Zack Oates

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are super excited today to welcome in a new friend of mine. His name is Zach Oates and he is the CEO and founder of Ovation. So we're going to talk about what Ovation is and this dude was amazing. So I talk about happenstance and things that happen and we were in Phoenix at the restaurant leadership conference and we're just going out to lunch. I'm going to tell the story in the episode, but for this intro purpose, I'm going to tell you this.

01:00There was 50 tables outside. It was the brightest day in the world and we find this table that there's two guys sitting at. One of the guys is Zach Oates and the other guy's name is Will Joxon. And I reference the other guy in the interview. But today I'm going to talk about Will and Zach because Zach's on the show today. But when you go to these things, these conferences, you get the opportunity to really learn about some really neat technology. And as I got to know Will, he gave me his card and I talked to him and I did a full demo and now I'm a customer of his. He has a company called Maintain IQ and here's what he does. It is a digital checklist, right? So it's an app that you have on your phone and it has work order checklist. So for me, I've got two restaurants and I'm constantly there's stuff that's breaking all the time and I have to keep track of it. Well, this app now keeps track of it and my handyman can log into the app and see what needs to be done and he can leave notes and I can look at it and see every single work order that's processing and what I can do.

02:09I'll jump in there. I'll knock out that painting or hey, I'll clean those chairs or where are we out with the ice machine? I can always look on this app and identify exactly where we are. The other big part about this is checklist. Temping your line every single day. It works with Bluetooth temps. You can also go in and do server side work opening checklist my host opening checklist. Are they cleaning all the windows? Are they cleaning the menus? They sanitizing everything front of the house back of the house closing checklist manager opening checklist. If you're leading a restaurant you walk in every single day. I can walk in and find if there's a light bulb out or if there's something going on this checklist completely sets it up. It is unbelievable. It is called maintain IQ. Check them out. M a n m a i n t a i n i q dot com. They are really inexpensive and they have two customers in Nashville. It is us Greenhouse Grille Maribel. They're the only customers they have in Nashville.

03:10I am so excited to bring this technology to you to locally owned and operated restaurants now can use. There's some other big companies out there that do this. This guy will jocks is amazing. He's going to be in studio in June and he's going to learn all about it. But right now if you want to get started if you want to do a demo you can call him his number is 714-457-4481. He's in Southern California. Like I said, this is brand new technology to Nashville is a new company and it is inexpensive. I think it's forty nine dollars a month for all of this technology. You've got to check it out right now for Nashville restaurant radio listeners. He is offering free setup. So the hardest part is getting all of your checklist and all of your list into the app. He's offering that right now. If you call him and you say, hey, I heard about you on Nashville restaurant radio. I'd like to do a demo. I just want to learn if you sign up for it, he's going to set everything up for you for free.

04:11That has a three hundred dollar value. So that is something that's really cool for Nashville restaurant radio listeners. You can do right now. Check him out. Maintain IQ. I think you go to maintain IQ dot com and you can learn a little bit more about him. You can send him an email at will at maintain IQ dot com. He is a great great guy. So maintain IQ. Check him out. Zach Oates this episode right now. He is the CEO and founder of Ovation. He was the other guy at the table. I love going to these things because I'm learning about technology that nobody here in town has. And Ovation is one. There's one restaurant I know of in town that's using it. Germantown Cafe. Because Will, I'm sorry, Zach has his own podcast. He's been on Eric Cacciatore's podcast. He's kind of been all over the place. He's been on Cali Barbecue's Bob podcast. You got to check him out and you're going to love this interview. This interview is one of the most special interviews. I think it just connected when you connect with people.

05:13It's something that is incredibly special and that is what happened when Zach and I sat down. So this is a good interview. I think you're going to love it. I'd love for you to share this interview. Let other people know about this interview because this is this is a lot of fun. So sit back relax and enjoy our interview with Zach Oates. I'll just keep it on. I'll be that guy. Super lame. It's good, man. Wireless charger here where I just set it on and let it go. All right, you ready? I'm ready. No clue what we're going to talk about today. I feel like we'll be able to be fine. Let's do it. Yeah. All right, super excited today to welcome in Zach Oates to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Zach is the founder and CEO of Ovation. Yeah. How you doing, man? Doing great. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Thank you. I was just here in Nashville like three weeks ago for another conference.

06:13And so it's cool to come back. Well, I feel very like spiritual in the sense that people get put in people's lives for a reason. And we were just in RLC, the Restaurant Leadership Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah. And there was like a thousand people eating lunch and it was the brightest day I've ever seen in my life. You looked like you were in so much pain. I was in absolute hell. We go, we pick out some food and then we find this table and you're seeing the table and you've got these pizza. You got a shirt that has pizza on the same shirt you're wearing today. Yeah. And I'm like, geez, these guys seem great. I said, can I sit here? Then all of a sudden, like my whole crew sits down and I'm having such a hard time because I don't have sunglasses or a hat or anything and it's the brightest day and I'm in pain and you guys are so engaging and so nice. And I'm just in the corner like some like hermit. I actually apologize to you later. I was like, I guess maybe he has a headache or something. It's his deal, man.

07:15My first impression, you know, just talking to you guys like who are these guys? And then later on getting to see you and the other gentleman and then you send me in Nashville. I was like, man, I'd love to learn more about what you do. So here we are. We're in studio. Yeah, we're not in Phoenix. We're in Nashville. Also beautiful outside. Yeah, not quite as sunny for you. Luckily, no chance meetings though, randomly putting people at a table. I don't know how these things work. But man, I listened to your episode on Restaurant Unstoppable and I was fascinated. Just the beginning part of your story. And there was one thing in particular that you said. You said, I don't know where you got this and I'm going to fuck it up so bad. But you said people have do the things that you do really, really well, like fucking kill those things. Right. I'm like I said, I'm butchering it. But it wasn't I tend to want to be able to do everything really well when I don't know how to do something.

08:17I'll find a book or I'll just start in trends. I just start looking for how much Tiger Woods at anything. But I can do a lot of things. And you were talking about really honing in on the thing you do athletes really successful athletes work on pitching the ball. They don't hit. They pitch. Yeah, pitchers. They learn how to throw the ball within a centimeter every single time. And that's what they get good at. Well, they're not outfielders. Yeah. And it was something that, you know, growing up, my father was a pro athlete. So he played in the NFL for 14 years. And it was something where I know I get that face of a lot of people can't can't see where did he go? Well, no, the face that people give me is like, wait, your dad, you are you sure that wasn't the face I was giving you at all. The face I was giving. I was like, oh, who is oh, who was it? Who am I thinking? So so the thing is, so my dad was a bardot. So he played for the Giants and 49ers, you know, three Super Bowl rings, five Pro Bowls. Like the guy is the guy's a baller.

09:17I know. Right. And so, unfortunately, so he married a model. So my dad's a pro athlete, my mother's a model. I didn't get my dad's looks and mother's athletic ability, which which meant that I had to go into startups because, you know, what else am I going to do? But growing up with a father like that. Oh, come on. You should see my brother. He's he got my mom's looks and mother's my mom's looks and dad's athleticism. So he's he's a he's a real baller. But like, you know, my my dad, he was a center, right? He was a center. Yeah. I mean, he snapped the ball. And so you want to talk about a skill set. His job was to throw the ball in a perfect spiral upside down backwards between his legs. And like, that's what he did. That's that's what had him 14 years in pro sports was doing that. Right. And it's something that is so so people don't really remember the things that you're OK at. People remember the things that you're excellent at.

10:21The world compensates you for those things that you're excellent at. And when I look at when do I want to work on my weaknesses? Because you can't just ignore your weaknesses. But when do you work on them? You work on them to the extent that they hold back your strengths. And I think of it like a rubber band and the weakness will kind of stretch. And as your strength gets higher, your weakness is down pretty low. And when that resistance starts holding your strength back, then you pause and you Stephen Covey that weakness, you sharpen the saw, you start thinking what in my life is holding me back from achieving my strength and focus on that strength? Because there's something that you do one percent better, like you're in the one percent club of something right. And height, height, but like there's something that that's intangible that you are or maybe tangible, but there's just something specific that you're in the one percent club. And when you know what you're in the one percent club of really focus on that, you know, and like really dive into how do I get better at being the one percent of this thing?

11:35And how do I put more emphasis into that? Because that's where your flow is anyway, a lot of things that come naturally to people that put them in the in the five percent club and they really enjoy it when you work on it, they get to that one percent club. And for me, it's like, I know the two things that I do really well in this world and everything else is just supporting those, you know, my two strengths and working on them to the extent they hold them hold back my strengths. What are your two strengths? So one is public speaking. That's something that I mean, it's not a I don't say that out of arrogance, but it's just one of those things where I love public speaking. Yeah, it's something fantastic. Something where I feel like I got I'm in the one percent club there. And the other thing the other one percent club is realizing how little I know. I feel like more than most people. I realize that there is so much that I don't know. And so because of that, I'm very good at finding advisors and mentors.

12:39And right now, I have 15 people like official people in my life that I turn to for different problems. Some I meet with on an every other week basis. Some I meet with once a quarter. Some I meet with twice a year. But I know the frequency and cadence with which I need to go to these people and the specific questions I could ask to help me extract the best information from them to help improve my life, my business, the employees, my customers. And I feel really grateful to have those people. But that's something I feel like a lot of people don't do that. A lot of people don't go out there and get specific mentors to handle specific questions and find a way that's mutually beneficial. Some I pay money. Some I give equity. Others, I just buy them lunch, right? And it just depends on the type of relationship there is. But truly, 15 very specific people that I have a list of that I have regular cadence meetings with.

13:42That's amazing. And that's absolutely brilliant. I think there are people that you trust that are really good in those specific areas. I think Dave Ramsey, you remember Dave Ramsey? Oh, yeah. He's always said don't don't ask the guy who's been divorced three times for marriage advice. Don't ask the guy who doesn't have any money for financial advice. You find people that their 1% is that thing that you can go to and have that conversation with. Where did you get that? Where did you have that idea to do that? Because I mean, I think that's brilliant. But I mean, that's an intentional act, right? Yeah, I think it was from realizing that listening to other people that there are just so many people out there that are so good at what they do and man, if I could just harness what they have and just learn from them and just take the very specific circumstance and give them the context of just what they need to answer the question, then I'm going to get the best answers that I possibly can get because what what I come up with I'm going to be stumbling through and thinking of this and thinking of that and trying this and trying that or I could save myself six months and a lot of hours and just ask someone who's been through it 30 times.

14:59So to paraphrase this, you're really good at public speaking and being coachable. Yeah, OK, yeah, I'll take that. I mean, so I think that's such an undervalued trait because every day I think with the Generation Z and Millennials, that's something I want to I don't want to generalize an entire, you know, group of people. But coachability is so strong. It's so important to be able to say, I don't really know how to do that really well versus the fake it till you make it kind of mentality. I think fake it till you make it's terrible. Yeah, I mean, it's OK to raise your hand and say, I don't know a lot about that. You seem to know a lot about that. Can you help me? And the thing is, especially running a startup, you know, I mean, we have LinkedIn, which is the Instagram of business where people scroll through LinkedIn and where they see they see my business is doing so great. I'm hiring this person. Like we just signed on this customer. It's all the same thing as scrolling through Instagram and being like, oh, she's at that beach and he's on this vacation.

16:02And he at the end of the day, the backyard is always on fire. And I think that when people come to understand that and when they come to realize like it's OK that you have a fire going on in your backyard, the key is a leader. Is to contain it and make sure it doesn't get to the house. But just because there's a fire in the backyard doesn't mean that you shouldn't celebrate the things going on in the front yard, right? It just means that as you're scrolling through Instagram, as you're scrolling through LinkedIn, that you realize that it's OK and that everyone's got good stuff and bad stuff that's happening. And and when you when you're OK with that, then you're a lot more likely to be honest with mentors. So one thing, though, I will I will say a warning on mentors. When I went through an awesome accelerator program, so I had an investor called 500 Startups now called 500 Global, really cool group out of San Francisco, one percent acceptance rate.

17:04We got so lucky and we got in like like to the point where like ovation got in and the managing director of this program on day one, I was in the I was in the kitchen getting some food and he goes into the kitchen and he looks at me. He goes, huh? And I was like, hey, I just wanted to say thank you so much. Really excited to be part of this program. Grateful for your investment. And he he just looks at me. He goes, Zach, right? I was like, yeah, he goes just just to let you know, if you would have sneezed differently in your interview, you wouldn't be here right now. And grabs his granola bar and walks out of the kitchen. Wow. Right. It's like, oh, wow. Okay. We really got to like prove ourselves. So one of the things that I wanted to do was I just went to everyone and I was like asking everyone all these all these questions and I would sit down with like 10 different mentors because they brought all these mentors there. So I'd like sit down with all these mentors and guess what would happen is I would have to spend half hour half hour giving the context of the company.

18:12Yeah. And then I'd finally get to a question. And then they would give me a piece of advice and keep in mind all of these mentors have all been incredibly successful in their careers. And I realized that every single person's advice was different and I'm like, oh shoot. Well, then what do I do? And I got, you know, analysis paralysis and then the next week when the mentor would stop me in the hallway be like, well, how'd that go? Oh, well, I ended up doing this instead and then they would get frustrated because I wasn't taking their advice and just wasted their time. I get frustrated because I got all these different answers and they all seemed good. Like what do I do? And so I realized like the importance of minimal viable product testing and like what is what is the least amount of effort and money that we can do to test the hypothesis to see if something's going to work. And then the other thing I learned is the importance of very specific questions, specific questions get specific answers. General questions get general answers.

19:13So that's big. That's a big statement. This is it's a general questions get general answers and specific questions, specific answers. Yeah. So if I go to someone and I said like one of our advisors, Wade Allen, he's head of innovation at Chili's. If I say how would Chili's look at a guest feedback platform with a ghost kitchen off-prem? I will get a very good answer. Yeah. What is the take rate on your surveys through your ziosk at the table from unhappy guests? I can get an answer. If I say what should we do about feedback? Like I mean like what's he going to say? Right. Well to assimilate that I've said this today to my leadership team. I said and this is happens with sales reps from all across and just to bring it down to the radio or the restaurant level. If you're doing a table visit as a manager and you're looking for that feedback, if you walk up to the table and you say how is everything you're going to get a it's fine. But if you say how is that short rib is it cooked to your liking and how did that sauce pair with it?

20:18You're going to get a specific answer on that one thing. If you're a sales rep and you walk into a kitchen to go hey chef, how is everything you say are you happy with your delivery time coming in between eight and nine o'clock in the morning? You're going to get a much more specific delivery. You know, it's same thing. I mean and growing up in restaurants that that table touch that was the whole impetus around ovation was that, you know, just like you said you walk up to a table and you say how was it if it was good, they say it was good. If it was bad, they say it was good and then go leave you a one-star review, right? Little fetching Yelpers. And so what we wanted to do was I wanted to create a tool that was much more conversational. And because even if you do the perfect table touch, right one, it's very hard to train on how to do that naturally, right? It's a scale for sure. It's definitely a very it's a challenging soft skill to learn and two when that when they do give you that answer. How do you actually bring that up a level so you can see what's consistently happening?

21:22The only way that happens is through that person who becomes really good at it and then they have to consistently do it and then they have to remember all the answers to be like, hey, I'm hearing a lot of feedback saying XYZ and then you throw an off-prem which is 40 to 50% of dining and it's like and it's like the table touch only works in this situation that you have a good a good manager who cares enough to do it and and I'll tell you already to do something about it and they have to do it enough and be good enough at synthesizing that that information. So that's why we created ovation. It's like look, it's a digital table touch where where you can ask in a very natural way and you have a barrier between you and the truth and the restaurant because that that guest they don't want to give an honest answer. If it's bad, they don't want to make someone feel bad, right?

22:23No, no, that's the number one thing that I'm not I'm not complaining. It's okay. I just yeah, I just it's cold and it's got a hair in it, but I don't I don't make you mad. I'm just not going to come back. They've all seen that scene in the movie waiting where they got in some from under cheese and the whole thing. They don't want that to happen to them. No and and especially with you know, everyone's phones are on the table. So what happens if I say something and someone records me and then I look like a jerk and then I get fired and then I go viral and then I become some Kevin or Karen and nobody wants that and so people have become very non-confrontational very much so and so because of that you get a lack of honesty. For example, I had a gentleman that we were just talking about Shawn Wolcheff. He was he sold barbecue for years online and selling it out of San Diego really cool company Cali barbecue dot media great blog, but actually I found out about his podcast because my podcast I wanted to name it digital hospitality and he took it here already had it. So I forgot to mention you're also a podcaster and your podcast is called given ovation give an ovation.

23:28So I thought I was going to give you the perfect segue there with the table touches and asking how things were going to go into what ovation is how did you get the idea for ovation? I'd love to some of your background. I'm taking you away from I want to get I want to come back to it though. Where's it come from? So growing up in restaurants. It was I worked in friendlies and for those who work you've those who know the Northeast friendlies. It's like a Denny's that serves ice cream except not as classy. So yeah, it sounds good. Yeah, it's it's very kind of gritty but one of the things that friendlies really revolutionized was like they had an ice cream parlor in the front and so you can get stuff to go and so they really revolutionized that whole segment of the industry and the watermelon log so good anyway. So that was my first job and then my dad once he retired from the NFL. He got into a bunch of businesses like car wash cell phone store. He bought a barbecue, you know, investment barbecue joint. So I was able to see this from the back end and like from the guts of things and everything that that we do in restaurants is for what?

24:37I mean, why do we the cleaning products we choose to, you know, the staff that we hire to the training to the chairs to the ingredients like Brandon, what's it all for the guest experience hundred percent and then you get to all right. Well, how do you know if that guest experience landed? It's like, okay, you can have a receipt survey. They come back an online review or yeah, or they come back indicators that they come back but it's so hard to track when they came back and why did they come back and why did they not come back? What how do you know? So that's when I saw that gap and after I left after I stopped working in restaurants went to went to school got my Masters did a couple of startups. I did customer experience consulting with Fortune 50 companies and I was like people are pouring millions and millions of dollars these large corporations into their customer experience and then I go to a restaurant and I'm like, there's they they just they can't afford to spend millions of dollars and on measuring and fixing and remedying.

25:40They can't afford call centers. And so what do they do? And so that's why that's a really spurred ovation was I could create a tool that will mimic the perfect table touch and collect their data to get them to come back, which is the most important thing that in my opinion. Yeah, that data is just monumental because the traditional restaurant model is a stranger walks in eats and a stranger walks out right maybe the second or third time you you say hi. I noticed you the other day came in and then the guy said yeah, my name is Tom and you that's the old-school way of doing it. Exactly and and it has been that way since the end of the French Revolution, which is the birth of the modern restaurant, right? I mean yet cavemen making food and and that those restaurants it was like yeah, you had to like, you know be around and then in the Roman days. It was like you just had to have food and then after the after the French Revolution. It was you had to have service and now you have to have data right that is that the third pillar of restaurants was was birthed in the 2020s.

26:50It was always just food and then service and now it's data and if you don't have that data you will be hung out to dry over the next few years and that's what separating a lot of the locally owned and operated restaurants from the these big multi-chain or these chain restaurants have hundreds of but they all use data much better than the individually owned and operated restaurant. So so to finish the story of Sean though. Yes, please. So because this wraps in perfectly with that. So he was selling brisket online like five six seven years and you know doing a good job with it and everyone loves Cali barbecue. Well after one month of use innovation. He noticed that people who ordered online were complaining only only people who ordered through his first-party delivery were complaining about his brisket and Zach is going to finish this story right after these words from our sponsors. We have been getting such amazing feedback from our episode that we did with the compost company and Jeffrey and Clay is L.

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30:07Well after one month of use innovation. He noticed that people who ordered online were complaining only only people who ordered through his first-party delivery were complaining about his brisket. He's like who's complaining about my brisket like your system is just getting a bunch of whiners out there and I'm like, let's let's look into it. So when he dove into the data, he found out that they were complaining about the brisket either being too fatty or too lean and you know when you go into a good Texas style barbecue joint and you ask for brisket. They're going to ask you a simple question one other way. Yeah, how do you want you brisket right and he did not have a modifier online to for fatty or lean brisket. So if you like to fat you may get lean and then then you're going to complain if you like a lean and you get more fat and you're going to complain but it also five years indicator now that hey you need that five years of selling online and he had no clue one month of use innovation. He found out why because you need to make it.

31:09The key for a look if you don't use ovation, that's totally fine. Right. Let me tell you the key word. If you want to get good data frictionless that's my word of the year you just frictionless. That's my that's my word of the year by the way. All my managers know the frictionless experiences or that's what our goal is. It's got to be free. Why because because your restaurant isn't being compared to Jim's subs down the street your restaurant and your technology is being compared to Amazon to uber to, you know door dash. And so you can't look at your peers and say, oh, I just need to have technology better than that goofball. No, you're being compared to world-class technology where it is a good point. They spend billions to create frictionless experiences which in turn gives them more data. If you're asking your guests to fill out a 75 question survey, guess what? You have crappy data, right?

32:09And you're not going to find out about the brisket and you're not going to find out about I mean, you know, a lot of our customers will come to us and I'm like, okay, what do your survey take rates right out of how many tickets like your your percentage of survey completion they go. We normally get like 0.009 percent and I'm like that the long receipts. Yes, and I'm like, okay point zero zero nine. That's interesting ovation. We're getting 23 percent. How of guests to complete a massive and it's not it's not you don't need to ask one person a hundred questions. You need to ask a hundred people two questions. How was it and tell me more and then use data use that data and analyze it and find the trends. Let the technology do the work. Don't don't burden your customers with that because what's ironic is everything we do is for the guest experience and then we just have the crappiest experience to ask them about the experience. It's so counterintuitive. Yeah, no, I think so.

33:09I got lucky this past week for Easter. We have a restaurant in Brentwood that does this huge buffet on Sundays for brunch and we used to have creme brulee on the buffet with these little miniature creme brulees and we took them off. I couldn't tell you why we did but they're not on there anymore. I had five people on Easter say where the creme brulee go happened the creme brulee and I went oh wow. Yeah, we need that and it's back now. I mean that quick. We made that turn but the fact that I was standing at the front door all day long. Thank you for coming in asking everything was I got that feedback but like by off chance I got that lucky. Yeah, most 99% of times we'll walk out the door and don't tell anybody but I probably would have got that feedback data shows that a lot sooner. I would have got it six weeks ago. Yeah. Well and data shows that for every one complaint you hear 26 people had the same complaint that you didn't hear. Damn and in it and it hurts because here's the worst place to find out about feedback is online. Every one negative review loses you an average of 30 customers.

34:14So so when you when you see that negative review and it feels like a gut punch it should they just they just took five six seven hundred dollars from your pocket because of that negative review and but why because you haven't provided them a more frictionless way to give you that feedback. There's there's a great restaurant that I love close to my house. I've been there. I mean probably 70 times love this place left him a positive review on Google on Yelp and and great place but I went in there the last time it actually this was the last time I went in there. I went in there and one of the favorite thing my favorite things they have is this really thick creamy Italian dressing that you can dip your breadsticks in. Yeah. So I go there and I don't know if it was a bad day. I don't know if they change the menu but they the sauce was so watered down that it was like it was just disgusting. It wasn't and totally flavorless and and it was such a such like a you know, it was my favorite thing on the menu.

35:17And so to get that was like such a letdown and it was like who am I going to tell how am I going to tell him? What am I going to do leave him a one-star review? It's like no they've they've done a great job the whole all the other time and I'm not I'm not like, you know sitting here being like I'm protesting so I'm not going to go back there. You're probably like hey other guests are getting this too who don't eat here 70 times that might be their first time and you just want to let the owner know that hey this product isn't consistent and you should probably check it because it doesn't taste like it normally does and there could be people here for their first time that are now judging your restaurant on this. Yeah, and they're like this is shit. I'm not having it. Well, and that's the thing is like I and even just thinking right now that was the last time I went back there. Not because I'm intentionally protesting it, but because every time I think about that place the last you are only as good as the last experience of that guest had and even though I've been there so many times when I think about you know going back to that place. I'm like, oh well, there's that other place down the street that I'd rather go to and and I will eventually go back but it's just one of those things where I wish that they were I wish that there was a better way for for people to communicate that.

36:24I mean, I remember one of our customers was sitting at home on a Friday night and he got he kept on getting pings through the ovation through his ovation app that issue with tater tots issue with the tater tots issue with the tater tots at the fourth one. He called the restaurant. He's like dude, what is going on and the manager was like oh because this place is really good tater tots. The manager was like we ran out of tots. So I had someone run to Walmart and go pick up a couple of bags of frozen tots so we can keep selling them. He's like 86 the tots like this is crazy. Don't put a subpar product out there. Exactly. And that was something that he just he would have never known or it might have popped up in a one-star review of like man the tots have really gone downhill and then he'd be like that's weird. Like what a weirdo that he's just complaining about the tots on a random Friday night and never known. Yeah, I hear what you're doing. I mean it sounds fantastic. I almost wonder if there are people out there that don't want to know don't want me but I mean as I know a lot I've talked to a lot of restaurant owners.

37:30I'm sure you have to most of them don't look at the reviews. They have somebody that does that. They don't want to know that much about it because they're in the building and they know it's good. They tie their friends tell them it's good and 90% of their customers come back over and over and over again, right? That's that's not great data. Well, I mean, but that's that's the thing like you can be so much more specific and intentional with it and I don't like that. Those people are are listening to this podcast, you know, you never know, but I mean I feel like people who it's the same thing like, you know, we talked a little bit about this before we hit record, but you know, I've I've had the privilege of going to therapy on three different times in my life and you want to talk about hearing the bad news, right? You got to hear it. Yeah. I mean you go to a therapist and it's nothing but a mirror with the most unflattering light that there is and you're like, wow, I look old and guess what you do look old and you have put on weight and like that's okay because you can work out and you could eat healthier and like and so I think the problem is most people don't want to hear it because what do you do with that, right?

38:40If you get one bad review, what do you do with one bad review every other week? There's not a lot that you can do to improve because how do you know what's happening? What's not? And so the whole thing with ovation going back to why is because if you get enough people to give you a little bit, it gives you so much more visibility into what's going on and even if you're in the restaurant every single day, you will be shocked at what people will say and then you can do something about it and the best part is if it's not a great experience, you could do something about it privately. So that's a big thing right there. I used to love we used to company for our table management and they would send out a survey after everybody got there and they would send us back the feedback privately and I almost felt like if somebody was leaving the restaurant and they were pissed off because of whatever pissed the person off. It's like they need to rant for a moment, but then they exercise the demon, you know, like once they get it out of their system, like I'm so angry somebody and you just type it in somewhere then they go, okay, like a grieving thing like you did you get it out and then you go on with your day.

39:55It's like I'm going to relive that again and go to this site and do it. I'm really like and if you respond to that person if you reply to them, they're usually pretty happy and one thing that I've realized is this whole concept of of getting it out there, you know over 99.5% of people who give negative feedback through ovation do not then go on and leave negative feedback online. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, most people there there's one that we did a we did a big research project around why people give feedback and how they want to give feedback would you learn and what do you think and this is going to I can almost guarantee you're going to get this right when you think of now the pressure is on. When you think of why people give negative feedback, what do you feel like they want to how do they want to feel? Do you want to be understood heard they want to hurt? Yeah, that was the word that came up more than any other word. They want to feel heard and do they feel heard when they type in a when they're asked about the bathrooms and the temperature and this and that and this and that I'll be greeted within 60 seconds of your arrival point.

41:06They're like look. I just want to tell you that my food took 45 minutes when you said it was going to take 15, right? I just want to let you know that you your fries were soggy and cold. I just want you like they just they have this emotional this visceral response. And so that's that's the thing that we want to capture is the emotion of it and then we follow up the next day with more questions, right? So I don't know how does it work. I mean, I mean. So what you have is an app visit a tell me exactly how ovation works. Okay, so it starts off with let's say you have a to-go order you put in a bag stuff with a QR code on it and it says how did we do two questions to enter for $100 gift card that same verbiage could be on a sticker on your table. Do you find that people need that? Do you find that people need? Hey, it's almost sounds like a little manipulation right where if you do this you could win $100 like I'm not really going to win $100, but so I'll do it anyway. Psychological we have done millions of surveys and we found that the the chance to win $100 gift card will get the most number of responses not not get, you know, the other thing that gets a lot of responses is like for third for third-party orders.

42:21We put in a bag stuff that says how did we do two questions to get $5 off your next order that that also works very well because we want to convert them to first-party orders. Yeah, right. And so we're getting customers that are getting 20% of their customers just to switch from third-party to first-party and getting their data getting permission to text them and then they're actually repeat guests on first-party. So now they're not paying that 30% right? It's huge. That's how you do the conversions. Exactly. But and then as soon as they scan the code or if we have an integration with your online ordering your loyalty system, the guests will just get an automated text message. How was everything? Let us know for a hundred your chance $100 gift card. And like I said, we're getting like over 20% of people to take that survey and when they scan the QR code or click that link in the text message, it just says how was your experience with, you know, your logo branded five emojis ranging from heart. I loved it to like angry face. And the reason we don't use numbers or stars is because it's so subjective.

43:24But when you see those emojis feel it, it's emotion. Yes. And you're like, oh yeah, that's that's how I felt. And so yeah, right. That's good. Exactly. Or like I loved it and it for everyone that says I loved it. We want them to go leave an online review to schedule a catering catering order to buy some merchandise to you know, buy a gift card. So we we have them do things that will drive revenue and improve the business for anyone that gave it a one to four emoji like from yeah, it was it was good, but the brisket I just wish that I could you know, or like, oh my gosh, I'm so mad. Like I am a Delta right now for leaving me at the gate. I literally was standing there. The gate agent walked down the jet bridge as I was walking up. I was there an hour early and she walks down the jet bridge as I'm walking up with my ticket doesn't do a final boarding call or anything and then just and then I'm stuck in Minneapolis. Anyway, this happened this happened two days ago.

44:26It was like so mad about it anyway, but it was one of those things where I and then and then they don't care by the way Delta know now you said when you send them the angry emoji, they don't give a shit. No, not not at all. But here's the thing their margins on me are a lot better than restaurant margins, right? And I'm I'm buying a $700 ticket. I'm not buying a $7 sandwich and so they can't they can afford to not care a little bit. Whereas in a restaurant, it's like my switching cost is so low because I can get a sandwich here. I can get a sandwich there, right? I can I can get 50 different sandwiches within a 10-minute drive from my house. Whereas like Delta it's like I could choose, you know, one of three four airlines. I'm blessed. Yeah, right. What do I do fly Frontier like spirit? Come on. I'm not that desperate but but when we and then what happens is they have the loyalty points with yeah, exactly. And then if they didn't have a great experience we ask them why and they click send and they have that cathartic like, you know punch the bag experience of I vented I push send and then the restaurant has an app has the ovation wind back app and the manager has it and the owner could have it and district manager can have it and in three clicks they respond to that guest concern and the guest gets a personalized text message with an apology with a bounce back offer with additional follow-up questions if they have them.

45:54And so they can really resolve that concern in real-time while the guest is still sitting there putting that next bite in their mouth. They have a response because it's that quick and easy for the restaurant to respond to them and then what we do on the back end is we pull in all of the online reviews all of the feedback from ovation and then we're able to show the restaurant. Hey, here are things that are going really well and here are things that are not going well. When do they get the text message you said before they put the next bite in their mouth. Do they get it when they pay their bill? So if it's how do we get their phone number? If it's a dining experience, it's just the QR code on the table or a QR code in the bag stuffer on the back. Okay, if it's an online ordering experience, we try to we send it out about 30 minutes after they get their food because you know, there's a little bit of buffer time in there then you sit down and you put it all out and you're starting to eat. So we're trying to mimic a table touch gotcha as you're eating but not before you started and so with that they've kind of they've had that experience and they're like gosh, you know, so there's a QR on the table.

46:56Yeah, so they can hey scan that and yeah, tell us what you think exactly. So there is some communication about what it is and how to do it. Yeah, and that's just all put. I mean we have done so tens of thousands of stickers and bag stuffer designs and and so we know what works and what doesn't and so as part of like our service, we just you know, we will do that for them and we'll do that for restaurants and design something that will fit their brand but you know at the end of the day when we think about it psychologically, I don't know. Are you a journal or I have every intention in my life to be a journal or like I have every intention to meditate every morning. I just don't you just I have all these thoughts about things I want to journal and I write them down. I do write different things down. But it's not per se a journal and I that this might I'm really I just finished Atomic Habits and like one of my things is James Claire. Oh God, that's a fantastic book.

47:58Anyway, I'm trying to build these habits every day of the little things and journaling is one of the things I really freaking want to do it is it is incredible because just as you when you type out that review through ovation and you hit send to management, there's a cathartic like done right. That's that's what happens at the end of every single day is that you can sit there and you can say hey here the things that I'm grateful for. Here's something that happened that was hard and then you feel better about it because you wrote it down. So nine years ago I had a buddy call me and he said it was my birthday and he was like, all right, Zach. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to challenge you to do something like all right and he's like and I want you to do it every single day. I'm like, all right, he goes for the rest of your life and I'm like, hmm, what is it? He goes big ask. He goes you need to promise me that you'll do it before I tell you what it is. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like you you're this is a very good friend. Very good.

48:58What one one of my mentors. Okay, you got to have a lot of trust answer that. Yeah, he's one of my he's one of my like spiritual mentors and I was like Fred, that's it. That's a big ask man. He's like, do you trust me? I was like, yes, he's like, all right, then will you do this? All right, fine. Yes, I will do this every single day for the rest of my life. What is it? He goes, I want you to write down two ways that you saw the hand of God in your life today. I was like, okay. It's like he's like, will you do that? I was like, yeah, I already said, yeah, like sure. I'll do it. I haven't missed a day in nine years. Wow. And it has been life changed. I sporadically kept a journal before that but writing every single day, you know, it's not that something amazing happens every day. But here's what was interesting. I do all my journaling over like on my I'm showing the signs of typing like computer. There we go. I'm on my computer.

49:58Like I do it or now I do to type it out. I type it out and I do it on my phone. And so I've been able to do you know, I'm kind of a nerd and so I was able to do some like text analysis and so I took my journal that was sporadically written beforehand and I took my journal after and I did text analysis to see what was different in the writing. And what was fascinating was the words I and me showed up 3,000 times less per year and the words grateful and gratitude showed up seven times more per page. So when I looked for the hand of God in my life, I realized that all of this that was around me wasn't about me. It just feels like it was about me because I'm the only one living my existence and like I only have it from my perspective. But when I took that step back and I say, how did I see the hand of God in my life? It gave me such a perspective of gratitude and realizing how much was given and not how much I was doing and that this story of my life is a story of everything happening around me and I just happen to be, you know, the main character in my story, but it's not about the main character.

51:12It's about all the good that's around and that was so I throw that out there because the same psychology of why people, you know, don't leave negative reviews after sharing their bad experience is the same thing that I feel like has helped me so much to live a more grateful less self-centered life is journaling and so I would encourage anyone listening journal and and the way that you journal the way that you make it easy is you come up with a question that you answer every day and make it a simple question and make it a question that will help you focus on the thing that's most important to you. I know of somebody that every single day they journaled one thing that each of their kids and wife did that day that they thought was really cool and then as their kids went back and read their journals, like how special to see their life through their fathers and husband's eyes, you know, so whatever the situation may be. I just encourage you to journal and it's one of those things where you're either going to do it every day or you're not going to do it.

52:18Yeah, I think you're right. What a powerful statement though. I mean just I try and find I we talked previous to hitting record just about every day my new light just seeing a positivity but the hand of God is a big thing. You know, I before I first saw my rainbow that day that I quit drinking in the whole thing. I feel like I got cheated so many years of not listening when God was talking to me. You know, it's like that moment that rainbow is like I've never seen a message so big and so strong like a spiritual moment and I'm constantly looking and trying to identify some things happening on first. Like I said meeting you at that table randomly walking to that one table and sitting there and meeting you and just how this stuff kind of works out having a new friend and how we all know in the industry and it's like, I don't know.

53:18I feel like there's some is like why was I put at that table to meet you who's going to be here and I think you're just an amazing guy and I think that's that's one of those things that God does. He just blesses people sometimes and you can't look at that as circumstance like well, I could have sent him. I got lucky like I look at that is no, I don't know people put people in people's lives for a reason. Yeah, I truly believe that a hundred percent. I I'm totally with you and I've seen that like if you want to see the hand of God look if you want to feel the love eyes. Yeah, if you want to hear the voice of God listen if you want to if you want to feel the love of God serve right and as you do these things and as you open up your your ears and your mind, it's like you can you can feel and live more intentionally and feel like the direction you're headed is a direction that you should be going right and there's a quote that says endeavor to live the life which you have imagined because as you are you are out there doing these things you feel that that you're when you when you were driven by your purpose you are so much more likely to overcome because Victor Frankel man search for meaning.

54:32Have you read that book? No, I thought you're going to go with the Rick Warren purpose-driven life but oh also good. Yeah, that's the direction you're going with that one. But so so man search for meaning Victor Frankel. He is a psychologist and a Holocaust survivor and he was a psychologist before he went to Auschwitz. Wow, and one of the things he says is that a man who has a why to live can bear with almost any how so why did why did you want to to overcome your addiction? Why do you want to have your restaurant? Why do you want to be successful in a startup and if you have that why and if that why transcends today then you can you can get punched and but you're like but you know what I got I got a purpose. I got to keep going. Why do you serve? I mean people just literally servers and bartenders people. I'm a servant. That's that's what I do. I mean, that's that's what I'm here. I'm here to serve people and I love I did I do something on Wednesdays now called lineup topics and it's a 10-minute what's on my brain and I've been seeing all these memes and stuff online or people like, you know, this bitch wanted hot tea and I it's like, yeah people like that kind of stuff and if you're not here to serve like the genuine like what's your wife if you're there to make 30 bucks during lunch, I guess that's a thing but people are genuinely there to serve make a lot more than that your your bounty is much bigger in my opinion when you just do the things that make other people happy and and let's say that you're not you don't feel like your mission is to be a server that that's okay.

56:10You don't have to in every single moment of your life. It's not like you are living your truest existence like you got to pay bills. You got to poop you got to do stuff that that will help you to get there. And so if you're sitting there thinking like hey, I'm supposed to be, you know running my own business like what am I doing in this like stupid restaurant? I don't want to be a server. It's like no, no, no, no, let's reframe that this job is enabling you to get the skills to do the things that you can achieve why you were put here on earth and it's okay to to have steps on the way. The key is as Stephen Covey talks about if the ladders of life you could be running up the rungs of all kinds of ladders. It's not about running up the ladder. It's about where is that ladder leaning what walls are leaning on because if you just get the wrong place faster that doesn't do anything for you and there's there could be certain steps to take but the key is what is your why and the way that I the way that I kind of discover my why and the way that I you know every year take a pause to think about it is I pull out my calendar like a blank a blank sheet of paper and I will draw it out like a calendar like a week and I'll say okay, if I had a billion dollars deposited in my bank account today, what does my schedule look like a year from now?

57:42Look, I've already like I've solved world hunger or whatever. I've like paid off my parents mortgage. I'm like, you know, whatever all the things help the children traveled. Okay, you got a dollar system. Now a year from now you are going to have to wake up on a Monday morning. And what do you do until you go to bed on Sunday night and I'll write out kind of a sketch of like my perfect week as a billionaire and then I take those things and I'll ask myself why five times for each of the major things on my calendar and when I get down to that root reason that fifth why of really diving down one step above happiness, right? Because usually happiness is like if you dig down that's that's like the deepest root of all things like you want people want to be happy. So you take that up one level successful. What's what is success? What is success right then that those are my those are the things that really drive value and passion in my life and the things that I could do without a billion dollars.

58:47I just you know, sure. I may want to have a jet and fly around the world, but I don't have that jet to fly around and like, you know grab lunch in Paris, but I do have the ability to pull out a postcard and handwrite a thank-you letter to someone in Paris, right? And so I think that those those the types of things where when you when you feel your why when you know your why when you live your why that passion exudes through everything that you do. And even if you don't love where you're at right now in life, if you can see how it's going to get you to where you need to be then have that be your why I think I think that's perspective right? Yeah, that's everybody has a different perspective in its attitude. You can wake up in the morning and go it's Monday you wake up and go it's Monday man. I got the whole week ahead of me baby. Like let's go. Yeah, like I Monday is my favorite day because it's I got the rest of this week Friday.

59:49I start going I didn't get this done and get this done and get this done and I want to be able to have this weekend to like I start ain't Friday is my anxious day. Monday is my is wide open. Let's let's do this thing. But that's a perspective thing. That's something that I have trained myself to start thinking but intentionally and in light of in light of you know those who may be listening who knowingly or unknowingly have mental health issues one of the things that I've learned is like it's okay to be sad, right? Oh, yeah, it's okay to have a hard day. It's okay that you might not wake up on a Monday feeling pumped like Brandon, right? Like I'm going to go and I think that sometimes people feel like oh something's wrong with me because I'm not so excited because like I don't have this passion in life right now. It's like, you know, that's okay. You you do with the best version of you would do and and that's okay. And that's okay. It's okay. I tell my kids all the time, you know, they're four and two and I'm like you have a hard day and they'll cry like, yeah, I'm like, it's okay.

01:00:50It's okay to have a hard. It's okay to be a little sad. It's okay to be a little cranky sometimes, you know, I think that I read this not long ago, but it was in how to talk. So your kids will listen how to listen. So your kids will talk name of the book. It's a good one, but they said so many times your kids come in and we tell them how they feel to go. I'm hungry. I know you're not you just ate dad. I'm tired. Like they're not you slept all while you just took a nap. How can you be tired? Whatever it might be. We're constantly telling our kids how they feel and instead when they say I'm hungry you go. Oh my gosh. Tell me like, what do you feel like eating? Like what do you want or it just actually understanding of her. I'm angry. I'm mad at Matthew. My kids name William Matthew. I'm I hate Matthew man and go what's wrong with it. Tell me what you're feeling right now. How are you feeling that and then just let them it's okay. Like we it's okay to feel any feeling that you have isn't bad or wrong feelings a feeling. It's a natural reaction to something it's about how what you do after that once you once you understand what that feeling is in your body responds.

01:01:54There's a book. Lots of books here. QBQ is my favorite book and since I don't know you that well, you'll know that's my favorite book out there is by John Miller and he says stress is a choice. The stress the choice. It's a very I think that's a provocative statement because there's a lot of things that happen in life. But if you think about there's an initial response when something happens and then you control how you respond after that. Yeah. And it's a matter of personal accountability and okay, so this happened. I'm now going to work or you're going to go okay, so I can't change that Serenity Prayer stuff, right? Or I miss I guess that things I cannot change. But your response to something is how stress happens and so if you're in complete control of yourself and you're incredibly healthy personally accountable person stress is a choice. I'm choosing right now to feel this anxiety because whatever way you allow yourself to feel it and it's hard sometimes when to contextualize that in the moment.

01:03:05So I've come up with a formula to help me sweet and it's if a if the problem can be solved with time or money. It's not that big of a problem and if it can't be solved with time or money, then there's nothing you could do to fix it anyway, right? Okay, so so it's like those are those are my two. Those are two tools in life that we can really have to like actually solve the problem. Your heart gets broken. That's going to take some time and a little bit of money at the spa, right? You're you get into a car crash is everyone okay? All right. Well, it's going to take some money to fix that and if somebody got whiplash, you know, it's going to take some time to for that to heal. But when I when I break everything down into these two buckets of it can be solved with time or money. It just helps me realize like it's okay. It's okay. It's not that big of a deal. The Dalai Lama said if a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you could do something about it, there is no need to worry if it's not then there is no point in worrying. There's no benefit from worry whatsoever.

01:04:06That's the serenity prayer. I said it a hundred times like this this thing that we say all the time this God grant me the serenity of things. I cannot change the courage to change things in the wisdom. No difference, right? It's real easy, but like it's so simple. And I'm going to finish that thought right after these words from our sponsors. All right, today we are talking about net checks, net checks. Man, I tell you what net checks. Have you heard? I start thinking about netchecks.com and I just get I get excited. I mean payroll, taxes, human resources. This is my jam. Yeah. Hey look, I'm a restaurant person and I'm good at dealing people do all the things, but you know what all this HR payroll taxes that is not necessarily my jam, which is why net checks is here. They make it so darn easy recruiting and onboarding performance management human resources.

01:05:07They do the scheduling. They're like a program. You can go and put your schedule. It'll fill it out for you. You need that that makes your life easier. Stop using an Excel spreadsheet. They do payroll. They do taxes and it's all wrapped up nice and neat in a mobile app. You need to go check them out right now. If you are like me and don't like doing all these things, they make it so easy that anyone can do it right now. Net checks is always on the employee experience. You have heard me talk about Super Source for the last two years and in that time Jason Ellis, I feel like he's taken over the city. It is hard for me to get a guest in here that doesn't use Super Source and I'm telling you everybody loves him. When you mentioned Jason named like, oh my gosh, that guy's legitimate. Ask yourself this question. Do you feel that way about the person that provides you with your dish machine and chemicals? Because he's the real deal and guess what? He's not going to make you sign a five-year contract.

01:06:08He's never going to say well you signed a contract. It's on you. He goes week to week. You never sign a contract. So he earns your business every single week. I loved it when we had Cam and Nickian from the Red Perch and they said he's like one of our employees when he's in the building. He's that good. You should call him today. If you don't feel that way about your dish machine and chemical person, 770-337-1143 is how you get a hold of Jason or go to nashvillerestaurantradio.com. Click the sponsors tab. There's a special link on there that will get you special discounts for new customers. Call him now. One of God's great gifts to this world was fresh baked bread. That's why Sharpies Bakery delivers six days a week to your restaurant as they've been doing for 36 years. Aaron Mosso's family has been running Sharpies Bakery locally owned and operated right here in Nashville, Tennessee. Like I said for 36 years go check him out at Sharpies.com.

01:07:10That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S dot com or Sharpies Bakery on Instagram and Facebook. Give Aaron Mosso a call at 615-319-6453 to set up an appointment to talk about what fresh bread you'd like delivered to your restaurant today. If people just say it like they just memorized it, but if you stop and you go grant me the ability to, I can't forget the Serenity Prayer now, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change. If you can't change things, why are you stressed? Like what are you doing? Like and that's one of the big things people in active addiction is that they have resentments and all these things that are based around stuff that they can't change. No, it's like you can't, you can't, you're drawing on something. There's something close in my life and for a long time I resented the fact that I didn't receive love the way that I wanted to and then one day it hit me. Well, why should I force them to express love the way that I want?

01:08:13Why can't I accept the love that they have to offer? Right? Wow, that's powerful. That's on me. And when I flip the script of let me just, you know, they're speaking Greek. Let me translate that into English, right? Why should I force them to speak English? They speak Greek. So our love languages are different. So that's the concept behind the five love languages exactly. So does that mean that they are just incompatible with me in terms of like how we how I receive how they express love? No, that means that I could reframe it as opposed to my mother actually just sent me something called the milk the milk carton theory where there is someone who is very upset because their wife woke up earlier than them and they actually they went to a therapist and and this is what was this is what the therapist heard the story of my wife wakes up earlier than me and every single morning she forgets to put the milk away. And so then when I wake up I get lukewarm milk and it frustrates me so much and every single day I ask my wife to put the milk back in the fridge and she forgets because look how disrespectful and how little she cares about my comfort and the therapist goes how long has this been happening?

01:09:25He goes for years because for years your wife has gotten this milk out and left it out, right? Yes. Why don't you buy a second carton of milk? And it's just this concept that when you reframe something to like what can you control in the situation, right? Yeah, you've asked your wife like she's not doing it and like so stop getting so mad about it and it ruins your day when all you had to do is buy a second carton of milk and then when you wake up take the cold one out and put hers back in to be nice and it's just when you reframe it to that perspective there's so much more that's in our control and I feel like there's that that you're able to see so much more beauty in life when you realize and I love that but just because it's rainy doesn't mean you have to get wet, you know, and when you have that perspective and again here we are, you know, sitting in this nice studio, beautiful weather, our lives are good right now and yeah, there's things that aren't perfect but like we're sitting here in a pretty cozy spot and maybe, you know, if you talk to us in a week, in a day, in a month, in a year, maybe we're going to be in very different spots but at the end of the day it's nice when you have these moments where things feel, you know, seem to be going well like take a moment and reflect on why it's going well and then use those lessons when things get hard because they will and and both you and I know we're not perfect at this, right? Oh, no, no, God, no, right and we get stressed and I think it's it's easy. It's hard.

01:11:04It's hard to talk about things like this because I always feel so hypocritical because I know that I'm not great at it all the time and so it's hard for me to be like, oh, this is what we should do and then it's like, hey, how about you hit rewind and play and like listen to that advice, you know, in a week when you're getting frustrated that your kid didn't clean up after herself and she's for a thousand percent. I mean, it's not a do as I say, not as I do type situation, but I think these are interesting points that I do try and practice on a practical level in my life on a regular basis. Am I perfect? No, I think that evolved person though in the moment can raise their hand and say I did that wrong. I did that wrong and I'm going to own that. I mean personal accountability is a huge huge thing, especially in leadership because you know what? You're going to make decisions that are not the right decision. That's part of it. It's can you raise your hand? Can I go to somebody who I've done the wrong thing to and sit him down and say I you know what? I thought I was making the right decision that moment and it wasn't and I'm sorry and how do I make it right? Yeah, it's it's there's a vulnerability that you have to have to sit here and talk like this and say, well, this is I read this book and it's not going back and forth. I think what what you're saying is is really good. It's all really good life lessons. I think there's a lot of people right now that are out there struggling.

01:12:32You know, I just listened to this podcast last week with Brene Brown. I forget who she was talking to but it was amazing. We just talked about all the people from before the pandemic like if you're running your business like it's 2019 you're going to lose because everything has changed. Yeah, everything and people the one thing the biggest difference is now that the onus on people like we have to genuinely care about the people who are leading and the people who are on our teams is not just a hey, I pay you show up do the work kind of a situation not that that's a business I would like to run but that was a general mentality and a lot of businesses like people need to know that you genuinely care about their families and that mental health is real and addiction is real and they're real people that are coming in and they want their why has to be because I'm work for people that genuinely care about me and that's I don't know. I don't know what the tangent I'm going is but everything is changed and people are out there right now. They're not okay. We're trying. I'm trying to share a message of it is okay. Whatever you're feeling out there is okay. And if there's any tidbit of some kind of knowledge that I've read about or learned I want to share it that could possibly anybody could possibly hear that and go wow, there is somebody that has shown me love in a way that I didn't like her that I didn't understand and hearing you say I flip that around to try and understand the way they're they're trying to show me love and it made all the difference in the world. Yeah, somebody may hear that and go, you know what? That's the way that my friend Jenny is doing and I might need to look at that differently. So I think it's powerful to bring some of that stuff up. But at the same time go I'm not perfect. Yeah, I mess up a lot and it's okay and it is okay. And that's why you know one of the things that I always tell my team that I mentioned earlier on this podcast is that the backyard is always on fire. So as you're looking at someone's perfect life as you're hearing about these perfect platitudes know that like you know and you feel like oh well my backyard is on fire

01:14:34and these you know their back life their their backyard is perfect. It's like no man. Now everyone's backyards on fire. I heard someone tell me one time if you treat everyone like they're going through a really hard time, you'll be right half the time. And I think that that's it's so true because whatever the situation is I think it's so critical that we remember that everyone is going through their own journey and you don't know where they're at on that journey at that day in that moment. No, but the key is how do we how do we spread more love and positivity and that's something that I feel I feel so grateful for it. I'm glad you know grateful to come on here on this podcast, you know, one of my favorite poems Max by Max Erman called Desiderata. He says listen to the dull and the ignorant for they to have their story and you know, I'm glad that you bring on a dull and ignorant person to share my story. Well, I you know what I guess that I think it was a blessing getting to meet you the other day and I'm sorry. I came up to him a couple hours later. They had this big exhibit hall where all the people were exhibiting their stuff and I walked up and I was like, man, I'm I'm so sorry.

01:15:45I'm usually much more like friendly and like happy to meet people and you're I you're really interesting and I just I couldn't see and I was in hell. I was just so bright like my eyes were burning. It was not good, but you acknowledged it right like it. So the fact is like you weren't just like oh whatever. It's a tough situation like screw this. I don't know if I'd ever see you again in my life, but I felt like the need like hey look, I genuinely like you were you were you were putting the effort in you were putting the effort. I was in the shade took communities with every but you you're putting the effort in and connect with everybody and I was just over in the corner like a hermit with my hand over my eyes and but like there's a moment where you got to hey look, you know what again, I was wrong. I don't you think that was me and look now you're here sitting in the studio having a conversation what you're here right now for the RMDA you're speaking tomorrow. Yes, the 2022 annual conference. What is this you're doing here in town? This is the restaurant MDA conference like master distribution agreement. I think honestly, I think it says for restaurant marketing and delivery Association.

01:16:52Okay. Yeah, that's what is really cool group of folks who who run the Association and here to talk to a bunch of different delivery companies about hey here here's how things work from the guests experience perspective. So today there's a great guy Josh Copel who came in and shared about the restaurant experience and so tomorrow I'm coming to talk about the guest experience and a lot of data around that guest experience to help them provide a better service has been flirting with Josh for months. He's a good-looking guy. He's easy to flirt with to get on the show. Oh, he is though. He's a good-looking dude. He reminds me I saw when I saw him today. I pulled up a picture of Justin Bieber's former pastor and I was like dude, you look like this guy and he's like, I don't know if I should be offended or because you know caught up in the whole like a fair scandal. I was like, but I was like talking about but did he yeah, he's the president of the California Restaurant Association and he has a podcast called full comp. Yeah, it's fantastic.

01:17:54The dude is tackling some major issues and I'm a little nervous to have on the show. Be honest. He's great. He was on my podcast rockstar super super cool easy to talk to very very generous like with his time and his thoughts and really appreciate that. I'm sending him a message on LinkedIn. I emailed him yesterday and said hey while you're in town, I see you're in town. Why don't you swing by streams like dude, I'm flying in speaking and flying out, but I'll be on the podcast anytime just via zoom and I'm like yes, but I want him sitting in the chair. You know, I love I told when I told him I was coming here. He's like, oh man, I'm going to get on the podcast as well. Couldn't work it in my schedule today. But anyway, he's a really cool guy. I'm stoked for that podcast. Well, you are a really cool guy and ovation. Can people here in Nashville sign up for ovation? Yeah, man, we work with it a thing thousands of restaurants coast to coast all over North America. So you just go to ovation up.com ovation up ovation up.com and cowboy up like cowboy up ovation up. Yeah, I like it.

01:19:00And and it also has like a little play on like a standing ovation. And anyway, so yeah, go to ovation.com and let him know that you heard about it here and whoever you talk to just tell him that Zach said that you could have 2000 free text messages. Oh, I like that for Nashville restaurant radio listeners only. Yes, 2000 free text messages. I'm in a good mood. They aren't text messages free. Oh, not. Oh my gosh. That's the problem. That's probably one of our biggest costs. Oh, is it really text messages even even at at our level of sending millions of text messages. They're so expensive. So expensive to send, which is why what's a deal, but they work. Thank you. 98% open rate. So no, this this is this is the kind of content that I'm really excited to bring to this. You're not a sponsor. I'd love to be. Well, you're not a sponsor. We haven't even talked about anything like that. But this is something that I love. I get to go to places like the RLC and I get to meet people like you that don't necessarily market real strong and not even you're doing your thing. But like independent restaurants here don't necessarily just hear about ovation. I think what you're doing is an amazing tool that will absolutely help restaurants. I'm going to jump on board. I'm going to get one of my restaurants at least to test it out. Let's do it.

01:20:19And then every month is a test. We don't do contracts. Nice. You don't do contracts. No, every every was my favorite thing in the world month to month agreements, right? Like it. So if we don't earn your business this month, then we don't get your business next month. So don't definitely every single month as a pilot. That ass. I love companies like that. This company we have super source behind me here. They're a dishwasher and chemical condition and chemical they make their own chemicals have a plant and they make their own chemicals and they they'll lease dish machines to you, but they have zero contracts. So it's week to week with them and they'll put a dish machine in your restaurant. No problem. And he comes in. He goes, I want to earn your business every single week. And I have so many of the people that come on the show were like, dude, I love them. Like he's the best because he earns it every single week. He's not one of these guys like you signed a contract. You're going to buy this from me. And then it's like he never does that. And it's like that's the thing. I think that's the thing to me. That's very attractive. Well, because it's like if you don't have a product that will get people to stay because it's providing value, then like why that's that's the reason why I think that you could sign these long contracts is because you're afraid that they're going to cancel. And so you have all of these big fines that they have to pay where it's like, you know, when when covid hit great, we put everyone on pause and like, you know, if someone's going through a rough time, OK, we'll put you on pause.

01:21:45Like we'll work with you. And but anyway, but we've got we have a ninety nine point two percent retention rate. Customers love ovation because it's providing that value. And if I'm not providing the value, I don't want you begrudgingly paying me. I want you to pay me and think, holy cow, I can't believe it's that inexpensive for what I'm getting. Like that's the feeling I want. I love that. And I want to have that feeling. That's a feeling that I like to have. Yeah, I like that level of enthusiasm when it comes to my guest feedback technology. I want that level of enthusiasm and I love your enthusiasm. Your positivity is infectious. I will tell you the last thing that we have people do on the show is you get to take us out. You are you get to say the final word. Whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say it, you could say anything that you want. But you you will get to take us out today. Thanks for being here. Mike's on you.

01:22:46I'll give you my life mantra. Choose to live an extraordinary life for an ordinary one will always be waiting. And that's it. I love it. Zach Oates, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. All right, man. Till next time. I'm telling you, I had so much fun during that interview. He is such a bright, energetic, just amazing guy. I had so much fun talking to him and hopefully you enjoyed that interview. We've got a big week coming up the next couple of weeks. Shane Nasby is going to be in studio. You will hear that show come out Friday. Justin Cook from he is our EOS implementer over at our restaurants. That is the traction model and he's going to start off and tell you all about what traction is. This is going to be a game changer. I hope that if you listen to any podcast, you listen as one come up with Justin Cook. It could save your life.

01:23:49It's a little dramatic, but hey, I mean it. Thank you all so much for listening. Please go click the subscribe button if you can. Wherever you listen this, leave me a review. If it's bad, email me if it's great. Click the five stars. Maybe I'll start using ovation. Although not many, you know, it's not just something you do. Let me know. I hope that you guys are being safe out there. Thank you again for listening. Love you guys. Bye.