Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Scaling Restaurant Operations: James Walker's 30-Year Path to Digital Innovation

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Scaling Restaurant Operations: James Walker's 30-Year Path to Digital Innovation · 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
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:17
today's guest is James Walker, CEO and Board Member at
0:21
Lunchbox. They are a restaurant technology
0:24
company based out of New York that helps restaurants own their
0:29
digital future. They offer a single platform for
0:32
multi channel ordering, B to B catering and guest engagement,
0:37
making it simpler for restaurant groups to connect with customers
0:41
and boost online ordering. Now under James's leadership,
0:45
Lunchbox secured a new funding round led by Shift 4 and
0:49
continues to receive praise for its innovative solutions.
0:54
Before joining Lunchbox, James spent over 30 years in the
0:57
hospitality industry, holding senior roles with Subway,
1:01
Nathan's Famous and Cinnabon. While serving as North American
1:06
VP for Subway, he oversaw more than 28,000 locations, refining
1:12
global strategies and improving guest experiences.
1:15
He is known for scaling operations and driving digital
1:19
transformation wherever he goes. We're excited to learn how James
1:23
blends vision with hands on leadership to shape the future
1:26
of restaurant tech. Now before we get into all that
1:29
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2:10
All right, back to our guest today, the CEO of Lunchbox Tech,
2:14
James Walker. Thanks for making the time to
2:16
Share your story today. My my pleasure and thanks.
2:19
That was a voluminous introduction.
2:24
I, I always think it's interesting because I've worked
2:26
on a lot of organizations and I think when I'm introduced,
2:30
people tend to pick the companies they personally like
2:34
the most. So, you know, they've worked at
2:36
Johnny Rockets because they're a big hamburger or, or
2:39
cheeseburger fan, for example. But thank.
2:42
You to be honest, we had to whittle down your intro because
2:45
there's so many notable stops along the way.
2:48
There just wasn't time. I was going to run out of breath
2:51
but. All I'm here, all I'm hearing is
2:52
that I'm your oldest guest so far, but that's, that's all
2:55
good. Maybe the most with maybe you
2:58
have the most experiences along the way.
3:01
The the the the wisest and the most seasoned.
3:04
Maybe we'll go with that. There you go.
3:05
All right, let's. OK, so let's talk about some of
3:08
those senior leadership roles. You know, we mentioned Johnny
3:11
Rockets maybe I don't know if we mentioned Frisch's Subway.
3:15
Nathan Famous How did you first start this journey in the
3:20
restaurant industry? How did you kind of first kick
3:22
all this off? Yeah, so and I, it's interesting
3:27
to me, and I think it's still governs a lot of how I make
3:32
decisions. I started on the culinary side.
3:35
I was living on an island called Martha's Vineyard off the coast
3:39
of Massachusetts was, you know, enjoying some time off between
3:46
positions really had never worked in hospitality and took a
3:49
job managing a restaurant and really enjoyed the management
3:55
side of the restaurant and the number of levers you could pull
4:00
for profitability, right? You could, you could buy a
4:04
blueberry muffin for a dollar and sell it for $2.00.
4:07
But you could make the blueberry muffin for $0.50 and sell it for
4:10
$3. And I remember, you know, but
4:12
why would you ever buy a blueberry muffin ever again?
4:15
And kind of went from that management role into the
4:18
culinary side for a number of years.
4:21
And that really drove a lot of my passion, I think for for
4:27
quality service and people. It's hard to be in a restaurant,
4:31
running a restaurant and not care about your customers and
4:35
not care about your your fellow team members or you certainly
4:39
need to do both those things to be successful.
4:42
And then, you know, ultimately made a decision that the the
4:47
better thing for my family was to go kind of that management
4:51
route and that kind of started the career trajectory that you
4:55
you covered so well. So from a very early part of
5:00
your career, you, your brain was kind of lighting up, seeing
5:03
these different profit levers that you could pull, oh, make a
5:07
blueberry for this much or, you know, we could buy it for this
5:09
much. And why would you do one versus
5:11
the other? Did you find yourself as you
5:14
sort of made that decision to like this is going to be your
5:17
career, you're going to, you know, go into restaurant
5:19
management roles? Did you feel more drawn to sort
5:23
of the financial aspects of the business or more of the people
5:26
side like you were talking about just now?
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Yeah, I so for me they, they were always linked.
5:32
It's not an either or, it has to be an.
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And so I would say, you know, there are some binary things,
5:41
you know, I, I think it's hard to say.
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Listen, I'm, I'm very, very dedicated to driving top line,
5:47
but I'm also looking at the pennies.
5:49
You really do need to do both. But I think there's a natural
5:52
inclination that you enjoy one side of the business or the
5:56
other. And I've also enjoyed kind of
5:58
the the go to market driving revenue, driving, you know, a
6:04
creative profitability by finding ways to both drive the
6:10
transaction level economics and size of check, but also bring in
6:14
new customers. And from that standpoint, yes,
6:18
it's about product, but it's about people in place as well.
6:21
So for me, the financials are the scorecard of everything else
6:25
that you're doing. So, you know, if you're if
6:28
you're in charge of keeping score, that's fantastic.
6:32
I'd rather be the person really working with the team to drive
6:36
the results that the scorekeeper is is, you know, kind of taking
6:41
note of. Because if you take care of your
6:43
employees, they're going to take care of you and the customers,
6:46
right? You know, it's some of these
6:48
things. Certainly we're set a lot, you
6:51
know, as, as I was a general manager, you know, back before
6:54
Blackberries and iPhones and, and, and devices, you know, he
6:58
kept 3 by 5 cards. And there was, you know, we
7:02
spent a lot of time talking about things that we as
7:05
restaurant managers or restaurant executives believed
7:08
to be true. And, you know, the saying was
7:11
you, you know, take care of your people and they'll take care of
7:13
your guests. Or it's hard to have great guest
7:16
service with poor employee service.
7:18
And I still think that those things are true.
7:21
I think they were true back then.
7:22
I think they're true today. I think today not everybody
7:27
understands that technology is very, very important.
7:32
It is not a nice to have today technology and and for example,
7:37
the organization that I'm lucky enough to be a team member of
7:39
Lunch Box, we provide technology services, but they are not to
7:44
remove that that experience of dining, of having a great time
7:50
with your friends and family or any of those things that make
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dining out so special. It's to make them easier to make
8:00
remove friction in that process, to allow the employees to have a
8:04
better experience with their employer and be able to enjoy
8:07
more time with the guests. OK, so that's a great lead in
8:11
too. Let's hear more about what
8:12
Lunchbox does. I gave sort of a high level
8:15
there in the intro because the nuts and bolts and you know,
8:18
hard examples of what it is that you can go into a restaurant and
8:22
help them accomplish. Yeah, So our our suite of
8:25
services and, and there's nine really 9 today more on the
8:29
horizon. I think you'll see where lunch
8:33
box, if you were to ask individuals within the
8:35
restaurant community, whether it's restaurant operators or
8:38
restaurant technology executives, kind of what is
8:42
Lunch Box known for? We're certainly the tent pole in
8:47
catering. So catering is very important to
8:51
restaurants today. It is still not at full capacity
8:57
for many restaurant organizations.
8:59
So it has the potential to grow profitability in revenue, and
9:03
we're really the tent pole in that movement.
9:07
As I said, we have 9 products today and more on the horizon.
9:09
I think you're going to continue to see us be a leading source of
9:14
information around catering, but more and more trying to
9:18
demystify artificial intelligence and machine
9:23
learning. So those are buzzwords today.
9:26
You know, there is not going to be a restaurant summit or
9:30
meeting or gathering that you're not talking about artificial
9:33
intelligence. But I think many restaurant
9:35
leaders are lost as to what those things mean, what they
9:39
really could mean for their customer experience and their
9:41
employee experience. So you know that didn't directly
9:45
answer your question. I would say Lunch Box provides
9:49
solutions that drive revenue and profitability for restaurant
9:55
organizations in their off premises sales.
9:58
Specifically an off premises. So This is why you pulled up the
10:01
the catering example to start with.
10:03
So take us through like if if you were trying to explain to,
10:07
you know, a a prospective customer, that's like, OK,
10:10
here's what we're going to come in, here's what we're going to
10:13
do, and here's what you're likely to see on the back end.
10:16
Yeah, so I I think let's just stay with one product and and
10:19
it's probably our fastest growing product right now
10:21
because it's the fastest part of the industry, our catering
10:25
software. So you know, one of the things
10:27
when, when somebody will will reach out to me, not necessarily
10:31
as ACEO of Lunchbox, but just as somebody in the industry and
10:34
they'll say, James, we really need to develop a catering
10:37
program. What advice do you have?
10:40
And the first thing I said to him is you need to understand
10:43
that catering and a catering order philosophically and from a
10:48
nuts and bolts standpoint is not just a large to go order.
10:52
They are very, very different. They're being placed by someone
10:57
for other individuals. They may have different
11:00
audiences, they have different needs.
11:04
So having software that supports all of those things that you
11:09
need operationally, the ability to have somebody place an order
11:13
in advance, to have the restaurant notified at a certain
11:17
period of time prior to that order, but then potentially
11:22
reminded of that order to make it easy for the customer or the
11:26
client to modify their order to get additional information to
11:31
augment. So it's not going to be 30
11:32
people that I thought on Monday, by Tuesday morning, Friday's
11:38
order needs to be for 40 people. All of that needs to be
11:41
seamless. And our technology allows it not
11:44
only to be seamless from a client side or from a customer
11:48
side, but also from an operation side.
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And and that's really what we do.
11:53
So we influence positively the revenue side, the profitability
11:58
side. But what's kind of near and dear
12:00
to my heart with my background is we make it easier for the
12:03
operator to execute that order in a way that provides the
12:07
minimal amount of fatigue on their operations and their team
12:10
members. Interesting.
12:12
So let me see if I can kind of wrap my head around this.
12:14
So you made the point of saying that a catering order is a lot
12:18
more than just a large to go order, right?
12:21
There's other sort of elements and factors at play because
12:24
maybe a large to go order, I don't know, like not 10-12
12:27
people or something like that, but I'm placing it, you know,
12:30
now and I want it an hour from now.
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Whereas A catering order, this is for an event, there's some
12:35
special thing going on. On Monday we thought it was 30
12:39
people by Wednesday, now it's 45 people.
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And I as the customer want an easy way to be able to go in and
12:47
update that. And oh, now I know that I've got
12:50
a vegetarian in the group. And so I need to make sure I've
12:53
got a vegetarian option. And so I want to be able to do
12:55
that without having to call and sit on hold or wait for somebody
12:59
to call me back. I need a web interface to be
13:01
able to affect all that is that that is a big part of what you
13:04
guys are doing. Absolutely.
13:06
So I think you did a nice job of painting a picture of kind of
13:09
the needs and the potential friction from a client side,
13:12
also from a restaurant side, you know, as a restaurant general
13:17
manager, which still I think it's really important that
13:19
restaurant executives try to get in the mindset of looking
13:22
through the optics of the general manager in a restaurant.
13:25
So if I'm going to have a large order for Friday, let's say it's
13:30
10 people. If I'm having a, if I'm going to
13:34
need to prepare meals for 10 people on Friday, I probably
13:38
don't care if you don't tell me until Thursday.
13:41
If it's 100 people, I want to know immediately.
13:44
I want to know on Monday. You got your staff, you got to
13:47
order your food items. Yeah.
13:50
Do do I have, you know, hopefully I've got enough of the
13:53
paper products or the food supplies.
13:55
So it's, it's everything you said from a from a customer side
13:59
standpoint, but also ensuring that we're providing all of the
14:03
information to allow the restaurant operator to be as
14:06
successful as possible in fulfilling the needs of the
14:10
customer themselves. So on that sort of back of
14:13
office side of things that the customer doesn't see, but it's
14:16
important to the operator, how are you guys surfacing that
14:19
information? Is there integrations with other
14:22
payroll systems that or other software systems that they're
14:25
using or is it just sort of like emailing an alert to somebody?
14:29
What's that look like? So all of the above, so so
14:31
typically not payroll, but it could be with their POS system.
14:36
By the way, it was hard for me not to say pause.
14:38
So I'm sitting in England where PO s s are called pauses.
14:42
So whether it's their POS system or their POS system, yes, we
14:45
typically have direct integration with most of the POS
14:49
providers. But additionally, you mentioned
14:51
e-mail, It may be that, and I hear this fairly often, where a
14:56
restaurant operator will say, I get so much that comes to me
15:00
through my POS system. In addition to that, can you
15:04
send an e-mail update to the general manager?
15:07
So whether it's it's direct integration, whether it's
15:10
integration through their POS system, whether it's an e-mail
15:13
alert, it's, it's really catering to the restaurant
15:17
operator in the way that they feel they need to be informed so
15:21
they can be most prepared and most successful in executing
15:24
that order. Why aren't the existing POS
15:28
systems already incorporating these types of functions?
15:34
Some of them do, but typically at a very rudimentary level.
15:39
And what I what I would say is, you know, in technology today,
15:43
you know different organizations are focused on different things.
15:48
So if you are Apos company, you're focused on providing
15:53
services that really provide the ability to record transactions,
16:00
to take that transactional data, to feed that into, for example,
16:04
the marketing team. So they're getting analytics and
16:06
insights that are just driving profitability in sales and what
16:09
have you. The specificity, the detail
16:14
that's needed for something like we're talking about.
16:16
And that's why I like specifically talking about this
16:18
catering product requires a lot of nuance and focus that
16:24
probably isn't as important for Apos company who's saying,
16:29
listen, we may want to provide some rudimentary services.
16:34
So they're there. But truly, if you're going to
16:38
drive catering sales and catering profitability, you need
16:42
software that is designed to get into the minute detail of those
16:46
transactions. And it's just, I don't think
16:48
it's worthwhile for a lot of POS companies to provide that level
16:53
of service. They do great work on many other
16:56
things and many provide that that lower level of support.
17:00
We provide really the nuanced information that drives
17:04
profitability. Specifically for catering.
17:08
Well, we're talking about catering.
17:09
We we have other products that we do and similarly, they are
17:14
value added products that may take products that are on the
17:18
market that are available either from other technology providers
17:22
or even, you know, our contemporaries or competitors,
17:26
but takes them to another level. You know, back to we were
17:29
talking about phrases in the industry, right?
17:32
You know, take care of your people and they'll take care of
17:35
your guests. Listen, if you manage the
17:38
pennies, the dollars will take care of itself.
17:41
And I think, you know, our fleet of services are really designed
17:45
to look for pennies and aggregate them into adding
17:49
profitability for restaurant operators.
17:51
And today this isn't a nice to have.
17:54
This may be the difference between a restaurant company
17:57
being successful or not successful.
17:59
You know, I remember back a number of years ago when I
18:02
launched delivery at Johnny Rockets and we would see a 50%
18:09
incremental gain. You know, if the restaurant was
18:12
doing, you know, $2,000,000, it might be pushing 29 or almost
18:16
$3,000,000 because of that incremental hit of delivery
18:20
moves massive. That doesn't happen today.
18:22
And that's because delivery is part and parcel to everyday
18:26
consumer behavior. So because you can't say,
18:29
listen, my, my delivery business is completely accretive.
18:33
Certainly some of it is and it's much more scalable than four
18:36
wall business. You need to look at it through
18:39
that same, you know in tense magnification looking for
18:44
pennies that you do at your own 4 wall business.
18:47
We help with that. Can you give us another example
18:49
of how you're helping to manage those pennies?
18:53
You know, I would say, you know, providing the ability for our
18:59
team to focus on the shifting landscape between the POS
19:04
providers and the delivery service providers.
19:07
So you could be using, whether it's Sky Tab or Toast, there are
19:13
lots of great POS providers out there that provide great
19:16
solutions. There are great delivery service
19:19
providers like Uber Eats and Door Dash, but those
19:22
organizations aren't linked together.
19:25
So, you know, Toast and Sky Tab are looking at what they can do
19:28
to make their product as robust as it possibly can be for their
19:33
clients. And the delivery service
19:34
providers are doing the same thing, but they aren't
19:37
necessarily talking together about what those changes are.
19:41
In an organization like Lunchbox, we're plugged into
19:44
both of those sides of the transaction and ensuring that
19:47
the restaurant doesn't have to worry about the shifting
19:50
technology landscape on either side of that transaction.
19:54
We do that for. So it allows them to be very
19:57
efficient and focus on the customer, the customer
20:00
experience, food quality, managing their costs in their
20:03
restaurant versus worrying about.
20:07
You know, did my menu changes get pushed from my POS to the
20:12
delivery service provider? Is there a mismatch in in
20:16
descriptions or pricing? We handle those types of things,
20:18
so it allows the restaurant operator to focus on that all
20:22
important customer experience. So you guys in that particular
20:26
instance, you guys are kind of the bridge between like a toast
20:30
and like an Uber Eats, making sure that the information, the
20:34
data is communicated regularly back and forth between the two.
20:38
Absolutely. That's, you know, we're, you
20:42
know, one of the things I think if you look at my social media
20:44
profiles, it says, you know, an advocate for restaurants and,
20:47
and really, you know, one of the things I love about Lunchbox is
20:51
while we provide technology services and support, we're
20:56
really restaurant tours. That's what we're passionate
20:58
about. We're passionate about
20:59
restaurants. We're passionate about our
21:03
customers. We close a deal with a customer
21:09
like Maman or Naya Pop Up Bagels, and we're so excited
21:15
that, you know, Pop Up Bagels are off the hook.
21:19
Signed an agreement with us. Nobody's nobody's looking so
21:22
well. What's the size of that
21:23
contract? We're just like, we love pop up
21:26
bagels. What a great organization, what
21:28
a great company. And you know, we're having an
21:30
executive team meeting and all we're talking about is their
21:33
bagels and what's their best smear.
21:35
And if you tried their flavored butters, they're so clever at
21:38
how they do, you know, the marketing and the storytelling
21:43
and how much we love it. And at some point somebody say,
21:45
oh, you know, and it, it was a good deal for us, too.
21:47
We're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:48
But that's so I think that's not even.
21:50
Secondary or tertiary, It's it's like several tiers down the list
21:53
in terms of importance, yeah. Yeah, I but I think it kind of
21:56
goes back to that. If you take care of your people,
21:59
they'll take care of your customers.
22:01
And from our standpoint, if we love our clients and we do and
22:08
we're super excited about them, we want them to be happy.
22:11
We want them to make more money. We run internal reports to make
22:16
sure that our customers, every one of our customers for every
22:18
one of the products they utilize that we offer them, they're
22:22
better off because of that service.
22:24
And I think that same focus of take care of your employees and
22:28
they'll take care of your customers.
22:31
If we love our clients and we're super excited about doing
22:35
business with them because we love who they are, then the
22:39
financials will make sense for us from an organizational
22:42
standpoint as well. So a lot of restaurants are
22:46
really struggling to kind of own their digital presence and and
22:49
manage it effectively. I understand you guys offer some
22:53
services in this area. From your perspective, what are
22:55
maybe some of the biggest obstacles that are holding
22:58
brands back? And can you kind of talk us
23:01
through maybe a specific client example of how you were able to
23:04
help them thrive where they couldn't before?
23:08
Listen, I, I wouldn't necessarily want to get into the
23:11
the detail of individual clients.
23:12
I would say there's a number kind of back to the shifting
23:15
landscape today connectivity, the ability for one piece of
23:21
technology to integrate to link to other pieces of technology.
23:26
So if you, for example, we provide web services and app
23:31
services and there's a technological component where
23:35
those apps need to integrate with the POS system, which needs
23:40
to integrate with the KDS system, which needs to integrate
23:44
with the DSP and maybe also a third party logistics company or
23:50
delivery company. That's a lot for a restaurant
23:53
company to try to get not only an understanding of, but
23:58
understanding that each of those pieces may be changing at any
24:01
point in time, and you need to be up to date with any of those
24:04
individual disparate players and how they come together to make
24:07
sure that the technology is working.
24:10
Meanwhile, that's not even the piece that really matters to a
24:13
brand. What matters to the brand is the
24:15
ability to execute storytelling through that technology in a way
24:21
that is aligned with the brand story that you would experience
24:24
in the restaurant or in the bakery or in the coffee shop
24:27
itself. And what I find is that
24:31
restaurants tend to be great at that in restaurant experience.
24:36
They've done it for years. It's probably if if they've got
24:39
a founder, that's what the founder was passionate about.
24:42
They were passionate about having the best cup of coffee
24:45
and the most legitimate French pastry.
24:49
And that's what they execute all day, every day.
24:52
We find a way to work with them to do that storytelling through
24:56
technology, where they don't have to worry about all of those
25:00
technology components and disparate systems coming
25:04
together to make sure it's executed.
25:06
We just work with them to have the storytelling come through
25:09
the technology to the client in a virtual way, the same way it
25:14
does in person in their individual restaurants,
25:17
bakeries, coffee shops. What does that look like from a
25:19
practical standpoint? Are you using AI to kind of help
25:22
them convert their story and then sort of broadcast to all
25:26
the social channels that they've plugged in?
25:28
Yeah. So we're using AI more and more
25:31
to be efficient at what we do. So I, I was had a meeting where
25:37
our chief product officer was talking about how much more
25:40
efficient our engineers are. The the efficacy.
25:44
One of my favorite words. I use it a lot.
25:47
The efficacy of our engineers has really grown month on month
25:51
over what's called it the past nine months because they're
25:55
using artificial intelligence to help drive the output of really
26:02
their coding and the engineering work that they need to do.
26:05
I think kind of back to what sets Lunch Box apart from some
26:10
of our contemporaries in the technology industry is our
26:15
founder, you know, started in the restaurant industry.
26:18
Nabil was a marketer. He you want to see him get
26:21
excited about something. He gets excited about
26:23
storytelling, about brands, about product.
26:26
That's what gets him really passionate myself, you know, as
26:30
a restaurant tour for longer than I care to admit, going back
26:33
to your soliloquy of an opening, you know, 30 years of focusing
26:37
on on these types of things. I think what sets us apart is we
26:43
understand one for one, what type of storytelling needs to be
26:48
executed. So some of these things, the
26:50
human touch still is important. So we're going to use artificial
26:53
intelligence to make ourselves more efficient, to make
26:56
ourselves more efficacious. But I think our understanding
27:00
and our love for our clients and their individual customers comes
27:04
through in the ultimate product as well.
27:07
Let's talk about Shift 4. How did this come about?
27:11
Who are they? What does this partnership mean
27:12
to you? Yeah.
27:14
So ship 4 is a a number of things.
27:18
Two of them I think are important for this conversation.
27:20
They provide processing service, so credit card processing
27:23
services both in the United States as well as a number of
27:27
international markets. I they're growing very, very
27:30
quickly. They also are APOS provider,
27:34
their POS system is called Sky Tab.
27:40
So they're a partner of ours. We work with them from a credit
27:42
card processing standpoint in the US and we're looking to
27:47
expand beyond the, you know, the borders of the US into certainly
27:52
the the UK and EU through that partnership.
27:55
We do some cross selling. So they have clients, we have
27:58
clients that are looking for similar services on both sides
28:01
of the fence. So we share information and, and
28:04
resources together. I would say, you know, kind of
28:08
how it came together is I think there's a fundamental sameness
28:13
in, in kind of the management cultures.
28:17
They are very serious at what they do, but they're not enough
28:22
tight group. So I went to one of their
28:23
investor events in Las Vegas before the organizations came
28:28
together and, and before they made the investment in Lunchbox.
28:33
And what I found was a lot of very passionate, very
28:35
intelligent people. And, you know, they were wearing
28:39
hoodies and blue jeans and tennis shoes for an investor
28:44
day. And it wasn't for a fact, right?
28:46
I mean, they, you know, how do we look like?
28:48
We're technologists. You know, let's let's go get a
28:51
bunch of hoodies. No, listen, they were casual
28:53
guys. They were, you know, casual men
28:55
and women. But they were intelligent.
28:57
They were passionate, they were focused, they were into the
29:00
details and they were very, very serious about driving
29:04
shareholder value for their shareholders and investors.
29:08
And to me, that's also the culture at Lunch Box.
29:12
You can be professional, you can be driven, but you can also be
29:16
casual and and playful and fun to be around.
29:19
And I think the two cultures were very similar from that
29:22
standpoint. And So what is the level?
29:25
Is it just like there's an integration?
29:26
Is there an investment like what's the level of like
29:29
partnership that we're talking about?
29:31
Yeah. So I would say a number of
29:35
different. So from an integration
29:36
standpoint, yes, we work with them as our one of our payment
29:41
processors, we are working to integrate with their Sky Tab POS
29:46
system. So there is kind of that
29:48
technology integration piece, there is a cross selling piece
29:53
where if we're going to market with a a new potential client
29:57
and they're looking for a new POS system or they're they're
30:01
looking for payment processing, this is one of the options that
30:04
we're able to put in front of them.
30:06
We work with a number of different POS providers.
30:09
So you know, it doesn't exclude our ability to work with say
30:13
Toast customers or PAR customers or or what have you.
30:17
But if somebody is looking for, you know those type of
30:21
introductions, we have them with Shift 4.
30:23
So cross selling integration and yes, they made an investment in
30:28
early March in the organization and I think the teams work very,
30:34
very well together. So Shift 4 purchased Revel.
30:39
We have a number of clients that use Revel, including Bricks
30:43
Holdings, which is one of the clients that we're super
30:47
passionate about and we love our relationship with them.
30:50
And they have a number of different brands.
30:53
And we have the ability because of our relationship with Shift 4
30:57
to ensure that they're getting kind of that white glove high
31:01
level service from Revel through our relationship with Shift 4 to
31:06
ensure that bricks is as supported as they possibly can
31:09
be, not only by lunch box, which we control.
31:12
We don't have that control over Revel, but our relationship
31:16
through Shift 4 allows them to to get maybe greater resources
31:21
than they would without that relationship.
31:24
Gotcha. OK.
31:25
That sounds pretty powerful, especially from a a customer
31:27
perspective and what they're getting.
31:29
So can you kind of paint a picture for us for people who
31:33
aren't really familiar with Lunchbox, like what is your
31:37
reach today? You know, are you, do you feel
31:40
like you're pretty well penetrated into the US market?
31:43
I know you mentioned you're in London today, you're excited
31:45
about sort of the UK and EU expansion.
31:50
Where are you today? Where are you going?
31:52
Yeah. So I mean we're we're across the
31:53
United States. I would say we're we're
31:56
continuing to penetrate. So before I joined the
32:01
day-to-day operations of the organization, the founder and
32:05
the senior management team I think made a really wise
32:09
decision to really reposition efforts away from SMB towards
32:14
enterprise. So we are winning enterprise day
32:17
in and day out and we're seeing more and more enterprise
32:21
restaurant companies within the United States move to lunch box.
32:24
And I think there's a number of different reasons for that.
32:27
One of them is we are I think more price and cost aware than
32:34
some of our competitors. So something like integration,
32:37
just the simple wiring, the plumbing if you will, between
32:41
the DPS, the delivery service providers and the POS company.
32:45
Many of our competitors charge 40, fifty, $60.00 a month per
32:50
location. So if you think of an enterprise
32:52
restaurant company that's thousands and thousands of
32:55
dollars, we don't charge for that.
32:57
If they use any of our other products, we don't charge for
33:00
integration. So we're seeing a lot of
33:04
enterprise restaurant companies say, listen, we agree, this is
33:08
not something this is our information.
33:11
We don't want to pay for our data.
33:13
So you know, we're happy to move to you.
33:16
So we're seeing that there is greater penetration available
33:20
for us in the US and much of that is underway.
33:22
Now having said that, we've got a partnership with Urban Piper.
33:25
Urban Piper is a technology company that has right around
33:30
50,000 locations, Middle East, North Africa, EU, UK.
33:37
So we partner with them from a go to market standpoint.
33:41
So while we are continuing to win enterprise in the US and I
33:46
think we'll continue to grab market share for the foreseeable
33:50
future, you will see us win more agreements, more contracts and
33:56
more customers, not only for US based restaurant companies that
34:00
operate in these theaters, but for true international brands
34:05
that may or may not have AUS presence, but have international
34:08
offices. And those markets, those
34:10
theaters that you'll see continued growth for Lunch box,
34:13
you know you mentioned certainly UKEUI would also say Middle
34:18
East, North Africa, continued focus and winning of enterprise
34:25
restaurant organizations within those theaters.
34:27
Is there less competition in some of those markets?
34:32
I would say. There, there's always.
34:36
Maybe some of your contemporaries here in the
34:38
States or have not sort of made the push there yet.
34:41
I I think that's true. There are local competition, I
34:45
would say there, there is not direct competition that provides
34:52
our, I would say menu of services.
34:56
So having meetings in Dubai, in Riyadh over the past couple of
35:01
weeks, what I heard from enterprise restaurant companies,
35:03
they said, James, we've looked at all your services.
35:05
There are five products from lunch box we desperately need.
35:10
And I, I said, you know those educate me, why don't you have
35:13
them today? And they said those five
35:15
products are available in our market today, but it would be 5
35:18
contracts with five providers and that that's just cumbersome.
35:23
That's not only that deal. Some of these these
35:26
organizations are new, they're months, they're not, they may
35:30
when we say start up, I mean they're still in mom's garage.
35:34
And this is an organization that Nabil and the team put together
35:39
a number of years ago. I certainly don't see us as a
35:42
startup. Our technology is mature, our
35:45
team is mature, our strategies are mature and our ability to go
35:51
into a market you know like Dubai or Riyadh with an
35:54
understanding, I ran restaurant companies in all of those
35:57
markets. We understand what it takes to
35:59
compete in those markets. We understand what a restaurant
36:02
tour needs, and we have technology that is, you know,
36:06
it's mature, it's verbose. It is going to provide that
36:10
immediate value to them. And they can sign one agreement
36:14
with us and get those five products instead of five
36:17
agreements. And maybe some of those five
36:19
agreements are with organizations that may not truly
36:22
be ready for prime time. And may not be around a year or
36:26
18 months and just the process of having to manage 5 different
36:31
relationships. In that case, something goes
36:34
wrong when they're working with you.
36:36
It's, you know, it's one call to an account Rep and like, hey, I
36:39
got a question. What do we do here?
36:42
You know, if you're working with five different suppliers, who,
36:45
who are you going to call? Who's, who's part of the tech
36:48
broke? You have 5 different payments to
36:51
manage. It's it's a big deal.
36:53
It really is. So I think you know, one of the
36:56
things that we've been executing kind of around the world,
37:00
certainly in the US but international as well as we do
37:03
these dinners, we do these round tables, we bring industry people
37:07
together just so we can understand.
37:09
And does it help us from a go to market standpoint?
37:11
It does because they're telling us restaurants, CE OS and
37:14
executives are who we invite to these dinners.
37:17
They're telling us what we need to know to be more effective as
37:23
a service provider for them. I had a dinner and I won't tell
37:26
you which one or who was there, but there was maybe a couple
37:30
people at the table who knew me and a couple who had just come
37:33
to the dinner because maybe they like the restaurant.
37:35
And the the dinner started off with everybody talking about how
37:40
amazingly successful Chili's is right now.
37:43
You know, what are they doing? How can we copy it?
37:46
Look at their sales. And I had taken my two sons to
37:49
Chili's and I was showing photos and talking about the
37:51
experience. And we spent like an hour just
37:53
talking about Chili's and then individually the restaurant CEOs
37:58
or a number of restaurants, he started talking about their
38:00
companies and what was working and what wasn't.
38:02
And then the latter part of the meal, I'm trying not to just
38:06
like, pull out my business card. They started talking about how
38:10
deceptive and confusing they thought restaurant technology
38:15
companies were, that they felt that it was really hard to get a
38:19
straight answer. And I think one of the things
38:22
that Lunchbox really prides itself on is if we've got a
38:26
restaurant CEO or you know, a marketing individual and they
38:31
said, listen, I just don't know who to believe.
38:33
We have individuals within our organization that are very
38:35
passionate. The same way I'm passionate
38:37
about finding the best cheeseburger in the world and
38:40
the best pizza in the world. We have people who are really
38:44
passionate about all levels and all aspects of restaurant
38:47
technology. I said, listen, these are not
38:49
salespeople. I will put them anonymously on
38:54
the phone with you. They won't even know who you
38:56
are. They have no way to sell to you.
38:58
And by the way, they're not a salesman.
39:00
But if you want an hour where you can ask a whole bunch of
39:03
questions about different technology providers and
39:08
different services and we've had a fair number of CE OS take us
39:15
up on that. So, you know, kind of back to
39:17
the culture of lunch box that we were kind of talking around and
39:20
us being very focused and being part of the industry and part of
39:25
the solution and part of the help for restaurants.
39:29
Sometimes that doesn't benefit us.
39:31
And that not only is that not a bad thing, to me that's a great
39:35
thing. That's a great thing.
39:37
If that CEO calls me back and says so, James, I'm still not
39:40
buying anything from you. But you know what, you really
39:43
helped me make several decisions.
39:47
Our team would be giving each other high fives that we help an
39:50
organization. And you know, maybe at my age, I
39:53
believe in karma a little bit and I do believe that those
39:56
things ultimately will be good for myself and to be good for
40:00
lunch boxes and enterprise. But we want to be part of the
40:04
solution to restaurant profitability.
40:08
You know, I had one of your Advisory Board members on the
40:12
show recently, Amy home from Barcelona Wine Bar and they've
40:17
got locations and I'm making this up.
40:20
I don't know, 9 states, 12 states, you know, multiple
40:22
locations each state. She actually did the interview
40:26
from an airport coffee shop because it's the only way she
40:29
could squeeze it into her busy schedule.
40:31
I'm like, Amy, why? Why would you spend time to be
40:34
on their Advisory Board when you're, you're so busy, you
40:38
know, just trying to fulfill, you know, the requirements of
40:41
your job? She's like, I just really
40:42
believe in what they're doing. She's like, I think it's, she's
40:45
like, I think they're building the product the right way.
40:47
They reached out to restaurant people from the very early
40:51
stages to get feedback on what the product should be, how it
40:55
should work, what the features should be.
40:57
And she's like, I just really believe in what they're doing.
40:59
And I, I want to be a part of that and help to steer and shape
41:01
this product. And I thought, I mean, if if
41:05
you're looking for a testimonial like you know, that's a great
41:08
one, busy executive like that, carving out time to be part of
41:11
the sort of the bigger mission which you guys are doing, I
41:13
thought was pretty powerful. I love that you know her
41:18
organization, Barcelona Wine Bar.
41:19
There's one near where I live in Connecticut.
41:22
We've loved it forever. And you know, kind of this full
41:25
circle, you know, I'll text Amy and say, hey, you know, we're
41:29
going to my wife Sarah and I are going to Barcelona tonight.
41:33
You know, we're we're super excited to go, but I think what
41:36
she loves is I'm able to say, okay, so we know each other now,
41:40
right? So yeah, there's kind of that
41:42
implied I'm going. So she calls the general
41:44
manager. She says, look like the old guy
41:47
that kind of looks like a beat up Charlie Sheen and his lovely
41:50
young wife or however she identifies me and that's great.
41:55
But and she's like, how was it? And I said, it's great.
41:57
But Amy, I've been going to that restaurant for five years and
42:01
that restaurants been awesome for five years when they had no
42:06
idea who I was or that I, I had a relationship with, with you.
42:10
So, you know, I think I love her talking about us.
42:15
And these are the stories we we love to share.
42:17
We love hearing how people feel about the culture of Lunchbox,
42:21
the support I'll get on the phone with the CEO of a
42:26
restaurant company like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:28
You know, James, you're the CEO, blah, blah, blah.
42:29
But let me tell you about, you know, Aubrey or Chiu or or Tommy
42:35
or Natalie or individuals on the Lunchbox team and how great they
42:39
are. And, you know, we had a problem
42:41
and they fixed it in a second. And it could be about the
42:45
technology or it just could be about something they're doing
42:49
because we love them as a customer.
42:51
So I mentioned Maman, which is, is one of our, our clients based
42:56
in New York City. And our head of, of marketing
43:01
and public relations said, you know, James, are you going to be
43:03
back in the US this week? And I, I said, yeah.
43:07
And she says, you know, Maman's got this.
43:09
I'm not sure if it's supposed to be public or not, but they're,
43:11
they're doing an event and kind of a promotion with a, a fairly
43:18
known food celebrity. She's like, you know, I, I know
43:21
you want to be there, so I wanted to put it on your radar.
43:24
It hasn't. I'm not going to make a penny
43:26
more. I'm going to drive to Maman
43:29
Sunday morning. I'm going to get my oat milk
43:31
cappuccino. I'm going to get one of their
43:33
amazing pastries. My wife is going to ask if we
43:36
can buy 12 of their blue and white China coffee cups that she
43:40
loves. We're going to go there because
43:42
we love the partnership with them and we love how they treat
43:45
their clients. So I, you know, hearing this 360
43:48
from Amy and other CE OS, we love to provide the same
43:52
feedback. You know, being able to go to
43:55
the team at maman on Monday and say love that promotion.
44:00
It was super fun by the way, you know, you guys, we we loved the
44:05
oat milk cappuccino. My wife loved the croissant.
44:07
We had a great time. I love that.
44:09
Maybe in the same vein, setting aside the tech that you guys
44:13
have developed and are continuing to work on, is there
44:16
maybe another niche of tech within the restaurant space that
44:20
you're kind of excited to see evolve in the next year or two?
44:26
Listen, I think anything that, and we were talking a little bit
44:30
before we started recording on, you know, I'm a lover of Apple
44:34
and I I wasn't always I have the same.
44:37
I think I've got the same ring as Tim Cook because we both went
44:40
to Duke through the same program.
44:42
I had to be pulled by my wife kicking and screaming away from
44:46
my BlackBerry that, you know, probably had my fingerprints
44:49
embedded in it. It was so hard for me to give
44:51
up. But the the fact that I'm not
44:55
particularly worried about who knows where I am or what I'm
44:58
doing because I'm not doing anything I shouldn't be doing
45:01
and probably not doing anything that particularly interesting.
45:04
I love that technology can help me in my day by providing true
45:12
insights versus just, you know, hey, James, do you, do you want
45:17
a, you know, a sandwich? No, I don't almost I rarely want
45:22
a sandwich. But you know what, if I'm in
45:24
London and I love cheeseburgers and there happens to be, you
45:29
know, the number 3 rated cheeseburger provider on belly
45:34
half a kilometer from where I'm staying, I would love for my
45:37
Apple Watch to say, hey, by the way, you normally eat at 6:00
45:40
PM. An hour from now, you're going
45:42
to be near this this restaurant. You would love this
45:46
cheeseburger. I love that technology has that
45:50
information and is beginning to get to a level where it predicts
45:54
for the consumer in a way that truly is meaningful for them.
45:58
So I think you know, Lunch Box again, trying to provide
46:01
solutions that Dr. profitability for restaurants.
46:04
And the way we do that is through great consumer
46:08
experiences, beginning to take artificial intelligence for
46:12
things like menu suggestions, understanding purchasing
46:15
behavior and patterns in a way that yes, drives profitability
46:20
for restaurants, but does it by driving customer experience in a
46:24
way that's really tailored, personalized and meaningful for
46:27
them. And I think you're going to see
46:29
certainly Lunch box begin to execute against that in in days,
46:34
not weeks or months. Oh, wow.
46:37
What would this look like from a practical standpoint?
46:39
Am I? I'm an iPhone user and so I
46:44
don't know, on the back end you've got a client who's this
46:47
cheeseburger shop in London that signed up to use your services.
46:51
And so somehow maybe through Apple Maps, it's like popping up
46:55
this suggestion. Or is it a coming through like
46:57
as an SMS or Or am I getting too far into the weeds and this
47:00
isn't ready for public knowledge yet?
47:04
All of the above, but nothing has ever stopped me from getting
47:08
ahead of the marketing or public relations team.
47:11
What I would say is currently our ability to influence
47:17
customer experiences is within our realm of clients.
47:21
So being able to provide information about a Maman event
47:27
to somebody who might be in that area and is a Maman consumer, we
47:32
do that today. You're going to see us be able
47:34
to do that more and more in insightful ways that Dr.
47:37
profitability as well as customer experience for our
47:41
clients. Now I'm excited that Apple's
47:43
able to do that across as you said, Apple Maps, so they can do
47:47
it with anyone who uses Apple products and and any restaurant
47:51
that has public information out there.
47:54
I think you'll continue to see Lunchbox find ways to add value
48:00
to our clients through information that we have that
48:04
may be non public, but also beginning to synthesize public
48:08
information to the benefit of our clients.
48:11
But to be clear, we're currently focus on helping our clients and
48:18
our partners and their customer bases.
48:21
Gotcha. OK, let's maybe take a little
48:24
bit of a detour and if we've got time, we'll we'll kind of come
48:27
back to the story because I think there's more fun stuff to
48:29
unpack here. But you know, we've heard in the
48:31
intro, we've heard, you know, just a little bit beyond that,
48:35
some of the successes that you've had in your career.
48:40
I'd be curious to hear about whether it's professional or
48:42
personal, a serious challenge that you've overcome, how you
48:47
got through that, and what you learned in the process.
48:51
Yeah, You know, I would say there's challenges every day.
48:56
I think for someone like myself who who loves to work and is
49:05
generally high energy and also believes in the importance and
49:11
power of being present. So if I'm running restaurants,
49:16
being in a restaurant, if I'm working with the technology
49:19
company, being with the restaurant clients in their
49:22
restaurants, experiencing the technology while watching a
49:26
consumer utilize it, that puts me in a position where I'm away
49:31
from home a lot. And, you know, I have a family
49:35
that I love very dearly and a wife who who has to put up with
49:40
me being gone more than either one of us would like.
49:43
So that presents a lot of challenges.
49:47
I would say things are better from a technology standpoint
49:50
today. So when I started really
49:52
travelling internationally, you know, I remember you, you had a
49:56
teeny policy that said you could call home for 15 minutes a day
50:01
because it was a long distance call from a hotel.
50:03
And now, you know, my wife probably her first text every
50:07
morning and we're able to FaceTime and we're able to
50:10
interact. But it's still just as I believe
50:14
organizations need senior management to be present with
50:18
their customers, with their customers, customers in their
50:23
locations where the transactions are are being made.
50:26
Families need that as well. So finding a way to reconcile
50:30
that, it's probably easier today, but it's never easy.
50:34
So I don't think we can ever say that that's problem solved.
50:37
I would say that we have found ways to mitigate some of the
50:42
difficulties that that that can can cause within a relationship.
50:48
So you mentioned a little bit about how the tech has changed
50:51
radically, right? You know, long distance
50:53
international phone call used to be very expensive.
50:56
Now you can text, you can, you know, have a video call, no
51:01
charge at all. Obviously that's a big help.
51:03
But aside from that, I don't know.
51:06
Do you have any advice for people who are maybe in similar
51:09
situations where their work does require them to travel quite a
51:12
bit and their, you know, their spouses having to pick up more
51:16
of the slack? You're maybe missing out on some
51:18
kids activities, Like how do you sort of approach that, tech
51:23
aside? Yeah, marry well, marry up.
51:27
You know, listen, I'm very lucky that my wife reminds me if
51:34
there's things that I need to do that I need to reach out to my
51:37
son that, you know, just check in and see how he's doing.
51:42
You know, he got, you know, he got a good grade.
51:44
He read a new book, you know, he, he made a new friend that I
51:48
can reach out and kind of get in the middle of that conversation.
51:53
The other thing I would say is really trying and some of this
51:57
also depends on where you are in life, where you are financially,
52:00
what you you have the wherewithal to do.
52:04
But if I'm home for three days, you know, I'm not out mowing the
52:09
lawn and away from the family. I'm able to take, you know, my
52:12
young son to breakfast and he likes that one-on-one time.
52:16
I think trying to have, you know, the pomp and circumstance
52:22
or the routines or different things that you do with
52:27
individual family members that is very special to them and
52:31
ensuring that those take a high priority in your life.
52:34
So like I said, my young son, there's a diner he likes to go
52:38
to and you know, we drive to the diner, we sit in the diner and
52:42
eat and then we drive back and he never stops talking the
52:45
entire time. And you know, it brings me up to
52:48
speed on everything that's going on in his life.
52:50
So that's really important that you know, that's not
52:53
interrupted. And you know, I try to make it
52:56
a, a phone face down period of time, but I think it's it's
53:01
different for everyone. But you know, what's made it
53:04
easier for me is a wife who is very understanding but also
53:09
tease me up to be successful with the children and allows me
53:15
to feel like I'm there and part of their lives even if I'm not
53:18
there as much as I would like to be.
53:20
And the son that you just referenced that doesn't stop
53:23
talking the whole time? How old is he?
53:26
He's 15. Yeah, 15.
53:27
OK, so I've got two boys, 9 and 11, and selfishly, I have to
53:31
ask, what questions are you prompting him with to get him to
53:34
talk so much? Because my kids, it's like
53:37
pulling teeth. So I'm very lucky I and listen,
53:42
I think there's ages in different kids, right?
53:43
You know, every four year old has plenty to say and and at
53:48
some point in time, they probably have less to say to
53:51
their parents. Nick is still in that level.
53:55
We saw, you know, I, we saw three children and those
53:58
children are still at home. The youngest has not lost that
54:02
desire to talk to his parents. The.
54:06
Old saying my kids are broken. No, I'm, I'm saying that they
54:09
probably matured early. But you know, I think, you know,
54:14
finding things that are important to them.
54:19
I'm very lucky that my daughter Madison and I have a similar
54:23
outlook on life. We have a similar personality.
54:26
We get the same joke. So and I'm not an overly mature
54:32
person for my age. So if she's watching, you know,
54:37
a, a, an animation or a comedy animation or something and she's
54:42
like, oh, my dad would like this, I watch it.
54:44
We discuss what have you. So I, I think young one has not
54:50
outgrown his interest in talking to his parents.
54:53
My daughter and I have a very similar personality where we're
54:56
able to connect even if it's not a lot, we're able to connect
54:59
very genuinely. And then my older son who's 23,
55:08
you know, is just, he's I'm very lucky that he's a really good
55:12
person. And instead of, you know, he
55:18
kind of being one of these children who, who you're hoping
55:20
will rattle off everything in their life.
55:23
AJ, who I don't call Aji call the hound.
55:26
I've always called, I've called him the hound since he was born.
55:28
So the Hound, you know, Dad, where have you been?
55:31
How are you doing? So, you know, maybe, maybe I'm
55:34
the child in that relationship. So if I'm coming home, he's
55:37
like, where were you? How was it?
55:39
Where did you go? You know, he, he's trying to
55:42
find out more about what I did, so the conversation's happening,
55:47
but he's pulling things out of me instead of the other way
55:49
around perhaps. Fascinating.
55:51
James, how would you characterize your superpower?
55:56
You know, if there was a superpower, I have just a
56:01
phenomenal amount of energy. I can sleep very little.
56:05
I eat once a day. So, you know, I'm pretty
56:10
situated physiologically to, you know, work in an organization
56:19
that requires a lot of on time to take advantage of
56:25
opportunities or to deal with problems.
56:29
So from that standpoint, you know, I don't work an 8 hour day
56:33
and I'm tired. I can work a 12 hour day and
56:36
then go to dinner and still get up fairly early the next morning
56:42
and am very excited to kind of jump out of bed and and start
56:45
the day. So I think, you know, the
56:48
ability to work a lot without becoming tired and being very
56:52
passionate and excited about it is is if there was a superpower,
56:56
that would be it. That's a big one.
56:58
Have you always been this way? Something you developed later in
57:01
life? Did you start taking a
57:02
supplement that helped with this?
57:05
Yeah, I would think the only supplement I take is, is red
57:08
wine and Diet Coke. So I don't know, maybe there's
57:12
something in, in that combination.
57:15
Maybe. No, I so I would say, you know,
57:19
in, in my probably mid 20s, driven by a desire to, you know,
57:26
not only work as much as I could and make as much of A living as
57:30
I could, but also wanting to, you know, spend time with my
57:33
friends and, and do all those types of things.
57:35
Sleep became less and less of a priority for me.
57:40
I do have a very slow metabolism, so eating once every
57:44
24 hours is, is something I do. So I think it evolved probably
57:50
in my late 20s. And then, you know, in, in my
57:54
early 40s kind of got in this rhythm where, you know, I, I
57:59
don't feel the need to eat constantly.
58:02
And you know, I sleep very well. So sometimes like, well, you
58:06
know, how you, you only slept 4 hours, how you know, how could
58:09
that be? But I slept 4 hours almost
58:12
exclusively in Rammer deep sleep and I'm totally rested and I
58:16
feel great. Ready to go?
58:17
Yeah. And listen, I, I probably have a
58:20
fairly strong constitution. I've never had COVID even though
58:23
I was in, you know, Brazil, Ukraine, Russia, India, all
58:28
throughout kind of the, the height of COVID around people
58:31
who had it or came down with it, you know, because I was in
58:35
meetings with them and then the next week everybody got COVID,
58:38
never came down with it. So I I think generally just have
58:42
probably a, you know? We need to get some blood
58:45
samples, see what's going on in your system and try to replicate
58:48
it, it sounds like. Diet Coke and red wine
58:51
combination. But what's you know for those
58:54
people who listening, who are working their way up sort of the
58:58
ladder within the restaurant industry and they're sponges,
59:02
they want to learn more. Can you recommend any resources
59:05
to them? Maybe it's a a book, maybe a
59:07
podcast, a course, something that was maybe helpful for you
59:13
or you've seen be helpful for others and kind of helping them
59:16
advance their skill set in their career.
59:19
Yeah, it's hard. I, I don't love to make a lot of
59:26
suggestions in this area because I, I think it's very personal
59:29
for myself. You know, anybody who goes into
59:31
my LinkedIn profile, I have continued to seek out additional
59:36
information and programs, you know, even after graduating Duke
59:40
with my MBA, I've taken courses and programs at Harvard, at
59:46
Yale, at MIT to further my education and my own knowledge.
59:52
It didn't help me get a better job.
59:53
I didn't make any more money. More often than not, I paid for
59:56
them out of my pocket, but it made it helped me in decision
1:00:02
making and understanding how to be a better leader within the
1:00:08
organizations that I was employed.
1:00:10
What I would encourage individuals to do is find what
1:00:14
works for them. So you know, if it's podcasts,
1:00:17
if it's audio books, if it's reading business books, if it's
1:00:22
taking, you know, some of the certificate programs that are
1:00:26
very specialized and detailed. All of those are things that
1:00:30
have worked for me. Find what works for you.
1:00:33
I think most people ask for advice and really don't want it.
1:00:39
The sooner you can get to a level where you listen to advice
1:00:44
and and maybe don't take it at face value but try to synthesize
1:00:47
it into your decision making. The sooner you can do that the
1:00:51
better. One of the things that attracted
1:00:53
me to the deal the the founder of Lunchbox is he seems for for
1:00:58
a young guy in his very early 30s, someone who really is
1:01:01
looking for advice from individuals within the industry,
1:01:06
within finance. And he finds a way to synthesize
1:01:10
that, take the strongest points and make it part of his toolkit.
1:01:16
And it's great to see somebody at that age because I don't know
1:01:18
that I took advice till I was, you know, 10 or 15 years his
1:01:22
senior. So be open to the constructive
1:01:26
feedback before you go asking for it so that you're in a
1:01:31
receptive mode and ready to maybe act on some of that.
1:01:34
Because it's hard, right? It's hard to sometimes take that
1:01:37
because it feels like criticism. It's like sometimes you go in,
1:01:41
you made the point that, you know, some people ask for the
1:01:43
advice and they're not really ready for it because it, I think
1:01:47
what some folks are looking for is kind of a little pat on the
1:01:49
back, like, oh, you're doing everything great.
1:01:51
Like just affirmation, and that does feel good, but growth
1:01:56
really happens when you're heading into spaces that you
1:01:59
haven't been before and you're uncomfortable and being open and
1:02:02
receptive to that kind of constructive feedback that's
1:02:04
encouraging you to do things differently.
1:02:07
I think that's really important to that personal growth.
1:02:10
Yeah. I think also just being
1:02:13
introspective, understanding, you know, are you going to be
1:02:17
open to feedback and if you're truly going to be open to
1:02:20
feedback, are you going to be open to feedback that may not be
1:02:25
wow every you were just amazing. And if you could just be more of
1:02:29
yourself, that would be great for all of us.
1:02:31
If that's what you're looking for, that's probably going to
1:02:34
hamper your career and that's OK, but you know, understand
1:02:39
that. So I think the more, you know,
1:02:42
if there was a piece of advice, I think individuals being truth
1:02:46
to themselves, understanding whether they are open or not
1:02:50
open and understanding what both of those things mean, I think is
1:02:54
important. Listen, I, I love dining out.
1:02:57
Being in the restaurant industry, I spent a lot of time
1:02:59
in restaurants. I've been in and around the
1:03:02
restaurant industry for a while. So it's not unusual for
1:03:04
restaurant tours, restaurant owners or chefs to ask my
1:03:08
feedback. And I'm always thinking in my
1:03:10
mind, are they really looking for me just to tell them what I
1:03:13
thought was great or do they really want feedback?
1:03:17
And you know, I would say from a distilled standpoint, it's
1:03:22
probably 5050. Half of of the people just want,
1:03:25
you know, please tell me what you liked and let me move on.
1:03:29
And the other half are like, listen, you may have a
1:03:31
criticism, you may have some some piece of advice.
1:03:35
I don't have to take that personally and I don't even have
1:03:38
to take it. I may disagree with it.
1:03:40
You may say, listen, I thought the bacon should be a little
1:03:42
crispier, but maybe there's a reason that chef or that
1:03:46
restaurant owner doesn't want crispy bacon that I don't
1:03:49
understand. Doesn't mean they have to listen
1:03:52
and and necessarily run with it, but being open to feedback and
1:03:56
finding what you can take from it that makes you more
1:03:59
successful. The sooner people are able to
1:04:02
develop that, I think the better for their career.
1:04:04
Yeah, I like that a lot, James. Sometimes mistakes in the
1:04:09
moment, what feels like a mistake in the moment ends up
1:04:12
becoming a really great teacher for us.
1:04:15
Can you think of a moment in your career that seemed like a
1:04:18
set back at the time but actually propelled you forward?
1:04:22
Yeah, it looks all the way back from when I was cooking for a
1:04:26
living and I was having I was a pastry chef early in my career
1:04:30
and I had a, you know, a chocolate silt and ganache pie
1:04:37
that I was known for and had some success.
1:04:39
And the owner accidentally ordered white chocolate instead
1:04:43
of dark chocolate. And I hadn't at that point in
1:04:46
time, I hadn't been to culinary school.
1:04:47
So I didn't understand the melt pointer that those chocolates
1:04:50
would behave differently. So it's like chocolate
1:04:52
chocolate. And, you know, not only did I
1:04:55
learn, hey, maybe maybe you should find out some of this
1:04:57
information instead of you just try to one for one replace it.
1:05:00
But was very lucky and developed a white chocolate vanilla semi
1:05:06
fredo that became even more popular.
1:05:09
So my my lack of knowledge in the tempering of chocolate led
1:05:16
to success. I think from a business
1:05:18
standpoint, one of the things I look back on, and this is going
1:05:22
to be kind of opposite advice. While I didn't have a lot of
1:05:28
mentors early, I, I may always have been looking for a mentor.
1:05:33
So if somebody had a bigger job, if someone had a bigger title,
1:05:37
if someone had a bigger degree, if somebody was on a board of
1:05:39
directors, I kind of assumed that they were smarter and more
1:05:43
knowledgeable than I was. So even if I didn't agree with
1:05:47
what they were saying, I kind of said, you know, listen, they're,
1:05:51
they know more. And there was an example, I was
1:05:54
running a fairly large Mexican restaurant company as the
1:05:58
president and you know, the chairman, our signature product
1:06:03
was a skirt steak, fresh, never frozen.
1:06:08
It was a big part of the P mix. It was a big part of the
1:06:10
profitability is one of the things the the restaurant chain
1:06:12
was known for. And I wanted to lock in pricing
1:06:17
for a year and in order to lock in pricing and something that's
1:06:22
really going to be on kind of the, you know, the commodities
1:06:25
market. When you lock that price and
1:06:28
you're not locking in at the bottom because whoever you're
1:06:30
buying it from has to mitigate their potential risk over that
1:06:35
entire contract. So you're going to pay more on
1:06:37
day one. My position was we didn't have
1:06:40
digital menu boards. It was hard to change pricing.
1:06:43
It was cumbersome and time consuming.
1:06:45
I'd rather lock in pricing at a little bit higher, but know that
1:06:49
I was not going to have price, price fluctuation in that all
1:06:54
important ingredient for 12 months.
1:06:57
And the board said, no, we want to ride the market.
1:07:01
And it didn't seem to make sense to me.
1:07:03
But I didn't push back a lot. I said, OK, well, you guys are
1:07:06
smarter. And some of them had written
1:07:08
books and had TV shows and, you know, were were icons in the
1:07:12
industry. So I'm like, well, I just
1:07:14
learned better to ride the market.
1:07:16
And then six weeks later, when immigration raided all of the
1:07:21
meat plants and that product doubled in cost, I learned maybe
1:07:27
it was OK for me to push back and maybe it was OK for me to
1:07:31
challenge. And maybe it was OK for me to be
1:07:35
a little suspect if if I felt I had done my homework and maybe I
1:07:40
was a little closer to the situation.
1:07:43
And, you know, that became a huge challenge within that
1:07:47
organization. For everything I mentioned, we
1:07:51
didn't have digital technology that allowed us to easily take
1:07:54
price. This happened virtually
1:07:56
overnight because it was a fresh product.
1:07:58
So the impact of those raids and what happened within those meat
1:08:04
packing plants impacted us almost immediately.
1:08:07
And it was a signature product. So it became really, really
1:08:10
difficult and a painful learning experience for me.
1:08:14
And the lesson is, be a little more confident in your voice.
1:08:19
I think that's right. And you know, I think it's the
1:08:23
other thing I learned is, you know, you don't always have to
1:08:27
fight on day one when you have individuals and you're dealing
1:08:33
with a, a, a superior within the organization, somebody who's a
1:08:37
little higher on the food chain or you know, has a, a higher box
1:08:42
on an org chart. You don't necessarily have to
1:08:44
wait till they're almost done speaking to start disagreeing.
1:08:49
You can, you can say you listen, you ingest, you absorb, you go
1:08:54
home, you complain to your wife and she tells you what to say.
1:08:58
No, no, you know, you, you come back that next day and say,
1:09:02
listen, I heard everything you said.
1:09:05
And it was, I really took it to heart and I went home and I
1:09:08
thought about it. I want to give you my point of
1:09:12
view. And what I have found is just
1:09:13
that difference in 24 hours fighting their feedback or
1:09:18
disagreeing with their feedback on day one, not only on day one,
1:09:21
minute 1, they're not even out of their mouth.
1:09:23
And you're going to compete with it or you're going to contradict
1:09:26
it versus coming in the next day after you've truly thought about
1:09:30
it, you've checked your numbers, you've checked your thinking.
1:09:33
Maybe you've checked with colleagues, maybe if you're a
1:09:36
director or you're a vice president, you've gone and
1:09:39
you've checked with the general managers and you've gotten
1:09:41
really close to the business and come back and say, listen, I've,
1:09:44
I've had 24 hours to run this through.
1:09:48
Could I take 1 more opportunity to tell you my point of view?
1:09:53
And what I found is my success rate in taking that 24 hours has
1:09:57
allowed me to probably persuade individuals that were a little
1:10:03
higher up or a lot higher up in the organization than I was.
1:10:06
That's a real gold nugget there. I think you know, a big part of
1:10:09
why that probably works very well is when you provide that
1:10:13
resistance immediately, like this guy didn't hear me.
1:10:16
This guy isn't listening. He's not even open to my idea.
1:10:20
And so by waiting that time, if if there is that time available
1:10:24
and then coming back and sort of, you know, presenting it in
1:10:27
the way that you did. Hey, I thought about this.
1:10:29
I hear your point. Let me offer a different
1:10:32
perspective here. Like, oh, this guy actually
1:10:34
really thought about this. It's been a whole day since we
1:10:36
talked. And OK, it's just the whole
1:10:40
conversation feels less defensive from both points of
1:10:44
view. James, before I ask my last
1:10:47
question, I'm going to give an opportunity for you to let the
1:10:49
audience know either the best way to get in touch with you to
1:10:54
follow your story or that of Lunch Box.
1:10:57
What would that be? Yeah.
1:10:59
So lunch boxes, we have an amazing head of marketing and
1:11:03
communications who kind of drives not only the the
1:11:08
information pipeline that is lunch box.
1:11:12
You know, you can join our mailing list.
1:11:14
You can do that at lunchbox dot IO.
1:11:16
You can follow us on LinkedIn. And she's really great at not
1:11:20
overwhelming people with information, but ensuring that
1:11:23
they're up to speed and up to date.
1:11:25
Myself, it's just jaywalkermobile.com.
1:11:28
All of my links, all of my information is available there.
1:11:31
Terrific. And we'll find those links and
1:11:33
put them in the show notes for everybody.
1:11:35
So last question for you, James, you and I reconnect a year from
1:11:38
now and you're really excited because you're celebrating
1:11:40
something big. What's that one thing that
1:11:43
you're celebrating a year from now?
1:11:45
I think, you know, Lunchbox is at a inflection point and you
1:11:53
know, I, I worked in private equity for years and it's like
1:11:55
beware of the hockey stick, right?
1:11:57
We're, we're at this transformational inflection
1:12:00
point where truly this organization could grow in a
1:12:06
pure medical fashion. It's not going to be growing
1:12:09
necessarily by, you know, double digits.
1:12:13
You know, certainly there is the ability with our move to
1:12:17
international, with our focus of taking this product integration
1:12:22
in the US and not charging for it, where our contemporaries
1:12:26
charge a lot of dollars for it, where I believe there's the
1:12:30
opportunity for this organization to truly transform
1:12:35
in size to a much larger organization in the time frame
1:12:39
you mentioned. Wow, that'd be fascinating and
1:12:42
very interesting to follow up with you at that time and see
1:12:45
where you guys are at. But James Walker from lunchbox
1:12:48
dot IOI want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your
1:12:51
time and your story with us today.
1:12:53
I really appreciate it. Absolutely, my pleasure.
1:12:56
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
1:12:59
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:13:01
today.