Transforming Restaurant Ownership with Andrew Scott: Solving the Burnout Crisis

In this episode, Jeremy Julian speaks with Andrew Scott, a former restaurant owner who transitioned into empowering restaurant owners through his company, Ownership Training. Andrew shares his journey from struggling with restaurant management to founding a company that helps other restaurateurs scale their businesses and regain their freedom. The discussion covers his three-step process to enhance restaurant profitability, effective hiring practices, and understanding business seasonality. Andrew emphasizes the importance of intentional and deliberate actions to transform restaurant operations, ensuring owners can achieve both financial success and a better work-life balance.

00:00 Owner Shift Training
00:44 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:27 Andrew's Journey in the Restaurant Industry
02:14 Challenges of Restaurant Ownership
03:33 Turning the Business Around
08:05 Defining Restaurant Freedom
11:17 Three-Step Plan for Restaurant Success
18:41 Leveraging Technology and Systems
22:09 The Importance of Consistency in Hiring
23:25 Effective Interview Techniques
25:31 Success Stories and Results
27:01 Understanding Business Seasons
29:51 Client Engagement and Ideal Clients
35:28 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Transcript

0:02

This is the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Helping you run your restaurant better.

Jeremy Julian: 0:14

In today's episode of the show. We are joined by Andrew Scott. Andrew's one of my favorite types of interviews because Andrew really scratched an itch that he had, where he was a former restaurant owner who was burning the candle at both ends and really not getting anywhere. And so he created a company called ownership training that really goes out and solves restaurant problems and teaches them how to scale, teaches them, how to get their life back, teaches them how to. I get to a place where they can have freedom in and around their business. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I am. The chief revenue officer for CBS north star. We sell the north star. on a sales solution for multi-unit restaurants. Check us www.Cbsnorthstar.com. Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. As I say, each and every time, we appreciate your time when we come on the air each week to deliver another fantastic guest today is no exception. I am joined by, somebody that's been in the restaurant space for a while, Andrew and I met online and, and I'd love to have him talk a little bit about kind of his background before we jump into what he's, had the privilege of doing. So Andrew, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners? Tell us a little bit about your background and why, Why ownership actually exists and your coaching program and such. But, but really where does it come from? Because, I love your story and I think it, is going to definitely resonate with, so many of our listeners. Cause when I talk to restaurant owners and operators, they're like, they're exhausted and I love the fact that you scratched your own itch and are trying to help people.

Andrew Scott: 1:39

Oh, absolutely. And thanks for having me. it all started a long time ago. I've been in the restaurant industry as a, an owner for it's about almost 20 years now. And my first job was in a restaurant. I'm pretty sure I was like 12. I don't even think it was legal to work at that time, there was a family restaurant. So I got involved in that, I was always in the industry and when I became an owner, I thought at a young age, when I bought my first restaurant, I thought that I was going to have a business and I was going to work like 20 hours a week and make lots of money. Cause Oh, that's what owners do. And reality is very different from that. I talked to so many owners today. And they're like, we just, we wanted another business to have more income. So we bought a restaurant thinking it was more passive and boy, were they surprised. So I was too. I was young. I didn't really know any better. And so I just ended up getting into this situation where The restaurant that I had was hemorrhaging money because when I bought it, they'd given me some financials that weren't entirely accurate and I didn't know any better to question it. So get in there and realize we're just hemorrhaging money. And so I ended up doing the only thing that I knew how to do was work harder. I'm sure you hear this from restaurant owners all the time. I have to work more. To save on labor. I've got to get in there and I've got to do more because I can't trust anybody or no one does it as good as me. Or when I walk away, everything falls apart. So that's what I was doing. And I jumped in there. It was like 80 hour weeks, a hundred hour weeks. And I just remember feeling. Everything was set up perfectly this one September and then I had two full timers quit and so I ended up doing 100 hours a week for about a month trying to get people back in place. So I did this for a while and one of the biggest stressors of all of this, I'll tell you, which prompted some major change was that in order to even get a loan to buy the business, my dad had to co sign it. So he actually put up his house as collateral. for me to get this loan. And so picture this as a young guy, no assets, like there's no fallback plan. It's basically if this thing goes under, my dad loses his house. That's a lot of pressure, to be under. So that's basically where I started. And I eventually found a way to triple our restaurant sales. I was able to actually get it into profitability. I was able to turn things around and then I opened up another one. And another one after that, because why not? because I wasn't busy

Jeremy Julian: 4:00

first pane wasn't enough, right?

Andrew Scott: 4:02

and I got into a position where I knew how to run one. And I thought, Oh, if I can run one, I can run three. And, that turned out to be false as well. So I ended up getting, my whole story has just been a journey of getting into things that I didn't know, like I didn't know what I didn't know. And so many restaurant owners go through this. So I got to three locations. And realize that I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. And, I was getting calls all out of lettuce. Okay, great. I had to go to restaurant depot, bought some lettuce. Hey, this person called in sick. Can you come work lunch? Okay. Ran over to the other store, worked lunch there. Hey, we're now we're running out of cheese. Okay. I had to go and grab cheese because the managers didn't have proper inventory control and ordering. And so running around all of the time, when I got to this point, I was married at the time. And I was like, I can't have the life that I want with the business that I have. And so I had to either get better or get out. And so I chose to get better and figure out how to do the things that would make a multi unit restaurant organization work for me so I could actually have quality of life and the income that I wanted. Because let's face it, I was still working all those hours. I had more top line revenue, but I actually wasn't making that much more in bottom line because all of the inefficiencies started adding up and I didn't have a life that I enjoyed. So I had to figure out how to do that. And then eventually when COVID hit. That's when we went international because I actually was teaching all this stuff. After I figured it out, I was teaching it inside the franchise. And then basically what happened is during COVID, I realized there's a lot of other restaurant owners that needed the help. And so that's how I started this company that now helps restaurant owners do the things that I had to figure out on my own. And the whole goal here for what we do is I don't want someone else to have to go through. What I went through because there's an easier way. You don't need to spend 15 years figuring it out when I could show it to you in, six months.

Jeremy Julian: 5:58

and I'd love your opinion on this because you're not wrong. the amount of people that I talk to that are restaurant owners that get into restaurant ownership thinking, thinking it's going to be fun, which it is fun and it's a lot of energy and you get to meet a lot of people. So there's a lot of great upsides to running a restaurant and owning a restaurant. And it's exhausting. Why do you think it is that people don't, whether it's in school or wherever it's at, people don't teach you these things in a way that, that you know, and I laugh because it's so common and ultimately part of why restaurant technology guys exist, but it's not. Is because I am so passionate about making sure that restaurants do the right thing and can succeed because I do think they're the fabric of the communities that we live in and if they don't succeed, ultimately the community suffer because of it. And so for me, why do you think that is Andrew that you got to that place other than the Judeo Christian work ethic thing that we have in North America, that's like just grind harder because ultimately that's what I heard you say.

Andrew Scott: 6:53

Yep. Oh, absolutely. And that was the only thing I knew how to do. I didn't know a different way. And if only I knew then what I know now, it'd be totally different. I was just working on all the wrong things. I was spending my time doing 10 an hour tasks, instead of looking at the bigger things that would have actually moved the needle a lot faster. I needed to leverage my time differently, but I didn't know how to do that. And most people, when I say that are like, what are the bigger things is because they just don't know. And that's okay. And that's what we help teach people, but as to how and why people get into that, I think people have this conception of business is that if you're a business owner, Ooh, you must be making all this money. It's just, it's a little bit of, Naivete, naivety, either way. basically they, they think business and they say, Oh, businesses must do lots of money. Even when we worked in restaurants, we'd say, Oh man, had a couple grand in sales today. How much do you think the owner keeps out of that? Oh, they must be keeping at least 20 percent of that or even 10%. And so most people think it leaving at 10%, Oh, that's still a good amount of money. And then, and they just think of that per day, not realizing that. businesses can go the other way. And if you don't manage the tiny details properly, it's like death by a thousand cuts, right? 1 percent in your food costs, 1 percent in your labor. All of a sudden you're talking about 20, 30, 40, 000 a year.

Jeremy Julian: 8:08

Yeah. No. and all too often we find that restaurant owners buy themselves a job, and it's a full time job and they're making 50, a year and they're working 80 hours a week to, to get to that. You call what you guys are doing, your restaurant, freedom. formula before you jump into kind of what it is that you guys do, because I think it's amazing. And I think that I'm so excited to get this out there so that you can help more restaurants, but define freedom for me, because I'm a huge Dan Sullivan fan. I don't know if you're familiar with Dan, but I'm a huge Dan Sullivan fan. And he talks a lot about freedom and the different types of freedom. I'd love for you to define what your, Definition of freedom is because again, I think our listeners are gonna be like, yeah, I want that. How do I get, how do I get from here to there?

Andrew Scott: 8:49

Yeah. And so it's really interesting because freedom is the be able to, is the ability to be able to choose where you allocate your time. And as a business owner, you need to be able to choose where to allocate it so that it best serves the business. Now That's one way to express it. The other way I like to say to most people that I talk to is like, Hey, if you want to work the line one day, you have the freedom to do that. If you want to come up with a marketing plan, cause you want to grow the sales, you have the freedom to be able to do that. If you want to just go and touch tables and then go golfing, you should be able to have the freedom to choose where you allocate your time, right? It doesn't mean that there's things that don't need to get done. Doesn't mean that you just never go to the restaurant again. But having the freedom to choose because most restaurant owners that I've talked to and that I see, before they work with us, and this was me too, is I never had that freedom. I had to work the line because someone called in sick or because I was trying to save labor. I had to do the marketing because all of a sudden my sales tanked and I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay the bills next month. I had to do the things because I was forced to. And so I view the freedom piece as being able to choose where you allocate your time and efforts. And for a lot of owners, they're able to allocate their time back to their family because let's face it, a lot of owners. Come to me and they say, Andrew, I'm doing this to leave something for my family, but yet they work 80 plus hours a week and never see their family. And then even when they're home, they're not really home. Cause they're on their phone. They're getting texts, they're getting emails. they wake up in the morning, dreading that, that text saying, oh, I can't come in today. So then they have to fill in or they have to figure it out. So they're instantly in a bad mood. The second they wake up, I swear, it's I used to have anxiety every time I looked at my phone in the morning cause he never knew what shit was going to come out. So anyway, I just want owners to not have to live that life because that is a hard life to live.

Jeremy Julian: 10:44

Absolutely. And I think it's, I think the, the story is going to resonate with so many of our listeners. So walk me through what, you've talked about why you've gotten here. You've talked a little bit about what the end result is, but. Talk us through what is the process that you go through when you engage with a brand? What is it? What is it that allows for that freedom? Because it doesn't happen overnight. You're going to have to be willing to, again, I'm huge Dave Ramsey fan, you've got to be sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I'm sure that the owners that are out there, they're going to have to make some changes about their behavior, about the way they allocate their time and what the, about the way they allocate their capital. in order to do these things, but walk me through what is your process to understand, because not all restaurants created equal, not every one, I'm sure you see a lot of commonalities, but not all of them are the same. So I'd love to have you walk through, what does this look like for, one of our listeners that might be out there that's super interested.

Andrew Scott: 11:31

Yeah. So basically the way that we kind of structure things is we have a three prong plan that we do. the first one is usually around cost reduction and now most restaurant owners will come to me and say, Andrew, I just need more sales. I just need, if I did a hundred grand a month instead of 80 grand, all my problems would be solved. but the thing is most people don't understand that growing their sales actually is difficult, takes time and takes marketing spend. Like it's actually, it's not as easy as just turning a tap on necessarily. Now it can happen, but There's a lot that goes into it. Whereas what most people miss is the actual opportunity that's inside their business with the existing sales they already have. And so that is actually making sure their prime cost is in line. And so when I asked most people what their prime cost is, they have no idea. they don't track their numbers regularly. They, Oh, I got a PNL six months ago. And so our first strategy with people is like, Hey, you've already got this amount of sales. Why don't we start getting profitable with the sales you already have? So for the vast majority of people, there's room to get there when I talk to people, the normal numbers I see are between 70, 75, 80%. That's a very normal prime cost. And so if for all listeners out there, just think about this for a second, every dollar you bring in, if your prime cost is 75%, that means only 25 cents on every dollar you actually get to keep to pay all of your other expenses. That are not actually just putting out the product. That's not a lot of margin to work with.

Jeremy Julian: 13:01

Absolutely. Real quick, before you go forward, define prime cost for us. I know what they are, but for our listeners that may be like, Hey, he's using some lingo that I've never heard before. I'd love to understand how you define prime costs because I think it's important to make sure that our listeners and you and I are on the same page.

Andrew Scott: 13:17

Yeah, I view prime cost as being your food and labor combined. So basically it's what it takes to actually get the product out. So say somebody orders a burger, it's everything that it takes to get that burger out and to that customer. All the products, all the paper packaging, whatever that is, if it's takeout for example. And the labor to, serve and produce it. So that's what I view prime costs. and so the targets we should be looking for is we look for the targets of about 55 percent for our clients. Whereas most people think, oh, if I had 60 percent it would be great, which is good. But 55 percent is where we really want to get our clients. And because with that, all of a sudden half of every dollar that comes in almost goes towards your other expenses. And that allows you, once you hit your break even point, Every dollar after that becomes 45 percent net profit. And that's, we're really able to get the numbers up to, 15, 20, 25 percent profits. there's a lot of margin there. And most restaurant owners will see these numbers and hear them and say, that's not possible because most restaurant owners don't know how to get there. So therefore they think it's not possible. It's not. That it's not possible. It's just, you don't know. And that's okay. Because that's why we have to shift the conceptions of what a restaurant business can be because it can work for you where you can work a normal work schedule and not be bothered at night and have time with your family and make a great living. It is possible. Most owners just don't know how. So

Jeremy Julian: 14:40

I think as you talk about that prime cost reduction, I think it's a, I always remind even our own team at CBS of just the idea that says for every dollar saved, if you're making 20 percent gross margin on everything, or 25 percent gross margin on everything for every dollar you save is a dollar saved. Is, a lot less in the top line sales. So that 80, 000 a month restaurant, if you can get 10 percent more prime cost margin out of it, you're making just that much more so that when you get to a hundred thousand dollars a month, it turns a lot of things over. And because to your point, increasing sales by that 20%, one takes time. And two, if you don't fix some of the other stuff, you could increase even some of your costs on the backside if you're not doing it properly.

Andrew Scott: 15:18

exactly. So thinking about it this way, here's one way that I've explained it to people is that if you grow a dollar in top line revenue, that will contribute. that minus your prime cost. So say your prime cost is 70%. All of a sudden that 1 an increase in sales gives you 30 cents. Whereas if you reduce a dollar in your prime cost. You get a full dollar,

Jeremy Julian: 15:39

You get a whole, yeah, you get a hundred percent of it. So it's such a simple math equation, but I think people don't think about it that way. So I wanted to double click on that just to make sure that we, we hit that point. So you talked about your three step process. What's step two, after you look and evaluate, evaluate your prime costs and ensuring what that looks like. Cause it ends up being oftentimes waste. we've all watched the kitchen impossibles and the bar rescues and nine times out of 10, it's because they're ordering the wrong product. They've got the wrong stuff on the menu that their food cost is totally out of whack Their labor cost is totally out of whack which are your two main? Prime costs that are very controllable and your largest percentages and so going in so you've solved that and I say you've solved that You've gotten them to make those changes to start to evaluate it To build the systems and processes to get there. what's step two, talk me through where else you guys go.

Andrew Scott: 16:25

Yeah, so basically so just to recap step one is making sure you bring the prime cost down and there's a hundred different ways To do that. So we could spend hours Just going through all the different ways that we can find savings and that's already in your business so once we do that, we bring your cost down to where they should be We take the money that we've saved and then we roll it over into You The marketing side, right? So then say we are able to save you 000 a month, something along those lines, all of a sudden we take a portion of that and then we start using that for advertising because think of it this way. if you start advertising and you want to try and spend three or 4, 000 when you're already not making money, it's really hard to do that. making less, so what we do is we save you the money and then roll that over into marketing spend. So all of a sudden we have an ad budget and we're doing it from a place where that, when we do increase sales, you keep more of the money that you make. So then you bring in 10 K in sales extra. now that your prime cost is 55 percent instead of 75%, there's a lot more money that you're keeping in that. And so that's our focus there is to drive up. Your sales and to get more money back in the bank account. And that leads us into step three, which is where we start to actually get your business working for you in the sense of we need to work on whether it be the operation side of things. Maybe we need to hire in some management or some leadership. Maybe we need to promote some people or train them more, whatever the case is. We then need to replace you. To an extent in the business, because most restaurant owners are subsidizing their business with free labor of themselves. And that's just not sustainable for the longterm, because eventually you're going to burn out and get tired and be like, why am I doing this anyway? Because, I'm not like, if I'm working 80 hours, I should be at least making a great amount of money, but I'm not even doing that. So why am I working all of this extra hours when I could be doing something else? So we want to then start taking you out of the business, At least from the day to day part of the business that you don't want to be doing, right? If you want to work the line on a Friday night, go for it. You want to serve tables during a rush, go for it. But we want you to be able to have the freedom to work on the marketing, to work on the bigger finance pieces, right? To make sure your numbers as a business are in line. And that the day to day restaurant side stuff still happens even when you're not there doing it yourself. So then it's about putting the right people in place, the right processes, the right systems. All of those pieces need to get put in place. If we, being on the technology podcast, yeah. How we leverage technology to help do that, There's a whole bunch of tools that people can use, but the number one thing I hear restaurant owners say is, Oh, I don't have time to do that.

Jeremy Julian: 19:07

and I'd love to, I'd love to have you help our listeners and while I would love for a hundred percent of the listeners out there to sign up with you guys and get going on this platform, technology has really, in my opinion, gotten to a place where with your iPhone and. a couple of really inexpensive tools you can replicate yourself in a very easy way by taking what it is that you're doing. You talk about systems and processes, you said it very early on in, in even your own journey of nobody can do it the same way I can. Nobody knows how to do these things. And I hear that all the time. I hear that from a lot of business owners. Talk me through, what are some of the strategies that you think even restaurant owners should be doing today that you don't see? All right, we got our prime cost in mind. We've got sales coming through the door and I'm still exhausted. what are some things that we, that you guys do to help identify where the biggest rocks are that they need to move forward with? Because oftentimes, yes, they loved working the line or they loved working, they loved working, the front of the house, or they loved being a host or whatever those things are, cause they get to see their friends or they like bartending. Yeah. All that's great, but they also need to be able to walk away from it. If there's not somebody there, there's not a system or a process in place. They get stuck. So talk me through where those biggest rocks are that you see commonly across your guys's, group of clients.

Andrew Scott: 20:21

Yeah. And you know what? It's so interesting because there are so many different areas, but it's also not rocket science. And so I want to repeat this because everyone thinks, Oh, Andrew must have these crazy radical strategies that, You know, or, living in, the year 3000. No, it's literally what we're doing here is we're executing the basics extremely well, because there's a big difference in between I'll just give you an example. Every restaurant owner does hiring. But when you do hiring, how good is your outcome from that hiring? Because one of the biggest challenges for a lot of people is they can't find employees that are reliable, will do the job as well as they need to, and be able to free them up. And so most owners will then go, there's a problem with the people, there's no good people. Nobody wants to work anymore. We hear that all the time, but. Not every restaurant is dealing with that. There's a lot that are, don't get me wrong, but not all of them. So there are some that are doing something differently. So it is to the degree of how good we are doing with our hiring. So it's just, people are looking at their food and labor costs anyway, but are you looking at it often enough? Are you detailed enough when you do your menu pricing? how much research do you do about your competition? How much do you actually cost out your menu? And, to the level, like everyone wants to upsell more. how much are you upset? So there's all these really simple things that we could be doing. And the problem is that we don't execute it nearly well enough. All of the time because it's a consistency. So think about it this way Most of the time we're doing all these tasks, but because we're tired everything rests on our shoulders we just end up not getting to it all or not having it done But the best businesses they have amazing experiences, but instead of having it 70 percent of the time They have amazing experiences for their guests 95 percent of the time, right? it's not about, you know You Amazing, like a difference in experience. It's more about consistency and how well you're doing it. So I, when it comes to hiring, I ask people, okay, how often do you do reference checks? And they go, reference what? I think I did one, the first year I started the business. I'm like, okay. So that is one simple thing.

Jeremy Julian: 22:37

how often is that even the interview questions the same across the entire, it's so silly that we say this, but it's like, People just, and I have a friend that actually does this for a living, helps people learn how to hire people. And he's do you have a consistent hire? Have you ever been trained on how to hire somebody? Because almost none of these restaurant owners have ever been trained and they go, Susie's pretty good. maybe we should just make them all look like Susie or, Steve or whatever it might be. And unfortunately they create zero systems. They create zero processes and they go, would I be willing to have a beer with this guy or this lady? And if I would then, and they've got a heartbeat and they show up next Tuesday, then I hire them versus going through what are your goals? What are your objectives? What is it that you're looking to do? Why are you here? Why did you leave your last job? If that's something that you know has bred success for you, you should have a system and a process to do that. I don't care if it's on a scratch piece of paper. If it's in a note on your phone, some way to go about it. And I'm super passionate about this because I, again, you're laughing for those that are on video. You hear, because you hear it every day. Do you not?

Andrew Scott: 23:37

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So I'll give listeners one trick that we use. it's just using past behavior questions because the real truth is people can change, right? But the likelihood of them changing is less than what we think it is. And what people did in their last position. most likely be what they do with you and they will do what they're generally https://share.descript.com/view/f2XLUvrxain most naturally inclined to do. So here's an example of this. One of the questions of, for interviews for any service positions, I always said, okay, what's your most memorable experience with the customer? And so we'd have somebody that would say, Oh, this one time, somebody got the wrong order and I gave them like, I upgraded their fry to a large instead of a medium. And I'm like, okay, cool. And then this other person says, my favorite experiences is that the Susie comes in every Tuesday night with her family, right after soccer practice and she comes in, Oh, and you know what, her daughter, Bernice, I'm just making up names at this point, had a birthday, last week and actually what was so memorable is that. for that birthday, they came in and they gave me a hug because I always serve them every Tuesday night. And Oh, actually Friday night, actually, this might even be a better story. Billy's uncle was in the hospital. And so I was able to package up some to go stuff for them because he always loves his, hot dog, like whatever the case is, So but someone going that deep with people's names and their situations and you're like. Okay. It's clear that is a pattern for that person. They are naturally going to do that where the other dude, not that it was bad, but he's not naturally inclined. Cause otherwise there would be more depth to his answer,

Jeremy Julian: 25:05

hmm. or, I love it when people say, I have six examples. How much time do you have? Like that, you said that and I love that idea. And if you don't have a system and you're tired, You just had a crappy shift and then you go do an interview and you don't have a system to go back to that. You'll miss that question nine times out of 10 because you're tired, you're busy, you need a body because somebody called out six, somebody, somebody is not here. and so you shortcut those things. Is that, at the end of the day, Andrew, is that kind of, you've got so much experience, you've got coaches all over the place that are doing these things. Is that how you guys see these restaurants succeed and yeah. What are some of the results, at the end of the day with some of the clients that you guys work with?

Andrew Scott: 25:45

it's very common for us to see people make 10 times what they spend with us. that's usually an easy way for me to phrase it. But it's not uncommon for someone to all of a sudden they go from losing 5, 000 a month to making 10, 000. 10, 000 a month, literally after working with us for four months. It's not uncommon for us to save someone 10, 000 or more in their first few weeks with us, just in, whether it be we're renegotiating prices with them, as far as their vendors go, or we're finding hidden things in their menu, or, we're looking at their PNLs differently than what they had ever done before. A lot of people also think their accountant. Is the one who's going to tell them what they should do in the business. The accountant is someone who presents the information to you, deals with taxes. They are not an actual CFO, just FYI. but anyway, so most people will see that. And so usually when they work with us for four and a half months, they will come out making more money than when they came in, we actually see most people will double their profits, from when they came in with us and they will work less hours. And. Most restaurant owners that haven't worked with us are like, how is that even possible? But it's by putting these things and actually doing it well. So like doing the hiring better than what they're doing, all of a sudden leads to less turnover. When you have less turnover, you're spending less on training, for example. And then all of a sudden you have better caliber of people there and they make less mistakes. They give better service. They are more efficient. So your overall labor goes down. And it's less stress for you. So you have more time to then go and build the business. And so it's just this virtuous cycle that we try and get into by doing the right things. another big thing to, which we can talk about is actually predicting the seasons of your business, that a massive shift that we get our clients to do, and it, and they never see the business the same way after that. So I can talk about that in a sec. But results wise, most of our clients stick on with us after they work with us for four and a half months reason being is simply because it's probably one of my favorite stories. we have this couple, when I first talked to them, they were in the kitchen, the tickets, the printer was going off and they had to switch back and forth. Okay, I'm going to go and make this order. And then another would come in and then they would switch. And so basically they would have this conversation with me and they were just like, Andrew, we want to open up more locations, but there's no way that we could ever open up more locations with the way the business is running right now. There's no way it could happen. And so I said, okay, wait a few months, let's check back in a few months to see how that goes. And so what's so funny is they were like, okay, whatever, Andrew, you're crazy. And they came on and they worked with us. And sure enough, four months later, instead of sitting in the restaurant, they were sitting at home. on the little island in their kitchen. And they said, Andrew, we've been looking at this second location and I just laughed because that was what they had wanted, but they didn't think they could ever grow and open up another location with the way things were going. And, but once we fixed it, all of a sudden all these possibilities opened up. So they went and they opened up a second location and then a third one. And so those are the kinds of results that we see with people. And unfortunately when most restaurant owners, I just, I kind of joke about this, but we get cynical, right? Like the amount of people that comment, Oh, that's not possible. Andrew, you're full crap or whatever the case is just because they don't understand how it could possibly happen that they would make more money or work less and stuff like that. And so we get so cynical, but it's just because we are so used to being beaten down and the last four years have beaten us down a lot and all sorts of different ways. So we were just stuck in this place of, being just frustrated and, That's what I try and share people. like a lot of times when I talk to them, I give people big numbers. So it shifts their perspective on what's possible. Because if you believe it's possible, then you can start to think of solutions to be able to make that happen. And then all of a sudden you're more likely to achieve it. But if you don't think it's possible to hire the right people, guess what? You're never going to hire the right people. If you don't believe it's possible to have more than 10 percent profit in a restaurant. You're never going to have more than 10 percent profit restaurant. So we need to lead with that first and then move forward.

Jeremy Julian: 29:36

Yeah, no. And I love that, that idea and I always like to, create this analogy when you are trying to get fit, you go try and figure it out on your own with zero accountability, ultimately you get stuck in the same spot. You go hire a personal trainer and there's something bought in. You're going to do the work that, that, that ends up getting there. And you're either going to change and make it part of your lifestyle, or you're going to continue to pay that trainer, which is, it sounds like you guys have some really good success that, that people end up, end up continuing to move forward. where do you guys work, Andrew? what is your ideal client? Who are those people that are out there? Is it the three to five unit operator? Is that the one unit operator? Like, where is it that, for our listeners that are all over the world, really, when I look at the download statistics, but primarily in North America, I'd love to understand what does engagement look like? What is that? you talked about this for four and a half month, engagement. Talk to me a little bit about, what would it be like if I was a restaurant owner and I'm exhausted, I'm coming in, we're recording this right before the holidays. life is going to get crazy outside of the restaurant as well as inside of the restaurant. What does that engagement look like? And how do they find you guys? What is that, path forward?

Jeremy: 30:42

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Andrew Scott: 31:42

yeah, so basically we work with typically anywhere from, we've had as many as I think 20 units. but I would say our most commonly we are working with one to three unit operators. and usually the people that we work with are people that are not making the type of money they want and are working more than they want and don't have time to do that. To be with their family. And one of the goals for most of our clients is to someday expand. They just can't do it based on the way things are right now. So those are the people that we work with. usual revenue ranges, 40, 000 and up are pretty common for us. We do work with some who are a little bit less than 40, 000 monthly, but the majority are 40 plus, some as high as, three, 400, 000, but just depends on what the situation is. I think it's new client we brought on something like 27 million a year. So there's a range of people that we work with, but. Nonetheless, it's, it really challenges us as coaches sometimes to be able to fit within all of those. but it's, that's part of what we love about it. Cause everybody's situation is unique. Everybody has these different challenges and different things that they're facing and we meet you where you are. And so most people probably heard about, step one, two, three, that we talked about earlier, but what we do when we coach people is we look at your situation and say, okay, for you right now, What is the biggest thing that we can work on that's going to make the biggest impact, right? So if you're stuck 80 hours in the business, hey, we help you get the right people in place first. And then we work on the other things, or if you're looking at the holidays and going, my sales are about to trend down in the winter. Cause that happens for a significant amount of restaurants who were in cold weather climates. All of a sudden we might be working on your marketing. Prior to that, to make sure your sales drop isn't as severe during the winter time. So we focus on whatever that means for you. our first engagement is four and a half months with people. We call it a sprint, cause it's 18 weeks. And the reason why we do that is it's long enough to get some real results, but not too long where people stagnate. Cause like you mentioned, going to the gym and stuff like that. If you have eight weeks with a trainer, you're gonna make the most of those eight weeks. If it was a year, you'd be like, yeah, pressure's off. I'm sure I'll do it later. So we try and keep that short because we want you to come in and actually take some action and get the results, right? That's what we're here to do. And most restaurant owners, they come to us when things are not going great. So we need to get them some results very quickly. So that's basically how we do it. We coach people. We have coaches all throughout the U S and Canada, all based in, everything from fine dining to, drive throughs to everything in between, we have certified chefs on our team all the way to people that are, Expert bartenders, and then people like me who are more of a business focus who did the operations of the restaurant because it was part of the business. I am more of a business focused guy myself. And so we have coaches like that as well, who handle the numbers. Yeah, we have marketing people on our team that we can work with. So there's a lot of experience that we've put on our team to be able to help everybody based on where they're at and what they need. we view ourselves as like a one stop shop. you, we will basically help you with all areas. There's tons of companies out there that help with one specific thing. Our goal was to help with everything because we come from restaurant ownership ourselves. The majority of the people that work on our team have either own restaurants, still have restaurants, or have been high level. GMs and regional managers. And so that's where we get our people. Cause they've been through it and they've done it. And that's what I love about our company. I built it to basically help me back when I needed it.

Jeremy Julian: 35:01

I love that. And I, it's one of my favorite things that I get to do on the podcast is just listen to entrepreneurs that have scratched their own itch, something that they created out of nothing. to really end up solving a problem that they had or that they saw in the marketplace. And then they're making six, they're making some inroads and really helping people's lives. Because again, as I said, I'm passionate about restaurants. I'm passionate about watching how they impact communities. How do people get in touch? How do people learn more? How do, they've sat and listened. Obviously you've got growth minded people. If they're listening to the podcast, they're looking to get better. And so now they're at a place where they're like, Hey, I'm going to I need to talk with Andrew. I need to talk to somebody on Andrew's team. How do they engage? What do they, what can they expect? once they jump on and engage with your team.

Andrew Scott: 35:42

yeah, so easy, To get in touch with us, Ownershiftraining. com is our website. you can literally just Google us as well, Ownershiftraining. other ways I am on social media as well on TikTok. Andrew R. Scott, there's a number of Andrew Scott's. There's actually an Irish actor named Andrew Scott. So I have the R in there just to try and differentiate a little bit. but I'm on all the platforms as well. My YouTube channel, if you search, Andrew R. Scott restaurant, that'll come up. so yeah, those are a few things, but one thing when we first engage with people, and I mentioned it a little bit earlier is the seasons of your business. I just wanted to briefly touch on that because this is one thing that most people don't get. most people know that sales trend down in the winter, sales go up in the spring and summer, but most people don't know. The far reaching effects of that and how it affects even their internal hiring and stuff like that. So let me give you an example. So what ends up happening is in springtime, a couple of different things happen. Sales go up, which means that everyone needs to hire more. So all the businesses in your area start to hire more because Sales go up, right? They need more staff to meet the demand. Everybody gets that right now. Here's the other thing that happens that people don't consider is that university and college, they actually, go into their exam season and then people finish that now on the face of it, everyone's Oh yeah, that totally makes sense that happens, usually, like April ish, that's very normal. And so what ends up happening though, is all those people who had jobs, For example, all of a sudden leave their jobs because then they're going somewhere else for the summer. A lot of university colleges are transient. They will go back to their hometown, they'll move and stuff like that. So all of a sudden there's a lot of two week notices that go in, they go through their exam period, and then they also don't go back to work right away. They leave a few weeks where they're actually going and enjoying their summer before they get that summer job, right? They're trying to enjoy themselves, Burn off some steam for school and stuff like that. Now, what does this have to do with the restaurants? even if you don't hire people that are in college or university or whatnot, it affects the overall job market because all of a sudden, not only are there less people in the job market, because again, they're not looking for work and they're taking, four to six weeks off between exams and moving and all that kind of stuff, but all the places that they were working, their jobs have to be filled. So now There is a bunch of vacancies. And so people are looking to hire and then sales are trending up. So then you need to hire even more. So the gap that's needed to hire is even bigger in the labor pool is even smaller. So even if you don't hire college and university students, the job pool as a whole is actually affected around that time of the year because all the other businesses are now looking for more employees. All the restaurants are like, I literally say, okay. Just, mark my words in April, you're gonna see help wanted signs on the road by every grocery store and walmart and like every place you can imagine. All the restaurants are gonna be hiring for those reasons. And so what that means is that because there's less people in the labor pool, that means that you as an owner are probably gonna work more. Because you don't have the right staff, and even if you do get some staff in, you're going to have to train them, which takes time. Now, the other thing too, is because the people you're hiring at those times, they're going to be, bottom of the barrel is the wrong word, but because Everyone else is hiring the people that pay the most and are the best opportunities. We'll take the best candidates and because there's fewer people, you are probably going to be left with what's left over if you don't have a job, that's extremely compelling, right? So you're ending up getting people. That couldn't get jobs elsewhere. And so ultimately you're then struggling with working harder, not getting the right people. You will have higher turnover during that time. And then it usually takes about four to six weeks for this to fix itself. So usually what I see from restaurant owners is typically in April and may. They noticed this and they're trying to hire and everyone's freaking out. Same thing happens in about September to mid October. Same thing happens there, only it's a little bit different because sales are, trending down a little bit instead of up, depending on where you're at. So the point is, once you know your seasons, you can then start to do things differently to preempt that. here's an example. What if you started hiring in February to get ahead of the turnover that you were going to have in April? Now I say that and everyone goes Andrew. How am I going to find the money because I'm slow in February? I'm like, let me ask you a question. I had a client ask me this question once I said, okay So here we are february 1st. I said he should hire and he's like andrew. you're off your rocker I can't I don't have hours for those people. Anyway And, I don't have the money and I'm like, okay, great. So how long does it take to hire someone? He's Oh, it takes a week or two by the time that I, put out ads and I interview them and make the offer, blah, blah, blah. And I said, okay, how long does it take to train somebody? He's Oh, three or four weeks. I'm like, okay, so that's six weeks. It's February 1st. Okay. By mid March, are you busier or slower than you are right now? He's I'm usually busier. I'm like, okay, so if you're busier, do you think you would have the hours for the person you're going to hire is yeah, and I'm like, okay, so you're freaking out for a problem that doesn't actually exist because by the time we do that, you will then have the hours and then there's going to be turnover and people leaving and changing their availabilities and stuff like that, and then you'll be prepped for that because here's what I see from so many restaurants is that twice a year. For a period of about six weeks, each time, both in the spring and in the fall, they get sucked down into the business. And so they are in survival mode instead of being able to work on building the business and moving things forward.

Jeremy Julian: 41:12

And being able to capitalize really on that sales pickup and all of what you said.

Andrew Scott: 41:17

Absolutely. Because think of all the things you could be doing during your busiest times to make the max amount of money possible, but you're not because you're just trying to survive. And some people, in past years have even changed their hours because they don't have the staffing or they close on a certain day. These are things that people have done because they weren't able to find the staffing because they didn't get ahead of it. And so This is something that I noticed because if three months out of the year you're focused on survival and not moving your business forward, that makes it very challenging to have a successful restaurant business. And once you actually understand your seasons, you get ahead of them and do the things that you need to do in advance. if you know that January, February are going to be slow, you should be planning your marketing in November. Instead of scratching your head mid January when your sales have tanked and you're like, Oh my God, what do I do? I need to do some marketing because it's going to take a few weeks to actually get it out and to see any results. By then your sales are going to be trending up in March anyway. So point is we need to get ahead of our seasons. And once we do that, we start to become the sophisticated type of restaurant owner that isn't worried about, the things that will affect our emotions. one person quitting. No worries. We've already got people in the pipeline because I was expecting it. So you're able to then work on your business instead of in it, but it's by recognizing the changes that happen on a day to day basis over those seasons that allow you to do that. And that's one of the first things we teach our clients how to do, because once you know your patterns, you can then change what you do, which will then change your patterns and allow you to go above it.

Jeremy Julian: 42:41

I, Andrew, I'm blown away with how much value you've given our audience. it, the big thing that I take away from our conversation over the last 45 minutes or so is deliberate and intentional. Action towards where you want to be, not where you are today. and, it's where you want to set, ownership training. It's, it sounds like it's just a huge, you guys, that's going to help people get to where they want to get to solving problems. You wish you would have had you in your life, 15 years ago to be able to help you get to this place. Cause, probably would have had a different life. And, and at the end of the day, probably, would have been less gray hairs and less frustration in the world.

Andrew Scott: 43:15

Absolutely.

Jeremy Julian: 43:16

Andrew, thank you so much for, spending time, sharing your wisdom, sharing the things that you've been able to create to our listeners. Guys. Thank you guys so much. If you haven't already subscribed to the show, please do so whether it's YouTube or on your favorite audio listener and make it a great day.

43:31

Thanks for listening to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Visit www. RestaurantTechnologyGuys. com for tips, industry insights, and more to help you run your restaurant better.