How Failure Sparked a Michelin-Worthy Comeback

Josh Kopel [00:00:00]:

100% of the people that go out to restaurants have food at their house. Nobody's going out to a restaurant for food or booze or beverage or anything. They're going out to restaurants for an experience or for convenience. Right. And so that being the case, what should we be selling on social media? Experience convenience, not food.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:00:35]:

Welcome to another episode of WISKing It All. We're joined today by Josh Kopel, who is the Michelin awarded restaurant her and a marketing expert. So we'll get into that. But first off, Josh, just want to thank you for joining us today.

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Josh Kopel [00:00:48]:

It is my pleasure, sir. I'm glad to be here.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:00:50]:

Yeah. So I mean, look, first thing I gotta get out of the way is I want to learn more about this, this Michelin awarded restaurants. So tell me, let's get into that because it's no easy feat. So we'll get into that and then I want to, we'll dive into your story deeper. But why don't we start there?

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Josh Kopel [00:01:06]:

Well, and it was probably harder for me than it was for most. I was born out of nightlife, so I grew up running bars in Baton Rouge and just outside of New Orleans into running nightclubs in Hollywood in California. And then out of that I opened a dive bar in Hollywood that was incredibly successful for over 11 years. And then my sophomore effort as an owner operator was a full service fine dining restaurant. I had never worked in a restaurant before I owned one. Isn't it impressive? This is more impressive. I lost a quarter million dollars my first year. Right.

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Josh Kopel [00:01:48]:

I totally shit the bed. And the reason is I knew nothing about doing it, which turned out to be like a massive disadvantage, but also a massive advantage because I started with first principles. I've always been like salesy and marketing centric. I've always loved other people's marketing and it's just not of interest in our industry. But I was interested in it. And I was also desperate, as I'm sure you can imagine after having lost so much money. And that's forgetting the almost $2 million that we invested in opening the restaurant. So it's just a bloodbath.

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Josh Kopel [00:02:24]:

Right? And so I just, I adopted first principles and I got really good at being a restaurateur by just, you know, the constant linear acquisition of skills, figuring out what the bleeding neck problem was in my business in this given moment, solving it, and then moving on to the next. I would say that I was a great bar owner. Not to diminish owning a bar, but it's not a complicated business. It's simple, it's clean, full service. Fine dining most certainly is not. And so I think that that's really what leveled me up and wanting to reach that level of excellence, to set a really high expectation and exceed it. I think that that's ultimately what led to being awarded by the Michelin Guide when they finally came back to California.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:03:15]:

That's awesome.

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Josh Kopel [00:03:16]:

And all of that. So like most people, all of my successes were born out of my.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:03:21]:

That's really cool. I mean. Disclaimer. I do not recommend that you open up a fine dining restaurant with the experience it worked out in this case. But. Yeah, no, no, that's. That's a hell of a story because. Yeah, I mean, just, just, just opening a restaurant in general is, is a hard thing and, and doing a fine dining restaurant is so.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:03:41]:

Kudos. Kudos to you. I'm always curious to understand, like, what got people in the hospitality space in the first place. Right. And so you mentioned, you know, you, you did work in more in, in bars in the begin that. But even if we just take a step back before that, what kind of drew you to the hospitality space in the first place?

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Josh Kopel [00:03:59]:

You know, there's this. There's this sign that I saw in a chick fil a window probably 15 years ago, and it really struck me and it said, if you have a servant's heart, apply within. Which I thought was really cool because I think I do have a servant's heart. And I think that that probably segments out a massive portion of the population that would not be a great fit for their service model. But I mean, I guess to steal their language. I think I've always been a professional servant. I think that, you know, when we do this and we do this at the highest levels, that's what it looks like. I've liked to host, I like to celebrate other people.

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Josh Kopel [00:04:38]:

I like to be a contributing factor in the meaningful moments in people's lives. And so the first time I walked into a bar, obviously underage in Baton Rouge, I saw a stage, you know, I, I saw an opportunity to perform, to celebrate, to be part of other people's revelry. That's what drew me in.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:04:57]:

That's cool.

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Josh Kopel [00:04:58]:

That's.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:04:58]:

That's well said. There is something super special I think about. About being a part of that. Right? It's. It's. I always think about that how in. In, you know, in the hospitality world, sometimes, you know, being on the. On the working side, you lose sight of that.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:05:15]:

But really, that person who's celebrating a birthday or anniversary or Just going out because. Or. Or they're creating a core memory. Right. And. And being part of that in some way is kind of. Kind of cool. It's kind of cool that there's many of those kind of magical moments that you can contribute to.

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Josh Kopel [00:05:33]:

Dude. I took it to the next level. I became an ordained minister online, and I actually married two different couples in my restaurant during the. The course of that.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:05:45]:

I love that. Well, we have something in common, because I was an ordna minister for. Well, the way I worked. I grew up in Montreal, and so in Montreal, you're allowed to apply online, whatever. And then you. You do like a quick course. And I was able to marry two of my brothers. Well, not marry them, but you get what I'm saying? You get what I'm saying? I did two pages.

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Josh Kopel [00:06:06]:

I got you. I got you.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:06:07]:

Yeah. So that's pretty neat. And that's. That's. That's going above and beyond. You're talking about hospitality and guest experience. For you to be minister and married to people is. Is a nice little story.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:06:19]:

That's awesome.

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Josh Kopel [00:06:21]:

It was a blast.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:06:22]:

That's cool. No, I was obviously, you know, reading about you and some of the things you do in your philosophy, and one of the things you often talk about from. From what I've seen, is the concept of kind of going from impossible to possible. So I'd love for you to kind of share. What does that phrase mean to you in practice?

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Josh Kopel [00:06:43]:

So, again, so I owned this dive bar in Hollywood, and then Michelin ordered a fine dining restaurant, and then we spun out the fried chicken dish from that into a fast casual concept and scaled that up, and there was this common thread through all of it, which was simplicity, elegance. Like, how can you do this in the simplest, cleanest way possible? And the other benefit, other than the torture of just this masochistic endeavor of getting into multiple tiers of dining, is that you end up with this really interesting worldview where what you see is that there are common threads that work across all tiers of dining. And so everything that I thought was impossible when I got into fast casual, which is just a very different animal than anything I had done before.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:07:30]:

Right?

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Josh Kopel [00:07:31]:

It was all impossible until it wasn't. And so the reason that I think it's all possible is because I think it's all really simple. That doesn't mean it's easy, right? It just means that it's simple. Right? Like, getting in shape is simple. Right? You just eat, right. And you exercise a lot. And ultimately, on a long enough time Horizon, you will be in great shape. And I think that the same is true for our businesses.

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Josh Kopel [00:07:55]:

And so the reason I think that I, you know, I'm able to attack anyone's problems in this industry with such ease is because there are really only four or five levers in our businesses that really make a sustainable impact, positively or negatively. So, like, once you know what the levers are which most people spend their entire careers just trying to find one or two, life gets really simple. It gets really clean. And so, you know, the idea here is that, you know, there's this limiting belief in our industry that nobody makes any money. Right. Margins are incredibly low. Nobody makes any money. I mean, like, you host this podcast, I host full comp.

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Josh Kopel [00:08:35]:

I've had over 500 people on the show. And here's what I can tell you, Angelo. There is a sea of people, not in the hundreds, not in the thousands, in the tens of thousands, that own and operate restaurants. And they have freedom of time, financial freedom, and freedom from overwhelm. You just need the blueprint. And so I've dedicated my life to just giving that blueprint away for free.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:08:58]:

That's awesome. We'll definitely have to, to figure out where people can get that, because I know right now my. My listeners are thinking, I want that blueprint. So we'll definitely plug that in the show and we'll make sure to add the link too. So don't worry if you're listening to this, you're in the car. We're gonna put the link. You guys will get it. Plus we'll mention it on where to find it as well.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:09:16]:

So that's awesome. Obviously, I got asked, you mentioned the five levers. Can I know what the five levers are or is this only beyond.

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Josh Kopel [00:09:26]:

You can. Absolutely, anyone can. Here's the thing. I don't think Derek Sivers has this great quote which is, if knowledge was enough, would all be billionaires with science.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:09:38]:

Yeah, exactly.

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Josh Kopel [00:09:40]:

Yeah, Totally the truth. And so I think that it's important to get the knowledge out there. I don't think that the gatekeeping has served our industry well over the last 2000 years.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:09:49]:

Totally agree. Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:09:50]:

New customer acquisition is the crack cocaine of our industry. It is just. It is this thing that drives people into living in cardboard boxes underneath interstate overpasses. It's just expensive. And it's difficult. It's difficult to convince strangers to come into your restaurant that have never been in before. But there are all these other levers that you could pull. You know what I wanted desperately for my Own business was gun to my head.

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Josh Kopel [00:10:16]:

If I needed to make more money, how would I make money today? And so I think that the first big lever is frequency. I think that it is really easy to get people to come back in. And the reason is I'm a customer. You are, too. And it's really easy for your favorite restaurant to get you to come back in. Right. I don't think people have a loyalty problem. I think they have a memory problem.

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Josh Kopel [00:10:41]:

I think you love your favorite restaurant and you would be devastated if they went out of business. I also think that the minute you walk out of that restaurant, you forget it exists. Yeah, right. You, like, you walk out and you're like, I own this business. I have a spouse. I have a family. I have these obligations. Like, nobody cares about your business.

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Josh Kopel [00:11:01]:

Nobody. They care about themselves and their lives. And so, like, what do I think we need to do to compel people to come back? I think an invitation is a great place to start. I don't think, Angelo, that I would need to bribe you as your favorite restaurant with a discount or a freebie to get you back in. I think just inviting you back in and letting you know that the menu's turned over for the season or we have this limited time seasonal offer, or we have this or that is probably sufficient.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:11:29]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:11:29]:

Because you forgot that I existed. So I think frequency is like the unsung hero of our industry.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:11:35]:

That makes sense.

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Josh Kopel [00:11:36]:

And the way I know. Right.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:11:38]:

Yeah. Makes total sense. You need repeat customers. I mean. Yeah. When you look at the numbers that people aren't coming back, it's probably the biggest lost opportunity. Because you're right. New customer acquisition is probably the most expensive and hardest things to do.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:11:56]:

I mean, it's possible for sure, but it's a very. It's a slippery slope. Right. It's. It's. It's. It's hard and expensive.

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Josh Kopel [00:12:02]:

Well, it's. I. I think you go after the hard things after you've done all of the easy things. You know, the question that I ask, the question I ask people all the time is like, what happens to your business if everybody that comes in once a month comes in twice a month? What happens to your business if everyone that comes in infrequently comes in once a month?

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Angelo Esposito  [00:12:19]:

Yep.

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Josh Kopel [00:12:20]:

You're rich. We're all rich. So, like, why don't we start there?

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Angelo Esposito  [00:12:24]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:12:24]:

You know, even simpler than that. The second lever would be your per customer average spend.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:12:29]:

Makes sense.

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Josh Kopel [00:12:30]:

How do you get people to buy just a little bit more of what they Already want. You know, I work with a four location juice concept in Las Vegas and their close rate on upsells is 82%. We massively scaled and you don't know how we do it. Every time somebody orders a juice, they say, do you want to add a wellness shot? And people say, yeah, because it's just a little bit more of what they want. When they order a wellness shot, we say, do you want a flight? To which people say, yeah, because just a little bit more of what they already want. When they order a smoothie, they offer extra protein. When they order a craft coffee, they offer them an extra shot of espresso. It's just a little bit more of what everyone wants.

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Josh Kopel [00:13:15]:

I've got this client, Josh Benning with Lucha Cantina in Rockford, Illinois and he scaled his per customer average spend by, I can't remember. It was either $1.18 per person or $1.81 per person. But over the course of the trailing 12 months, that represented an extra $100,000. Engage revenue. So, like, we don't have to do that much to get that much.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:13:42]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:13:43]:

And if we're going to make money and we want to make money quickly, which I think we all do. Yeah, I think that the way you do that is you focus on the people that are sitting in your restaurant today. Focus on the people that already know, like, and trust you. Does that make sense?

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Angelo Esposito  [00:13:55]:

Yeah, I love that. So, so people listen, recap frequency and then we'll get into maybe some taxes. But I love that frequency. Makes sense. Average spend or customer? Average spend makes a ton of sense. How do we just increase that, that ticket size? Love that. Love that. I just, funny enough, I just finished watching.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:14:13]:

I mean, it's a bit off topic, but the, the hormozi book launch and.

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Josh Kopel [00:14:16]:

And the money, I watched it myself.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:14:19]:

And, and I learned a lot about upsells myself. And so definitely it's, it's, it's. Yeah, I love that you're kind of mentioning that because it just resonated because all that stuff is fresh in my mind right now. And, and I was thinking even within our own business, wisk, I was like, man, yeah, we, we just don't ask enough.

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Josh Kopel [00:14:34]:

You see someone like, it's like it's using the tech. Right. So I'm using the tactics in the book. He was explaining to you how to do what he was doing to you.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:14:47]:

It was awesome.

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Josh Kopel [00:14:47]:

In real time.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:14:50]:

Yeah, it was so cool. It was awesome.

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Josh Kopel [00:14:52]:

It's tremendous.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:14:53]:

Okay, so that's really cool. So we got two. There's three more. What's number three on the list?

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Josh Kopel [00:14:58]:

Number three is going to be diversifying revenue streams. This is going to count for, like, three and four. What I figured out when we really began to scale was it the fine dining restaurant was open six days a week to promote my private events business. That's what it was there to do because in my. My fast casual concept existed to promote my corporate catering business. It's the only reason it was there. And so we even put it in places like downtown Los Angeles that were densely populated with offices that ordered catering all of the time. B2B is dramatically easier than B2C when it is a service and product mix.

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Josh Kopel [00:15:40]:

And so we transitioned all of my businesses from B2C panhandling to get people in for dinner on a Thursday night to B2B, which you can control. So what we did was, is we went from trying to convince people to do something that they weren't necessarily inclined to do to looking for businesses they were already doing what we wanted them to do. And then we just extended the offer to handle it for them.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:16:06]:

Hello.

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Josh Kopel [00:16:07]:

Are you hosting a holiday party this year? No. Okay. All go away. But if they are, I've got this beautiful event pack that I'd like to share with you. We'll handle the whole thing end to end, and it'll be an amazing experience for you. And so, like, we had the right assets and all of that, and we could scale infinitely.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:16:28]:

I love that. And it just goes. It just echoes what you said at the beginning, which is simple. Simple is not always easy, but simple is the answer. And when you said simple, I was thinking about, like, the classic example in the tech world is like, Apple, right? Like, they make everything look simple, but it's like, it's hard to make things simple. But.

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Josh Kopel [00:16:43]:

Right. But it's. It's. It's elegance. It's simplicity. And so, you know, you need, like, five calls a day. Five cold calls a day. Law firms near me.

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Josh Kopel [00:16:53]:

Yeah, Love law firms. They use other people's money.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:16:56]:

Exactly.

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Josh Kopel [00:16:57]:

Exactly. Right? Accounting firms, economics firms. You know, it's. We're always looking for these companies that spend other people's monies through expense accounts. Because the problem with B2C, even as it relates to events, is like, you'll call the restaurant, you'll say, yo, I want to throw an event for 50 people. I'll say, what's your budget? You'll say, well, you know, I don't have one. And what I figured out after doing this long enough Is you're not lying. You don't have a budget.

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Josh Kopel [00:17:27]:

Your budget is the most for the least. Yeah, right.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:17:31]:

Always.

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Josh Kopel [00:17:31]:

That is your budget. But you flash to like a law firm that's hosting a holiday party for 175 people.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:17:38]:

They got a budget.

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Josh Kopel [00:17:39]:

They'll tell you, my, my budget is $25,000.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:17:42]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:17:43]:

And they expect you to spend all of it. Because what they're not trying to do is get a deal. What the person on the phone is trying to do is not get fired for throwing a shitty holiday party.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:17:53]:

True. Yeah. That's good advice. I'm loving this. So far. We have a lot of restaurant operators that listen in and owners, operas, et cetera. So this is great. This is gold number five.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:18:02]:

Can you leave them hang? What's number five? So I was three, four. What's. What's the fifth lever?

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Josh Kopel [00:18:06]:

The fifth lever is social media, but everybody's using it the wrong way.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:18:10]:

Okay.

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Josh Kopel [00:18:10]:

So the way that most people use social media is to broadcast, right? To get attention. But I would argue that social media can be used to sell. You talk to most restaurants or you talk to most people and they'll say, you know, I don't really know where the ROI is on it, but I'm sure that like these people eventually end up. And so we use social media systematically for offer dissemination. Okay, so the way it works is this. We put out a post, it gets a ton of engagement. People comment on it, they like it, and then I reach out and I say, hey, Angelo, it's Josh with fruit and proper. I just wanted to thank you so much for commenting on that post.

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Josh Kopel [00:18:46]:

And that's it. And then you reply back and go, oh my God, no problem. I can't believe that the owner actually reached out. And I say, cool, you got anything going on this weekend? And you're like, no. I'm like, oh, well, why don't you come by the restaurant? You know, we just launched this lto. We have this steak special. We're doing this, we're doing that. Just reply back and let me know if not.

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Josh Kopel [00:19:05]:

No problem. But if you do want to come in, let me know and I'll set the reservation for you. Or I'll let the manager know that you're coming in. I'm sure you would love to come by and say hello. No discounts, no freebies. And so let's just do really quick math together. Yeah. So, because everybody wants customers, right? And everybody wants to scale frequency.

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Josh Kopel [00:19:23]:

So if you were to do that 35 times a day, just off one platform, let's say Instagram.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:19:28]:

Sure.

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Josh Kopel [00:19:28]:

Over the course of a month, that would be a thousand offers. Statistically, based on the hundreds of clients I've worked with that have executed this, this strategy converts at about a 25% rate.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:19:39]:

Oh, wow.

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Josh Kopel [00:19:41]:

Think about it. They know you, they like you, they trust you, they follow you, they engage with your shit.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:19:45]:

Yeah, yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:19:46]:

Like if they're not going out that weekend, obviously that's not going to convince them to.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:19:50]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:19:51]:

But if they are going out, it's going to influence their decision to do so. And so you do the math and you go, oh, my God, that's 250 more covers. And it took me 15 minutes a day and it didn't cost me any money. But that's bad math because those people aren't coming in alone. So at minimum, you're looking at 500 covers, probably a few more than that. And so for 15 minutes a day and $0 spent, you can massively scale your customer frequency in a tangible way. And even if you don't, it makes people feel seen and special, which is going to help with conversion down the road.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:20:28]:

Yeah, I love that. Wow, this is awesome. Five Lovers. Really, really interesting. I love the idea of, and I think this point really hit home, is the not always defaulting to discounting. I think a lot of people make that mistake in the restaurant and even just in the, in the business. Right. They always default like, okay, maybe if I give it cheaper, maybe if I give a discount, and often it does the opposite effect.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:20:51]:

And so I like your approach doesn't require that. Right. It's like, hey, let's think about this differently. Not everything has, you know, because I think, I think a big part of this, and you know, our Mosey talks about this a lot, is. But is the, the perceived value. Right. And if you're sure, always discounting. I think there's also that, that less perceived value because it's, it's.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:21:11]:

You don't want to be a discount brand. Right. So it's.

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Josh Kopel [00:21:14]:

Well, but I think, don't you think that that comes from, like, externalizing the customer's voice? So I think for most of us, what we do is like, because you get it all the time, right? Like, you'll get like a 10% off discount from a restaurant or this or that. But like, if that restaurateur just internalized the offer and said, would I get out of bed for 10% off?

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Angelo Esposito  [00:21:38]:

Right. No, exactly.

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Josh Kopel [00:21:40]:

They wouldn't. Like everybody's marketing to other people when what they need to do is market to themselves. Would this get my ass off the couch? Would this motivate me to move? It is one of the biggest hurdles in our industry is, you know, for you as an individual. Right. Value is not what you pay. Value is what you get.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:22:00]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:22:01]:

But then when we market our business and our brand, we assume that for everyone else on the planet, value is what you pay.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:22:07]:

That's so true.

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Josh Kopel [00:22:08]:

It's crazy.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:22:09]:

It's so true. No, it's funny you say, because yeah, that concept, I seen it happen everywhere. Every, I think every entrepreneur makes that mistake is like, that newsletter wouldn't have worked for you. But then you write that newsletter like that, that offer would have never worked on it. But then you make that offer and it's like you fall into the trap of like, would you have done that? Then why are you selling it the way you know you wouldn't have bought it? You know, and it's, I think just that is a good snippet and a good learning because yeah, a lot of people on that trap and I've, I've found myself falling in that trap a lot. So many times I'm writing a newsletter and I'm like, wait, this newsletter sucks? Or you're doing something on a. Like, why am I, this ad sucks. Why am I, why am I doing.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:22:46]:

You know, and you kind of reflect. And a good example I find is with, with referrals in the, in the tech world, a lot of people will give referrals and it's like such a unenticing referral fee. Let's say it's like, ah, 50 bucks to get someone to spend this crazy amount on this subscription. And it's like when you switch gears, you're like, wait, would I do the work of doing that and, and trying to sell someone this thing for 50 bucks? Yeah, probably not. So anyways, love that. I love that. So those are five blueprints. Now I don't want to forget.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:23:18]:

So where can people. But usually I do this at the end. Let's just do it now. Because people are probably listening and say, okay, I want to find this. Let me go to the website. So where can they find that blueprint?

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Josh Kopel [00:23:30]:

So the way it works is it's been built out into a five day masterclass.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:23:34]:

Oh, cool.

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Josh Kopel [00:23:34]:

So it's a five day restaurant marketing masterclass. It's one hour day for five days. It's tactics, tools, strategies. I mean, as I'm sure you and everyone else can hear, I don't do that thing where you tell people what they should do without telling them what they should do, which is my least favorite thing on the planet. And so disingenuous. We just run people through it through all of the frameworks that our clients pay for. And it's free, and so they can sign up@restaurantbusinessschool.com we host it almost every month. And it's free, but because it's free and because it's catered to the individuals in it, it's gated, which means we only allow a certain number of people in because we do background research on all the restaurants involved.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:24:16]:

That's pretty neat. So restaurantbusinessschool.com you got it? I love it. Okay, cool. That sounds awesome. So people listening in. Check it out. Restaurantbusinessschool.com we'll make sure to put that link as well in here so people can find it. But that's.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:24:28]:

That's really. Yeah. Really awesome. I know. I know. A big part of what you do is. Is the. The storytelling, the.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:24:36]:

The branding, and so something that's hard for a lot of restaurants. So any advice that you can kind of talk to. I know, you know, it's not like you're gonna just magically wave a wand and teach people branding in one sentence, but any advice you could maybe give to restaurateurs when it comes to storytelling and branding?

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Josh Kopel [00:24:52]:

I'll give you two things.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:24:53]:

Sure.

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Josh Kopel [00:24:54]:

Number one, I think that we should model our storytelling after soap operas.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:25:02]:

Okay.

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Josh Kopel [00:25:03]:

I think that it's a really interesting way to do business. So if you look back at the genesis of soap operas, really quick story, Angelo. I promise it's worth it.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:25:12]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:25:12]:

When soap operas first came out, they were actually started by and financed by Procter and Gamble.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:25:16]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:25:17]:

The purpose of a soap opera was to sell soap to housewives. But here's the problem is that what they found was, is that midway through the episodes, all the housewives would stop watching. And the reason is, when you look at the natural arc of the story, there is a climax, and there's ultimately a resolution, and so on and so forth. Well, after the climax, everybody stopped watching, which is great for the viewers and terrible for Procter and Gamble that needed these housewives to watch ads. So they did something really interesting. Instead of telling one story start to finish, they started telling three stories start to finish. They started telling multiple stories. And so when you look at a soap opera or you look at any modern drama today, like your favorite detective show, they're not telling one story.

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Josh Kopel [00:25:59]:

They're telling three stories simultaneously. And so what I think we do with our marketing is I think we take it quarter by quarter and we take people through the three Ps. I think it starts with purpose, right. You're going to go from unknown to known over the next quarter. And so I'm going to tell you my background, why I got into this industry, why I chose this location, why I chose this cuisine, so on and so forth. And then I think it's product and process. I think it's showing people the effort that goes into creating an effortless experience. And you talk about local sourcing and cooking and cocktail demos, teach people, inform them, entertain them.

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Josh Kopel [00:26:38]:

That's the purpose of social media. And I think the last part is people, right? Like, I want to be an arbiter of taste. So, like, I'm going to show you the retail shops I like and my favorite employees and my favorite patrons. And I think that if we're telling these stories simultaneously in the same way that a drama does over the course of a quarter, people get to know, like, and trust you. The purpose of social media is just to let people know you exist or remind them that you exist. It is not to sell.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:27:08]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:27:09]:

It is an incredibly low intent platform. You have never gotten on Instagram to figure out where you're going for dinner tonight. You've never been on Instagram on the couch, seen a picture of food and been like, I got to go eat this right now. That's not what it's for. It's not. You don't want to be sold. You just want to be educated, informed, entertained.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:27:31]:

Yeah, that's, it's super interesting. I love that. That's a really good way of thinking of it. So opera analogy is, is a good one and telling more than one story at a time. And it's, I think it's something. Yeah. A lot of brands can, can think. A lot of restaurants can think about.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:27:46]:

Because to me, the classic mistake, again, I'm not a marketing expert, but the classic mistake I see to your point is like, restaurants post like it, like, like they used to when Instagram started, I don't know, 15 years ago, or just like picture of a food, picture of food, picture food. And it's like, of course you could sprinkle some in there. But it's like you got to have a better strategy than just posting, you know, your menu. Right. And, and so I like the way you approach that of, okay, how do you turn this into a story? And the story now has like three kind of pillars and it's good, it's I think it gives people something to think about.

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Josh Kopel [00:28:17]:

So can I let you in on an interesting statistic?

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Angelo Esposito  [00:28:20]:

Sure.

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Josh Kopel [00:28:21]:

Because there aren't that many absolutes in the world. 100% of the people that go out to restaurants have food at their house. Nobody's going out to a restaurant for food or booze or beverage or anything. They're going out to restaurants for an experience or for convenience. Right. And so that being the case, what should we be selling on social media? Experience convenience, not food. Like, great food in. In 2025 is table stakes.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:28:51]:

Yeah.

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Josh Kopel [00:28:52]:

We see great restaurants with great food, great beverage, great service, go out of business every single day. Yeah, it's a tragedy. I have always said that, you know, and I think that this is not only what helped us survive, but really made us thrive across multiple tiers of dining, was that I always pity the people competing on food and beverage. We have the best Italian food in town. Good luck with that shit. I hope that works out for you. Like, for us, it wasn't about that. We believe that people give money to people.

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Josh Kopel [00:29:19]:

And so, like, if you meet me and you like me, you'll want to do business with me.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:29:24]:

Me.

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Josh Kopel [00:29:24]:

If you believe what I believe, vote for me with your money. Then my business continues to exist and it's just a different worldview.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:29:32]:

Yeah, that's good. It's a. It's fresh perspective. And I think it's. I think one that I agree with and just going a bit deeper on maybe the. The awareness side of things. Right. Is when I think about, you know, independent operators, limited budgets, what advice can you give for them to maybe increase that awareness? Right.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:29:55]:

Like, I think we went through that social. And those are good ideas. Like, just more tactical. Is it something you'd recommend they. They just pick up a phone, start kind of filming today? Like, any. Any more tactical advice you can give on. On again?

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Josh Kopel [00:30:08]:

Yeah, I always go with, like, what can we start today?

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Angelo Esposito  [00:30:12]:

Right.

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Josh Kopel [00:30:13]:

We can all agree that word of mouth is the best advertising that there is. It's also the easiest way to create new customers. Customer acquisition. But nobody's codified it. Nobody knows how to do it. And I like to think that I figured it out. I think that word of mouth is based on surprise and delight.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:30:29]:

Okay.

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Josh Kopel [00:30:30]:

I would. I would advocate that surprise and delight is the unsung hero of new customer acquisition. The way that it works is we exceed expectations in an unexpected way. I give you a free dessert on your birthday. That's delight. Not surprising. Delight. Because if I didn't, you'd be like, what the heck, Josh? My birthday.

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Josh Kopel [00:30:50]:

Same with two glasses of bubbles. On your anniversary. Right. If you didn't get it, you would be disappointed. You're delighted that you did, but you expect it. So, like, how do we exceed expectations in an unexpected way that compels people to talk about us? I'll tell you how I did it. An example would be at my fine dining restaurant. We did the same thing that everyone does.

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Josh Kopel [00:31:11]:

So you come in for your anniversary, we say, happy anniversary, give you two glasses of bubbles. I walk up to the table, I crack a joke. Congratulations on being married in a country with a divorce rate of 50%. And then as I'm walking, walking away from the table, I would turn to the couple and I'd be like, oh, do you hear that? And the song playing through the speakers in my restaurant was the song they danced to at their wedding. You know how much that cost? $0. Let me ask you something.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:31:34]:

I'm curious though. How did you find out the song? Like, what was your process to find out?

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Josh Kopel [00:31:39]:

It was either. It was either a single step or a multi step process. So if the husband made the reservation, we called the husband and we asked the husband 100 of the time. He said, I don't know, I'll call you back every time. Right. And if the wife made the reservation, we would then do online research to find the husband. And we would, we would ask the husband.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:32:00]:

That's cool. That's a really cool.

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Josh Kopel [00:32:02]:

And it's amazing.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:32:03]:

Yeah. What was their reaction about seeing that react? The reaction must have been people were floored. That's cool.

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Josh Kopel [00:32:10]:

But it's, you know, it's that Danny Meyer thing where like, what are the opportunities to give them the things to talk about with other people? So someone would ask you, angelo, how was your anniversary? Are you talking about the food? No. You talk about the complimentary glasses of champagne? No. You're going to talk about the song. Where are you going to host your anniversary next year for everyone? You tell about the song and everything that we did. Where are they going to go? And so we just figured out how to build all of these moments in. That's cool. We also did this other one. It was so fun.

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Josh Kopel [00:32:41]:

And we were able to do it at scale. It was beautiful. So if it was a couple and they were having a date.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:32:46]:

Okay.

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Josh Kopel [00:32:47]:

And it was, we called the campaign the Hundred Year Table. And so you two are on a first date or it's your anniversary or whatever it is. We would drop at the conclusion of the meal a handwritten note that Says, you know, we hope that this is the start of your story and our story with you. You can come back anytime for any milestone in your life and your first bottle of bubbles is on us.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:33:15]:

That's cool.

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Josh Kopel [00:33:15]:

It was this, it was this beautiful thing, you know, and because the purpose of surprise and delight is to do a few things. Number one, to exceed expectations in an unexpected way. Number two, to change the way the person sees your restaurant. Number three, to make them feel seen and special so it's predicated upon something that happens to them. And number four, and this is the money. It's always built around frequency day. It's always built around come back, build us into your lives. Because the thing that you've asked a couple of different ways, and I'll explain.

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Josh Kopel [00:33:49]:

I think the biggest hurdle for most restaurants is answering the unspoken question, which is how does your business fit into my life? How do I use you, right? Are you like a quick lunch? Are you the place I take my mom when she comes to town? Is this always my go to first date spot? Is this the place I celebrate my birthday? Like, how do you fit into my life? And if you haven't answered that question for everyone that engages with your restaurant and made it abundantly clear, like, you're already behind, that's good.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:34:21]:

I like that. I'm actually thinking about a neighborhood spot near me that's like for me, just my go to consistent when I just want a good meal, Italian meal, consistent, reasonably bright. Like near the house I have like my Michael. But you're right, you're right. It's like, it makes a lot of sense and it's funny. It goes back to what we're saying about sometimes you know what you want as a guest versus what you give as a, as an operator. And that's right there, that's it. You know, it just came full circle.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:34:49]:

It's like, it's so obvious when you say it, but a lot of the, the best strategies and advice often is right? It's like, it's obvious, but it's not easy to conclude until someone kind of opens the curtain and then you're like, oh, yeah, that, that makes total sense.

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Josh Kopel [00:35:04]:

Why am I not simple, right? Not easy, but it's simple, it's elegant.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:35:09]:

I love that. I love that. And so I'm curious from your perspective, right? Like you, you, you deal with a lot of people in your program, a lot of restaurants. What advice would you give to people who are thinking of getting to the restaurant space? Because that, because my hot take is a Lot of people who get in that maybe shouldn't get in. Right? And then there's people who, you know, who I think maybe should. But, but my, my whole thing is because a barrier to entry of a restaurant is a bit lower in the sense that often it happens from like, you know, you tell your buddy he makes good burgers and then he's like, you should open a restaurant, right? Like, it's like such a conversational thing that unfortunately I think it creates a, a higher proportion of people who really shouldn't have started a business. It was just like, okay, you, you make. But what, what advice would you give to people who are maybe thinking of getting into the restaurant space?

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Josh Kopel [00:36:04]:

What I love about the restaurant industry is it's most people's. I think it's America's first job. The statistics skew heavily in that direction. It's also like the shortest, quickest, most direct path statistically for immigrants to acclimate into the country to build some sort of semblance. And then for families that start their own restaurants, it's the first true opportunity for generational wealth. And there are literally tens of thousands of examples of that nationally. I think that if it's all you've ever wanted to do, I think you should do it, but I think you should do it with this caveat. The barrier to entry has never been lower to get into our industry.

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Josh Kopel [00:36:43]:

Especially post pandemic, there are tons of second gen restaurants you can get. That's not what's frightening. What's frightening is that with the advent of AI restaurant marketing, there's never been a lower threshold or barrier to marketing. And as a result, what you're already seeing, and I think it's representative of the overall downturn in the industry this year, is that like independents that don't market or thought marketing was optional are getting crushed across all markets by those that do. And so, that being said, I don't think it's ever been a harder time to be an independent restaurant. And so if you're getting in, you got to go all in understanding that you've got to do all of the ops, all of the marketing, or, you know, have enough money out there that you can get it done. And if that doesn't compel anyone, then I would just say raise more capital. I would want to have enough to build it out and run it with no revenue for six months.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:37:44]:

Months.

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Josh Kopel [00:37:45]:

That's enough time for any decent entrepreneur to figure things out.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:37:49]:

Well said and touching on. I know as we're coming up on time, there's a few things I want to hit. One was, you know, AI is obviously the, the topic, the buzzword of, of the decade. And with good reason. I mean it's, it's, it's crazy what's going on. But I'm curious where you see AI making the biggest difference in the, in restaurant, in the restaurant world. And you mentioned marketing, so we can go deeper on that. But I'm curious like that and what else from your point of view? You see AI affecting or I guess improving, enhancing, whatever you want to call it, the restaurant world.

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Josh Kopel [00:38:22]:

All of it, all of the above, everything. So you know, we're using it across all. I'm a marketing expert and you know, it's, I like to lead in with that because I think that that's what people are interested in. But the truth is the program touches on everything. And we try and be an AI first company and that doesn't mean that we're creating a ton of marketing content using AI because most of that stuff is shit. It's like homogenous, full of EM dashes, right? And it's like no, no fluff. Like there are all These phrases that ChatGPT likes to use and it's so obvious when it happens. So you know, in that way we don't use it.

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Josh Kopel [00:39:03]:

We use it a lot for strategy. A great quote that I heard was if you treat it like an assistant, it functions like an assistant. If you treat it like an executive, it functions like an executive. I'll give you a big example or a great example of how we use it. Two different ways of how we use it. So the first is we use it to hire, right the first time. So I believe that who you are foundationally doesn't change. And I also think that who you are foundationally is a mystery to you due to Freudian ego barriers.

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Josh Kopel [00:39:34]:

So what we do is we rely on personality tests. So if you Google free disc D I S C assessment, you can take one, everybody listening should. You can disk your whole team. You should. But what we do is we started hiring all of my clients. We're hiring not only leaders, but line level employees saying forget a traditional job description. What are the outcomes we're hoping to achieve with this role? The AI builds out the job description based on those outcomes for the industry. Then we say apply a disc profile that is ideal for that thing.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:40:09]:

That's cool.

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Josh Kopel [00:40:10]:

And then we say build out a job ad that would speak to someone with that personality profile.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:40:17]:

That's cool.

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Josh Kopel [00:40:17]:

And then we publish it. And then a bunch of people apply. And then we say, hey, Angelo, thanks for applying. Could you do me a favor and fill out this quick survey before we schedule your interview, which is a disc assessment. We only interview the people that have the disc profile that aligns with the job description. When we interview those people, we use like Otter AI or Fireflies AI to record and transcribe the interview itself, the questions of which were crafted by the AI. We upload the transcripts of all of those interviews into the AI and then have the AI force rank who we should hire in what order based on not only their disc, but also like their answers to the live interview question.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:41:05]:

Smart. Smart.

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Josh Kopel [00:41:06]:

It's only worked every time we've done it.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:41:10]:

That's smart. It's smart. It's. And it's. One of the biggest opportunities I think in the AI space right now is just the, the conceptualizing behind it. Right. It's like a lot of people are using it just as a Google. I'm searching for something going off, but it's.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:41:27]:

And, and that's where I've been getting a ton of value too. It's kind of like the layering. It's, it's the, it's. It's being the, the orchestrator that can see the bigger picture and connect the dots. And that's a great example you just said. It's like none of those individual things are that complicated. Like someone can upload a transcript and ask. Right.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:41:43]:

But when you kind of piece them all together, I think that's where the magic happens, which in this case, I love it. And I think the audience would kill me if I don't ask for a little bit of marketing advice. Because you're a marketing expert, we're talking about AI. So that was great. On hiring, what areas could we maybe just jump into a bit? I know we're coming up on time, but maybe just jump into a bit on terms of leveraging AI for marketing.

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Josh Kopel [00:42:07]:

So I, again, I think that if we're looking at four walls marketing to start, I think that what they could do is they could easily just drop their menu and their sales data and just ask the AI to analyze it. I think that you can also drop your menu in and say, I want you to optimize these menu descriptions to amplify perceived value, and I think that'll go a long way. I think most people have their menus structured in the wrong way. AI could probably fix it. Probably not as well as me, but probably better than you have it today. When we look outside of that, there are a bunch of resources you can build. I built a custom GPT. There's a framework that I have for newsletters that I think has a high open rate, high conversion rate, does all of the things that we talked about.

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Josh Kopel [00:43:00]:

And instead of teaching the framework, I just built a custom GPT for it. So they just put in what month it is, a link to their website, their first name, their pronouns, and the three things they want to talk about that month. And it just builds it, the entire thing in their voice, in their tone, in their brand. And so I bring that up because if you don't know what to say, you just find a framework you like. You could find a restaurant newsletter that you like, right? Export it to PDF, upload it to ChatGPT, and say, I like this. If I was to do this for me, what would it look like exactly?

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Angelo Esposito  [00:43:38]:

That in itself, I think just, just, I want to echo that because I think that in itself, people don't realize how powerful that is. Is with AI, you could just, just take, figure out the skeleton. Like you don't have to figure out, you could just ask, right? So to your point, you take the newsletter. I like this format. Can you ask me questions so I can, you know, can, can you extract what are the elements of this newsletter now? Can you ask me questions so I can, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But the point is, yeah, I think that concept in itself, we're talking newsletter, but it could be anything. It could be an Instagram post, it could be a video. Like, you know, you take an Instagram post and hey, why I love this post.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:44:15]:

I'm trying to figure out why can you extract what ele are in this? And then boom, you have a blueprint. And I think it's like reverse engineering and then creating a bit of a, A blueprint, right? Of all these things makes for, for such a, A massive impact. So, yeah, this is, this is great. I mean, I might join the five day thing. Honestly, I, I'm interested to see. I don't run a restaurant today. I'm running WISK, which is, you know, we, we, we do help with inventory and all that good stuff. Back of house stuff with restaurants and bars and all that.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:44:43]:

But I always love learning. I'm a curious guy that, I mean, I love your style. I love when people offer value upfront, right? Like I'm, I'm like that too. So like, I love that there's value on this podcast and then you have free 5 days of value and then great, there'll be that percentage of people who you're able to. To capture and are willing to pay. But it's cool that you're just giving value, period. And we're like that too at Wizkin. Big fan of that.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:45:10]:

So you might see. You might see a random application. There might be. It might be me trying to come. But I love this just to wrap up. I mean, I could easily talk to you for so much longer. We might have to have you back because, honestly, I will probably go deeper. I'll wait till we release this episode.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:45:25]:

I'm sure there'll be a bunch of feedback. We'll get you back on and maybe do a deeper session on some marketing tactics. But just as we wrap up again, I want people to get a chance to know you, to find you. Where can they find you? I know you mentioned we can mention again the website, but maybe even just your socials or where they can follow you. Are you active on LinkedIn, on Instagram? Whatever you want to plug. Now's your chance to plug.

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Josh Kopel [00:45:47]:

I. If they go to joshcoble.com they'll find access to everything and they're a bunch of free tools and resources there as well that they can access.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:45:56]:

Perfect. So that makes it easier. So for people listening, again, we're going to put the actual link, but if you're in your car, whatever, It's Josh Kopel K-O-P E L dot com, you'll find everything there. We'll put the links. But Josh, this was awesome. I'm excited. I think we'll definitely have to have you back because it's. I could tell we.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:46:15]:

We barely scratched the surface with you. So I'm excited to have you back in the near future. So we'll be in touch for sure.

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Josh Kopel [00:46:24]:

It would be my pleasure. Thank you.

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Angelo Esposito  [00:46:25]:

This is awesome. If you want to learn more about Wisk, head to Wisk AI and book a demo.

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