The Largest Seafood Restaurant on the West Coast Becomes a Media Powerhouse and E-commerce Brand

WEBVTT

00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:01.727
Welcome to today's episode.

00:00:01.727 --> 00:00:11.035
Today we are going to talk about some epic marketing being done in one of the most interesting industries out there the restaurant industry.

00:00:11.035 --> 00:00:13.327
Our guest is Michael Ongaro.

00:00:13.327 --> 00:00:25.039
He is the CEO of the San Pedro Fish Market and he is going to share some of the great things that his family has been doing with their business with marketing.

00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:27.146
That is truly remarkable.

00:00:27.146 --> 00:00:27.867
Welcome to the show.

00:00:27.867 --> 00:00:29.391
Hey, it's great to be here.

00:00:29.391 --> 00:00:36.713
Let's start off by having you give a little bit of context about who you are and what you do.

00:00:36.713 --> 00:00:46.088
I think it's really fascinating what you and your family have done with your business and until I had researched and read a little bit about it, I didn't understand and I was really impressed.

00:00:46.149 --> 00:00:52.951
I'm currently hold the role of CEO and visionary, as well as a part owner of the Kings of Fish web series, as well as the San Pedro fish market.

00:00:52.951 --> 00:00:58.421
They're all family owned and operated, originally founded by my grandfather and I'm third generation.

00:00:58.421 --> 00:01:08.561
Originally opened in 1956, 200 square foot small restaurant sell seafood to the locals and we turned into one of the largest restaurants in the country and a lot.

00:01:08.561 --> 00:01:15.274
I attribute a lot of that at least about a decade's work to the marketing programs that I helped put together and the marketing team I helped to build.

00:01:17.140 --> 00:01:22.646
And so when you say it's one of the largest restaurants, talk to people a little bit about the size, because I was impressed.

00:01:22.945 --> 00:01:30.995
Oh, I'm not that well through the end of 2022, right up where we'll really right up at the march of uh, march 3rd of 2023.

00:01:30.995 --> 00:01:32.096
We're at 50.

00:01:32.096 --> 00:01:34.665
Our main locations are at 55 000 square feet.

00:01:34.665 --> 00:01:38.393
We had 3 000 seat and we served at that.

00:01:38.393 --> 00:01:41.224
At the end of 2022, I would serve about 2 million people there.

00:01:41.224 --> 00:01:54.067
So, like for like, to put that in a perspective, on the West coast, like the entire Western seaboard, the only non-subsidized business to have more visitors than us was seaworld, so we had Mecca's number two.

00:01:55.475 --> 00:01:56.140
Wow, that.

00:01:56.140 --> 00:02:01.533
That is pretty awesome marketing to get that many people coming through.

00:02:01.533 --> 00:02:04.909
And you've won a few Guinness book world records.

00:02:04.909 --> 00:02:06.165
What records have you won?

00:02:06.519 --> 00:02:08.503
So we had.

00:02:08.503 --> 00:02:26.943
For about 20 years we were providing and cooking and serving the lobsters in the port of Los Angeles lobster festival, which is probably the largest lobster festival in the country serving Maine lobsters, and one year the idea was by the producer of the festival because it was also a regional festival we only did the lobsters.

00:02:26.943 --> 00:02:29.604
There was a lot of other stuff going on at the festival, but the lobsters were the main draw.

00:02:29.604 --> 00:02:41.752
We had worked a deal through the producer to do a Guinness World Record, but they wouldn't let us put the word lobster on it, so it was just seafood and we sold something like I forget like 18,000 pounds of lobster or something crazy in a day.

00:02:41.752 --> 00:02:42.554
It was a huge number.

00:02:42.554 --> 00:02:49.358
I forget the number right now, but because it was seafood, somebody in a foreign country decided to do sardines and beat us.

00:02:50.140 --> 00:02:55.453
So we went back to Guinness and we're like, listen, what do we need to do to put the word lobster in here?

00:02:55.453 --> 00:02:58.139
So nobody could beat us because nobody's selling this many lobsters.

00:02:58.139 --> 00:03:00.669
We do 30,000 lobsters in a weekend at this festival.

00:03:00.669 --> 00:03:06.203
And so, um, yeah, at this festival.

00:03:06.203 --> 00:03:07.889
And so, um, yeah, we were pulling in people from all over the place.

00:03:07.889 --> 00:03:20.308
And so this we worked out a deal where we're able to do three lobsters in a single day it was most and a cooker at one time, most in a single like vessel like to be served to somebody, like a pot, basically like serving dish and then the rest was how many to serve over.

00:03:20.308 --> 00:03:22.100
I think it was a six or eight hour period.

00:03:22.100 --> 00:03:28.104
And so we crushed all those set, all all the records, own them to this day and no one's come close, because no one'd be.

00:03:28.104 --> 00:03:31.885
Really, why would anybody be dumb enough to take on that kind of financial risk?

00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:34.286
You are the king of lobster stats.

00:03:34.286 --> 00:03:35.871
I love it, it's great.

00:03:35.871 --> 00:03:50.135
And you guys serve huge trays of shrimp and whole fish and you put like a whole lobster on the tray, like I have an important question if you get a tray with a whole lobster on it, do you get to name the lobster?

00:03:50.135 --> 00:03:59.971
That sure, if you're okay with eating it, doesn't like get your pet until you eat it, like yeah you want to like the way that evolved and what really set us apart.

00:03:59.991 --> 00:04:06.808
like we became this experiential brand, because at first I always said we're in the middle of the story.

00:04:06.808 --> 00:04:11.526
Good Friday 1982, I'm 11 years old we opened San Pedro Fish Market.

00:04:11.526 --> 00:04:15.330
It had been functioning for a long time under a different name, but we got evicted.

00:04:15.330 --> 00:04:17.346
They're redeveloping the waterfront.

00:04:17.346 --> 00:04:24.713
We had to work out of a parking lot for a year and then on Good Friday we opened a San Pedro Fish and then it rained the whole summer so we had no customer.

00:04:24.713 --> 00:04:28.790
So my uncle and my dad again I'm 11 years old at the time they were just experimenting with all this stuff.

00:04:28.899 --> 00:04:29.802
I saw this junkyard.

00:04:29.802 --> 00:04:31.730
They had this rendering thing for cows.

00:04:31.730 --> 00:04:35.771
We could turn it into a barbecue and we'll just for a dollar we'll cook fish for people and they can eat it outside.

00:04:35.771 --> 00:04:38.122
I saw this thing called fajitas at a Mexican restaurant.

00:04:38.122 --> 00:04:39.403
We can get griddles.

00:04:39.403 --> 00:04:47.769
So this thing evolved with all these different ways to cook fish where the customer could come and point to or literally hold a fish they wanted.

00:04:47.769 --> 00:04:52.952
Bring it to us, pay for it, bring it to the kitchen, watch it cooked, and that was turned into these giant trays.

00:04:52.952 --> 00:05:01.081
And when social media came out, that became something people could share and geotag and that's when it really exploded.

00:05:01.081 --> 00:05:06.863
That's when we were, like, I think, number five or seven on the top 10 most Instagram restaurants in the country, like three years in a row Because people were sharing.

00:05:09.355 --> 00:05:18.740
Wow and I bet that in itself, just being one of the most Instagram restaurants in the top 10, I bet that really helps drive a lot of the 2 million visitors in itself.

00:05:18.740 --> 00:05:20.141
But want to go to great places.

00:05:20.562 --> 00:05:23.684
it was customers doing that and we're like we're not tapping into something that's really important here.

00:05:23.684 --> 00:05:47.916
So that was right around the time we were about to launch the first season of our web series that we're experimenting with, because when we set the three guinness world record, a film crew asked us if they could film it and let's see what your family's like in front of the camera and they turned it into a sizzle reel.

00:05:47.916 --> 00:05:49.139
They tried to shop it around.

00:05:49.139 --> 00:05:50.160
Nobody bought it.

00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:51.242
They gave it back to us.

00:05:51.242 --> 00:05:56.629
We used it for some marketing things and I realized we could do a lot with this if we could make it ourselves.

00:05:56.629 --> 00:06:02.447
So we were about to launch Kings of Fish based on that sizzle reel that another company made.

00:06:02.447 --> 00:06:04.642
At the same time, the Instagram thing came out.

00:06:04.642 --> 00:06:07.303
So it was the convergence of two really powerful things.

00:06:07.303 --> 00:06:14.442
We were putting Kings of Fish on Facebook, our customers were putting us on Instagram and they converged, and then we exploded.

00:06:15.735 --> 00:06:26.290
So I want to talk a little bit about this Kings of Fish series because I think this is fascinating for a amazing restaurant business like yours to go into.

00:06:26.290 --> 00:06:35.610
Before we jump into that, I just want to set the context that I think everybody's aware that times are not easy in the restaurant business right now.

00:06:35.610 --> 00:06:49.387
We've lost the Red Lobster, Hundreds of restaurants are closing locations because of things like inflation and labor costs and the costs of food.

00:06:49.387 --> 00:07:06.865
I think there's a lot of things right now causing a perfect storm and it seems you guys are cutting through that with a number of very interesting marketing initiatives, and one of them is this TV web series that you mentioned.

00:07:06.865 --> 00:07:09.995
So tell us all about it, because we're ready to be inspired.

00:07:09.995 --> 00:07:10.475
Yeah.

00:07:11.096 --> 00:07:16.668
So the TV series, the latest, so we were going to shut the whole thing down.

00:07:16.668 --> 00:07:32.125
During COVID I'll go sad for a second is two of the people in the original version of the series passed away and they were like business partners and family of ours both his brother sister both got COVID, both didn't make it and so it didn't seem right to continue on with the series.

00:07:32.125 --> 00:07:34.980
But Pepsi came to us and said we'd like to sponsor it.

00:07:34.980 --> 00:07:39.178
We're looking for content because everybody's home watching tv and we sat down with the whole team and our producers.

00:07:39.178 --> 00:07:46.865
This might be action opportunity to memorialize the people we lost and wrap the season up, and it that was the intention of what we filmed.

00:07:46.865 --> 00:07:48.495
It hasn't launched yet.

00:07:48.495 --> 00:08:19.141
There's only a trailer, which is at kingsoffishtvcom, but, but in the interim, like Amazon came in and said we're going to put it on Amazon Prime, we really liked the narrative and the story, and the other thing that happened in the middle of that make it even more difficult for all the things you just mentioned is we got evicted again and we had to move to Arcula in March 3rd of 2023, because they're redeveloping the LA waterfront and we knew this was going to happen.

00:08:19.141 --> 00:08:19.877
So we were semi-prepared.

00:08:19.877 --> 00:08:20.211
We just didn't have.

00:08:20.211 --> 00:08:21.202
It had been going on for so long we couldn't really plan for it.

00:08:21.127 --> 00:08:22.367
So we moved to another parking lot where we set up shop.

00:08:22.367 --> 00:08:29.721
In 60 days we opened this temporary spot and all the brand building we had done between Kings of Fish and social media and PR and everything else we were doing and community outreach the brand was solid.

00:08:29.721 --> 00:08:31.307
People were still showing up to the parking lot.

00:08:31.307 --> 00:08:41.509
We pivoted with new technology so that we could give them a better experience at a fat like a lower cost and time and energy to get them the products they wanted.

00:08:41.509 --> 00:08:45.761
Parking lot a thousand seats in the parking lot, by the way, 20,000 square feet but it created a new storyline.

00:08:45.761 --> 00:08:49.376
There was a delay in launching it on amazon, so in some ways it all worked out.

00:08:49.417 --> 00:08:51.421
So we re-edited the entire series around.

00:08:51.421 --> 00:08:52.864
Oh my god, we're getting evicted.

00:08:52.864 --> 00:08:53.424
What do we have to do?

00:08:53.424 --> 00:08:53.885
We did all these other.

00:08:53.885 --> 00:08:54.927
So we re-edited the entire series around.

00:08:54.927 --> 00:08:55.669
Oh my God, we're getting evicted.

00:08:55.669 --> 00:08:56.171
What do we have to do?

00:08:56.171 --> 00:09:06.991
We did all these other things and so what you'll see when you watch this Amazon show coming out is the whole narrative behind how we coped with and dealt with being evicted a second time going back to a parking lot and then preparing to launch a new offer.

00:09:06.991 --> 00:09:08.296
So it's super compelling stuff.

00:09:08.296 --> 00:09:12.659
I think people are going to love it and all the teasers that we've done and tested have gotten really good responses.

00:09:13.841 --> 00:09:19.927
So there's a lot of drama in there and it wasn't all manufactured by you, it's real drama, it's all real.

00:09:19.927 --> 00:09:23.910
Some of it's very sad and some of it is just real.

00:09:23.910 --> 00:09:25.351
Life happens sort of stuff.

00:09:29.134 --> 00:09:29.996
Yeah, and I think that's what's important.

00:09:29.996 --> 00:09:32.461
Is the authenticity Like what we talk to television companies and producers like would this be cool on your show?

00:09:32.461 --> 00:09:34.245
What would we need to do to be this on a major network?

00:09:34.245 --> 00:09:35.948
And it wouldn't be authentic.

00:09:35.948 --> 00:09:37.977
We'd have to be something we weren't Pretend.

00:09:37.977 --> 00:09:40.159
We have plenty of fighting, I just don't need to document it.

00:09:40.159 --> 00:09:45.986
They wanted a drama that we weren't prepared to pretend to be.

00:09:45.986 --> 00:09:51.441
I had plenty of real drama going on in our business with everything else that we had A third generation gone on.

00:09:51.461 --> 00:09:54.841
The fourth Family owned and operated for 60 years.

00:09:54.841 --> 00:09:56.735
Weather we have a whole season that's just on the pandemic.

00:09:56.735 --> 00:09:58.802
That I don't even like to think about.

00:09:58.802 --> 00:10:02.335
But I had people reach out to me recently going oh my God, you're the only one that documented.

00:10:02.335 --> 00:10:04.681
None of us in the restaurant industry want to remember it.

00:10:04.681 --> 00:10:10.883
You documented it and it's such a reminder of what it took to survive that for those of us that made it through.

00:10:10.883 --> 00:10:21.419
And so I think, oh, I wasn't intending that to be a documentary in that way, but we've created a box and then people are finding a lot of value and, in some places, inspiration.

00:10:21.419 --> 00:10:26.283
So I think that's what's important being authentic, inspirational and not trying to be something you're not.

00:10:26.283 --> 00:10:27.986
People can see through that TV or not.

00:10:29.735 --> 00:10:35.528
So I'm sure you don't want to jinx it, but what is your vision, because you said you're a visionary CEO.

00:10:35.528 --> 00:10:41.235
What is your vision for how this TV show is going to impact your businesses?

00:10:41.235 --> 00:10:42.640
Are there going to be multiple seasons?

00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:46.666
Do you think it's going to inspire you to be the number one restaurant in the country?

00:10:46.666 --> 00:10:48.817
What are you planning and thinking here?

00:10:48.977 --> 00:10:58.270
So, as we started to zoom out and really look at what we have, we've got three locations now that are doing well, even the ones in a parking lot, which is temporary.

00:10:58.270 --> 00:11:02.849
We'll be out of that soon and we'll be building back where we started in 1982.

00:11:02.849 --> 00:11:08.587
We're also in talks with the city of Monterey in Northern California for a location on their waterfront.

00:11:08.587 --> 00:11:13.126
We're talking to the city of Anaheim to do something in and around the resort area where Disneyland is.

00:11:13.126 --> 00:11:15.422
So those are the restaurant offers.

00:11:15.422 --> 00:11:21.960
What I'm seeing as a visionary is we're really become more of a media company or media brand, and that's really how I saw us.

00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:26.283
We've got the stories, we've got the content generation, we've got the restaurants to produce revenue.

00:11:26.283 --> 00:11:35.740
We're relaunching a whole e-commerce offer and what I'm noticing is that on the B2B side, we're an enormous customer for many of our vendors.

00:11:35.740 --> 00:11:46.445
So we sold 200 tons of shrimp one year right before the event, and we're not really like partnering with any of them to help us produce this and promote their businesses.

00:11:46.445 --> 00:11:50.626
So what we're doing now is we're actively speaking to everyone.

00:11:50.626 --> 00:11:52.227
We buy tech from everybody.

00:11:52.227 --> 00:11:53.628
We buy products from everyone.

00:11:53.628 --> 00:11:55.788
We partner with on any kind of service about.

00:11:55.788 --> 00:12:02.472
We'd like to incorporate you into the season two and season three of this, as we continue on these social platforms and on these streaming channels.

00:12:02.472 --> 00:12:04.274
How can we work together?

00:12:07.054 --> 00:12:09.020
I just spent like a whole weekend at the Chicago restaurant show.

00:12:09.020 --> 00:12:10.865
I think I guess it was last month I'm losing that might've been March.

00:12:10.865 --> 00:12:19.879
It's just basically meeting up with all of our vendors, from OpenTable and Yelp to companies we use for soap and cleaners and equipment Like we're building restaurants.

00:12:19.879 --> 00:12:21.500
We want to document it.

00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:22.899
We want to make you part of it.

00:12:22.899 --> 00:12:24.501
So that's how I see us moving forward is.

00:12:24.501 --> 00:12:31.120
I think we can get to 10 locations by 10 years and I think that the locations will be a small part of what we are as a company.

00:12:32.596 --> 00:12:34.101
Wow, that's fascinating.

00:12:34.101 --> 00:12:39.605
Taking a family-owned restaurant business, making it into a media brand and an e-commerce company.

00:12:39.605 --> 00:12:45.461
That's a pretty big vision, that's a big challenge and it's probably pretty exciting.

00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:50.403
Yeah, it is, and the way I look at it too is we've got a lot of people that work for us for 20, 30 years.

00:12:50.403 --> 00:12:57.062
We have a lot of new people that are working with us, that are ready to go to college, and then we have a whole fourth generation of which is, basically are their great grandchildren?

00:12:57.062 --> 00:12:58.562
They're like how do I fit into this?

00:12:58.562 --> 00:13:03.636
And their mind goes to I guess I just need to be really good at scrubbing floors and flipping fajitas.

00:13:03.636 --> 00:13:08.570
They're like no, we need marketing, we need sales, we need finance, we need operation.

00:13:08.570 --> 00:13:11.794
Anything you go to school with, I can find a place to fit this in.

00:13:11.794 --> 00:13:13.712
I would rather hire from within.

00:13:14.544 --> 00:13:17.126
We do bring people from outside that have expertise we don't have.

00:13:17.126 --> 00:13:18.989
We have to be honest Well, we're dumb.

00:13:18.989 --> 00:13:19.990
I'm not good at this thing.

00:13:19.990 --> 00:13:21.730
Find I'm not good at this thing, find someone that is.

00:13:21.730 --> 00:13:25.073
And it's hard to find someone who wants to come in and work with a family business.

00:13:25.394 --> 00:13:35.322
But we have and what we're really doing is speaking this big vision to open a space for the people with us to see where they can make offers into helping us grow it, and that's working out pretty well.

00:13:35.322 --> 00:13:51.570
People are inspired by it and they're pursuing that, and we had our leadership meeting today with all the major parts of the company today with all the major parts of the company and head of our HR, who's a friend of mine I was like I don't think you understand how many people have moved up that we thought there was no future for, because they're starting to see where they can move to another location and become a GM.

00:13:51.570 --> 00:13:54.134
They can go and help with the HR department.

00:13:54.134 --> 00:13:56.974
There's a space in marketing where they can go and help with marketing.

00:13:56.974 --> 00:14:00.924
There's a social media opportunity and now we're looking at producing all this content for the show.

00:14:00.924 --> 00:14:02.586
And now we're looking at producing all this content for the show.

00:14:02.586 --> 00:14:04.086
They're interested in how they can be part of that.

00:14:04.166 --> 00:14:05.486
My daughter works at CAA.

00:14:05.486 --> 00:14:09.347
I have another one that doesn't voiceover for Netflix, another one that's a professional dancer.

00:14:09.347 --> 00:14:16.450
I didn't think they were going to ever come back, but I'm starting to think that I could create opportunities for them where they can come back and not have to be a fishmonger.

00:14:16.450 --> 00:14:17.250
You know what I'm saying.

00:14:18.311 --> 00:14:29.014
Yeah, I think that's awesome and I do hope that what you're doing inspires the restaurant industry, given that it's not the easiest of times.

00:14:29.014 --> 00:14:51.061
Even Hooters announced yesterday they were closing 40 locations and maybe we're going to miss that chicken wings, but I think that it's very tough out there and so doing the sort of creative things that you're doing I hope it inspires others to dig deep and say even in a tough business there is a path.

00:14:51.061 --> 00:14:57.643
So in that spirit, like, how do you think about marketing helping drive through these challenges?

00:14:57.643 --> 00:14:58.503
I'm just curious.

00:14:58.582 --> 00:14:59.702
There's two ways I look at it.

00:14:59.702 --> 00:15:01.423
I was thinking about this earlier today.

00:15:01.423 --> 00:15:09.756
One is you've got to tell your story, because there's no shortage of food in the world, there's no shortage of restaurants and, even though they're suffering, people have a lot of choice.

00:15:09.756 --> 00:15:17.687
If you have a good story and you can incorporate your customer base into that story or make it relevant to the things they care about, they're helping them.

00:15:17.687 --> 00:15:28.894
Helping really trying to create an experience where they have a feeling that they're going home with you, can be influential and remember, like we have customers to come in now, like I used to come here with my grandparent and now I've got my kids.

00:15:28.894 --> 00:15:32.114
You are a memory for my family of what we did.

00:15:32.114 --> 00:15:33.471
You became a destination for it.

00:15:33.471 --> 00:15:35.511
So how can you do that in your business?

00:15:35.511 --> 00:15:36.729
It doesn't have to be the restaurant business.

00:15:36.729 --> 00:15:37.953
It could be any service that you're doing.

00:15:37.953 --> 00:15:43.035
Don't make it transactional only because people see through that, and transactional only because people see through that.

00:15:43.035 --> 00:15:44.418
And I'll give you one of the examples that we did.

00:15:44.437 --> 00:15:50.282
There was I think it was, I want to say, about eight years ago, and you can find this on the San Pedro Fish YouTube channel.

00:15:50.282 --> 00:15:53.734
They get sent as youtubecom forward slash San Pedro Fish.

00:15:53.734 --> 00:15:56.794
There was a meeting that I went to in the Port of Los Angeles.

00:15:56.794 --> 00:16:12.982
There are landlords at the time because we're on the Port of Los Angeles, that's where we're located and I listened to all these kids go and speak one night and a strange board meeting and they said you know what, if you don't redevelop this area, I'm going to go to college and I'm never coming back.

00:16:12.982 --> 00:16:19.831
And I sat there going oh my God, there's a lot of things not to like about the LA waterfront, because there was the time there was issues with crime and traffic and different things.

00:16:19.831 --> 00:16:21.275
But this narrative wasn't.

00:16:21.275 --> 00:16:22.697
It wasn't fair.

00:16:22.697 --> 00:16:33.793
And to have the kids speak, that I thought was really a little despicable, because I think there was a strategy behind it that wasn't relevant and I thought I got to find a way to defuse this, because this is our hometown.

00:16:33.995 --> 00:16:38.371
We have three high schools we're actually four now and I think there's something we could do about this.

00:16:38.371 --> 00:16:43.361
So we reached out to the high schools and said we're going to put a scholarship program.

00:16:43.361 --> 00:16:49.254
It's going to create a YouTube scholarship program and what we're going to do is any kid can enter.

00:16:49.254 --> 00:16:56.687
All they have to do is go to YouTube and create a video telling everybody what they love about their hometown, and the ones with the most views will win a thousand dollars scholarship for college from us for each high school.

00:16:56.687 --> 00:16:58.249
And so we did that.

00:16:58.710 --> 00:16:59.451
It just took off.

00:16:59.451 --> 00:17:01.634
All these kids ran and they're filming their favorite spots.

00:17:01.634 --> 00:17:03.378
Some of them are producing music.

00:17:03.378 --> 00:17:15.817
They're going to all the like iconic areas in town that they like to go to the famous sandwich places, the best place to watch the sunset and so that got us a whole bunch of like free PR, because the new stations were watching what was happening.

00:17:15.817 --> 00:17:16.884
I was getting all these views.

00:17:16.884 --> 00:17:22.796
They're all going to our YouTube channel and our name was in a lot, and one of the requests was don't make us one of those places.

00:17:22.796 --> 00:17:26.192
It has to be anywhere but us, because we're not looking for you to advertise us.

00:17:26.192 --> 00:17:28.272
We want you to advertise what's great about your city.

00:17:28.272 --> 00:17:39.551
But what that did was it created a narrative for people to see there's a lot of great things about our town Doesn't necessarily have to be this one little area that people are upset about, and I'm really proud of that project.

00:17:39.551 --> 00:17:49.426
We did it for a few years.

00:17:49.446 --> 00:17:53.858
I think we stopped right when kobe did it it's all else in school but it was cool and it was a lot of fun, like really proud of what we up in the ships story about our hometown.

00:17:53.858 --> 00:17:54.279
That's great.

00:17:54.279 --> 00:18:15.198
So what advice could you give to marketers who also might be like in a tough industry, in a tough spot on what you learned and coming up with some of these creative ideas to keep your business going when a lot of things happen that are just out of your control, of COVID and the evictions and all these challenges that you've had to work through?

00:18:16.545 --> 00:18:22.570
One of my best business teachers said when shit happens, give yourself 15 minutes to cope with it and move on.

00:18:22.570 --> 00:18:25.309
You can't really spend, which is emotionally difficult.

00:18:25.309 --> 00:18:36.836
First you've got to be able to manage your mood and you do that by being focused on what matters most, like I got a family, I'm married, I got three daughters, I have a business and I have a family owned business and I have a lot of families dependent.

00:18:36.836 --> 00:18:40.367
Focus on that first and don't lose sight of that.

00:18:40.367 --> 00:18:42.670
And then it's like how are we going to do this?

00:18:42.670 --> 00:18:44.050
And don't be a lone ranger about it.

00:18:44.050 --> 00:18:49.635
You've got to get as much help as you can and try to find the best people you can to help you.

00:18:49.876 --> 00:18:53.640
And some people say I don't want to look stupid, so I'm only going to surround myself with people I'm smarter with.

00:18:53.640 --> 00:19:04.257
No, find the smarter people Rather declare what you're doing, make sure it takes care of the things that you care, learn as much as you can, keep your practice and ethics in place and then go out there and just start killing it.

00:19:04.257 --> 00:19:10.934
Put out the offer, put out the stories, operationalize as much as you can when it's successful so it lowers the cost.

00:19:10.934 --> 00:19:12.171
You do all that around marketing.

00:19:12.171 --> 00:19:14.753
It's just to me it's all different versions of storytelling.

00:19:14.753 --> 00:19:51.050
People want to know your story, they want to know your struggle, they want to know what you're after and how they can be part of it no-transcript, and I appreciate you joining today and sharing your story and your insights.

00:19:51.070 --> 00:19:51.573
I appreciate it.

00:19:51.874 --> 00:19:57.917
I would also add if you can't make it all the way to LA, you can order through goldbellycom, or there should be a link on our website.

00:19:57.917 --> 00:20:00.287
We send those trays and you can cook them yourself in 10 minutes at home.

00:20:01.489 --> 00:20:02.849
All right, I think I'm going to do that too.

00:20:02.849 --> 00:20:05.513
I'll link to that and I encourage everyone to try it out.

00:20:05.513 --> 00:20:06.375
Good stuff.

00:20:06.375 --> 00:20:07.236
Thanks again.

00:20:07.236 --> 00:20:08.057
We really appreciate it.

00:20:08.057 --> 00:20:08.718
You got it.

00:20:08.718 --> 00:20:09.118
Thank you.