Debunk Restaurant Marketing Myths with Josh Kopel Ep 83

Our guest today is Josh Kopel, a restaurateur, entrepreneur and coach. This is Josh’s second time on the podcast, and he’s back to talk to us about restaurant marketing and what it really means for your business. Throughout his 20-year career, he’s managed venues ranging from casual dining concepts to Hollywood nightclubs, bars and ultra-lounges. He also opened his own Michelin-rated fine dining concept. Josh is a real restaurant pro.

In this episode of my podcast, The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, Josh and I discuss a few restaurant marketing myths, he debunks them, and he provides an incredible amount of information for you to consider for your own restaurant marketing activity.

I recently brought Kopel out to my Mastery Plus meeting, a mastermind group of independent restaurant owners, and we covered a lot of ground. While we can't cover all that we did during this podcast, I did want to bring Kopel in to debunk restaurant marketing myths.

Every restaurant owner in the world thinks, “Man if I could get more butts is seats, I will make more money!” Now, as an operations person, I can tell you if you're already losing money and you pump up the restaurant marketing, you could lose money faster. And while sometimes a restaurant marketing campaign hits just right and brings in more butts in seats, you end up working your butt off for nothing because the discount was so steep or the costs were worked out ahead of time. So for this podcast Josh and I are making the assumption when we're talking here that people listening to us right now they have their act together. They do Restaurant 101 right, take care of all the other little things and give great hospitality.

With that said Kopel and I talk about what restaurant marketing is and why restaurant owners pay people such big dollars to do it for them. 

The first thing I ask Kopel to do is bust the myth that marketing is like a box with a button on the top and you just press it and then all of a sudden you're busier that you’ve ever been.

Our discussion includes:

• Marketing in its simplest form
• Why demographics matter
• The importance of authenticity
• A simple question to ask and who you should ask
• Finding and supporting community
• The difference between a business and an individual
• Usefulness of storytelling
• Innovation vs consistency
• Menu decisions
• Expectations of customers
• The importance of focus
• Scaling customer frequency
• Customer retention
• Guest acronym (Greet, Understand, Educate, Satisfy, Thank)
• Understanding customer intent
• Sampling as a marketing strategy
• Differentiating between expense and investment

As Kopel says, hopefully you don't just feel better at the end of the episode, but you are better.  I've seen him deliver for my members and change their lives. Just like with restaurant management systems, if you don't know you what you don't know about restaurant marketing, it's tough to do it effectively. Once you learn it, it's easy.

Click the podcast player above to listen in, or you can watch the video on YouTube, click here to download the latest episode.