Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Building Restaurant PhD: April King's Framework for Multi-Unit Success and Growth

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Building Restaurant PhD: April King's Framework for Multi-Unit Success and Growth · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:12
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:15
adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi and
0:17
today's guest is April Joy King. She is the founder and leader of
0:22
Restaurant PHDA Consulting Company that helps multi unit
0:26
restaurant groups and franchise systems optimize operations,
0:31
streamline systems and drive growth.
0:34
With over 2 decades of industry experience, April has become
0:38
known for her skill and process improvement, leadership
0:41
development and food cost strategies.
0:44
She also holds an AAS in Business and Marketing
0:47
Technology from Northeast Mississippi Community College,
0:51
along with certifications from the National Restaurant
0:53
Association and real estate licenses in Mississippi.
0:57
Her success lies in integrating operational discipline with
1:01
brand clarity, which has helped clients across multiple regions.
1:05
April's relationship, first approach and passion for
1:08
innovation have earned her recognition as a trusted advisor
1:12
in the restaurant world. She has guided fast casual
1:15
brands and fine dining establishments alike, always
1:18
focusing on people, processes and performance.
1:23
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:06
today, founder of restaurant PhD, April King.
2:09
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:12
Thank you for having me, I'm looking forward to it.
2:16
So April, You founded Restaurant PhD earlier this year, but
2:19
you've spent nearly 20 years developing the necessary skills
2:22
with stops at a variety of food and beverage and real estate
2:25
companies. What would you choose as your
2:28
most formidable career stop along the way?
2:34
I think that each piece of the puzzle was necessary on my
2:40
journey. So I started in restaurants at
2:44
14. My mom came home and said I got
2:48
you a job and it was not optional.
2:51
So she had a client that owned a restaurant and I started
2:55
serving. I was put in leadership by the
2:59
time I was in my late teens. It's like a shift leader,
3:03
kitchen leader. When I was 21, I was able to be
3:10
an assistant manager. You had to be 21 to to be a
3:13
salaried employee and to go through the training.
3:16
By 24, I was a general manager. By 30 I was a district manager.
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And so the bulk of my career was running restaurants from, you
3:29
know, all the way to the the front line leader to running
3:33
multiple operations. That was her journey.
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But I loved it. I loved everything about it.
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I loved learning at each stage. When I got to where I had
3:50
developed people underneath me that came up and were able to
3:56
get great results and to develop other people in the industry, I
4:02
made a couple of career leaps. The first one was to work for
4:07
food distributor. I'm curious by nature.
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I'm like, OK, I figured out how the inside of the four walls
4:14
work. Let me see what what it looks
4:17
like on the other end. How does pricing work?
4:20
How does contract pricing work? How does the food get to the
4:22
restaurant? How you know, how do the things
4:25
get in the boxes? What are the difference between
4:28
the vendors that serve restaurants food?
4:31
I was a sales consultant working directly with restaurants for a
4:35
year and a half. Then I took a promotion to sales
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leader in the food distribution industry.
4:42
Then I'm like, OK, well I got that piece of the puzzle solved
4:46
So I went to SAS restaurant ERP tech that supplies all the back
4:53
office systems for restaurants, accounting, labor scheduling,
4:57
inventory. And so I really, again, how do,
5:01
how do those contracts work? How are they formed?
5:05
You know, how did they kind of integrate with all the different
5:08
pieces for a restaurant? So I feel like that gives me a
5:11
really unique lens of a full 360 view of the entire industry,
5:20
which again, I think it's just the whole journey put together
5:25
that makes me a little bit unique.
5:28
Yeah, I'm hearing what you're saying.
5:29
Like you started out very young, 14 kind of working frontline in
5:33
restaurant. You worked your way up to
5:35
assistant manager, general manager, district manager.
5:39
So you understand the frontline work, you understand managing
5:42
A-Team that's doing that frontline work.
5:44
And then you started to look outside those four walls, right?
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How does the product get here out of these contracts work and
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and all that and then you get to go work for a software provider.
5:55
And so, yeah, you're understanding multiple pairs of
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the industry and then at some point you decide to leave
6:04
corporate job and start your own thing.
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What was the impetus behind that?
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I found myself over since I've been out of restaurants, whether
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that was in food distribution or tech.
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My favorite part of the job was not selling the thing.
6:25
My favorite part of the job was helping operators to be
6:29
successful, which helped me to be successful in those roles,
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right? Because they trusted me, so they
6:37
trusted my product. But at the end of the day, you
6:42
know, what I enjoyed the most was having those conversations,
6:47
being able to give some insight into things that I had seen
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either from my own experience or from working with other
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operators. So in food distribution, I had
7:00
eight sales reps under me, so we covered 2 to 300 restaurants.
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When I went to the ERP tech, I serviced multi unit restaurants
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over, you know, the east half of the United States.
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So I was often working or speaking with groups that had
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20-30, you know, 200 units. So I just got to work with a lot
7:28
of different restaurant groups and just having those
7:32
experiences gives you a lot of insight, right?
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When you hear of different things that different groups are
7:39
doing and, and best practices, it gives you more information to
7:43
share. So that, that was what made the
7:46
move. It's like, OK, I, you know, I, I
7:50
enjoy this, but my favorite part of working with customers is
7:54
really getting to dig in to their business.
7:57
And it may not be aligned with what I'm selling, right?
8:01
Like if I'm selling food, but they're having a problem with,
8:06
you know, employee development or technology, I want to be able
8:11
to veer off into those conversations to really help.
8:14
And so that that was kind of the thought process behind it.
8:18
Did you have a first client lined up when you sort of jumped
8:22
ship and put 2 feet in the water at once?
8:25
Oh no. OK.
8:28
No, I, there's some things that I needed to kind of build out my
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experience and the things that I know are successful, they live
8:41
here. And you have to have a way to
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kind of be able to put that out right into some format so that
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you can share not just their conversations, but so that you
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can give you know who you're working with some real tools,
8:58
some real things. So that after you have the
9:00
conversation and they try to go back to do the thing, you know,
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whatever they have a playbook or they, they have the system that
9:10
kind of helps them run it. So that was kind of my focus.
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You know, I'm, I'm a 2 feet in it at one time.
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You know, I did get some clients and I still do some mentoring
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with some groups that I've worked with in the past, you
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know, but no, no, I didn't have anything lined up.
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I just went all in. And and so how did you get that
9:34
first one? So a lot of my connections are
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through LinkedIn. I have a newsletter that I've
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put out for a while now just because I did want to kind of
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share some things that I have found along the way that we're
9:53
successful. And so even over the years
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before I had, you know, restaurant PhD, I often get
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messages that people will send, even if it's, I got 1, you know,
10:07
a couple of weeks ago that was a general manager.
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She's not coming to me for, you know, to purchase services, but
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she's just like, ah, you just posted this And it really like
10:20
hit my nervous system like I'm, I'm kind of burning out here.
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These are some struggles that I'm having like with my
10:27
leadership. How should I have those
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conversations or, you know, those type things?
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So whether it's owners, executive teams, you know,
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sometimes I just kind of get those little one off questions
10:42
and it kind of turns into conversations that open doors
10:48
for me to help. So give us a rundown of the
10:51
services that you're providing there at Restaurant PhD now.
10:56
Yeah. So my experience was in a QSR
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brand that is a really old brand, right?
11:08
So when you think of QSR, you think of, right, like the
11:12
McDonald's, Taco Bells, Burger Kings, you know, all of the
11:16
things. One of the great things about
11:20
working in those companies is that they have very well thought
11:27
out, very tenured systems, right?
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They've kind of figured it out. I always tell everybody, you
11:36
know, back 50 years ago, you couldn't open a location and
11:41
franchise it nationally like that.
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That was not a thing. You had to grow from success.
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Even family owners, you had to open one restaurant and it had
11:52
to be successful and that one cash flowed the second one.
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So they grew very slowly and they were really able to track
12:00
that success. So what I've done is in my
12:06
career, took note of systems that I used that were successful
12:12
and then in my own experience where there were gaps between
12:17
what I was using, I made my own systems in those areas.
12:23
So if I was having trouble holding a general manager
12:26
accountable or not getting the result that I was needing
12:30
financially, you know, I'm just built to how do we solve this?
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How do we put a system in place, not a one off?
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How do we fix this this month? But how do we fix this across
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all my locations for the rest of time?
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So at Restaurant PhD, my first thing that I like to do is I
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have all of those systems that I used that I know we're
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successful in one of the hardest industries.
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And I make a heat map. So restaurant group comes to me,
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they kind of share of like what they're doing.
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We have an interview, you know, like a one day.
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If they're close, we can do an in store visit, but it's just a
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one day interview. Let's go through this.
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How are you handling things? And then I measure that against
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my systems and it exposes areas where they can, you know, kind
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of put in processes or. Are you almost like a fractional
13:38
COO for restaurants? Yes, it's it's so it's similar.
13:46
But what I do is I'm not going to go in and directly do the
13:57
things it, it's kind of like a train the trainer.
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One of the things that I found in running restaurants is, you
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know, we would have in a, in a lot of restaurant businesses, I
14:10
would say whether it was a new product rollout or new store
14:14
opening, you have, you know, people that come in and they do
14:19
the training and then they leave.
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And then in QSR, it's not uncommon for turnover to be
14:27
150%. So everything, everybody that
14:31
just learned the thing no longer works there.
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And you know, you have this whole new staff that can't
14:39
maintain the standard. And so when we kind of talk
14:44
through the gaps or systems that can be used, I'm not just going
14:49
to go in and implement them. I'm going to work with that
14:53
executive team, whether it's the owner, the COO, the, you know,
14:57
above store team to train on it, to train how to roll it out.
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And that way it's really sticky. You know, it's not something
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that I just come in as a fractional COO and, and kind of
15:13
put in place. I'm not monitoring, you know,
15:16
your, your food cost or your labor cost.
15:19
I'm I'm going to say this is how.
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This is how you should be doing it yourself.
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Yes, these are, you know, the development plans or the action
15:29
plans or the monthly rhythm or the conversations that you
15:32
should be having so that you can get the result.
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So just a little nuance there. And so your typical client is
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like a multi unit operator, whether it's family owned
15:45
business, it's you know, maybe a multi unit franchise E is, is
15:49
that correct? Yes.
15:50
OK. And so with the work that you've
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done across, you know, a lot of multi unit restaurant groups,
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what is maybe the most common operational pitfall that you
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see? Probably people development or
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kind of back to measuring it against what I used.
16:16
People don't know what they don't know.
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And so sometimes they're not getting results, but they don't
16:25
know how to get from A to B. So one of the most common things
16:29
that I see is multi unit owners have a lot of restaurants and
16:36
they need goals and metrics to be hit and they're confused
16:43
between I want a great culture. I want everybody to like working
16:46
here, but I also need you to do what I'm asking you to do and I
16:51
need you to get the results, you know, for the company.
16:55
So they kind of struggle with how do I have a great culture
16:59
and how do I hold people accountable And a lot of times,
17:05
especially owners maybe that do on the concepts, you know, they
17:10
don't have access to a lot of that leadership development
17:14
coaching, you know, as I kind of went up the ranks, I, I had to
17:18
figure that out. I've made the jump from general
17:21
manager to above store manager. So when you were going through
17:25
that transition, there was nobody that was kind of coaching
17:28
you. You're you're sort of figuring
17:30
it out on your own. No, I, I did have coaching, OK.
17:35
So it wasn't exhaustive coaching.
17:38
So I still had gaps that I had to figure out.
17:40
But in a national, you know, corporation, there are a lot
17:45
more resources available. You know, there's a whole
17:50
network of other district managers that have also made the
17:53
jump that you can reach out to, to say, hey, like, this is what
17:57
I'm dealing with. So a lot of times owners, you
18:00
know, maybe they started at an ownership level.
18:04
They never had to make the jump from, you know, the general
18:08
manager to the owner. And so they, they don't really
18:13
know how to get the results. So a lot of them have like a
18:16
bandwidth like, hey, I can get up to, you know, 12 restaurants,
18:20
but when I get past that, I end up kind of closing a location
18:25
because they're kind of doing it all hands on.
18:29
You know, they're, they're kind of being what we call like a
18:31
super GM, right? They're, they're trying to run
18:34
the restaurants themselves because they don't really have
18:36
that understanding of how do I develop this person to get the
18:40
results so that they can run the business like I would.
18:45
So that that's kind of what I do.
18:48
Gotcha. Can you maybe share a specific
18:53
example of how you help the client overcome a rather
18:58
significant hurdle? Don't give away any, you know,
19:01
personal identifying information.
19:03
But hey, I came in, here was the situation, here's what we put in
19:07
place, and here was the result. Yeah.
19:11
So I'm trying to think it's kind of similar to what I just
19:19
shared. There's an owner that has built
19:24
a business that is amazing. I mean, from the community
19:30
perspective, they have wonderful branding, community involvement,
19:36
like the customer service is awesome.
19:38
They have great social media following.
19:42
But the owner, they want to be able to step back some right?
19:48
Like either at some point they want to be able to retire and
19:53
give it to the next generation, but they they don't want to be
19:58
so involved in the day-to-day. So that's kind of where.
20:04
Come in, did an audit and looked at just the processes, right?
20:12
Like how is the communication flowed?
20:14
What written processes do you have in place?
20:18
Because my philosophy is if it's not written down, it doesn't
20:23
exist right? It's it's like a family recipe.
20:27
The only thing that lives is what's written.
20:29
So if you step back and you want somebody else to kind of fill in
20:35
that gap, what do they have to go by?
20:37
What what do they have to look at to to help them kind of
20:40
navigate. So in that example, we just kind
20:44
of go through, how can you step back?
20:47
What are the areas that you want to step back in that you need
20:50
somebody else to step up into? What do you want that to look
20:54
like? Write it down, put it on paper,
20:57
you know, whether that's that manager having a weekly, you
21:02
know, meeting or monthly financial review with the teens,
21:06
whatever it is. So with that one, it's just it
21:10
allowed them to not be so hands on, you know, to be able to take
21:15
that vacation after they have built that business from the
21:18
ground up and they have, you know, blood, sweat and tears for
21:22
30 years. They can develop those next
21:26
leaders. They can have them run the
21:28
business with, you know, 8090% right of the of the results that
21:35
they were getting. And just to prepare for that,
21:39
that exit, whether that's to go start another business while
21:42
they still have this one, you know, they can, they can still
21:44
make opportunities for employees and kind of step back to go do
21:49
the new thing or whether that's to retire or to get ready to
21:52
sell it. So that, that's one where I know
21:56
that they, they got some extra time back.
21:58
They got some breathing room. They got some relief of I'm not
22:02
going to have to have my hands on this for, you know, the next
22:08
20 years or it's going to fall apart.
22:10
I'm. Going to go back to something
22:12
you said earlier in the interview April, you were
22:14
talking about coming up to the restaurant, you know, frontline
22:17
assistant manager, general manager, district manager.
22:20
And you're like, your comment you made was that was hard.
22:23
What made it so hard? What was the hardest thing about
22:26
that early part of your career journey?
22:32
So I'm a very, again, systems processes person.
22:38
I want to know how things work and when I step into a role that
22:44
doesn't have that and you hit those challenges, it's hard
22:50
sometimes, right? Like it's a challenge.
22:52
How how do I systemize this? How do I turn it into something
22:56
that is not as hard? And like the reference that I
23:01
made to the Super GM, that leap from running a store and feeling
23:08
super confident, right? Like you have this.
23:10
I am the, you know, I'm getting the best results.
23:13
Like I'm really good at this to then stepping into a multi unit
23:19
role and then all of a sudden your stores aren't performing
23:24
the way that you performed. You go from feeling on top of
23:28
the world to feeling like a failure.
23:31
You know, all the sudden it's like, I thought I was really
23:33
good at this, but I haven't developed the skills to make
23:37
other people really good at this.
23:40
And it's a challenge because if you're competitive, if you like
23:43
to be the best at everything, you know it, It's hard to see
23:48
other people struggle, especially when they're
23:50
underneath you. They're a reflection of you.
23:52
And so it was, how do I help them to be successful for their
23:58
own development and you know, to to make it an actual reflection
24:04
of what I'm capable of at the same time.
24:08
Yeah, let's see. I know that especially given
24:16
your background in technology, that's probably part of what it
24:20
is that you're looking at with your clients.
24:24
And tech now is advancing even more quickly in the hospitality
24:28
sector. Is there something that you're
24:30
particularly excited about as it pertains to tech and
24:33
hospitality? Yes and no.
24:43
I am a absolute geek when it comes to technology.
24:47
I love it. I want all the new apps, all the
24:50
shiny things. I love technology.
24:55
What I'm excited about most is some of the ways that it reduces
25:01
barriers for all restaurants to have access to some really cool
25:06
tools. So for instance, this past week
25:13
I had a client that had access to information from the POS,
25:19
right? Like, we sell this many
25:21
hamburgers and this many fries, but they don't have a system
25:26
that tracks their usage. Like, how many cases of this am
25:29
I going through? And I was able to use AI in an
25:35
hour. And they have a functional tool
25:39
that they can access where they can enter in their truck orders,
25:44
put in it by vendor, upload it into a file, and it tells them
25:48
their usage. Never in history have we been
25:53
able to do that without hiring, right?
25:56
The developers and the whatever. A big expense that I'm really
26:01
excited about. Get resources in the hands of
26:05
your teams so that they can have access to the tools that they
26:08
need. The no part is if you don't have
26:14
good systems in place and you go through a bunch of money at
26:18
technology, you're automating failure faster like.
26:24
Automating failure faster. It is only going to automate to
26:29
the systems that you have. So if you don't have well
26:33
thought out systems of how your general managers get invoices to
26:39
your office or you know all this, if if you don't have the
26:43
processes almost in place manually, if you're not
26:46
following up on those things now, then you're kind of you're
26:52
just automating what, what, what result is it producing?
26:57
So I really want groups to have the understanding of the basic
27:01
fundamental processes almost written or manually.
27:07
And then when that's really working, let's automate that
27:11
because you know that is proven. It works in your in your
27:16
organization. But if you go out and just buy
27:19
the shiny new piece of technology thinking that it's
27:22
going to fix a lack of accountability in your
27:25
organization or that it's going to overcome a lack of leadership
27:30
in your organization, it's not. It's just going to automate
27:34
messy processes. Yeah.
27:37
You know we talked about you work with multi unit operators,
27:43
but what what's kind of your sweet spot April is you know is
27:47
it 2 units, is it 100 units? Like where is it that you find
27:50
that you can be most helpful to groups?
27:55
Probably that 5 to 50. I know that sounds like a big
28:02
range, but it's really not with the way that groups are
28:07
expanding these days. So there's a lot of groups that
28:12
maybe were flagship locations that had four or five corporate
28:17
owned units and then they franchised and that can happen
28:21
really fast. So they can go from having five
28:25
to now, you know, opening 20 next year with franchisees and
28:31
that speed exposes lacks of systems, right?
28:36
Like you may run your five really great and you write
28:42
processes for your franchisees, but you don't realize what you
28:46
didn't put in there until your franchisees are not getting
28:49
results right until they're they're struggling and they're
28:53
like, Hey, I bought into this brand because you know, it, it
28:57
had the systems and I'm not able to hit my food cost or my labor
29:00
cost or I'm not making the profit that I thought I would.
29:04
And so they're going back to, to get the answers.
29:07
And so that really fast, fast growth anywhere from 50 to you
29:15
know somebody that just owns 5 family and locations.
29:21
So are you mostly working with the founders, the concept owners
29:27
or do you do much work with franchisees as well?
29:32
So I work with franchisees as well.
29:35
So one of the things that's common in the restaurant
29:38
industry is that you have groups that kind of manage multiple
29:45
franchises. So you may have an owner that is
29:49
a franchise that owns, you know, 5 locations of this franchise
29:54
and they also own, you know, 5 locations of a different
29:58
franchise and then five of another, right?
30:02
That way they can build out a smaller area, smaller footprint
30:09
and have restaurants and non competing spaces.
30:13
So it's the same multi unit, right?
30:16
So they're trying to juggle like these different restaurant
30:20
concepts. They might have 15 or 20
30:22
locations that those may be made-up of different franchise
30:26
brands. So they're also trying to
30:28
consolidate information, OK, like I have this information and
30:33
the way I run this one and this information for the way I run
30:35
this one. But I'm the owner of all of
30:38
these. So how do I simplify that,
30:41
right? Like how do I developed all of
30:43
my teams across three different brands or two different brands?
30:46
And so we we kind of work with those.
30:49
What does the franchisor require of you?
30:54
But in your company, what processes can you put in place,
30:57
whether that's who you hire, how you develop your talent, OR how
31:02
you get the information from all three different concepts into
31:05
one place so that you can do something with it.
31:10
So I want to go back to another thing that you said earlier that
31:13
that kind of blew my mind. You said in QSR quick service
31:16
restaurants for people outside the industry, turnover can be
31:20
over 150%. Is that right?
31:24
I have seen a restaurant that had over 300%.
31:31
So you're talking about a full new staff three times a year.
31:38
And then people wonder why they go to, you know, somewhere and
31:43
they're the sandwich isn't made right or the service isn't where
31:50
it needs to be. Well, imagine being a general
31:53
manager and you know, twice a year I tell everybody in your
31:58
own business, imagine in your business that everybody quit and
32:03
you got a whole new staff and you did that twice a year.
32:05
And I got to, I got to train all of them.
32:08
Yes, all of them while, you know, ordering accurately and
32:13
scheduling people and and doing all the things, which is why
32:16
from a top down level, I go with that train the trainer mindset,
32:22
right, Because if you're struggling in a restaurant, if a
32:25
general manager is kind of struggling and you have this
32:29
corporate team that rushes in, right, And we do this, you know,
32:33
2 day training and all of the employees know all of the
32:37
things. OK, well, six months later,
32:39
they're not going to be there. So it the turnover is is crazy.
32:46
Do you have any advice for operators on how to reduce that
32:49
turnover? Yeah.
32:52
So in some of our locations, our turnover ran 20%, which was
33:01
crazy for the industry. And I think that it's a lot of
33:08
the simple, basic things that start before someone even gets
33:15
hired. What are we putting out in our
33:19
job descriptions? Who are we attracting?
33:22
What are we interviewing on? What kind of questions are we
33:26
asking when we hire somebody? What is their first impression
33:32
of our business? How do we onboard them?
33:35
How do we train them? How do we develop them?
33:39
Which sounds like that should be, you know that everybody
33:46
should know that. Managing one-on-one.
33:49
You know, in the corporate world, it's like, yes, you know,
33:52
we have these corporate recruiters and we have these,
33:56
you know, they can go to orientation at the corporate
33:58
office and somebody sets up their tech and all of that.
34:01
I know I've been in those roles in a restaurant.
34:04
That's not, you know, you have a general manager that is having
34:08
to manage this whole staff that's already turned over.
34:13
They're all new. They're fighting fires every
34:14
day. You know, they tried to take
34:17
their hands off the thing whether that was, you know,
34:19
given the assistant manager the ability to order the truck, but
34:24
now we don't have half the product.
34:26
So we're, you know, having to tell customers that we're out of
34:29
things and then this person shows up for orientation.
34:33
And so it's just they're a lot of them are constantly in
34:38
firefighting mode, being able to get systems in place to get your
34:45
operations to a point where you can really start onboarding the
34:50
right way, letting people feel supported and trained from day
34:54
one makes a huge difference. And people want to see a path in
34:59
any industry. It doesn't matter.
35:02
Just because that person, you know, has a GED and it started
35:07
as a line cook doesn't mean that they have any less ambition to
35:11
run the restaurant one day. So how do we show them how to do
35:15
that? A lot of our reduced turnover
35:18
was because we were 90% internal promotions.
35:23
But a lot of owners struggle because they don't know how to
35:25
do that. They don't know how to get that
35:27
result. They, they don't know how to
35:28
train that person from, you know, the cook to the kitchen
35:32
leader, to the assistant manager, to the general manager,
35:35
to the above store manager. And that makes a huge difference
35:39
when, when employees see that in a company, they see internal
35:43
promotions. They're like, hey, I want to
35:45
stick out here. This is this is a path.
35:47
This is a way for me to get somewhere.
35:50
And so a big part of what you're doing is helping them to put
35:53
those training systems in place, helping them to identify those
35:57
people who have the potential and how to bring them along.
36:01
Because, you know, if somebody doesn't have that system in
36:04
place, they don't have that training, they don't have that
36:06
background. I might just be expecting, you
36:08
know, the guy that's running the grill to, you know, just
36:11
continue to elevate himself. And he may have that desire to
36:15
elevate, but he he needs somebody to show him the ropes.
36:19
Yeah. So that's kind of where that
36:21
initial heat map, you know, like tell me about your onboarding,
36:26
tell me about your training, tell me about your orientation
36:29
process, Tell me what resources you have in the restaurant that
36:35
show a clear path. And then what tools do you have
36:39
in place to be able to develop that person?
36:41
Do you know, do you have any kind of training, you know,
36:46
development programs that are offered whatever every six
36:49
months or annually that different levels can attend to
36:53
develop their skills and to be able to step into that next
36:57
role? I might, you know, look at the
37:01
heat map and see that there's a bitch planning gap, right?
37:05
They don't have any way of identifying in all of their
37:09
different locations the next set of leaders.
37:11
It's not on paper. It's not OK.
37:14
I need this general manager to identify they, you know, they
37:18
have two assistant managers. We have two shift leaders who
37:22
are the next two shift leaders? Like what is your bench?
37:26
Let's write it down. Let's start working with them
37:28
now. What can we offer?
37:31
What systems can we put in place to start training that next
37:35
group throughout the whole company?
37:39
So if I, I'm starting to connect the dots on on your approach
37:42
here and and help me fill in the gaps if I'm missing things.
37:45
Obviously, as you know, a client comes and says that they want to
37:48
work with you. They've already got ideas in
37:51
their own head of what it is they need to fix some of some of
37:54
what their problems are. And so you come in with that
37:57
understanding, but also with the understanding that they may not
38:01
even know where their gaps are. You've been in the industry so
38:05
long and you've seen it from inside, from outside, from
38:09
service provider levels. And so you know the questions to
38:12
ask that they weren't even thinking of.
38:14
So you know what, you came to me with these lists of things over
38:16
here and I've got ideas. And now from this one day
38:20
interview that we did together, I think, you know, the heat map,
38:22
you call it now I've got another list of things that we're going
38:26
to also work on over here. And as we start to check items
38:30
off these lists, you're going to see a lot of things become
38:33
smoother. You know, things are going to
38:36
turn around, the turnover is going to reduce, the margins are
38:39
going to increase, people are going to be happier, more free
38:41
time for the owner. Am I sort of seeing this
38:44
correctly? Yes.
38:47
So that is where my company is different than any other.
38:56
Like I'm in white space land there, there is nobody else
39:00
doing this because consultants a lot of times have a consultant
39:06
background, right? They came up with with a
39:09
business background, not a restaurant background.
39:14
So they may not be able to see what's missing and in the same
39:20
space, a restaurant owner may think they know what the
39:25
solution is. So they go seek a consultant or
39:29
coach to help them with their business.
39:32
And that person is maybe happy to take their money, but they're
39:36
they're only going to help them with the piece of the business
39:40
that the restaurant owner is asking for help with.
39:44
When I was a district manager, we broke a lot of brand records.
39:50
So I was the 1st District manager to have two general
39:55
managers that were top 20 general managers in the same
39:58
year. And we're talking a brand that
40:00
had at the time maybe 1700 to 2000 locations.
40:06
And I had two general managers that were in the top 20 across
40:12
customer service, you know, sales, increases of food costs,
40:17
labor costs, like all the things.
40:20
So I was like the top district manager because of my lived
40:24
experience. I know what works.
40:28
I've done it. And to be honest, when I stepped
40:32
back from that role, it's because I had developed an
40:35
employee that was a shift leader for me when she was 17.
40:40
And at that time she was a district manager and she was
40:44
producing results better than me.
40:47
So I'm like, OK, right. Like my, my work is like, you
40:51
know, now not only can I run them, but I can develop people
40:56
to run them, which is, and she wasn't even one of the two, you
40:59
know, top 20 general managers, but I can develop people and I
41:04
know the systems to be able to put in place to get results
41:07
consistently. So it's the only business where
41:12
somebody can have a diagnosis, right?
41:17
Like if you don't know what's wrong, you got the doctor, you
41:20
got the mechanic, right? Like there's a diagnostic tool.
41:25
People don't offer that because they don't have it.
41:30
They don't have the information and if.
41:33
They don't have the experience. Information.
41:35
If you do have the information, you're not going to share it
41:37
because you're running restaurants, right?
41:40
Like if I'm a successful brand and I have the systems in place,
41:45
why am I going to, you know, teach the competitor across the
41:49
street how I'm successful? So there's a big, there's a big
41:54
gap. The people that are successful
41:56
aren't sharing the information. The, you know, people that are
42:01
sharing information maybe don't have the background to know if
42:05
it actually works, and the people that are seeking help
42:10
don't know what they don't know. You know, and I think if I'm
42:13
going to distill this down into sort of a, a marketing or sales
42:17
pitch for you, I what really like, you know, caught my
42:20
attention here is that you had two manager, you were district
42:26
manager, you had two of your GMs at the same time that were in
42:30
the top 20 list and a restaurant chain that had 1700 locations at
42:34
the time, like to have one and that, you know, talking about,
42:37
you know, top fraction of a percent, you had two in there.
42:41
I think that says a lot about what you know and understand
42:44
about how restaurants are run, and maybe even more importantly,
42:48
your ability to train other people to take that knowledge
42:52
and run with it. Yes.
42:54
So it all goes back to the systems in my framework.
43:01
If you have the right systems, it's plug and play, right?
43:06
Like if I have if I have a coaching rhythm for how, you
43:13
know, you talk employees into a shift when they're clocking in
43:17
and the five minute conversation that you have with them is they
43:20
clock out right? If I have the tools to know when
43:24
my employees come in, like how to assign them to their
43:28
positions, how you know par levels for trucks, right?
43:32
Like if you have all the systems in place, well, when that person
43:36
gets promoted, you just take the next leader and you teach them
43:40
the systems. Like the system works.
43:42
So as long as you're, you know, using the system, you can train
43:47
anybody to run a restaurant. It you just, you have to know
43:51
the systems. And so that's where I really
43:54
kind of work with owners to say what what are we missing?
43:58
Why are we not getting this result?
44:01
How can we put a plan together so that this restaurant, this is
44:07
a a bad reference. I don't want to say dummies, but
44:10
I used to say that, you know, it's like restaurant for
44:12
dummies, right? Like the books that used to be
44:15
really popular. That was, you know, saying.
44:17
Maybe a better way to say it now is like restaurants for noobs.
44:22
I know that was. An old reference, but back back
44:28
before the Internet. Was huge.
44:29
We had those books and we were like, we loved them, you know,
44:32
because they would teach you things.
44:34
And so it's kind of like that, you know it if you have enough
44:37
written systems and the way that you think, won't you know the
44:41
way you want things to go in the restaurant.
44:43
All you got to do is plug in a new leader, teach them how to
44:47
use the checklist, the playbooks, how to have
44:49
troubleshooting guides. You know, if if I'm a manager
44:52
and I'm struggling with my food costs and I can go, you know, to
44:58
a playbook that's a troubleshooting guide and say,
45:00
OK, check this. If it's not that, check this.
45:03
If it's not, you know if you have all the tools available,
45:05
then makes it really simple. What are some of the biggest
45:09
shifts that you've seen in the restaurant industry in the last
45:12
10 years? April.
45:15
So kind of what I've mentioned, which is that you had a lot of
45:24
mom and pop, you know, 30 years ago even you had brands that
45:29
were generationally owned. They had to grow slowly.
45:33
They had to grow successfully. There was no, you know, maybe a
45:38
lot of money accessible. You had to cash flow one to
45:41
build another. So you knew how to grow
45:44
restaurant successfully. Today we have a lot of, you
45:50
know, private equity companies and investment groups that are
45:55
infusing a lot of money into newer brands to be able to grow
46:00
really fast. And sometimes they don't.
46:05
They don't have that legacy of systems, right?
46:09
They don't. They don't know what they don't
46:11
know. So maybe they have one
46:14
restaurant that they've opened. It was kind of a flagship
46:17
restaurant. Maybe they even grew to three or
46:20
five pretty quickly. And now they got a bunch of
46:23
investment backing and they are just growing at a crazy pace
46:29
that outpaces those systems. They just don't have as much
46:33
time to learn what success looks like slowly.
46:37
And so it's a really fast, well, now I have to produce, right,
46:41
because I'm, I'm being backed by investors.
46:44
So if I did grow really fast and now I'm struggling like I need
46:49
to catch up as quick as possible.
46:52
And so that's, that's a huge shift.
46:54
It just this speed that new restaurants can open.
46:59
There are brands in the space. There's a brand that I was
47:04
reaching out to when I was in restaurant technology and at the
47:08
time they had less than 100 locations.
47:14
Now they have close to 700 and that was three or four years
47:20
ago. So when you talk about massive
47:26
scaling, and so there's that period, right, of being that
47:33
under 50 units where they really got to get some stuff in place
47:37
if they're if they want that huge growth.
47:41
Otherwise you're going to have that huge growth.
47:44
But like I said, then you're going to have franchisees that
47:46
are coming back or, you know, even if it's your own, you're
47:50
going to have all these restaurant owners that are like,
47:52
hey, I'm having these problems, how do I fix it?
47:54
And then you're just in constant firefighting mode, right?
47:58
Like if you kind of don't have the basics down before that,
48:01
that huge growth. That makes a lot of sense.
48:04
Big difference. Yeah, April, I want to shift
48:07
gears and I want to ask you about a serious challenge that
48:11
you've overcome. How did you get through that?
48:15
What did you learn going through the process?
48:20
It's funny that you asked that because the other day I was
48:24
preparing for a newsletter. I have a LinkedIn newsletter
48:28
that I put out weekly for restaurant operators.
48:32
And so a lot of times what I'll do is I'll kind of go through
48:35
old pictures or whatever, you know, and kind of get
48:39
inspiration for whatever I'm going to write about.
48:43
And I saw this video. So I would sometimes I would,
48:49
you know, video myself and send it out to my general managers.
48:54
We didn't have all the tech tools.
48:56
So that was an easy way for me to communicate.
48:59
And it was the most sad, pitiful pity party video that I have
49:08
ever seen. Like I was embarrassed watching
49:10
it back and I was sitting in my car and it was probably 4
49:15
minutes and I was just crying because I had gone from general
49:20
manager, you know, to rent in multiple restaurants.
49:23
And we had a new product that rolled out.
49:27
And so there was certain things, right?
49:30
Like you want it, it's got to all be the same.
49:32
So you got to have the same marketing materials up at the
49:34
restaurants and the same, you know, messaging on your son and
49:37
your employees are all, you know, aware and knowledgeable of
49:40
the new items. And so I was kind of going
49:44
around to the different restaurants and doing like a
49:46
audit, right? Like, OK, we just rolled out
49:48
this product. How did everybody do?
49:51
And it was awful. Like, you know, like the one
49:56
restaurant they didn't have, they don't have it on the, you
49:59
know, on the marquee, the reader board, you know, you've got
50:02
another restaurant that doesn't have the promotional material
50:05
up, you know, inside the restaurant, you go to order it
50:08
through, the drop through and you know, it's made wrong when
50:12
you get it. And so I was just having this
50:19
vulnerable moment with my general managers, people
50:22
underneath me and I, and I was crying and I said this is awful.
50:28
Like this is really bad. And I know that it's my fault.
50:36
Like because at the end of the day, I'm the one Like, so I've,
50:42
I was recognizing in that moment that I was failing and I was
50:49
frustrated, but I was also asking how am I failing?
50:54
Like I know as the store manager that I was capable of it and now
51:00
I have multiple and y'all, you know, it's not translating.
51:06
So I'm failing Where what steps have I missed?
51:11
And that's kind of where a lot of the framework came from of
51:15
what I have now. That was the turning point.
51:19
That was a I don't know how to get the results and I'm
51:24
struggling and I'm tired and I'm working all these hours and I'm
51:27
sending the emails and I'm like, you know, telling you how to
51:31
train your employees. And I'm giving you calendars and
51:34
dates of when to have done right.
51:36
Like have your back line employees trained on it by this
51:39
date and have your marketing material, you know, and cover it
51:42
in your manager meeting. And I'm sending out information,
51:47
but I'm not getting, you're getting the result.
51:50
And so that's when I'm like, how do I get the result?
51:53
Because just telling people how to do this thing is not
51:58
accomplishing the goal, which is what owners and, you know, CE OS
52:03
executives are experiencing. I'm, I'm telling them, but it's
52:09
not happening. And so that was where I kind of
52:11
put in a system of not only sharing the information with
52:15
that whole feedback loop, like how do I get the accountability?
52:20
How do I get the standards? How do we put a system in place
52:25
so that everybody is successful? And that that's kind of what I
52:28
built to fill in the gaps. And that's kind of what I help
52:31
groups with now. OK, so I want to go back through
52:34
this a little bit. You, you kind of hit what I'm
52:36
going to call a rock bottom moment, right?
52:38
You're, you went from general manager to district manager.
52:41
What you were doing is GM was working.
52:43
What you're doing is district manager somehow is not working.
52:46
You feel like you're giving all your GM's the info that they
52:49
need, but something's not working.
52:52
You are emotional with this video that you send out and
52:56
you're like, I, I don't know what I'm doing wrong here.
52:59
And so how did you get from there and that frustration and
53:02
understanding that something is broken to figuring out what the
53:06
actual system needed to be? Because it sounds like you were
53:09
giving them all the data, you were giving them the calendars,
53:12
you're giving them all the marketing materials that they
53:14
needed. To me, that sounds like you've
53:18
done your job. To me, it sounds like, you know,
53:21
you should be wagging your finger at the GMs, but you kind
53:23
of fell on this sword and you're like, no, this is on me.
53:27
And So what did you change specifically?
53:33
So one thing that coach on through all levels of
53:40
organizations is how do we confirm understanding?
53:47
People are afraid to, you know, raise their hand or say, I don't
53:54
know what this means. You know, maybe I'm sending an
53:58
e-mail that says whatever, you should have this, this and this
54:03
done. Well, again, if you want
54:05
internal promotions, they may not know what that is or how to
54:10
do it effectively. Maybe they tried to do it, but
54:14
it wasn't effective because they they didn't really understand
54:19
all the context behind what you were asking them to do.
54:23
And so one of my things is to gauge competency, you know, so
54:30
once I don't just need to shoot you an e-mail and tell you to to
54:35
have this, you know, training on this new item, like maybe we
54:41
need to have the conversation. Explain to me how you are going
54:46
to host this training, right? Like talk me through how you're
54:51
going to do this in store training.
54:53
Like who's going to be there? What time of day are you holding
54:56
it? Like how are you going to make
54:58
sure that the employees actually know how to make it?
55:00
That you're not just standing in front of them for 5 minutes
55:03
saying, you know, we've got this new item and this is how you
55:06
make it and then that's it. Like how are you going to
55:08
confirm that they know how to make it right?
55:11
Like how are you going to test them?
55:12
Are you going to watch them? Like so one is making sure that
55:19
there's understanding, it's not just a sharing of information,
55:22
but there's got to be that feedback loop of I'm giving you
55:26
information. What are you taking from that?
55:29
Like give it back to me so that we're on the same page.
55:33
Once I know that you have a clear understanding, now we can
55:39
hold one another accountable, right?
55:42
So now that I've confirmed that I know how you're going to host
55:46
your training, like how you're going to follow up with your
55:49
employees, how you're going to share this information, how are
55:53
you going to hold them accountable to that standard?
55:56
And now that I know, you know, I can hold you accountable to this
55:59
standard. So now that's, you know, the day
56:03
of, instead of me driving around and trying to check all the
56:07
things, you know, how are you going to hold yourself
56:10
accountable and having general managers come up with plans?
56:14
So a lot of times the day of they'd be like, well, I want you
56:18
to know that everything's great at my store because I don't want
56:22
to feel like failure. I don't want you to feel like
56:24
failure. So on the day of, I'm going to
56:26
send you a picture of the in store materials.
56:29
I'm going to send you a picture, you know, like of the reader
56:32
board, like I'm going to show you whatever, you know, all the
56:36
things. So it's kind of that self
56:38
accountability piece because a lot of times people don't, you
56:43
know, know something they're afraid to say.
56:46
I don't know what this means or I don't know how to do it.
56:49
That makes a lot of sense. It's hard to raise your hand and
56:52
say I'm a little bit lost here. So in that particular example
56:56
that you gave where new product launches and it was a, it was a
57:00
flop because people didn't know how to make the product, the
57:02
marketing materials weren't up. The the way to fix that going
57:06
forward is you want that feedback loop.
57:10
You want them to send you a picture of that menu board, send
57:14
you a picture of, I don't know, maybe a video of their employees
57:17
making the new thing or, or something like that.
57:21
And some of those, I'm guessing some of your GMs respond
57:24
favorably to that. Yeah.
57:25
Hey, we want to be good team members.
57:27
We want to make sure that, you know, we got this and you can
57:30
kind of spot check us. But are some of them resistant?
57:33
And they're like, hey, that's a little too much micromanaging
57:37
for me. Do you get some pushback?
57:41
How do you handle that? You got to have accountability.
57:51
And to your point, I was working with a group the other day that
57:57
would assign out tasks to the restaurant employees just like
58:02
on a piece of paper. And the employees that did the
58:09
most would go back on that piece of paper and they would initial
58:14
things as they completed it without being asked.
58:20
And so I asked the owner that I was working with, why do you
58:24
think those employees initial those items?
58:29
Well, because sometimes they're picking up the slack, right, of
58:32
the other employees. So they want you to know, out of
58:35
the 10 things that got assigned, my initials are next to seven of
58:39
them, which means that the other employees only did three.
58:46
So the only people that I have found that don't want
58:50
accountability are people that may not be the best for your
58:55
team. If it's not micromanagement, if
59:01
it's really their plan, their system, like their this is how
59:06
I'm going to let you know if we've kind of already talked
59:09
through it and I'm providing, you know, training and
59:12
development and, and really trying to help you be the best
59:15
that you can be. And I'm asking you, how are you
59:20
going to do a great job? Like, you know, I don't care if
59:23
it's like necessarily a specific, you have to send me a
59:26
picture or whatever. So I'm, I'm the GM that's
59:29
reporting to you. I can kind of in conjunction
59:33
with you come up with my own system for sort of self
59:35
reporting, which on one level April makes a lot of sense
59:40
because now, like you said, it's my system, like I'm bought into
59:44
it. This is my idea.
59:46
But on the other hand, like now you've got, you know, 10 GMs
59:49
reporting to you that each have sort of their own mechanism for
59:53
reporting back to you. Does that make it harder for
59:56
you? It depends on what it is.
1:00:00
There are certain they, I mean, so we had a basic system for
1:00:08
everybody across the board for certain things.
1:00:12
So like end of the month financials, a general manager,
1:00:15
they're responsible for the performance of their unit.
1:00:19
So there were items that they all filled out the same way,
1:00:24
right? Like this is, you know, the
1:00:27
goal, this is where we landed. This is my plan to fix that type
1:00:35
thing. And so there were systems on
1:00:37
that level that were across the board, but individually, I would
1:00:43
work with my general managers professionally, personally, like
1:00:49
what are your goals? What are you trying to achieve?
1:00:52
What skills do you want to make better?
1:00:56
And let's make kind of some individual plans for those
1:01:00
things. So we'll sit down, you know, and
1:01:04
have that conversation. Here's kind of where you're at
1:01:09
across the group. Here's where you would like to
1:01:12
be. You're a smart person.
1:01:15
You know, what do you need to work on?
1:01:18
And they would put those things out, whether it was, you know,
1:01:22
the new store LTO, you know, maybe I had a general manager
1:01:27
that that had that They were a rock star, right?
1:01:30
Like when I went around and checked.
1:01:31
So maybe they don't have to send anything back, you know, at all
1:01:36
on that thing. Maybe there's another area.
1:01:38
So there was some streamline systems loops, and then there
1:01:43
were some flexible ones, which is where everybody felt like
1:01:46
they were getting that personal development.
1:01:48
They felt like they were going to be able to reach that next
1:01:51
level. They were going to be able to,
1:01:53
you know, refine or learn skills that maybe they hadn't achieved
1:01:57
yet. And then the last piece was we
1:02:00
were very team oriented. A lot of restaurant groups,
1:02:05
general managers feel like they're on an island.
1:02:08
You know, it's just them and their restaurant and they're the
1:02:11
top of the food chain. And, you know, maybe they don't
1:02:14
want to reach out to their boss because they don't want to feel,
1:02:17
you know, inadequate or to say that they don't have the
1:02:20
answers. So we did a lot of, you know,
1:02:24
different have all the general managers to where we could
1:02:29
identify, hey, this one's really strong in food cost.
1:02:32
So if you have a question about that, reach out to them.
1:02:35
You know, this one is super on point with labor cost.
1:02:39
This one's really great at marketing and bringing in sales.
1:02:42
This one's really good at, you know, different things and just
1:02:45
having a network that they could use to reach out to one another.
1:02:50
And when you hold people accountable to that level, they
1:02:54
don't want anybody on the team that brings them down.
1:02:57
So if there was a general manager in the group, you know,
1:03:00
if we did have a group roll out and there was somebody that was
1:03:04
consistently like pulling group numbers down or whatever, you
1:03:08
know, they were frustrated, right?
1:03:11
Because those employees that want to initial the boxes, that
1:03:15
want to look good, that want to have the best district numbers
1:03:17
or whatever like that was how we had two in the top.
1:03:22
Right, right. You know, I like to ask my
1:03:26
guests a question about like a podcast or a book that they
1:03:30
might recommend to the listeners, but it strikes me
1:03:34
that maybe the the best resource that you could OfferUp is
1:03:38
actually the newsletter that you put out on LinkedIn.
1:03:40
Can you say more about that? Yeah.
1:03:44
So it's a weekly newsletter kind of put out different whatever
1:03:49
areas to the business. Sometimes it's something on a
1:03:53
store level that general managers can find beneficial.
1:03:56
Last week, I think it was, you know, how one of my restaurants
1:04:00
did a really great job of local community marketing and kind of
1:04:05
thinking outside the box and really able to attract, you
1:04:09
know, new, new people in the community to their restaurant.
1:04:12
So sometimes it's on a store level of different things that
1:04:16
you can do, whether that's, you know, marketing or food cost or
1:04:20
those type things. And then a lot of times it's
1:04:23
financial or systems or food cost or scheduling or leadership
1:04:27
development. You know, I've shared a
1:04:31
newsletter where it kind of has that development plan that I was
1:04:35
speaking to you about, an action plan and kind of how I used
1:04:38
those on a regular basis. So yeah, probably a great way
1:04:42
for them to kind of connect and see see what I'm about.
1:04:46
South and you can find that newsletter on her LinkedIn page
1:04:51
and you can connect with April's April Joy King.
1:04:55
If you just search for that on LinkedIn, you'll find her also
1:05:00
other good ways to get in touch with her.
1:05:01
Her website is Restaurant PhD consulting.com and her e-mail
1:05:06
address, if you want to connect with her directly is April at
1:05:09
Restaurant PhD consulting.com. And I just got one more question
1:05:14
for you, April. But before I ask it, I'm going
1:05:16
to ask all the listeners to pause just for a second and go
1:05:20
to your podcast app that you're listening on right now and hit
1:05:22
the follow or subscribe button. Make sure you continue to get
1:05:25
more great interviews like we've had today with April King from
1:05:29
Restaurant PhD. So last question for you, April,
1:05:33
you and I reconnect one year from today and you're
1:05:35
celebrating something big. You're very excited.
1:05:37
What's that thing you're celebrating?
1:05:43
Finishing, building out all of my systems and kind of being
1:05:50
able to scale that so that I can work with more restaurants and
1:05:56
help more groups at the same time.
1:05:59
So I have the kind of the diagnostic formula.
1:06:04
But if I really want to work with you after that and you need
1:06:07
help in, you know, getting adoption quicker in your
1:06:12
organization or, or getting access to the right tools,
1:06:16
that's really a one-on-one kind of journey.
1:06:20
And so I'm really building out a lot of the framework to be able
1:06:24
to help a lot of groups at once, whether that's kind of bringing
1:06:27
in some more consultants that know my system that can be able
1:06:32
to help. But that's what I'm going to be
1:06:34
able to, to celebrate from the time I started in leadership at
1:06:40
21, I wanted to help people be successful.
1:06:44
And my whole journey is about being able to help other people
1:06:49
to be successful in this space. And so I want to help as many
1:06:52
people as I can. And so that that's what we're
1:06:55
going to be celebrating is, is being able to help a lot of
1:06:58
people get some really good results for their businesses.
1:07:02
Looking forward to that. April Joy King from Restaurant
1:07:06
PHDI want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your
1:07:08
time and your story with us today.
1:07:10
I really appreciate it. Thanks, Anthony.
1:07:13
It was great to be on. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:07:15
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:07:18
Thanks for learning with us today.