Click here to download the PDF version of the transcript.

---

DSP: Hey there restaurant pros it's David Scott Peters and welcome to episode three of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula. I've been coaching restaurant owners since 2003 and the Restaurant Prosperity Formula™ is based on what the most successful restaurant owners I've worked with do on a daily basis to achieve their success. The basic premise of the formula centers around achieving prosperity, freedom from your restaurant and the financial freedom you deserve. To achieve prosperity, you have to follow a very specific formula made up of leadership, systems, training, accountability and taking action. Today's topic centers around the principle of systems.

Now I want to tell you about our guest today. Sandy Korem is the CEO and founder of The Festive Kitchen, a one of a kind catering company based in Dallas, Texas. No other catering company in America has established such a diverse and profitable take home catering division. In 2008, Sandy was awarded the White House Food Service Medallion for outstanding service to President George W. Bush. Her company, The Catering Coach, helps restaurateurs maximize their offsite catering profit potential. Sandy uses her 25 years of catering experience to teach independent restaurant owners and caterers how to not give away their catering profits. Her teaching focuses on increasing sales and profits with little or no investment and maximize earning potential by adding multiple catering revenue streams to their existing business. We had a great conversation. Sandy talked about how systems are critical to you making profits. She shared some of the key systems you need to have in place when running a catering business, even when it's an additional part of your restaurant. The biggest takeaway from our conversation was how in the midst of COVID-19 and the loss of almost 100 percent of her booked catering events, her sales are even with last year. She shared her secret with us on how she did this using multiple revenue streams in her business. On top of that, she shares how none of her catering coach members are out of business because they followed her lead. I want to welcome Sandy Korem to the show today.

But first, a word from our sponsor.

This episode is being brought to you by Repeat Returns. If you're a restaurant owner of a medium to high volume independent restaurant, multiunit or franchise operator and you're looking for a proven and realistic solution to attract, grow and retain customers, then you need to visit Repeat Returns. Repeat Returns is a modern marketing platform created by a restaurant owner for restaurant owners. It studies each customer's habits and patterns, predicts the most profitable outcome for your restaurant every single day, and deploys the marketing to make that happen. You'll never lift a finger. To see if Repeat Returns is right for you visit repeatreturns.com/dsp.

I want to welcome Sandy Korem to The Restaurant Prosperity Formula. Sandy, thanks so much for joining me today. It's great to see you.

SANDY: Great to see you, too, David. Even in this virtual environment, we're right here.

DSP: No doubt. Well, why do we say that? Because Sandy and I've been traveling all over the country for about 10 years, speaking together from show after show after show. Haven't been on an airplane since, well, heck, when COVID started. We were at the New York show together in March of 2020. And my gosh, it has changed so much. In fact, the very next day I got an airplane and went to Catersource in Vegas. You went home and were supposed to be there, but you had some things that you did, couldn't make it. It wasn't COVID based, thanks goodness. But the fact of the matter is, from that point in time, things have changed.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: And one of the things I want to share with you guys about Sandy is Sandy and I've, full disclosure, I've known each other for 18 years. In fact, she started as a member of mine and was such a rock star in making changes in her business that I really said, wait a second, you need to be doing what I do for caterers. So she is the catering coach. She is the authority on making sure that you can sell catering, execute catering, make money on catering, heck to go and other revenue streams we're going to talk about. And one of the things that's really powerful about what Sandy does is she's learned it from the ground up. From she'll tell stories of starting a very first catering job, going up eight million stairs in high heels with everything out of her car, to selling, was it cookies, brownies, brownies, brownies for about like two hours a day as a nurse.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: And growing it into a multi-million dollar, several location retail locations. Just unbelievable. In fact, you've been top caterer or something like four times in a row. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Sandy, tell people just a brief snapshot about what you do.

SANDY: What I do is we are a, you know, I'm going to tell you two stories. I'm going to tell you one story that was in January. And that of this year. And that 52 percent of our business was catering. And the other was what you want to call take home catering, which was food shops, which is really people love your food and so why not sell it to them every day? I figured that out about 15 years ago. But since that day that you and I were supposed to see each other, the other part doesn't exist, the 52 percent. And so we had to and we'll talk about this more, but we had to, and everybody uses the word pivot, but we had to just pivot and use every multiple revenue stream that we had. And so I'm a caterer in Dallas that does all sorts of events large to small, but also we have more multiple revenue streams than anybody that I know of in the United States and it has saved our butt. And so...

DSP: If they want if they wanted to look you up, it's thefestivekitchen.com, right? They want to say, hey, what is your other business? Your main, your main business.

SANDY: Yeah, it's festivekitchen.com, not the, it's festivekitchen.com. And then of course, what we talked about was The Catering Coach, which we'll talk about more in a few minutes. So in a nutshell, that's it. I can go into all you want about not making money and then making money, but I'm sure you'll, you know, ask me questions about that.

DSP: Well, here's a deal. The whole focus of this is you started as a caterer, like from the ground up and have built it to a multi-million dollar, two locations as far as, again, retail and learned to pivot your business. I want to talk about that in a second. But the fact of the matter is systems is what helped you move through and now you had already learned the systems the hard way, meaning you made every mistake possible. You've shown pictures of you being at weddings without galoshes, without raincoats. Right. Because they're outdoor in a tent and so on. And every year that you've made mistakes, you've learned to a point where you checklist a living heck out of things. Talk a little bit about how you use your systems to execute great parties, just kind of a broad brush stroke that you know, that you when you show up, it's gonna be done right.

SANDY: Well, the first thing was we finally took made a checklist for just the things you take to an event and you think, well, that's simple. No, it's not. It took four years to finally figure out, oh, I need a checklist. So now we have event boxes. OK, one is for small events. You only need one box. Anything over 60 people. You need five boxes. What does it have in it? Salt, pepper, garlic, tea towel, strainer, lighter, gloves, whatever. So that if you're somewhere on the, like I always like to use the example of the 37th floor of an office building. You don't have time to go run down and get the lighter. OK, so we have these checklists. One of the people that used to be in the group that we were all in used to tell me she's even got her, you know, the plastic garbage bags priced and in that in that box? Well, yes, I do, because it costs money. So even though we have those checklists for those event boxes guess who's paying for it? It's not me. It's the client that's paying for that. So that would be one example of a checklist that we have.

DSP: And you feed that into your sales process, you have systems for a sales process, right?

SANDY: Yes, absolutely. That, you know, and I've got to say this because when I met David, we weren't making any profit and like we were at one point six million dollars and zero profits. And it's like something is wrong. And so I learned through David how to have systems. And one of the biggest ones that we have is what we call the Catering Profit Generator. And for every event, every event, hands down, none go out without having the menu and without having this profit generator. And it shows on there to the penny what we're going to make, because so many times, especially restaurant owners, you go in and you'll talk to them and you'll say, how much you charge for box lunches? And they'll Google it on their phone and go, oh, the guy down the street, he charges $850 so mine's $845. And they don't even know if they're going to make money. And here's the thing. The guy down the street. How do you know he's making profit in the first place? So back to that profit generator. We know to the penny and it was revolutionary and the profits for our company.

DSP: But what was the one big system that made that possible? I want to make sure people understand there was real frickin work behind that.

SANDY: Costing recipe cards.

DSP: Amen.

SANDY: We have 1,790 now.

DSP: 1,790. Just who knows how many, right? 1,790.

SANDY: Yes. So and because if you don't have it costed, you know, it's a crapshoot. And it's like for a caterer, OK, if you have chicken salad, you're going to have chicken salad in this two ounce scoop. You can have chicken salad in a half ounce scoop on a tea sandwich. You're going to have chicken salad in a big bowl. You're going to have chicken salad in a sandwich. I mean, we have 21 recipes for chicken salad alone. So you have to have, if you don't have, the base of everything is costing your recipes.

DSP: OK, so there are systems for setting up and going to a party. There are systems for selling a party, making sure you make money. What I really want to focus on, and we could literally spend an hour on each one of those things easily.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: But what I want to get to is something that most people don't understand. When we shared the story of, we were supposed to both, both supposed to be in Vegas at Catersource speaking, right? As experts, you as The Catering Coach me as a restaurant expert. And the crazy part is we knew COVID came. We knew that we were in New York when they declared a state of emergency. But we didn't understand what the virus was. We didn't understand the impact that was going to have on our business, let alone caterers.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: And the fact is, three days later, caterers were out of business, but you weren't. You built something you called your multiple revenue streams. You have a system for making sure your business doesn't fail. And one of the things that I want you to share with people as we go into that, are your sales down 50, 75, 100 percent like most caterers? Where are you right now?

SANDY: We are even with last year. What?

DSP: And we're talking multi-million dollars in sales.

SANDY: Yes. And no catering. Like what? Like, yes.

DSP: So what is what is multiple revenue streams mean when you're a caterer? I mean because that is absolutely crazy. And, you know, I remember when you and I were texting back and forth. I'm going, man, I've love you to death and I've always thought you're a rock star, but oh, my gosh, how is it that you are literally living COVID as a caterer and you're not down, you're not down at all?

SANDY: No.

DSP: Talk about what does multiple revenue streams mean and how do you systemize that?

SANDY: OK. Multiple revenue streams means and I'm going to give you some different ideas is that and I've opened three since March. What? I've started three since March. And my members in Catering Coach, they've also started some. OK. Number one, it can mean that you have retail food shops. Well, I already have retail food shops. Well, what happened for us when COVID started? What did we do? People weren't coming to our store. So what did we do immediately? Boom within 10 days we got a shopping cart online. That's another multiple revenue stream. That saved our butt, OK, so now you can buy our food online, they come by curbside, pick it up. All right. Multiple revenue streams means I'm now a co-packer. What? You're a co-packer? Yes, because I already was a food manufacturer for my store so I call the state and went, hey, you know, how do I be a co-packer and in one hour I was a co-packer so I've made contacts with people and I am co-packing some of their items. That's another multiple revenue stream. For some of my other members, they just started doing a simple drop, you know, coming to their stores and having a retail food shop.

I'm also with COVID right now there are some things that are still happening and they're not events, but funerals. You still have funerals. Have you looked at that as a restaurant owner or as a caterer? Have you talked to anyone about doing funerals? I mean, I've got 12 different multiple revenue streams. I even started with Instacart. What? Instacart? Instacart is an international company. I looked here in Dallas and went, well it's only the big box guys that are on here. Well, what the hey, so I sent a LinkedIn message and we just started Instacart two weeks ago. I'm always thinking, where can that food go to reach that customer's mouth? How do I get it there? I mean, I've increased our, we're selling wholesale. I can't tell you to a large retail company I mean, retail, high end grocer in Texas. We've increased our line now to over 20 items. So, you've just got to think, where does that food go? How can I make that happen? And then you've got to have back of house systems to make sure you're profitable. Don't just do it for gross sales. I know a company now that thinks you're going to make the same amount of money at half the gross sales they did last year, the same amount of profit. So, that's kind of a lot, but it's where you take that food that food has got to get to that customer in multiple ways. And so if you're catering and you love food find the way.

DSP: OK. So I'm a caterer and now I feel like it's too late, right? Come March we lost our revenues. We know that caterers tried to pivot and do meal replacement if you will. Hey, we're gonna do these family meals and most of them failed. They didn't have an email list. They didn't have a social media presence. They just kind of popped it up there and said, let's go. And while that is a revenue stream you got to look at; number one, not very profitable, not very predictable, and a lot of them failed at it. And so now many caterers and restaurant owners who are looking to pivot and lost their catering business, I have many members who half their sales were catering because their location, right? Creating seats that don't exist and by the way, catering is much more profitable than running a restaurant. When done correctly.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: How do I get started? How do I sit there and say, how do I put together my system for creating my multiple revenue streams? What are some of the things you coach your members and say, hey, what are your opportunities?

SANDY: OK, that's very interesting that you said that. I just finished about 15 minutes ago an article for Catering Magazine, and I said, if I were starting today, the first thing I'ma do is throw up an online shopping cart. Online shopping is not going to go away. It's not. So I would immediately and you're thinking, oh, my gosh, how can I do that? It's not expensive. They're 40 and 50 dollars a month. I did our shopping cart. OK. So you can, what are you going to sell them? You're not going to only sell them a dinner if that's what you want to do, and it fails. You've got to be their daily necessity. You've got to sell them egg salad. You've got to sell them the crackers. You've got to sell them the hash browns or whatever that goes with breakfast, but you've got to meet them at their needs, the customer at their needs. But mainly, for right now, many of you are not going to even get anything up until fourth quarter or right before fourth quarter. Well, let's hope that there's sports, that's NFL that's on. Are guys hungry for sports? Yes. Where are they going to be doing when sports are on? They're going to be watching television. What do they need to do when they're watching television? They need to eat. So you need to have food that's in their freezer that they can have for when they're watching the ballgame. You need to think ahead to Thanksgiving and provide not just Thanksgiving meal, but the whole week. So, that's the first thing I would do is I would put up a shopping cart. It's not going to go away. That's number one. And that's what my members have done. And there's eleven right now, members. And let me just tell you, none of them are out of business. All of them are in business. Are they catering? No. But are they doing something else? Yes. So hope that helps in some way.

DSP: Absolutely. But how do you how do you get your message out? I mean, is it just to your specific customers and you hope it blows up from there? Are you going on social media? Facebook? How are you getting message out that we now have things that you may want, whether it's, you know, it's a pre-done bean dip for watching football or it's you know, it's a thing of your famous shredded chicken salad that is fantastic that we can just put on sandwich rolls, whatever it may be, and you run the gamut on products. But how is it that you get the message out?

SANDY: Everyone has been using, the people that have started from scratch, I had a database, so for me it's easier but I've developed that database. But for the people that are starting they've all done social media. They've all put their money into Instagram and some of them have not been able to do it themselves. They've hired someone. Yes, they hired someone, they knew that it was a good investment. And so they're doing Facebook and Instagram and it's bringing the customers in. And they're like, one... we copy each other, but one of them started Fried Chicken Fridays. OK. So they're selling a $50 to $75. I think the meals are for four or 70 bucks or something. I don't know. A Fried Chicken Fridays, okay, they're keeping their doors open until they figure it out. So, yes, you have to do social media. I mean, for the people that haven't even started. That's what I would recommend. I use an email database, but I've developed it.

DSP: OK, so let's kind of look at this. I know again, starting off, you sit there and say we say the importance of systems. We know that systems can execute a great party. Make sure you show up as we, I didn't interject at the time when you said you had your checklist for what you need when you show up, the boxes with salt, pepper and so on. Well, if anybody's ever done any catering, especially as restaurateurs, who maybe that's not there first thing. If you show up without one Sterno, you're screwed. Like, you've got to take a body that you count on to get things done and send them back to the shop, the store, wherever, to go get a Sterno. And two hours later, you're behind and there's chaos. Right? And so how important that is for execution. And you've got systems, I mean, literally for everything. For how to get a thousand people threw a line in no time whatsoever, which is unheard of. I don't even want you to give it away because it's so good. Nobody else does it. You talk about systems on setting up presentations of things and death to the chafing dish and how you set yourself up to be really looked like no other caterer around you. The wow your guest. You have the process of sales from not only how the customer, potential customer, comes in to when they become a customer to showing up at your store and going through tastings and a step by step process, making sure that when you show up, you met their needs or exceeded their needs, but also made sure you make money from recipe cards to sales sheets, bid sheets that literally say, hey, salesperson, I don't approve that sale. It's not going to make us money. Salesperson I approve that sale. Go for it. Like you give up these things that happen in your business every single day without giving up control.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: And then you've got systems on sales to a point where you are not down. COVID-19, there is no post-COVID. We're in COVID. Your sales are flat, which have been up every single year, which means... everybody, she's crushing it. So now, if I were a restaurateur and I wanted to start catering. Right now, again, in this environment, you talk about the shopping cart. What do I do? When I look at my restaurant do I sell what I've got on my menu or do I create something different? So it's not an apples to apples comparison. How would you, how do you approach it with a restaurant?

SANDY: Yeah, you sell something different. In fact, our good friend, Chicago, has talked to me. And so, yes, I'm saying you don't need, this person happens to be a barbecue guy, and I said you don't need to sell everything that's on your menu, you're being redundant. You want that curbside service for that or that patio or that 50 percent occupancy, whatever. But you need to take that meat that, say he's got brisket, cryovac it into enough for two people, four people and sell that. OK. But you've also, he's very limited because he is a barbecue, you need to expand your menu. But here's the thing, I would not start out with 20, 30, 40 things. I'd do 10. I'd do them right. And I would make, and I would just ace those 10 things.

Now, right now, catering may come back a little bit in corporate. So what are you going to do? We're working on small plates, five items that were five menus. Small plates for corporate that are COVID, you know, meet specifications, covered, whatever. And I would go to your new customers and send them, go ahead and have it developed. Ready to roll. Don't be waiting. So if I was a restaurant owner, I would say keep on doing what you're doing, but add these other two things. And here's something else. Going back to when COVID happened is, budget. OK, but I hate budgets. David knows.

DSP: Hey, you're speaking my language here, budgets.

SANDY: I hate budgets. So what did I do when all of a sudden we went, oh, my gosh, catering's all gone? The first thing I went to was a budget. And I went to where, what is it going to cost us to break even? And that's all we're going to spend. But if you don't have all that, those figures it would take you a little bit longer. But go back to a budget. Look, what is it going to do to break even? So, if I was a restaurant owner right now and I would just do whatever it is to break even instead of losing money, because how long can you pull from your savings or PPP loan or whatever? So, we went back to our budget and we did the Festive 14. We kept only the salary people. They did everything. Then we've re-hired and, you know, gradually. But you have to go back to that budget. Right now we're on a budget, but it's very strict. It's only assuming we're going to have X amount of money. But budget is huge. Listen to David. Learn Budget.

DSP: You and I have been together so long that you've bought into what I called drinking the Kool-Aid, not the Kool-Aid that kills you, the Kool-Aid meaning you're bought in. Because the two most important things, in this discussion, two most important things I say every restaurant should have are budgets and recipe costing cards. Two most important systems any caterer should have are budgets and recipe costing cards. What are the two things most never have? Budgets and recipe costing cards. Cause they're too hard. Now I'm a share a little information people may or may not know about you, and that is, when we started working together as a member, we started out on the budget thing. You had a third location.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: Right? Third location at the time.

And by the time we were done with the budget, we said...

SANDY: Four hours later. Eight hours.

DSP: Right, eight hours later, I think it was because you have multiple budgets. We all had tied them together. We determined that you had to operate stellarly. I mean, like so perfectly and increase sales or this location, for this location to break even. It just was the wrong spot. And literally by. And this is a decade, 12 years ago. Twelve, fourteen years ago. I mean, 14 years ago. And you made the toughest decision as an entrepreneur to close it based on that budget. And from that point forward, you have never strayed from a budget because it tells you where your profitability is, where your potential is. But more importantly, we talk about being a proactive plan. Your plan for success. And then you just took it full circle from saying I need to close this store to how can I continue to operate in a pandemic and not lose money? In fact, I'm sure you're making money now when your sales jump back up when you started to pivot, again the magic word pivot, and create your multiple revenue streams. I mean, is that truly the picture of what budgets do for you and how often do you look at that budget? Is it one and done?

SANDY: Well, I looked at it, you know, when we did that in March. But I look at the budget probably not as much as I should. But I'm looking at it more. I'm not helping you out on that answer very much am I?

DSP: Well, you know, I want you to be monthly, man. You know that, right?

SANDY: I'm trying to be honest with you. But probably last month I looked at it again and we revised it.

But let me go back to one other thing that you taught me that I thought, oh well, I don't... that's probably not true. But it is true. Is efficiency. The more you do and you can explain this better than I can. But the more you do, the more efficient you are. The more you run that commissary kitchen, the more efficient you are. And that goes back to those multiple revenue streams. It's like, OK, we're going to do food here. We're going to do food here, we're going to do food here. And it makes you more efficient. And so that's why our profits went up so much. And I will have to share something. Yes, we're even with last year, but our profit is more than last year this time.

DSP: Wow.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: Because you got more, COVID has taught us all to get rid of all the damn mistakes we make on a daily basis. We really looked at our businesses, and said, no, no, no. Out, out, out.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: I talked about you can't go back to your old way.

SANDY: No.

DSP: And you're somebody with systems. And you even looked at and said, I need to fine tune.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: So let me kind of explain a little bit in the David speak of what Sandy is talking about efficiency because I'm the numbers guy. Here's the deal. When you look at your restaurant, you look at your caterer. We're always trying to hit break even first. And we've got prime cost controllable expenses like advertising and rent in many cases, if your variable expense but really rent's a fix. Let me go backwards on that. So the bottom line is all these variable expenses. So if I have 70 cents on every dollar that comes in, that's a variable expense. Dollar comes in 70 cents is out paying for people, product, advertising, paper products, janitorial, things like that. Well, it leaves you 30 cents. And what we're doing is we're trying to stack up 30 cents, three dimes at a time. Every dollar that comes in. Until we cover every single break even, right? Every dollar that comes in that's a fixed expense to get to break even. So if you've got ten thousand dollars in rent, your first thirty thousand dollars in gross sales paid for rent. You didn't make a dime and oh, that, you know, the people that just came in and bought seventy-five dollars in product just paid for your 30 dollar phone bill. Right? That's all that we've got left. And we keep doing this and it's this Herculean effort to get to break even. Then after that, your profitability is amazing, 30 percent, 40 percent, depending where your prime cost is and other variables. Well, when you're less efficient and you're running a seventy-eight percent prime costs, 80, 90, I've seen worse. Well, you're working so hard just to get to break even.

Well, now, we know that sales cure all ills. But there's this other thing. Sandy, as a caterer, she has a commissary kitchen. If you're a restaurant owner or you're a caterer that has a main kitchen and its job is to produce product for your restaurant, your stores, your catering, or any of these other multiple revenue streams. You've got a chef or sous chef that is full time salaried. You've got cooks that if there's no sales, you're having them show up and go home and you're like, why am I here? But you have, and those are variable, right? Except for we have rent and we've got power and we've got gas and we've got all these things, insurances, that we pay for no matter what, whether our sales are one dollar or one hundred thousand dollars that month, we pay them. And so your break even point is already set. Yeah, we got some variable. And the truth is, if your sales don't get you there, you don't break and make profit. We've got a challenge. So what happens is this, oh, we hit break even point. Every dollar after makes me 30 percent. For Sandy, for catering could be 40 percent or better, because once we hit that fixed number, I don't need more cooks necessarily in the kitchen. I don't need another chef. I don't need more corporate overhead, more rent and so on. So it explodes. And so we had determined that when you looked at this commissary producing product for each store, that it was really expensive product when your sales were low, when you bring in all your sales. As soon as you start to add more revenue, your fixed cost, for all intensive purposely, become a much smaller percentage of your operation. And we even said at some point in time when you really hit it big is when you go to a third shift, Sandy, right? You have an a.m., a p.m. and a midnight shift. Why?

SANDY: I'm not even there yet.

DSP: Right? Because you cover your rent. You already covered it with the first shift. And so when you start looking at revenue, when you start looking at that and you say, OK, why is Sandy becoming more and more profitable with more and more revenue? It's not necessarily because more revenues coming in. It's her efficiencies jump through the roof. And so each one of us have to think about that even in our restaurants. That may not apply perfectly to this example, because we don't have a commissary kitchen, we've got something called minimum staffing levels, right? During COVID I've got two cooks on the line. I got one manager on the phones and a server is now a cashier for curbside and so on. And there's this point of again, trying to get past that break even point that we can make money, right?

SANDY: But you do have a commissary kitchen.

DSP: Oh, talk to me.

SANDY: Because it's not open from, if you close at midnight or 11 o'clock or 9 o'clock. What's happening from 9:00 to 6:00? So it could be a commissary kitchen for other things, you know, that could be like wholesale. Let me tell you, there's a grocer here in town, not the big guy, but this tiny Italian food shop. It took me awhile to get our stuff over there. But he's finally, the guys buying three thousand dollars every week of cookie dough balls. OK. So is it glamorous? Is it you know, is it something that you want to make so pretty on a plate? Well, I hope by now people are over that, but it is job security. And so you can use your kitchen from nine o'clock till 6:00 in the morning. That is to me, maybe I'm wrong, a commissary kitchen. It could be.

DSP: Hey, as long as we got refrigeration space and we can make that happen. Temporary walk-in coolers outside. We can do things. Or even find, you've found creative ways of finding there's offsite refrigeration where you can literally truck it or van it with a refrigerated van right over to somewhere else to store your product. So when we start thinking outside the box, when we don't get stuck in our four walls, there's lots of opportunity.

SANDY: Mmhmm.

DSP: Now, Sandy, a lot of things that that you and I do are second nature to us, because that's what we've done. We've made every mistake that costs money as entrepreneurs. Shit, if have you want, you know, you want an expensive education, open a restaurant, open a catering business because every mistake costs you money. Whose money was thurs?

SANDY: Mine.

DSP: Your money, right?

SANDY: Yes, yes.

DSP: And so you and I have put together our processes, our systems, to teach others that they don't make the same dumb ass mistake.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: Me with restaurant and catering systems as far as profitability.

SANDY: Mmhmm.

DSP: You're kind of both, man. You straddle the fence because it's about the profitability stuff. It's about the operational stuff. It's about the sales stuff. Do me a favor. Tell people what uniquely The Catering Coach does? Thecateringcoach.com, your website, we're gonna get people to drive them there. But what is it you do? Why, if I were somebody saying, gosh, I don't know why I'm not making money with catering, I need to start or I need to find these multiple revenue streams. What is it you do with your members?

SANDY: Well, with our members we have two, number one, you could have just me that you could that I can give you coaching. You know, one-on-one coaching. But then we also have a membership group that's called the VIP group and that we share things that are happening to each of us, you can learn so much from the other guys going through the same concept. I mean, the same issues. And so, but also besides that group, which we have a private Facebook page, we have a, we have a Zoom call every two weeks that's been really helpful since March. We do have that every two weeks. We also have one-on-one coaching with myself or with my member coach, Patty Howard, up in Canada. But I also have a drop off catering course that happened to debut in the middle of March. Well, anyway, but you know what some people are now looking at it this way. I've got all this time on my hands. Yes, I'm making enough to keep going. But I'm going to be prepared down the road when things do come back more. And so I've got to drop off catering course and I'm also building one, it's not I don't have a launch date yet, but it's going to be about multiple revenue streams.

But the bottom line that we provide for you is someone that we can give you support and can tell you, I have been there, I have done that, and this is what you need to do to get out of that. And I want to go back to one little thing that I always talk about is that people don't know what their profit should even be? You know, I ask this question every time I speak what's the national average? What should you be making as far as a profit per year? And most people don't even know the answer to that. What a normal food service company in the United States makes, which is usually four percent, five percent. They don't even know that. So how do they know their goals? And so I'm kind of sometimes I've gotten in trouble for this, but I don't care, I'm like, shame on you. Shame on you, because you don't know. So I'm just telling you, that it doesn't have to be four percent. I'm at 21 percent. Thank God for systems and things that we have done. But back to The Catering Coach, we can help you figure out where it is you're missing that. With help from David on what the back of the house system should be we can help you find out what you need to do to be more profitable.

DSP: So if I were, again, a restaurant owner looking to expand using catering and I don't know the first place to go. If I'm a restaurant owner that has catering, but it's not making the money it deserves because I've been selling, whoever comes in the door, I sell it, just wing it. If I've been using the wrong equipment, I've been having struggles every time I show up that I don't have the right checklist and so on. You've got those systems. If I'm a caterer who has been starting off in, you know, doing fifty thousand dollars out of my home and I've finally grown it to two hundred thousand dollars and quite honestly, at two hundred thousand dollars a year, it's a hobby. It's not a business yet. We've got to reach that three fifty-five hundred thousand dollar mark to truly start to make money and then explode from there. You can help me with that, right? From everything.

SANDY: Every system, everything, every checklist I've got it and can give that to you.

DSP: It's almost like franchise training for the person who doesn't want to franchise.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: If you were to franchise catering, you've got every system mapped out literally from ground zero to advanced. Hey, we're gonna do three, five. What's the largest party you've executed?

SANDY: 4,793 guests is what we served for one dinner and we served them in 40 minutes and no one ever waited in line more than five minutes. It was, anyway, that's another whole thing in itself. But yes. But we've served, we've served concurrently forty thousand meals in a week at different locations for NCAA.

DSP: Wow.

SANDY: So yes, I can help you from the drop off. You've got to have minimums. That's where it starts. We won't even go into that, but if you don't have minimums, you're screwed.

DSP: And just on a side note, I want to make sure people understand from selling and understanding what to charge for most of your making the money you deserve. Aren't charging for the things Sandy is going to make sure you charge four. To being able to staff, because most of us think, hey, I'm supposed to use my restaurant staff. And I tell people they're the wrong staff.

SANDY: They're the wrong staff.

DSP: They're not the people that are chatty. They're the people who execute and are seen and not heard. And how you can get all these on-call people. You've got systems for everything, right?

SANDY: Yes, everything. Everything. Including how to contact them. The whole nine yards

DSP: And what's the record number of parties on a single day you've done?

SANDY: Oh, gosh, I think we did 24. But here here's the deal, you've got to figure out what's your max? What if you took eight parties and you screwed, you know, and you couldn't execute? You've got to know where to stop. And you've got to know what you can execute. So we've got all that mapped out for you. Yes.

DSP: Well, I'm a tell you right now, I can't put my name on Sandy any more than I do. In fact, when people join my membership, we've got a deal where I give a bonus, one of her courses. Because I want to introduce everybody to Sandy. In fact, we're going to see Sandy more often. We're going to talk on a routine basis. I just want to get that intro out there.

Sandy, if I were somebody who wanted to learn more about what you do and contact you, how would I get that done?

SANDY: Well, there's two ways. Number one is my is my email, which is Sandy S-A-N-D-Y at the catering coach dot com or you can just call me at eight six six four eight four three zero five six.

DSP: Fantastic.

SANDY: That's the two best ways. And, hey, if all of that you can't get me contact David he'll give you my email address.

DSP: Well, in fact I think we're make it a little easier. I think you and I were talking about we'll probably create a web page, thecateringcoach.com/dsp. That way you know that they came from the show and you know, you can track and you guys can say, hey, I want you to call me, I want to learn more. And in fact, you give that time for free, right? I mean, it's it's.

SANDY: Yes, absolutely.

DSP: It's a 15, 30 minute discussion to learn more about their business and find out if there's even a fit to talk further, correct?

SANDY: Yes and I've even told people before, I'm sorry, but you are like you said, you're not a business yet. Come back and talk to me later. Because it's not, it's not right to give someone hope when they really need to just build some things before they before they really need help. You know what I'm saying?

DSP: Yes.

SANDY: So, yes. And so we'll do that website, I mean, that link. Sorry.

DSP: Yeah, that's all right. Thecateringcoach.com/dsp it's going to get created by the time you're listening to us it will be ready to go.

SANDY: Yes.

DSP: Hey, Sandy, I want to thank you so much for taking time to talk to me. I miss you. I miss traveling around the country with you. It's so good to see your face. Is there anything you want to leave people with before we go?

SANDY: Don't give up, OK? There is a way. If you've got the clients, you've got the equipment, you've got the people love your food, you've just got to figure out a way to get your food to them. So don't give up, but have systems and be profitable. Because I always like to say to people, I'll see you on the other side. What's that side? It's the profit side. Because if you're not profitable, what the heck, why are you doing it? Ask David about that, you're a charity.

DSP: Sandy, thanks so much. I really, I really look forward to talking to you again. And I hope everybody gained a ton of insight. I'ma tell you right now, again, if you want to take your catering to the next level, you need to contact Sandy.

SANDY: Okay. Thank you.

DSP: Thank you.

Hey, that was an awesome episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to take action on building a better, more prosperous restaurant. Before you go, I want to give you these three thoughts. One, by combining leadership and taking action with systems and training being checked by accountability, you are on your way to creating prosperity for you and your restaurant. Two, I have something I need from you. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you happen to listen to podcasts. By leaving us a review other restaurant pros seeking out this information are able to find it. I read the reviews and hearing how this information has benefited you does wonders for me. And three, if you find any of the discussions helpful, share them. The more restaurant pros who have access to them, the better we become as an industry. For more restaurant resources or to get in contact with me connect with me at DavidScottPeters.com. Be passionate about what you're doing. Be persistent. But more importantly, become better and help everyone around you become better and your restaurant is going to kick some ass.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula. If you want to learn more restaurant solutions like these and how to get your managers to do the work sign up for my free four-part video learning series where I go into all this in more depth. The link is in the description below. Also, be sure to subscribe to this channel to get my weekly tips and check out these two videos to learn more restaurant solutions.