: Yeah, absolutely.
Dean: This is good. And then I think the main things that we need to communicate are that you've got the this is the horse is for sale part, where the horse is for sale words are hot, ready to serve, Cajun meals that's available for pickup or delivery. That's a pretty crystal-clear horse is for sale kind of communication. And if you're showing supporting that with video of you in the kitchen or in the restaurant, in the environment or whatever, I could imagine that showing what you've got and explaining each of the dishes. First thing we've got is a chicken and sausage jambalaya and it's showing that and then going down the line showing the gumbo, showing the red beans, showing the crawfish and the Cajun chili.
Brett: Well I tell you, what I mean most of the time, this presents pretty unique just thought about this is there's nothing more rewarding than a chef showing off, yeah.
Dean: Right, exactly.
Brett: So if you've ever met a chef, and I love them, but they're special in their own way.
Dean: Yes.
Brett: Every chef I've ever met who are really worth their weight believes that they're the best, and that's what makes them the best at what they're making. None of them make it the same. Not one of them that I've ever met makes it the same, and so if you start to think through the show, a chef is being able as a dine in, basically being able to do what they do, their trade, and then their show is at the table, presented by their server. Well in this case, they don't get to see that. They don't get to feel that. They don't get to witness that. They don't get to do any of that, and so in this particular case, there would be, these chefs, this would be their audience, so being able to do that video is just their way of giving themselves that they already give every day anyway. I tell you, I think that that would be pretty unique and it would certainly be easy, frankly, to do. But yet very again, it would have a lot of legs to it, I believe.
Dean: Yeah.
Brett: Easy to do, very effective, immediate contribution to the overall goal.
Dean: Right.
Brett: Plus how many cooking shows have been made in the last 40, 50 years? And even the Food Network, the Food Channel, I mean, there's something to be said for watching someone prepare and then it come out looking the way that it looks, tasting the way that it tastes, so on and so forth, but the preparation is part of it. I mean, you got people that watching cooking shows all day every day.
Dean: Yes, I agree. And so I think that's the thing where if you're the face of the restaurant or you're the proprietor, that's it, I guess, that that's the opportunities for what we say I've been coining a phrase, talk about getting people who aren't like that, chefs, personal trainers, people who serve people in a small thing of getting them five-mile famous. That's really all that matters for a small Cajun restaurant in rural Georgia. Just need to be five-mile famous.
Brett: Right.
Dean: And you can get as famous as Emeril and maybe more famous than Emeril in that five miles.
Brett: Yeah, just being, talking specifically about what's going on at our restaurant, that anybody that may hear this later, obviously they got a different, they have a lot of this will be the same, but they may have a different situation, but I'll tell you, if you go to our page and you look at ... I shared a video and I literally recorded a video just right off my iPhone right after our biggest ... It was the Friday, Saturday, Sunday of Valentine's Day, which you know this, that I acquired the restaurant. It was unfortunately going to close and then I acquired it. We saved it and we rejuvenated it and the community support's just been phenomenal and so I did this video that got shared and like and loved and all of this kind of thing. I just wanted to say thank you is what what my focus was. You know, horse for sale. I'm just trying to say thank you and thanks for the support and keep it coming and we're going to make mistakes, but we love you and keep rocking. Keep supporting us and we're here to support you as well.
So anyway, all that being said, we're only ... Just even as I talk through this with you and brainstorming about this with you, this is another opportunity at least specifically for us to double down, triple down, because we're only two months in from acquisition.
Dean: Right.
Brett: People are just loving everything that we're doing and when they don't, they have at least an avenue to talk to "Proprietor Brett". They call me Bayou Brett right now. Yeah. Hopefully I'll get over to Boudreaux Brett or Boudreaux or something, right?
But just so that there's an opportunity there that solidifies, I guess, just that solidification that people were probably wanting from this restaurant or every restaurant just to say, "You know what? We're here. We're taking a firm stance and we're here with you and we're going to serve you the way that you want to be served." Because I sincerely believe that doing that right now and pivoting the business to be what it needs to be, frankly for all, including the staff and the overall health of the business. It's been just great to do it. We'll not only - us during this time, but it will just, to your point about five-mile famous, there will only be one that did it this way.
Dean: That's right.
Brett: It should be more, but again, I think that this proactive approach and action, taking action on not just the idea but let's just get after it and prototype one and then shift and maneuver and figure out and then do it better the next week.
Dean: Speaking of taking action, I just texted my Facebook wizard Ben.
Ben: The wizard is on the call. The wizard is on the call.
Dean: I manifested our action taker.
Brett: Wow that is ... You're like a wizard.
Dean: So Ben, you remember Brett. We did some Facebook things for the Mosquito Authority with him.
He owns a restaurant in Georgia right now and we're recording a More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast episode right now, so you're part of that. Congratulations. Talking about the opportunities for restaurant owners right now to offer a much-needed service for people with preparing homestyle meals that they can take with them. We have come up with their menu. They're going to prepare jambalaya, like a chicken and sausage jambalaya, chicken and sausage gumbo, red beans and rice, crawfish and sweet corn chowder, and Cajun chili, all made from scratch and all made to be family-style portions.
Ben: Nice.
Dean: Just allocating it and to serve two or to serve four and they can get what they need from that along with some hush puppies and beignets. So now we need to create, I was suggesting a video of him in the restaurant explaining what they've got and running an ad in a five-mile radius of it to get the word out that we've got ready-to-serve homestyle meals for pickup or delivery that you can come and get and then maybe show them the food and give them an option to go ahead and pre-order or pre-order online or to call and order. I wanted to put that on your radar, maybe get your thoughts. Maybe we could brainstorm about what you think the best format would be to get the word out about their - objective is to supply those kind of things.
Ben: You mentioned ordering online. Is that a service that guys offer?
Brett: We don't have order online yet, but it's not one of those things that ... I was telling Dean I acquired the restaurant in January 2nd of this year, but it wasn't a big need at that particular time. That being said, it's one of the biggest needs, if not the biggest need right now, so we'll certainly get some troops rallied around that.
Ben: So right now, what-
Brett: It's not limiting, so to speak.
Ben: Sure.
Brett: It's not like they can't call and put in their order.
Dean: What do you have the capability to do right now? Can you take somebody's credit card over the phone?
Brett: Yeah.
Dean: And run it? Okay, so that may be the, just for the speed thing, that the call to action may be to call. We're here right now, so there you go. You've already got serving staff that are not busy that could man the phones.
Brett: Oh yeah.
Dean: And take the-
Brett: They're currently doing that right now, yeah.
Dean: Okay, great. So then you show them this is Nancy and here's Cindy and they're standing by right now to take your orders and get your order under way. So the objective then is to get people to call for that. What do you suggest, Ben?
Ben: Well there's that reach ad with the call now, call to action for the mobile device users. When you run that type of ad, it has that call now button, the lower right-hand corner that initiates the call. That would be suggested if you don't have the items that you have for sale to be viewed online. If you have your menus online with photos or just simply the menu or there's a PDF or a listing of your offerings online, there's another capability within Facebook if you didn't want to go the video route and had photos of your dishes, you could make a product catalog ad, which could be like a carousel ad showing images of each dish and then from there you could show the price of the dish, the title of the dish, any type of descriptive copy you wanted for each panel within your carousel so the user and go through and see your menu in the more visual style, and you could link it from there to your full menu online where they obviously would be able to get your phone number if it's not already in the ad, which it should be. They could get it from your site and call from there. But it would be the imagery of the food that would spur someone to initiate the call with you.
Dean: Is there a combination ad format where he could have the video and right below it the carousel, or this it either/or?
Ben: Yeah, there actually is.
Dean: Okay.
Ben: The name of it has escaped me at the moment but you can definitely do the carousel on the bottom. It's not going to have the full amount that you could do in the carousel ad. I think it's limited to about four images below your video and then when you click on those images it can expand inside the Facebook platform and you're able to view those items very similar to the description I gave for the carousel ad.
Dean: That would be a really-
Brett: So a little bit of both right there.
Dean: Yeah, that might be a great thing is to have that and then show it, show each of the dishes or whatever and ask someone call to order.
Ben: Yeah, I think you still do the call to order for that. I'm not certain for 100% that you can do the call now button on that type of ad.
Dean: Right.
Ben: But I can look into it for sure.
Dean: I think that might be a, yeah, that might be the, I think, a really easy to test kind of thing too.
Ben: Sure, yeah.
Brett: Yeah.
Dean: Because that's the ... Are you online right now, Ben, or are you, I caught you by surprise here?
Ben: You caught me a little by surprise but I got my computer here. I can jump online.
Dean: Oh, you do. I'm just wondering to get a sense of what the audience size is if we take a five-mile radius around his restaurant.
Ben: Yeah, just give me one second and I can pull that up.
Dean: Okay. And then this, I mean, this is something I think we could have up and going pretty quick.
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
Brett: We absolutely could, because all of the things that you're talking about from a production standpoint, I can make a phone call and start production right now.
Dean: Right.
Brett: And so-
Dean: Yeah, because what are they doing otherwise anyway?
Brett: Yeah, well they're serving to-go dishes, but yeah, but they're one-offs and that's certainly appreciated and that'll be something that's continued, obviously.
Dean: Yeah.
Brett: This would be completely, I would think that this would be a completely separate situation, obviously.
Dean: Right.
Brett:
We would do one-on-one, - whatever it may be, regular business, - but have this product offering as the comfort offering of the corona.
Dean: Yeah, I would look at this as completely separate. Right. Look at this is as completely something extra that you're doing.
Brett: This hopefully doesn't come across as tasteless, but I wanted to make a shirt that said, "Cayenne eats corona." But I don't want to ... This is certainly a serious thing, so I didn't want to-
Dean: Right.
Ben: I got my computer up. I can pull up the estimated audience sats for you if I had a location for the restaurant.
Dean: Yeah, what's the address?
Brett: The ZIP code is ... You want the address or the ZIP code?
Ben: I can do ZIP code. That's fine.
Brett: ZIP code is 30107.
Ben: 30107. Okay.
Dean: I think that's going to be a ... I think this is really going to be a good experiment here, to see what kind of reception this gets.
Brett: Yeah, and I'll tell you, there's a dynamic here that maybe we should think through. It certainly won't be any limiting at anything, it's just expansion, that it's important to note that we're only one of two Cajun restaurants within the county. I mean, there's burgers and tacos and wings and pizza and you name it everywhere, right?
Dean: Yeah, right.
Brett: There's only two, and some would say one place is better, some would say my place is better. At the end of the day, there's just two places that people go and so one of the interesting dynamics here, I know we're talking about being five-mile famous, but one of the interesting dynamics here is a tremendous amount of our audience is 20, 30, 40 miles away that come to us all the time because we're so authentic and because we're one of a kind. There's a lot of substance to the community that you're talking about, a part of the five-mile Ball Ground, five-mile famous.
There's a lot of those folks that frankly really don't have a lot of options. If the directive is hunker down and stay in, well, you've been to these small towns. They don't have grocery stores. They don't have a lot. They have to go 10 miles to get to the closest store or restaurant or whatever, and so there's a lot of variables here that this community needs, more so than say downtown Atlanta or Buckhead or even frankly my community of Woodstock. It's going to be interesting to see, because it wouldn't shock me whatsoever to have folks that are normal regulars place their family-four order that might live an hour away and come curbside and pick it up and leave. That wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Dean: That's great. That's good to know.
Ben: Unfortunately, my computer is, it's just spinning over here. I don't if it has to do with COVID-19 or not, but - an announcement saying that they're very behind with approving ads currently.
Dean: Oh, boy.
Ben: And I don't know if that has any impact on their system, so I can't get that for you right now.
Dean: Gotcha. Okay, no problem. But so just that you know, I wanted to put it on your radar, get your thought about what we could do. I'll get with you once Brett gets all the ducks in a row here and we'll put some, we'll formalize it, what to get the first ads running here. Maybe over the weekend would be great.
Ben: Sounds good.
Dean: Okay. All right. I appreciate you jumping on. That's awesome.
Ben: Yeah, no problem.
Brett: Thank you so much.
Dean: Thank you.
Ben: You're welcome. Thank you. See you, guys.
Dean: Okay, we make things happen here on the More Cheese Less Whiskers.
Brett: Man, he just spawned up, just spawning up Facebook wizards, aren't you?
Dean: That's it.
Brett: Rubbing a lamp and out they come.
Dean: That's it. All right, well I think we've gotten to a point where we got some marching orders here.
Brett: Yeah.
Dean: We've got some things to get in place. I guess you just need to think through the logistics, the pricing, the experience. I love that you've got experience as an experience manager. That's going to be an advantage here. Let's stay connected.
Brett: Cool man.
Dean: Give me a call whenever you're realtime, let's just keep it going.
Brett: Awesome, well thanks for the call.
Dean: Okay.
Brett: And I look forward to seeing what this turns out to being. Thanks, man.
Dean: Okay. Thanks. I'll talk to you soon.
And there we have it. Another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation, and go deeper in how the profit activators can apply to your business, two things you can do. Right now, you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book and you can listen to the back episodes, of course, if you're just listening here on iTunes. Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the eight profit activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process, and you can download a book and a scorecard and watch a video all about the eight profit activators at breakthroughdna.com. That's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business. That's really the way we think about breakthrough DNA as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there.
So that's it for this week. Have a great week and we will be back next time with another episode of More Cheese Less Whiskers.