Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Marketing Yourself As A Chef Ep.23

Transcript

Marketing Yourself As A Chef Ep.23 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs PS a
• 0:02
  podcast. I'm your host on Janet era.
• 0:05
  On today's episode we're going to talk about chefs and
• 0:07
  marketing so stay tuned. So let's start out with a brief
• 0:22
  update of what I've been up to this past week.
• 0:25
  I've been super busy working behind the scenes on some
• 0:28
  exciting projects. Hopefully they come to fruition,
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  I don't know. You know, sometimes you start
• 0:33
  working on something and then it goes nowhere, but I am excited
• 0:36
  about these. I'll talk about it more as
• 0:38
  things develop. But anyway, ID released a couple
• 0:42
  of new merch item, so you may have seen it one is t-shirt says
• 0:46
  Happy Chef and it's a chef that's smiling like a chef's
• 0:50
  miles. But anyway, go find that on Chef
• 0:53
  PS a.com also released another one, that says, embrace the
• 0:56
  grind and funny story, when I was designing that Shirt.
• 1:00
  So there's a rooster on it. It's like wake up and Brace the
• 1:04
  grind, like hustle, get after it.
• 1:08
  But initially, there wasn't a rooster on that shirt was a meat
• 1:11
  grinder. I was putting someone's hand in
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  it and said, embrace the grind. I thought, I don't know.
• 1:16
  I don't know if anyone will find this funny but me.
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  So anyway, I changed its now. It's a rooster, I don't know,
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  maybe I'll go back to the other one and then another one that
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  says, another t-shirts, green and has yellow letter and it
• 1:28
  says Sucker Free kitchens and the reason I bade that shirt is
• 1:33
  if you know me, you know, I'm a big hip-hop fan and so they're
• 1:37
  like, If you know me in real life, when I talk, when I talk
• 1:39
  shit with my friends and I don't like that, that sucker shit, so
• 1:43
  I always say sucker shit. That's, that's kind of my jargon
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  Myron, a killer. Anyway, that's why those are the
• 1:50
  new shirts, so go get them. So, besides designing shirts, I
• 1:55
  was had a lot of meetings behind the scenes.
• 1:57
  Anyway, that's neither here. Nor there on today's episode.
• 1:59
  I want to talk about marketing and marketing yourself as a chef
• 2:04
  and do you need a, you know, PR firm or marketing?
• 2:07
  That you work with. And the short answer is if you
• 2:11
  want to be taken serious and you want to see what your true
• 2:13
  potential is as a chef. Absolutely, you should probably
• 2:17
  work with a marketing firm or you need to learn how to Market
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  yourself and I'll give you several examples throughout this
• 2:24
  podcast. But first, I'm going to tell you
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  two stories that are related to marketing, and I had a weight.
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  So last week, we talked about Charlie Trotter so it kind of
• 2:35
  ties into this week and I should have shared this in last
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  episode. So, I had a friend that was good
• 2:39
  friends with Charlie Trotter. He was from Chicago and they
• 2:42
  knew each other, and there were friends, one time, I was in a
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  car ride, and I was a young cook at the time.
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  So I was maybe on a 22 or something like that.
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  And I'm driving with my friend and he says something about
• 2:53
  Charlie Trotter. I said, oh what, you know,
• 2:55
  Charlie Trotter, he's like, yeah, it was no big deal to him,
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  he was older and older, Chef is. Yeah, I know Charlie Charles not
• 3:00
  a big deal to him. It wasn't a big deal and I said,
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  what's it? Like?
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  And he's like now, you know, just a regular guy, he's a good
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  Chef, you know but I do No, I don't work for him, I'm just his
• 3:09
  friend. I asked him the question like I
• 3:11
  kept, I kept like pestering him with questions about Charlie
• 3:14
  Trotter because I was, you know, such a such a big fan of his and
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  he said something to me that I'll never forget he says you
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  know what the biggest difference between Charlie Trotter and all
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  the other good chefs out there and I said, what's that?
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  And he said marketing, he said there's a lot of chefs out there
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  that are good. He says, but Charlie Trotter is
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  a better marketer now, I don't know if I fully agree with that
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  because to me, Charlie Trotter was a legend when it came to
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  what he did with his restaurant. But I understand what he was
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  trying to say, he was talking about the fact that he had all
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  the books. The fact that, you know, he
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  played up this character of The Angry Chef.
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  There was a lot of marketing and what Charlie Trotter did and you
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  could see it in the documentary. If you go back and watch it,
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  you'll you'll pick up little things that he did to Market
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  himself. The second story that I had is I
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  had a friend that used to run a hotel Well, and in that hotel,
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  Gordon Ramsay had a restaurant and I won't say which hotel.
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  And I won't say, which restaurant just out of
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  protection for my friend. I never like I never like to
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  share people's names or specific places if I don't have the
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  permission of my friend to share it.
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  So anyway, long story short. My friend is running a hotel
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  where Gordon Ramsay has a restaurant and I also same thing
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  I was this was years ago so I was maybe 2008.
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  So this is like Gordon Ramsay at Peak Gordon Ramsay.
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  And I asked the question. I said, what's it like and all
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  this than the other house, the food, blah, blah, blah.
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  And he said, it's no different quality wise than what you're
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  serving here. He said, you know, you could go
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  to this restaurant and get a ton of PR and press it, would it
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  matter who the chef was and I took it to mean, like, wow, my
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  food is on par with Gordon Ramsay, but that's not what he
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  was saying. What he was saying, is that that
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  restaurant because of the location because of the pr,
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  because The Prestige of it, it did it, man.
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  Erhu the chef was, you're going to get recognition.
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  That's something to think about is that, sometimes it's not
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  about the food, sometimes it's a little bit about the marketing
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  of the chef in the connections that they have.
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  The board time that I spent as young cook.
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  I really pushed myself to really be the best chef that I could.
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  And in about 2010, I took over the chef position at the
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  Fairmont in Dallas and they have a restaurant there called The
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  Pyramid. Now, back in the day, the
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  pyramid was one of the greatest restaurants in Dallas.
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  So, really, to restaurants or three restaurants where the
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  iconic restaurants in Dallas, one of them was the Mansion on
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  Turtle Creek, the second Was the French room inside the Adolphus
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  Hotel and the third one was the pyramid, or as it was known to a
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  lot of people, the pyramid room inside the Fairmont Hotel.
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  And when I took over this job, this was my first time actually
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  working with a true PR team. They made a press release.
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  That I was the new chef. And, you know, I remember
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  talking to them and them having to coach me, like don't say
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  anything bad. Don't say anything stupid, you
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  know, magazines are going to call you, and I wasn't used to
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  that. I had to get coached on what to
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  say, what not to say, how to behave how to engage.
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  With people how to be prepared for food critics, and this, that
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  and the other. And I talked about that a little
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  bit more in depth in the food Critic episode early on in the
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  podcast Series. So, anyway, long story short,
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  when I started working with a PR firm, I noticed like holy shit,
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  you get a ton of press. Once you're working with someone
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  that they specialize in PR, the amount of press that you get is,
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  it's like sipping from a fire hose.
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  If you had never worked in a place, in this case myself, I
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  had never worked in a place where I had a PR person behind
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  me. All of a sudden going strictly
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  into a place where there was a PR person behind me, it was like
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  several times a month. I was in the newspaper or being
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  interviewed or in a magazine or something, right?
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  It was like, holy shit. This is a new world for me, and
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  I had to learn how to behave. That led me to taking on the
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  next job, a better job more money, bigger role being a being
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  a chef partner in a restaurant group and it was more PR and it
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  was more press and I started to work with a PR firm and I
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  started to get a lot of press and they They had me doing
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  something. I mean I felt like I was doing
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  something like every week and to the point where his overwhelming
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  I remember. Sometimes I would forget like oh
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  you got to be on TV tomorrow and I'd be like oh shit I got to be
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  on TV tomorrow you know for local news or whatever and you
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  know I was constantly driving around in.
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  It was those little it was a little bit of a headache because
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  I couldn't keep up with the amount of press and there was so
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  much coming at me whether it was, you know, a TV appearance
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  or a local magazine or whatever the case may be, you know, when
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  you're hot and you're working with a PR firm, you're hot.
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  I didn't really understand that there was a couple of traps that
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  I would advise people to be aware of is number one, when
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  you're working with a PR firm, you're going to get a ton of
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  press, right? They are connected.
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  The reason you want to work with a PR firm, is the fact that they
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  are connected. They're going to be able to pick
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  up the phone and speak to someone at Food & Wine magazine,
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  or speak to someone that can get you nominated for a specific
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  award or the local television Studio, or get you on a podcast
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  for that matter right there? They know people.
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  It's Their job to pitch the chef's that they're working with
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  or the restaurant that they're working with.
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  So, most of your top chefs, I could tell you they work with PR
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  firms because they need it, right?
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  So it's the Boost that they need.
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  There's a lot of talented chefs out there that don't have PR
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  firms. And unfortunately, you might
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  never know their name and they're just as talented as
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  people and other chefs that do have a PR firm behind them.
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  So, There's a big difference. I can tell you from experience
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  when you have a PR team behind you and when you don't, but it
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  is interesting to see the amount of doors that will open for you
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  when you do have a PR team behind you.
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  So keep that in mind now when it comes to the amount of press
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  that you're getting, it's a slippery slope because you could
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  start to believe the shit that's written about you.
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  Good and bad. And I know I've talked about
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  this before but sometimes they'll About you and they'll
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  say, oh, you know, you're great, or you have the best food, this
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  that the other understand that its flavor of the moment and
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  you're having your time to shine capitalize on it double down and
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  keep going forward with your forward momentum of success.
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  But understand that it might not be true, right?
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  That might be bullshit. There might be chefs out there
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  better than you in your community that are making better
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  food than you. They just don't have a PR team
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  behind them that's helping give you the Boost to that you need.
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  So keep that in mind and Don't believe everything, don't
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  believe the bullshit sometimes because it's a double-edged
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  sword. Because as soon as it gets
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  turned on you it's great when everyone's writing positive
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  about you, but it's really serious blow to Your Ego when
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  that narrative turns and they're no longer writing positive
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  things about you. So keep that in mind, understand
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  that the media Publications social media.
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  This is all shaping the way people eat and dine, and that's
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  the trend Setter and I'll give you You a thought experiment.
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  And I like to use a lot of stories and Parables, but a lot
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  of people will start making food and you'll see food trends, go a
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  certain direction. So let's just say, for a while,
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  it was Molecular Gastronomy and everyone was doing the bubble
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  food and then maybe it was foraging and fermentation, it
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  started going that way and then maybe it was fill in the blank,
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  right? So food trends, go a certain
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  way. And you wonder like, where does
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  this idea come from? Well, I'll tell you the story.
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  That was told to me, a long time ago, and it involves it's not a
• 10:48
  real story. It's just about a hypnotist.
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  So there's two people walking a hypnotist and the skeptic and
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  they're walking through the desert and they see someone
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  riding a horse. And the person that's a skeptic
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  tells the hypnotist. And they said, how good are you?
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  And he says, I'm the best hypnotist in the world.
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  He said, can you make that person?
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  Can you hypnotize them? And he said, I could hypnotize
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  them. I'm so good.
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  I could hypnotize them from here.
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  And he says, As okay, prove it. And he says make them get off
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  the horse. So the guy says, okay done and
• 11:18
  the person that was further down on the Horse stopped and they
• 11:21
  got off the horses is okay, that could be a coincidence, make
• 11:24
  them pick up a rock and throw it.
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  So the guy says, okay done and the guy went and he grabbed a
• 11:29
  rock and he threw it. He says, okay, that could be a
• 11:31
  coincidence. Also, just to prove how good you
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  are, make him go pick up the Rock and the guy says, okay.
• 11:37
  So then the, the the guy walked over and he picked up the Rock.
• 11:40
  And he says, okay, let's go speak to that guy because I I
• 11:42
  believe that you hypnotize them. So they walk over to the other
• 11:44
  guy and they say, can you tell me why did you get off the
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  horse? And the guy says, I thought I
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  saw a snake and he's like okay he says, well then why'd you
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  pick up a rock? He's like well I picked up a
• 11:56
  rock because I wanted to throw it at the snake.
• 11:59
  He's like, okay, well then why'd you go, why'd you go pick up the
• 12:02
  rock after you through it? And he says, well the rock felt
• 12:05
  a little bit heavy so I thought maybe it was gold so I went to
• 12:07
  go look at it now. What's the moral of that story,
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  if you're confused? Someone was hypnotizing them and
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  the person that was hypnotized thought they were making their
• 12:20
  own decisions and they were coming to their own conclusions.
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  And this is, this is the way the world works.
• 12:27
  Most of the ideas people have are not original ideas, they've
• 12:33
  come from somewhere so maybe someone else get them maybe you
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  learned them from school maybe learned it from another Chef
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  maybe learn them from your parents, whatever the case may
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  be. But most of the thoughts people
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  have are not original thoughts. They've come from somewhere like
• 12:45
  they were planted as a seed and then they sprouted later and
• 12:49
  just like a lot of these food Trends, the same thing happens,
• 12:52
  can you imagine if a restaurant critic went to some of the best
• 12:56
  restaurants in the world? Pick one, right?
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  Whether we're talking about Noma, or Ferran Adria, solo
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  bully. When it was open, if a
• 13:04
  restaurant critic, had gone over there and the opposite had
• 13:06
  happened and they didn't receive the praise.
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  And the critic came in and said, this is a joke.
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  This is not what we want. This is, you know, not real
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  cooking, and it hurt their business and they shut their
• 13:20
  doors, and we never heard of them using the Ferran Adria
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  example. There wouldn't be any Molecular
• 13:28
  Gastronomy now. You wouldn't be working with
• 13:30
  alginates. You wouldn't be you wouldn't be
• 13:32
  using hexametaphosphate, none of that would exist.
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  You wouldn't be using xanthum gum.
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  It wouldn't, it wouldn't have taken place because it would
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  have never had an opportunity to flourish or or we could talk
• 13:43
  about forging or we could talk about whatever, whatever major
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  food Trend was developed, if it didn't receive the praise that
• 13:51
  it got would we have been so enamored by it?
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  What if it wasn't foraging? What if it was a?
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  What if it was just eating a specific type of seaweed from
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  certain Notions then you know next thing you know every single
• 14:04
  Chef across the country is cooking with seaweeds from a
• 14:06
  specific type of ocean. It's that's how that's how it
• 14:09
  works. So you got to be careful to not
• 14:12
  believe. Everything that is being written
• 14:14
  about you, but it do enjoy the moment.
• 14:17
  I had a sous chef that came to me one day and said, hey, you
• 14:24
  were in the newspaper or magazine or whatever and you
• 14:26
  didn't tell us, I said, oh yeah, I forgot about it and she said
• 14:30
  to me, well, why didn't you tell us?
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  I said, I don't know. It wasn't a big deal.
• 14:34
  And again, like, at this time, I met you, I felt like I was in
• 14:36
  something every every other day, and she said to me, well, if you
• 14:41
  don't care, How do you expect us to Care?
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  Like we're proud to work here. So you need to share it and the
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  light bulb went off. I was like, you're right.
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  So don't get your ego too, puffed up and we're all
• 14:55
  susceptible to it, right. Each of us can say no I'm humble
• 14:59
  and I won't do that, but you really don't know what you're
• 15:03
  going to do until you're in the position, right?
• 15:06
  When success comes, I could tell you that a lot of things change
• 15:11
  around you, you know, I've Success on multiple occasions,
• 15:15
  and the amount of people that want to be around you.
• 15:18
  It's, you know, they want a little bit of your shine there,
• 15:21
  like, you know, I'd say everyone, everyone loves you.
• 15:25
  When you're on top, right? Everyone shows up, you got more
• 15:27
  friends, your jokes are a little bit funnier and then the second
• 15:31
  that you're not everything changes, right?
• 15:32
  You're not as funny, you were never good, you know, the
• 15:34
  narrative changes. So be careful with achieving
• 15:38
  that success. When you do get a little bit of
• 15:42
  a little Bit of success due to a marketing team.
• 15:44
  So, I understand they're doing their job.
• 15:46
  You can go much further with the marketing team, then without
• 15:51
  one. Now, I do want to spin off onto
• 15:53
  a little tangent. I do think you should have a
• 15:56
  marketing team behind you if you want to maximize your full
• 15:59
  potential of success, if that's what you want, then you need a
• 16:03
  marketing team behind you, but today's world is a little bit
• 16:05
  different and I think through social media, it has changed
• 16:09
  dramatically. There's things that I know
• 16:11
  through self. Marketing that I wouldn't have
• 16:15
  been able to achieve with the marketing team with social
• 16:18
  media. Sometimes if you're good, if
• 16:19
  you're good in front of the camera or your food is very
• 16:22
  beautiful or, you know, your creative on Instagram, or
• 16:26
  Tick-Tock or any of these other platforms.
• 16:28
  You could grow your own presence online, sometimes much quicker
• 16:33
  than you could through traditional media and, you know,
• 16:36
  how much time do you spend on Eaters website or bone Appetit,
• 16:40
  or food and wine and how much time do you spend on?
• 16:42
  A gram right or Tik-Tok or YouTube, or Twitter.
• 16:46
  So those social media platforms seem to keep people's attention
• 16:49
  on the platform versus, you know, where it used to be on,
• 16:54
  you know, in the magazine or on TV.
• 16:56
  So if you're good at understanding social media, I do
• 16:59
  think it is a game changer. Now it's a great equalizer and
• 17:02
  the platforms but eventually and I'm sure there's already PR
• 17:07
  teams out there that do know how to do this.
• 17:08
  Well is they are going to be able to not only leverage the
• 17:12
  traditional Yeah. But they'll also learn how to
• 17:14
  leverage social media as well. So keep that in mind, I do think
• 17:18
  that you need a presence online. If you're a chef and you're
• 17:21
  trying to grow your online portfolio, people need to be go
• 17:23
  to your Instagram page and see the food that you're making and
• 17:26
  learn a little bit about you. It'll open more doors for you.
• 17:29
  I know when I was a chef, I would look at people's Instagram
• 17:31
  page to see what their food was like, see what they were
• 17:34
  cooking, see, who they were following.
• 17:35
  Just to make sure that it was aligned, maybe for the position
• 17:39
  that they were applying. You know, if I have a very
• 17:41
  high-end restaurant, And you know, I look at their food and
• 17:44
  it's like, okay, maybe they're not ready for this level yet.
• 17:46
  Maybe they're more ready for something else.
• 17:49
  It would help me place them. So, understand that put yourself
• 17:52
  out there because it will help open the doors for you.
• 17:55
  But, every now and again, delete some of the old stuff because
• 17:59
  you don't want people to think, you know, my Foods evolved, it
• 18:02
  involves, you know, the food that I was making 15 years ago,
• 18:05
  is not the food. I would make today and vice
• 18:06
  versa. So as your food of Olives, make
• 18:08
  sure that you're updating your social media accounts.
• 18:12
  So people could What it is that you're up to anyway, long story
• 18:16
  short long rant over if you want to support the show, go to all
• 18:21
  social platforms chefs. PS, a.com chefs PSA on
• 18:25
  Instagram, Tick-Tock YouTube, Twitter, all of that.
• 18:28
  Go go get some of the merge get the books culinary leadership.
• 18:32
  Fundamentals line, cook survival manual.
• 18:34
  The new book that I just came out with, and then the last one,
• 18:38
  how not to be the biggest city in the kitchen.
• 18:39
  I did forget to mention, I'm In with the company to potentially
• 18:45
  create YouTube videos. For this podcast, I'm going to
• 18:48
  beta test it next week. I'm going to see how it comes
• 18:50
  out. So hopefully if you're the type
• 18:53
  of person that, you know, you want to, you want to see my
• 18:55
  face, and maybe I'll have the videos up on YouTube.
• 18:59
  I'm working towards that. I'm hoping that by the next
• 19:02
  episode, I'll have the first one that I'm able to not only have
• 19:05
  on Spotify that you can listen to.
• 19:07
  But also you could watch it on Spotify and YouTube will see how
• 19:10
  that goes. So give me about a week before.
• 19:12
  I figured That out. I'm taking you along for the
• 19:15
  ride. So hopefully it works.
• 19:17
  Anyway. Thank you all.
• 19:19
  Go leave 5 stars. On the podcast to Five Star
• 19:23
  podcast, will see you next week. Hit the porno music.