The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
Unlocking Restaurant Success with Seth Temko: Innovations, Strategy, and Market Penetration Insights
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, Jeremy Julian is joined by hospitality tech veteran Seth Temko of Full On Strategy. Seth shares insights from his 25 years in the industry, discussing his various roles in pioneering restaurant tech initiatives and innovations. They delve into Seth's newest venture, Full On Strategy, a consultancy aimed at helping restaurant and tech companies implement effective go-to-market strategies. The episode explores the importance of awareness, education, and touchpoints in marketing, how to identify and address early signs of unmet forecasts, and strategic advice for scaling a business successfully. Seth and Jeremy also emphasize the role of emotional selling and the necessity of data-informed marketing. A valuable listen for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of successful restaurant tech implementations and business growth. For more details visit fullonstrategy.com or connect with Seth on LinkedIn.
00:00 Audio Full On Strategy
00:58 Introduction and Guest Background
01:37 Early Career in Hospitality Tech
02:44 Innovations and Missed Opportunities
04:09 Career Transitions and New Ventures
05:50 Founding Full On Strategy
06:57 Consulting Services and Approach
11:09 Marketing Challenges in Restaurant Tech
19:24 Understanding Buyer Psychology
21:29 The Importance of Doing the Right Thing in Marketing
22:55 Understanding Marketing Attribution and Data Points
27:00 Challenges and Strategies in Marketing Alignment
33:28 The Role of Marketing in Hyper Growth
38:20 Engaging with Full On Strategy
This is the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, helping you run your restaurant better. In today's episode, I am joined by Seth Temko. Uh, I've been reading a lot of what Seth has written over the last couple of years as part of a blog that, uh, he's been publishing on, but, uh, today's episode was pretty amazing to catch up with him, learn a little bit more about his background, some of the success he's had, as well as his new endeavor, full on strategy, he is helping restaurants. And technology companies to continue to make meaningful changes within the industry. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I am the chief revenue officer for CBS Northstar and we sell the Northstar point of sale solution for multiple units. I would encourage you to check it out. cbsnorthstar. com and now onto the episode.
Jeremy Juliam:Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast I think everyone out there for joining us as I say each and every time I know you guys have got lots of choices so thank you guys for hanging out with us today we are joined by a face and a voice that has been around the space for a while but he's doing some different things and Seth and I got a chance to catch up just before we hit record and I'm excited for him to share A lot of what he's been doing recently. But before we jump into that, Seth, why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners and then we can talk a little bit about your newest venture and why you felt called to do the things that you're doing. most recently
Seth Temko:Sure. Thank you so much for being on the show, and I really appreciate the time and enjoyed the conversation. Pre show. my background has been in. I've been in hospitality tech in and out for 25 years, so I guess I would say I have a passion for it because every time I leave, I miss it and I come back.
Jeremy Juliam:it to all of the guests in the past. It's you know what, there's got, there's going to be some really multimillion dollar consultancy. That's going to, some therapists that's going to come out about restaurant people that can't get out of the restaurant tech space. Cause there's so many of us. sorry, I'll let you keep going.
Seth Temko:no, it's fine. so all the way back to web 1. 0 days, worked with, yeah. a startup in San Francisco, in the go days before SAS, where you had to have your own tech stacks and servers. And I was head of product management for restaurant tech products, but also other, verticals as well as multi vertical solutions that we have. Video over the internet, wireless, electronic free pours, centralized coordination for labor and scheduling way before it stays. we're absolutely right with the technology and absolutely wrong with the timing.
Jeremy Juliam:I've been there too, after 28 years in the space I've watched, I was trying to explain to my kids how some of the stuff came about. They're like, it used to be, they used to be connected via these kinds of cables. I'm like, yeah, just leave me alone. Be nice to me.
Seth Temko:And I will share that, one of those little oops at the time was, there was this little startup that came across and, the VCs behind us said, Hey, these guys are for sale. are you interested? And we looked at their model and we're like, we don't like their business model. Now let's pass on that. Now that company is called open table.
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah. I never thought it would work, quite frankly. I never thought that restaurants would spend the money on table reservations, and now look at, look at where they're at.
Seth Temko:yeah, just a monster beast. obviously we didn't understand a model that was going to work and of course that worked out really well. and from there I, I was a CTO and in charge of, engineering for materials for, liquor pouring control devices, free pour. and we're really advanced and early in the technology. So when the first iPhones were coming out, we were taking the accelerometers and that used to make that functionality work, which was completely groundbreaking and completely novel, and we were putting it in free pour liquor spouts to know pouring and angle and how long and timing and all that. and that was, a space where we were involved with hotels, casinos, resorts, really big properties. million dollar plus bars that we were in. So Cosmo, Treasure Island, MGM, Mohegan Sun, big names. And then, the great recession hit, there was no CapEx spending in the hotel, and I decided that was a good time to get out of the industry. Started a recreational youth sports, national franchise system with a friend. And then I had the opportunity to come back in the industry to work, for Christopher Seebs, who he and I had gotten to know each other. Back in the earlier days and he needed a head of marketing and I went to work at what became Xenial, it was Heartland Commerce to begin and, in short order, Heartland was, the deal was closed by global payments and we acquired Sycom in that process and, we were building a cloud platform. Hence, behind me, your POS is obsolete, right? Move to SaaS. that was really a great time and I really enjoyed that we're going to bring some new technologies to an industry that tended to resist new technology change. It was a lot of fun.
Jeremy Juliam:that's an understatement,
Seth Temko:Yeah, from there. Then I left the industry, worked at Yext, which is a marketing technology company for a couple years and a VP of go to market role. That was during COVID. That was interesting times for everyone, but there were four main industries we were selling into. Restaurant retail was one of them, so of course. We had to go alternative. I'm there standing up an Adobe partnership and government partnership and, higher education. We were trying to see where we could, garner other revenues. And then, I once again, missed the industry and it was a CMO at Touch Bistro, that was a great experience, great organization, really enjoyed working for Samir Sabania. And then, I got recruited by PAR and I became the first CMO at PAR technology. and I wasn't there too long. I left, decided to make a change, really got God centered in what to do. And he's you're going to do your own thing. So we started full on strategy. There's a team of a dozen of us and, we really help restaurant tech companies. We also work with restaurant groups and we work in really two key capacities. One is we do go to market evaluation and strategy work. So we do the kind of work that you would want to hire a McKenzie or a big company for, but we do it at a very affordable price. We analyze product positioning, people, accounts. we get to understand your revenue and financial forecasts. We assess your current programs, technologies. We'll look at competitors. And then we craft a plan to help those companies meet their goals. That's really what we do. And we provide all the playbooks to do it. Sales playbooks, marketing playbooks, product playbooks. Half the time, we get invited to help implement and stand up some of those programs. Because at that point, they really believe in the strategy and they want speed to value. And so we help them. The other half the time, they have appropriate resources. And of course, we do a little bit of advising through that handoff period. And then they go and they execute on that. and then we also work, to help with marketing and marketing augmentation. We've been working with restaurant groups to evaluate marketing programs there and help them multi unit locations. we have a number of partnerships, including branded hospitality, results for strategy, ink tank. it's been a lot of fun. Two years.
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah. And how long has the, org been around?
Seth Temko:We're going to have two years next month.
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah. And like I said, for anybody that's in listening to the show, I am certain you've seen something that Seth has put out in the last, 20 years because between Touch Bistro and PAR and Xenial, there's just been so much that's been out there. And I know you've been doing some work in the space as well. for tray most recently. And I love that. So Seth, help me understand why you think that, why does, why does the organization exist, let's talk a little bit about the passion behind why you think it's so important that we need another consultancy to help people get to market. And again, I know prior to, but I'd love for our listeners to get a chance to hear your passion behind why you've seen, both the success of the things that you're doing, as well as the failures and things that, that you think you're solving uniquely at, at your guys's firm.
Seth Temko:within the industry and also an, clearly living through the transition and the penetration of technology into the industry. And, everybody looks at restaurant, the technology and the restaurant. I look at the entire supply chain and there's a whole lot of things happening with logistics. With supply, with, inventory, accounts payable, receivable, and it, AI is coming in. AI is the next round of, revolution, and I think the current startups, and there's some new ones coming out, that are going to be the next, level of innovation in the space. it's constantly renewed, I find. That I'm attracted to innovation. I love to help people. I love to learn and understand. I love to share. So moving into consulting is a natural way that I get to help people. And if I deliver enough value, they seem more, more pleased and I can make a living and bring others into it. So there's a natural bend to do that. But ultimately, we understand things from the perspective of a startup and you're new and you're trying to figure out a market and how to penetrate. And I will say there's a number of companies we've been working with outside of the U. S. that are looking at the U. S. market because, of course, by dollar spend, the U. S. is the biggest market in the world. So there are a lot of companies that are attracted to moving in. And so we help educate them on the market and then orient towards where they could start. We can even help them get their first clients or help them begin the process of a reseller channel organization if that's something that they need to get going. and then we can work with bigger companies. Typically, they're asking us to help if they're a little bit in the valley, not on the mountaintop.
Jeremy Juliam:Cause if we're on the mountaintop, they don't need any more marketing. they got enough deals coming through.
Seth Temko:they, they have enough diversified channels and revenue growth and they're hitting their forecasts. the pressure is when you have made commitments for revenue deliveries into the organization. And that you're potentially at risk or you've already started processes of failure. And there are early signs and indicators, leading indicators that you're not going to hit your future forecast, right? for us, it's, it's a really great process to take all this experience and knowledge we have in the industry and help not just one company at a time, which is what I was doing before. But work with a whole range of companies, and it's always interesting how you can find synergistic effect. I meet with up to 50 different companies in any given year. I work with up to a half a dozen restaurant groups in any given year. And there's abilities to bring that together and help the industry. ultimately, If I can help lift this industry, then I'm pretty happy. And of course, if I make a living, even better
Jeremy Juliam:Even better. I know you and I talked a little bit about it pre show. That's part of why this show exists is because it's given my family and myself a lifestyle that most would love. And the fact that if I can get back to in any way, shape or form, that's my hope and prayer. you talked about restaurant and really adoption of technology being a challenge. Run that all the way back through kind of the branding, marketing product assessment, because I think that the world is noisier than ever. the ability to, get through to somebody. whether it be in a direct sales organization, a marketing led, it's hard, it's harder now than it ever has been because it feels like between the AI bots that exist, that everybody can send out 7, 000 messages a day, whereas 10 years ago that had to been done by a human or, some other way. It's just, it's hard. So talk to me a little bit about how you guys even think about that. Seth, because I think people underestimate how hard it is to get heard and seen in today's day and age, especially in the restaurant tech space.
Seth Temko:from my perspective, it's a question of the amount of time and attention, or a lot of times the marketing will say touches the number of touches it will take. And I like to always say that there's a, at a very high level, if you think about it from a C suite perspective. And by the way, every time I'd been a CMO, everyone I had worked for, the CEO would say, and Seth, I don't know marketing at all. I don't know how much I can help you. so I, marketing is complex discipline. That's one of the reasons I like as part art, part science is constantly changing. I don't know that there, I like to talk about truisms because they become guides and it's questionable. What technologies or programs are you going to create or leverage right for that? So awareness, education, participation, which is use of product in some way or service, or they purchase a good, and then reference. So you deliver something good that delivers value and they will share that with others. So if you use that as a guidepost, a lot of times it's, if we're going to work with a company at a high level, we say, okay, Where are they at and what needs first emphasis? So a newer company typically will be awareness, but it could be an existing company that's been in the market for a while that has done some really innovative things that the market is not aware of. So it's not a truism that because you've been established for 20 years as a company,
Jeremy Juliam:That people know what you do or know how you do it or know why you do it or any of those kind of things. Yeah, I love that.
Seth Temko:And then the education pieces like the differentiation. So you need to work on touches and marketing to build awareness. Then the next step is now you have their interest. Now can you educate them before they even engage with your sales teams? And if you can get a little bit of education, you'll make that sales engagement far more productive.
Jeremy Juliam:They'll, the time to understanding what you do, how you do it and why you do it is oftentimes pre sold because one of the things I try and remind our sales team often about, and I think it's interesting and I'm sure you talk about this in your engagements is most of the time. Your prospects know as much about you as your salespeople do when you engage with them, because they've done lots of research. They've talked to their friends in the industry. They've talked to other people that are using your products. Sometimes they've gone out and done as much research as you'll allow them to do. And without, without understanding that you may look like a fool to that prospect if you don't comprehend that oftentimes. And again, the easiest example is I go shop for a new car. With my wife a while back and it's like you go into the car lot and you know so much about that car cause you've spent the last six months looking at it. And the guy that's on the car lot might've been there for, for six months or 60 days. And he knows less about that car cause he's got 12 different ones that he's got to go for. Help me understand, I guess that's real quick. how you guys think about that? Because it is, you don't want to let too much out, but you also need to make sure you educate them and get them into that funnel as you're consulting with people. And I guess, is that even a truism or am I off base as it relates to that?
Seth Temko:I think that we're in a society where if you have a modest interest, you will spend modest time where you have a serious interest. You will invest serious time. I'm running on a four year old laptop right now and the graphics card driver cannot be updated. So I am now having to make a multi thousand dollar purchase of a computer that I want to live with for four or five years.
Jeremy Juliam:The next four
Seth Temko:I can't tell you how much time I have spent at night on the last couple of nights researching it because I have pain and I want in the very near term to resolve that pain. And I look at that from, we call it intent when I worked at YACS, we worked a lot with intent and intense signals. So if we think of the market as a, a pyramid. Active buyers are a small part of the pyramid in any industry, any vertical. It'll be a couple of percent are active. They recognize the pain and they are ready to change. And the hard part is everybody's chasing those people. So now you have to go the next layer down, which is people who are aware that they have pain, they just have not gotten to the point that they have made a decision to, to buy. And, that is definitely that awareness education. Marketing should really be focused in there because you're, it is not very hard to move them from modest interest to high interest, where they have put a modest amount of attention, they'll now put a large amount of intention. And then you can go, one layer below, which is they recognize that there may be an issue. and they're just not there yet. Too many other priorities than that. Ah, it's irritating. I'll live with it. Ah, yeah. my computer, I could probably squeeze out another three or four months. I don't want to be rebooting every day, right? Like me, it's now to the point of unacceptable. And then everyone else below that forget, like they're not ready. They're not interested. They will not pay attention. And so that's the intense side. So when we look at markets, we can talk about who's your ICP and within. That IPC, number of units, revenue size, restaurant type, whatever it may be, geography, if you're geographic focused, within that, who are the buyers, who are the decision makers, and that, and, but also, what is the intent? what do they have as technologies? And we know that right now, there are some technologies, Revel just got bought. lot of companies are targeting rub rubble. No offense to rubble. Hey, you guys better.
Jeremy Juliam:they got acquired and the business model is changing.
Seth Temko:but we know that in the industry now there's a big scramble. if you're a restaurant group and you have rubble, please be prepared. You're going to get a lot of calls and a lot of emails, right? It's going to come out. that's, that is, absolutely strategic and something that you should do. Yep. So that's like the strategy side of it. but now the, you figure out who to target. Now the question is, how do you break through? That's where you really need to deeply understand those personas and pain points, and then you look for the opportunities to connect. And usually the larger the organization, the more touch points you need to have. So SMB is a shorter sales cycle generally, and maybe they don't need as much information, and the process is certainly not as complex. So if you're selling single unit restaurant people, you just need to meet the owner, and they like you, and they're convinced that you have their best interest
Jeremy Juliam:and you don't have to go talk to 12 other people to get there. Yep.
Seth Temko:And then when you move up market to mid enterprise, especially enterprise, now be prepared for much longer sales cycles, many more meetings, many more touch points, and also the strategies and tactics can be very different. bottom up, top down, or through a franchise system. Can you convince a franchise group to at least test your technology? they tell corporate that it's good. If you can get two or three groups to do that, you make it to flip whatever your technology is.
Jeremy Juliam:and I was going to ask that's one of the things that I've heard lots in the marketing books and stuff, especially from tech companies is they like to talk about how great their tech is, but they don't necessarily oftentimes talk about the business value help, help our listeners understand why talking texts. Tech for the wrong persona or even for the right persona doesn't necessarily move the needle. Let me show you how great of a solution I have versus let me help you understand the business problem that I'm solving for you.
Seth Temko:so I think if you're going to be good at sales marketing, you really should look at human psychology
Jeremy Juliam:Yes.
Seth Temko:and understand how the human mind works. So the once again, a high level truism is that most people buy based on emotion.
Jeremy Juliam:Every time
Seth Temko:no,
Jeremy Juliam:justify it with facts.
Seth Temko:no, very few people admit to it, but it's absolutely
Jeremy Juliam:They'll justify it to you that they bought it because of facts, but did I really need a new car? I probably didn't need a new car. I wanted a new car. And then I justified it with facts. So sorry, I'll let you keep going
Seth Temko:percent finance.
Jeremy Juliam:and look at what better gas mileage I'm getting
Seth Temko:Yeah. You don't save money on gas yet. and that's, that works in business as well. so we know that works in consumer and then we pretend. That in business, we make all these rational decisions are highly rational. I think another truism is that people want to prefer to, they, they will not necessarily, but they prefer to buy from those they like and trust.
Jeremy Juliam:Yep. No, and trust factor.
Seth Temko:and there are companies that have very positive, solid reputations and those not as much. And if you do not, if you're in the not as much category, you have to do more selling and marketing to overcome that. It's it, or you may have to compromise on price. You may have less margin than others, I always say that you cannot do enough research and spend enough time with who your clients are and really understand their needs and perspective and,
Jeremy Juliam:speak your language.
Seth Temko:and you should spend time with them without the intent to sell. You should. You should instead spend time with them with the intent to help, even if helping means you point them to a competitor because you know that product will much better serve them than your product. And that will come back to you because another thing in the industry is people leave positions and move to other positions.
Jeremy Juliam:Yep. And they know how you treated them and they know how set my Angelo quote, they won't remember what you said, but they'll remember how you made up feel same idea.
Seth Temko:Absolutely. And so if you're in the industry for the long haul. Doing the right thing for people every time usually has rewards.
Jeremy Juliam:Absolutely. Absolutely. You said something earlier in our, recording Seth about, the warning signs about people not being able to hit their objectives. one of the biggest things that I have noticed about marketing is, years ago, there was that adage, No, the 50 percent of the marketing works, but you don't know which 50%. and nowadays we have so many more touch points that we really do know what is working and what's not working. Help us understand what those data points are that you guys consider to be critical in these engagements. Because I think all too many people just throw out all of this crap and don't necessarily, they're not good about understanding what the impact is. And ultimately they turn people off because of it from time to time. And now a word from one of our sponsors every restaurant operator understands the chaos of a Restaurant kitchen during the meal rush restaurant technologies, oil, total oil management solutions and end to end automated oil management system that delivers filters monitors and recycles your cooking oil, taking the dirtiest jobs out of your kitchen and letting your employees focus on more important tasks. Control the kitchen chaos with restaurant technologies and make your kitchen safer. No upfront costs to learn more, check out rti inc. com or call 888 796 4997.
Seth Temko:So the term commonly used is this term called attribution. And at larger companies, there can be a conflict between sales and marketing on who gets the tally, right? That happens quite a bit. The idea is that it Really attribution comes from the concept of funnel and funnel is the idea is that there's a process so From and I'm going to use awareness education. We'll put in the term sold contract They're an existing customer that you referral, right? So if that were the life cycle we were to say a there's a touch point We need to do multiple touches We need to you see things that we do in social things are done in Advertisements you talk to someone at a trade show conference booth, you walk into another restaurant and you ask them, Hey, what technology do you use? All these things are happening. Some of them are facilitated by the business. Some of the things are not. so there's programs that marketing are doing one. Some things are just fundamental. You have some basic brand. You have some basic communication things. you have sales decks called bread and butter marketing, right? You have that covered. Now you're doing intentional marketing where you're saying we've defined an audience and we are going to communicate with them passively. And then you seek active. And some of these programs you absolutely can monitor and you have metrics for. And others you have an idea. So semi attributable. And then others you just don't know. So some examples, you can do a domain expertise strategy, sign up for the Forbes technology council. Now you're writing every six or seven weeks, an article that goes through editorial approval, and now it's in the Forbes technology publication. And they are not going to give you metrics on
Jeremy Juliam:How many downloads, how
Seth Temko:how many reads, how many touches. And they certainly can't tell you who, even if they could tell you how many, right? so you don't know. I write every week. I don't know who read it. You told me you read my article. I said, thank you. You must be one of the highest people to do that. So thank you very much, right? we don't know, but I do it. that is unattributable, a lot of community comments, however, you now start posting formally on social media, they will give you some metrics. And in the case of LinkedIn, if you pay a little more, you get a little more information and that's the data game. Google has a data game, Amazon has a data game, Meta has a data game where you pay more, you get more information, but, by law, what you can't do through digital ads is do one to one targeting.
Jeremy Juliam:Yes.
Seth Temko:ads, right? I, you can put people in a bucket and you have a bucket of fish and you say, Hey, some of the fish you're looking for in this bucket, but you have to buy the whole bucket. That's the way they're doing it. Other programs you can absolutely do one to one. And, I think that the ease to do it has basically broken the system. I would say for most companies, we are seeing this idea that I can get and pay for information and target and do digital ads. Maybe direct email as an example, which is still very cost efficient. but let's say I do digital ads on a social media platform. Now you click, now you take you to a landing page. Now on that landing page, I get you to fill out a form. Now that form is an appointment, or that form is a download. From the download, I've tagged you again. I've given you a unique number, a unique outreach email. You do that creates an appointment. Now I've tracked. And I can say, I am. Spent this much money. I have these many each touch points. I have a metric for it. And then ultimately you want to track the, sales engagement. You can say this, the deal closed and here's the revenue we anticipate from the contract. Right? And that would be full one to one attribution. And then you can divvy it up and you can split it. at the end of the day. You can misalign marketing and sales pretty heavily and you can make them compete for the, not just the kudos, but the actual bonuses that occur at the end of the year based on these attribution models. So they have to be careful. So one of the things like when I was at Touch Bistro, great marketing team, love them still,
Jeremy Juliam:content strategy is amazing. The stuff they put out on the content side is remarkable. And again, I read it every time it comes out. So sorry, I'm just, it really is. It's one of those things that I look at other brands and go, why are more people not doing this,
Seth Temko:and they have RestoHook. com, which it's even more and better content. And the content marketing, programmatic, development, ads, part, everything just really well done. that was very cooperative. So I look at it as two team horses pulling a wagon. Sales, marketing, out of alignment, wagon goes off course. Work together, move together very well. It was very clear there, what the attribution was. And When I was there, GLAAD is proud to say, marketing brought in just a few percentage points more of the revenue into the business and sales at the time. However, when we did all the program evaluation, I could say the economics will start to decay because it was post COVID. More people are spending money. So we needed to assume that there would be a few points shift or drop where sales would need to pick up. If you kept the economics the same, marketing would not be able to produce the same results. There, there is, this dollar cost equation that you need to run. And actually that came true.
Jeremy Juliam:it reminds me of a comment you made earlier, marketing and really that CMO role is part art and part science. You got to understand the psychology. You got to understand what the customer is looking for and why they're looking for it. And then you've got to have the science of the data to back up. That what you're doing and putting in front of them is resonating with them and getting you what you're looking for.
Seth Temko:Yeah, that's why with marketing, a lot of people say data driven. I don't like to say that with marketing. I like to say data informed because you still have people involved in the psychology of all the programs that you're doing and people are irrational.
Jeremy Juliam:funny. I love that. I'm going to flip it around for a second and ask the question, how many of the brands that you work with when you start are mature enough to be in this place? and have programs like this, or even understand these things, Seth, because I think it's, you've given a masterclass on what does it look like and what does the landscape look like, but, full on wouldn't exist if everybody was doing it and I'm not saying that in a bad way, there's obviously people that are doing it and they might be doing 10 percent of it, they might be doing 50 percent of it, but give me a general understanding of when you walk in and sit with a C suite and talk with a brand, That's trying to get into a market or trying to grow a market or trying to reboot a market or whatever state they're in. How many of them even have any of these things in place or have the bones of these types of things in place? And how many of them are just like, you know what, we've always been doing it this way and we need some help to flip things around.
Seth Temko:that's a great question. So often you can just start with the org chart and you can look at budget and you can look at the breakdown of where dollars are spent. without knowing the revenue realization. So if you have a hundred people in an organization and two people in marketing, chances are they're resource deficient in marketing relative to the size of the organization. if you look at, let's talk about tech companies, not restaurants. So if you look at tech companies, a lot of Silicon Valley tech companies, Not net new, but mature. They may be spending on the order of seven to 12 percent of their budgets in marketing. And I would say most restaurant tech companies are probably in the three to 7%.
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah, and the worst part is most tech, most restaurant companies are also in that 3 to 7 percent as far as their technology spent on the flip side because they, they don't value the technology the same way that, that, they could or should, I would assume
Seth Temko:Yeah, absolutely. So the question is you can do a lot with fewer resources, but one, you really should have an agile approach. agile in the sense that you need to do a lot of small scale spend and test. do some iterations, see where the dollars are treated best and then expand the spending in that those areas. Second tip is I see most companies Do not do this one thing that was a foreign concept every time I was a CMO, which was I would take whatever budget proposal we were doing. And I would talk to finance group and I would say, we need to take 10 percent of the marketing budget and call it R and D. And they would give me a blank look and I'd say, okay, let me explain. We're going to try some new programs and I would say, I do not know what the result is. This is going to be net new and we're going to do agile and we're going to test. After we do these things, I'll be able to tell you, but for budgeting purposes, you should assume that 10 percent will have no payback to the company. It'll be as if it's wasted. I said, it will not be wasted. we may get a fractional payback or we may, what we're trying to get is, multiple dollars back, right? that's what you want to do, but if you do not allocate. It's the ideology that we will try and we will do and we will execute and we will get data on new programs. Because if you don't do that, you, one, your intent to do better and do different is probably not there. And the second thing is you will not have the resources if you have the opportunity to try something new and different. that's a mess that pretty much is universal, I would say with most. And then, I think that there tends to be this, question of, you can look at within an organization who has the influence and who has the decision making authority. you can say, Hey, when you went and. Close that deal, how, who was involved and how were they active in that engagement? And then you'll hear the blow by blow and you'll understand, okay, marketing was involved or marketing was not involved. Sales was involved to a certain point. Sales engineers were involved in a certain way. Look at process and then also look at what is measured and then what is rewarded. And you'll know pretty clearly within the culture of that organization how it's structured.
Jeremy Juliam:whether it's a, yeah, whether it's a value last line of questioning, Seth is, we talked a little bit at our pre show, about scale. You've been in a couple of different organizations that went from one level of success to pretty significant, whether that's in your early days and quite frankly, everywhere you've been, you've continued to grow. there's this, Hollywood fantasy from most tech companies that, they're going to go start a company in their garage and then they're going to, get a multi billion dollar payout. they're going to be the unicorn that's out there. help our listeners understand how marketing plays a part in that and why using something like full on can help them get there. Not, there's only so many unicorns. There's only so many people that can do that. It takes a lot of hard work and it's not just marketing. It's not just sales. It's not just product. There's a lot that goes into it. And at the same time, getting to scale. Requires a different set of skills than it might to start in your garage. And I'd love to have, our listeners here a little bit about kind of your experience in that regard.
Seth Temko:Yeah. So I like to say that, I am a hyper growth strategist. So hyper growth is the idea that if you grow organically, most organizations are capped at the rate of growth they'll do annually. In other words, you have to be positive in cashflow, and then you have to take that positive cashflow and reinvest it back in the business. So maybe you're capped at, if you're doing really well, 20 to 30 percent growth rate would be really good and a creative over 10 years, you're going to have a very nice business at the end of the 10 years. But what you want to do is time dilate and grow more quickly. So you're going to, subsidy, you're going to create inorganic growth and you're going to fuel that with outside cash. you're, what you're trying to do is that hockey stick up and to the right and you're going to burn cash, basically to be unprofitable through a period of time until you hit this projected forecasted,
Jeremy Juliam:Extra exit velocity.
Seth Temko:yeah, to do that. And the reality is the number of companies that do that is statistically very small and to get to a billion in revenue is, I believe it's like a hundred companies that do that in the SaaS world. Of course, once you break a billion, you're. You just
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah. You're well on your
Seth Temko:you've figured out how to scale, very large. the founders, the CEOs are under a ton of pressure because you are delivering forecasts and you, I, I liken it to a rocket. You can, except Elon Musk is doing a lot more with rockets, but even with that you have limits and. how you can steer that rocket and what you can do. And once you have thrust, you have certain, a certain trajectory. So what you want to do is examine and say, are there early signs that you are not going to meet that forecast? So early signs in sales would be, and you can look at the sales behavior, which is tandem with the finance group, We've created this forecast and now we're going to maniacally track in the CRM system and have sales enter all of these percentages and stages and we're going to look at it and evaluate it. but what you start doing is pull forwards, huh, to meet my numbers this month or this quarter, let's discount. Let's do a delayed, we're going to sign the contract, but delay the billing. We're going to sweeten the deal by ancillary services or products that effectively will give away free, which is really reducing the overall contract value. and we do these things and say we'll make up the gap next quarter and next month, which basically is a deficiency pole, a hole, so you got to backfill the hole and then you have to continue the growth that you have projected. And, really good organizations, one, have the metrics to track that they have the, they're honest about it. So it's not a lot of cover CYA and, move the ball forward and while I'll work there a year and get fired and then I'll work somewhere else and get fired after a year and, no, it's this idea we're going to be honest and realistic with each other. And then we're going to understand why we're not able to make meet the forecasts to work on a plan to meet forecasts or to revise forecasts. And what I would say is it's much better for organizations to do that sooner than later, because you're on a cash, countdown clock.
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah, you're on a burn. You're on a burn cycle at some point, and I'm sure that you're not the most popular guy in the executive meetings when you come in and say, it's a product problem. It's a sales problem. It's a billing problem because you're, to your point, you're shining a light. It could be a marketing problem, just the same, but you're oftentimes shining a light on where the actual nature of the problem is. And, that probably creates some tension in the boardroom when you're having these meetings.
Seth Temko:it's usually four areas. You're looking at sales, marketing, product, and service.
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah, every time. And we've been doing that. You and I have been adding up gray hairs in my goatee here that we know that nowhere it goes. So Seth, who are the people that you're looking to talk to you? Because I could sit at your feet all day, but, I'm sure that our listeners that have gotten through 40 minutes of listening to you and I talk are at a place where they're like, all right, how do I engage with Seth? How do I get him to help me to learn these things? And what does that look like? How do they get in touch? How do they connect? How do they learn more?
Seth Temko:They can come to fullonstrategy. com. look me up on LinkedIn, Seth Temko. message me there. also you can book an appointment, 30 minutes, get together, understand where you're at, what you're trying to accomplish. I'll tell you if I can help you or not. I'll refer you to someone else if I can't help you, if I have a resource. I'm just trying to help people in the industry and if I can do it, great. that's the easiest way to do it. who we work with is typically C suite, a lot of times it's CEOs. So last year we worked with, Fishbowl, and that was Adam Ockstein, Alex Worminski, the head of sales, we work really closely with them. we worked with Trey on a GTM assessment. We're now doing their marketing assess, execution for them. It's Trey seven years in the market. It's the first time they've had a marketing group and they're very happy to have marketing support, in the business. So it's a lot of fun working with. With them on that, we've also been working with voice of five, which is voice AI. And they're a little bit earlier stage, but I actually have known them since my days at yaks.
Jeremy Juliam:wow, I didn't realize they'd been around so long. Clearly they didn't have enough marketing power out there that being in the space as well, as long as I have, I didn't even know that they were there.
Seth Temko:yeah. we're working with restaurant data. com. We're also working with some restaurant groups like Zaza, keeping comfort in that way. And in that case, it's a lot of filling the gaps of the technology. you're going to implement a loyalty technology, but you've never done a loyalty program.
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah, you don't understand it. you gotta get the pieces connected and all of that. And oftentimes brands look to the vendors and say, this is your problem. And ultimately it fails that way, way too often.
Seth Temko:Yeah. for doing that. what we can do is we can do go to market assessments of really understanding where the business is at from a realistic viewpoint and the goals of the company. And then we have realistic executable plans with playbooks of all the sales marketing and product programs that can be implemented. And then. half the time they'll say, can you help us do this? There's the value. A lot of times, organizations are just maxed out.
Jeremy Juliam:Yeah, they've all got a full time job and they're trying to throw more on top of their pile and get all the expertise and or they haven't done it. So it takes them twice as long as it would somebody on your team to do because this is their first time and they're learning from scratch.
Seth Temko:yeah, and this might be our eighth time, setting up a program. So we can do it really quickly and then we can do a handoff. Because maintenance of programs is always easier than, initiation and optimization. the first two stages of it. So we do that with others.
Jeremy Juliam:well, Seth, I am still trying to figure out how 25 years in the industry you and I haven't connected in person and or, Even digitally until today, other than me reading your articles every week. So thank you for, for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for sharing. Even why you do what you do. Cause, at the end of the day, I, I personally love this industry. You do as well. And I love to see people thrive as it, as it relates. for those listeners out there, guys, please reach out to Seth, get on his, LinkedIn at a minimum because he posts. Amazing stuff all the time. He's also writing, we've alluded to the newsletter from the branded hospitality guys. They've got a, Saturday newsletter that goes out every week that, that he's been a regular contributor to, and he's got some really great wisdom as it relates to that.
Seth Temko:Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
Jeremy Juliam:Awesome. And to our listeners, guys, make it a great day.
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.
