Jeremy Weisz 15:36
I want to come back to a feature later about the from a delivery standpoint, because you’ve kind of integrated and helped people do that. But I want to stick on the direct, direct response for a second and talk about Dan Kennedy, some of the lessons you learned from Dan Kennedy.
Michael Attias 15:58
God, that would be like a week podcast interview, you’re probably not going to expect this one. Are you familiar with this wealth attraction workshop?
Jeremy Weisz 16:11
No. Is that from Dan Kennedy?
Michael Attias 16:12
Yeah. He put on a wealth attraction workshop at some hotel in Denver, and he talked about, sort of the psychology of money, and probably the, I mean, I got a lot of direct marketing, we can talk about that. But basically, money has a brain and it goes where it’s going to do the most good, if that makes sense. And you know, we’re, both of us are Jewish or Jewish, and so, you know, you talk about tzedakah, if you’re a Christian, you talk about tithing. And most religions, you talk about giving back. And I’m a big believer in giving back, because I think money does have a conscience and it goes where it knows it’s going to do the most good. I mean, I have people that I know that doesn’t matter what happens. They always have bad luck. They don’t give money away. And I think money sort of knows we’re not going to show up on your doorstep, because you’re just going to waste it and pilfer it. But it’s going to go over here, because I know this person’s going to be a good steward of it sounds corny. It’s same, same thing with with wealth. You know, learn that you save money and you build your savings. Murphy doesn’t knock on your door. You know, it’s a person that has no money, that the engine goes out in their car, their AC blows up. They just have one thing after another. And I know that sounds crazy and that’s an oversimplification of his workshop, but it was phenomenal. As far as direct marketing.
Jeremy Weisz 17:45
Michael, I just want to on that. You know, Dan Kennedy, if anyone knows who’s, he’s a No BS type of person, right? So I remember him saying, and it wasn’t a wealth attraction one, but I’ve seen him talk and he talked about, I think he said, kind of the hole you give through is the hole you receive through, and like.
Michael Attias 18:02
Exactly, or the hand, the hand, a clenched hand, you can’t receive it. If you’re holding on to your money, you can’t receive more money. So, yeah, it’s the same thing.
Jeremy Weisz 18:11
Yeah. So anyways, I want to just, he’s a no BS type of verse for him to kind of go in that. I was like, woo, woo. But it’s definitely a different, different concept than, like, your hardcore direct marketing.
Michael Attias 18:24
It’s definitely more Woo, woo, but it had a big impact on me and the way I live my life and the way I look at money, and I’m very humbled that I’ve been blessed to be able to help other people. And I don’t think you have to necessarily give to a church or a synagogue or a mosque or some formal organization. It could be there’s a homeless person and you’re going to give them 20 bucks, or there’s somebody working their ass off in a drive thru window at Christmas, and you’re just going to give them 100 bucks for their family, because, you know, they’re barely making any money, and you want to do something nice for somebody. So it doesn’t there’s lots of ways that you can help people out.
Jeremy Weisz 19:04
So there’s one of one of my friends, Tony Grebmeier. He runs ShipOffers, and he pays for the he goes into Starbucks, drive through and he’ll pay for the person behind him every single time, just like, whatever their order is. So it’s like, hey, take care of the car behind me. And so I thought that was like, just, just, it must be such an amazing surprise for that car to pull up and be like, Oh, that person paid for you.
Michael Attias 19:32
So, yeah, I’ve done that before you. You just gotta hope you don’t get the car that ordered, you know, 100 bucks a Starbucks for the office.
Jeremy Weisz 19:41
So talk about the direct response parts from Dan Kennedy.
Michael Attias 19:45
Yeah. So probably the biggest lesson I learned, and I sort of knew this, I’ll tell you a really interesting story. I knew this instinctively as a kid. I mean, to tell you how funny the world is is I used to go to bookstores like I wasn’t into baseball or. Football and, you know, sports or music. I was in a business. I’d go to bookstores and buy books. I bought Dan Kennedy’s books in college and read them before I even knew who he was, so I didn’t reconnect with him for probably 10 years after I bought his books. So the first is niches, riches and niches, and I’ve always done well in niches. In college, a friend of mine’s father, my father’s friend, who actually brought him over from France after a fire in his factory. My dad worked at the company that made the equipment, brought us over. The building was empty, and he let me use the parking lot for free during Memphis in May and all these festivals in Memphis, and I made a lot of money parking cars at five bucks a car during a festival, you know, back back in the day, as they say. But the problem is, is, if it rained, you wouldn’t make any money. No one’s coming to a festival where it rained and then, and this is sort of how you figure out niches. I’m going to give you two stories. Number one is, if something happens, you say, okay, is this a one off, or is is this leaving clues? So I had a barbecue team come to me and said, hey, could we just pay prepay for the whole weekend and have our own spot so we can come and go to the store and get supplies and beer and whatever I’m like, Sure, 25 bucks or whatever it was, right? You know, instead of five bucks, give me pay for five spots, right? And I’m like, damn, there’s like, 200 teams down on the river. So I went to the organizers the next year and said, Hey, I’ve got a parking lot, and I want to sell passes. And I wrote my first direct mail letter and basically said, parking issues. We all know what a pain into the ass to find a parking space, leave, try to come back. Blah, blah, I’m selling a weekend pass for $35 so I made more money reselling spots, and I knew that 15% of the spots I could churn because they cars were going to be out, right. So I made way more money, even if there was a tornado that hit the river. I had made my money. I went to Kinko’s and I and I did these little plaques you can hang, and I cut them out by hand and laid them out on with my dot matrix printer and glued them up and whatever. So that was like a home run. And then when I had my restaurant, I was starting to study direct marketing from Jay Abraham, and we were doing some things with databases and whatever. And then the day after Thanksgiving, I got this order for, like, 200 and something people. And so I’m like, why is Diller’s department store ordering for 200 like, what gives? Like, I didn’t know what Black Friday was? You know, I was 25 year old dude. Like, I don’t go shopping. Like, it’s not my sport. Never even heard of the word Black Friday. So I called after the holiday weekend. I said, Hey, I appreciate your order. How was it great, by the way, why did you order? Oh, it’s Black Friday. It’s a busy shopping day. We order for all our employees, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, ding every other one. So the next year. This is pre internet, right? This is like your your dad saying he walked uphill both ways in snow to school. I drove around to the five malls in Memphis, I mean, Nashville, the area, and I took a yellow legal pad and I wrote down all the big employers, Circuit City, Dillards cast or not, you know, Home Depot target. I went in a thing called the yellow pages, which I don’t even know if the kids didn’t even know what the Yellow Pages are, and I had to look up and call who’s HR director. And I sent out 45 letters. I followed up with phone call, I booked $6,000 in drop off catering. And this is probably going back to 1997 right? 1996 this is like a long time in today’s dollars. The biggest that I ever got it up to was $12,000 in drop off catering. And one day we had, literally, we had crews that would go out. I mean, it was like a military operation, logistically, getting this set up. So lot of cool things in direct mail that I learned. Are you familiar with the X ray mailer? Have you seen that?
Jeremy Weisz 24:18
I’ve sent the X ray mailer before you okay? So for people, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
Michael Attias 24:24
For people don’t know what X ray mailer is, is you can take people don’t know what overhead transparencies are, but it’s like clear film that your teacher would print on, and there’d be a projector, and you could do them by hand. You can run them off on a Xerox machine, a printer, and if you print the background in black and the letters in white, it looks like an x ray film. And I think Bill Glazer came up with that idea, so we stole it. And there’s a thing called hospital week. Have you ever heard of hospital week? No, neither. I. Had I so basically all the hospitals, you know, it’s like, hey, it’s hospital week. So they buy everybody food in the whole hospital, the nurses, the staff, it’s three shifts. And so I got a list of all the hospitals. Like, there weren’t even 20 HR directors. It was an x ray film. Put it in a brown oversized envelope. X ray film, do not bend with a with a fluorescent envelope, uh, fluorescent label, and I sent it out, followed with a phone call. I maybe spent $40 on that promotion. I booked over $17,000 in catering. It was like, I love it so cool.
Jeremy Weisz 25:42
I want to talk about what was in the letter to those places. But what I love about what you said, and I’ve sent those the outside the X ray is cool and you pull it out, but what you just said, they’re gonna open the thing, right? And what I loved about that mailer is it said, like, X ray confidential, do not bend they they’re gonna open it, right?
Michael Attias 26:04
Especially in that type of in a hospital, they’re gonna open it. If anyone is gonna open it, it’s gonna be a hospital.
Jeremy Weisz 26:14
They’re not gonna throw that one in the trash. There’s no possible way they’re throwing that in the trash, right? And the first, it’s like indirect response. Well, you got to get them open it right, if it’s just like anything else.
Michael Attias 26:26
And then a headline, and then the sub headline. So I learned, I forgot who the guy learned, really, to learn Joe Sugarman, was it? No, there was a guy that had a three ring binder course on how to write copy. It was very simple. Maybe it was Brian something. I bought the reprint rights to it, so I probably have it someplace wherever. But it was very like, you know, how to write a headline, how to write a sub headline, and, you know, just the PS, you know, the hook, everything. And it was just a really good primer on how to write direct, direct response copy. And I’m a really good copywriter, but even now, I’ll admit I don’t write copy anymore. I go to AI as a shortcut and then I clean it up. You know, it’s just easier for me about.
Jeremy Weisz 27:20
Like, what you again, like, you went around and you did research, you went to the yellow pages, you went around to these stores, and you ended up sending a letter to them. I’m wondering what was in the letter. I don’t know if you remember, but because like, this applies to even if someone’s doing on Facebook or LinkedIn.
Michael Attias 27:37
I mean all direct response, how to make your employees feel appreciated for less than an hour’s worth of pay. And it’s like, you know, it’s the busiest day of the year. You need your employees selling, not fighting them all food courts to get fed or being out in traffic. And we’ll bring it out. We’ll leave insulated containers. We’ll refill it for you. We’re gonna throw in dessert. We’re gonna throw in the hot boxes, you know, we just, oh, and by the way, we’re gonna give you a $25 gift certificate if you order from us. I mean, you just, you speak to their pain point, right? And catering we used to do had all sorts of niches, CPA firms during tax time they’re bringing in food. I think we got a list of parents of high school seniors for graduation parties. And this is something that I’m building in my software. So you I’ve forgotten more than most people will ever know. And I don’t mean that to be pompous, but like, I’ve tried everything. So when I had my restaurant, we had a promotion, and it was called catering giveaway, when a free lunch for 10 for your office. Now, the difference between a drawing and a giveaway. A drawing is, you just pick one name out of the fishbowl. A giveaway is, I’m going to give it away to whoever the hell I want to give it away to. So as opposed to a business card, you come in with a business card, Well, Jeremy, I don’t know who you are, how big your office is. Why am I going to give you lunch for 10 and it’s just Jeremy’s all state, and there’s two people in the office. I’ve wasted 10, right? So we had a form they had to fill out, which was, what’s your name, what’s your title, where do you work? How often do y’all bring in lunch for how many people so you’re qualified, and who’s responsible for ordering in lunch? So I was talking with somebody in private equity who’s in charge of a big restaurant chain, which I’m not going to mention, and she’s charged with redoing their their catering business. Because, you know, if you’re a private equity company and you can juice sales by 10% you’ve just increased the value of the company by 10% right? It’s huge. So. Were talking, she says, What would you do? And I said, Well, I would do this promotion. And then the way my head thinks is like, how do you plus this? If I were to do it today, I would do catering giveaway, nice sign, and I have a QR code. So we’re going to build in our CRM that. We’re going to give them the form to fill out. You know, you just scan a QR code. You don’t have to sit there and fill out a piece of paper. You can do it at the table. You could do it when you get home. It’ll go in a spreadsheet view in our software. And then you can decide, does this person get a sequence that they’ve won first prize of lunch for 10 to the person in charge of ordering catering, and if they’re already a customer, they’re not getting it, because I’m not going to give a free lunch for 10 for an existing customer. And if they are, you know, Jeremy State Farm, then, hey, congratulations. Sorry. You didn’t win first prize. You won second prize, $5 gift certificate when you come back in. So it’s a phenomenal way to generate leads from your customers that requires basically no F and word. And so we’ll build that into a paid version, like an enhanced version of our CRM. And we’re also going to put in a business card scanner, because a lot of these restaurants, we teach them go out do cookie drops, or, you know, some kind of food drop in the afternoon when people need some sugar or carbs. And then you get business cards. You think most salespeople are going to sit down at the end of the day and enter business cards, no, so we’re going to put a business card scanner on our mobile order taking interface. You know, it’s for the operator, not online ordering. And then once you confirm all the fields, you put them in whatever groups you want to put them in the CRM, then you can enroll them in a sequence, right? So if I go out and I could say, Hey, Jeremy, was great meeting you today. I hope you enjoy the brownies. By the way, as we discussed, your first order, you’re going to get a $25 gift card to corkys Barbecue if you order, here’s the online ordering link, here’s this, here’s that. So it’s a great way to just, you know, you get business cards and and, boom, you put them in there.
Jeremy Weisz 32:20
If and then Michael, I wanted to touch on one thing, you know, we’d mentioned Dan Kennedy, obviously, as influential to your marketing and business. Another one, you know, people are wondering, well, how the heck does he know all this? Well, Michael experienced all these pain points because he had catering, he had a restaurant, and you cut your teeth. One of my favorite parts of your story, which I don’t think it’s as highlighted as it should, is, you know, obviously you, you know, had a barbecue restaurant, right? But when you first started, before you first started, you actually went to the owner and offered to work for free, essentially, and observe and learn. Talk about that point and so stuff you learned.
Michael Attias 33:11
Yeah, let me take a bigger step back. So I worked my first job was washing dishes because there were no other jobs to get it was basically we were in the high inflation rate in the early 80s, and there wasn’t jobs to be had. There was a stack of applications this thick for a dishwasher position. But a buddy of mine was a busboy, and he got me in. I mean, could you imagine today, you know, your kids saying, Dad, you know, there’s 20 guys up for this dishwasher job, you’d be like, What the heck? So I got the job there, worked my way up, and I, I’ve always been the guy that has a lot of ideas and give them to my bosses. And I don’t like to work like, I never like working Saturday nights, because I was sort of like, date night, fun night, I went to my boss at this restaurant, and I said, you know, they really work you hard around here. Why don’t you let me do the busboy schedule for you and help you out. So I did the busboy schedules, and I had control. And when I worked at corkys, I did a lot of promotions, and I was the one who got him shipping ribs. And, you know, he’s like a competitor with shipping ribs. And he said, I said, Don we should be shipping ribs like the rendezvous. He goes, I don’t know how to do it. I said, I’ll figure it out. So I called the owner of the rendezvous, and I said, I’m doing a paper for a marketing class at Memphis state. Can I interview you about rib shipping? The guy gave me the blueprint. I mean, he didn’t give me like every detail, but he gave me a high enough level. So I went out and got a real job after college, as everyone in the restaurant says, and I was in archive storage sales, which sucked. I hated it. And I just got married, just bought a house, bought. Comes in and he says, Michael, you’re just not hitting your numbers. Do you need another month? And I said, Russ, you should probably fire me today. And he said, I appreciate that. I’m going to give you a month severance. I took all my stuff in a box, went in my car, cried. It was a relief more than anything else. And then I knew that corkies was starting to franchise. I knew I could make good money waiting tables. So I said, I want to be one of the first people who gets a franchise. I’ll work for free for half today. They’ll learn the business, because I don’t know the kitchen, I don’t know the operations. And then I waited tables and I talked somebody in a back of me on the franchise. I mean, I also helped them write their franchise manual and open up one of the first franchises. So I know where you’re headed with this story. I don’t think kids today, just like kids today, don’t get to go play out in the woods and skin their knees and build tree houses and, you know, all this cool stuff that we did as kids. I don’t think a lot of kids would go out there and work for nothing to learn a business for an opportunity.
Jeremy Weisz 36:10
I love though you know your kind of mentality of delivering value, you know, and then you knew you were going to learn the business, and, you know, be successful, but delivering value. Like, listen, I mean, it’s a, it’s also goes back to your offer and your guarantee, like you almost, what are they going to say? No, you can’t work here for free, right?
Michael Attias 36:31
Right. Well, I mean, I had a a, I had a plan, you know, my buddy and I had had this saying in college, you know, you go out. I don’t want to sound crass, but to pick up girls, meet girls like you, ask 100 people a question, one person’s going to say yes, right? And I go, You know what? If I ask 100 business people, someone will back me on this restaurant, like one out of somebody. And it was probably number 27 to 30, and he had pulled out an ad from the national paper that they were franchising quirkies. He loved West Tennessee barbecue. He had just sold his roofing business, and I had never opened run, managed a restaurant, and he literally wrote a million dollar check to back me. And my goal was not to make money. My My goal was not to lose his investment. He made 25% no less than a 25% return on that investment year after year. Didn’t have to do anything, didn’t have to worry about anything. And even today, I don’t have goals like, you know, oh, we want to increase sales by 22% we sort of have directions like you know, how much do you need, right? Like, I don’t, you know, I’m guessing you’re successful. Ish, successful. There’s levels, right? Successful. You might be in the top 1% but you could be the bottom 1% of the top 1% because the top 1% of 1% they’re flying. Like, I was just in London talking to someone at Harrods. Oh, yeah, these two Saudi princes, they flew in on their jet. They got helicoptered over to Nords Harrods. They bought million and a half dollar of diamond encrusted iPhones and flew back to Saudi Arabia, or wherever they were from. I mean, there’s levels of comfort and rich, right? So I’m comfortable. I can do what I want. My kids are off the payroll, so I don’t have investors to pay back, you know? I just want to go in a direction and get pumped up about what I do every day, building software, making a difference for our clients, and enjoying the journey, right? I don’t want to kill myself. I want to be able to work and travel remotely. I just got, just spent the month of July in Europe, and, you know, worked a little bit while I was there. I could run my company.
Jeremy Weisz 38:49
So talk about, you know, the owner of Corky’s, and some of the, you know, he was a mentor of yours.
Michael Attias 38:58
You know, he was more of a mentor. And I tell people that have kids this, your kids are paying attention, whether you ever teach them a formal lesson or not, you are a walking, talking lesson of what to do or what they shouldn’t do. Right? I saw my parents what not to do work your ass off and not enjoy the journey. And then you know what? You want to be 70 years old before you can enjoy yourself? And so he worked his ass off. And so I learned work ethic, but also learn, like, I don’t want to be working Saturdays and Sundays. Like, yeah, you make a lot of money, but why are you making barbecue sandwiches at a festival? Like you’re the president of this company, you know need to be doing this. And I saw his commitment to quality barbecue. I was at the point like I could, I could be in the kitchen and I could just look at a plate of food and know whether it was perfect or not, just by look right. It’s just, it’s like, even today I go to a restaurant, I can just tell by looking at something. It’s just just the way it looks. You can tell. And I also know what’s happening when I’m not in the restaurant or not in my business. And the same thing with the dating world, my buddies and I will have this conversation. Is there is a cadence in the world, and when the cadence is off, you know it, right? So I’m assuming you’re married. Are you married? Jeremy, Yep, yeah. You know when your wife pissed off at you, right? Because you have a routine, you have a cadence, right? You get up in the morning, you make your copy, you go do this, you do this. And if, oh, she texts you, you know something, it’s something. And if she’s not texting you, or she’s not doing this, or you’re not doing this, as like, oh, what’s wrong today? Because I normally this is out of whack. And sometimes you can put your finger on it, and sometimes you can’t. He was quirky and he was funny. This guy, you would never know he had money. He came for money. He was a he was a junior golfer. He played against Jack Nicholas in high school, great golfer. His son was a great tennis player, great family. But he drove when he had quirkies. He drove this piece of shit, Corolla, and he’d say, Michael, go take this delivery for me. I’d slam on the brakes at the light, and a bottle of Old Spice would roll out from underneath the front of the car. Like, could you imagine? Like, of course, Warren Buffett would wear Old Spice because he goes to McDonald’s, you know, and probably buys coffee there and at Starbucks. So he was just a very quirky guy, but I learned the value of he was a phenomenal marketer. I learned the value of catering, how important that is to a restaurant. And I also credited him with the software company, because I’ve always been looking to solve problems. My whole life, I’ve been a problem solver, right? And I remember I’m rolling silverware, and then it had three girls on the phone, answering, you know, taking catering orders. And this is like, really, when computers are starting to come out, you know, people would have like, an IBM on their desk, and they would load software or whatever, and what’s your name, what’s your company, what’s your address, what’s a credit card number. You know, they would write everything by hand. And if you ordered five days a week, you’re giving them that information five days a week, and then at the end of the day, the manager would sit there and add up, okay, on this order, Jeremy needs 10 pounds of brisket, 10 pounds of ribs. Needs this, this, this, and they did it by hand. And I’m like, God, if I knew how to do something and debase the read, plus, I could build a simple program for this. So I had this idea way before I launched it, and the fact I was able to launch it for 30 grand is like, I mean, it’s like winning the lottery.
Jeremy Weisz 43:00
You’re making me hungry thinking about all this. But what finally made you decide, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna finally launch a software.
Michael Attias 43:09
Um, you know, so I started the info product business in 97 this is really an interesting story. So I get a direct mail piece from the Postal Service saying they’re doing a direct mail seminar. They sent me an oversized, you know, the the priority envelope. And I was like, I know, like, response rates are half a percent, right? And I was getting, like, 10% 20% you know, really high response. And I was, I called the person up, I go, I don’t know who’s speaking of this, but can I speak? Because I’ve got these great things. He goes, Well, you have to be approved. Vendor, blah, blah, blah. They came in, they had lunch, and I had a notebook with all my promotions and the recaps, and go, Man, we need to get you on this agenda. So I did some PowerPoint slides, and I had somebody turn them for me. This is before projectors, really. And it was such a high to speak. Now, I was nervous, like my stomach was in not speaking, but it was fun. And I said, Well, there’s the barbecue convention coming up in March, February, March of 97 so I said, Hey, do you want me to speak at the event? They go, Sure. I mean, it was free, and I just had been to enough seminars. I go. Well, everybody who speaks has something to sell at the back of the room. So I did two audio interviews on cassette tapes, and I took all my winning examples, I put them in a three ring binder, and I took the ads, and I put them on three and a half, three and a half inch floppies, the hard floppies, yeah, three and a half, and I sold it for $99 for the package. I closed 25% of the room. It’s like shit. I just walked away with $1,100 and an hour like this is way better than making barbecue sandwiches. So by the time I got out of the info business, I was selling $1,500 courses. Is on how to double your profits with catering. I had a coaching group. I had an audio newsletter prior to podcast, that’s what they were. You sent out a CD ROM. I had a written newsletter. And what I quickly realized about the guru business, there’s a beginning middle, and very few people can survive the test of time, because, you know what? Once I’ve heard Jeremy talk about podcasts for two years, I’ve heard everything you have to say, and I’m done, and I’m ready to go find somebody else’s my guru. I need residual income, and I’ve always loved licensing. I learned this from Paul Zane pill pilser In college, reading Inc Magazine, talking about the first book you write is $50,000 the second book cost you two bucks. You know somebody, you know the Beatles record an album. It cost a million for the first album they sell. The second album is $1.52 and I love software. I didn’t know anything about software, and I went to two of my competitors, because there really wasn’t catering software for restaurants. It’s a different animal, because it’s really quick, small dollar size. You got to get people on and off the phone and all this stuff. Went to two competitors, and I said, Hey, you really don’t cover restaurants. Would you license me? License me your software so we can build a version for restaurants. They both turn me down. They have since tried to acquire me multiple times. You know, I’m in contact with the private equity firms that own both of them, so I find that pretty cool. And then I went to a guy that I was friends with, and he had an online ordering company, software that he had built. He also had a dev shop, and we had referred him when I was in the info business. I referred him business, not a ton, but I referred him some business. And I said, Hey, would would you build me software like I need your online ordering is maybe 5% of my software. Would you build this software for me? He goes, at first, he was like, Well, I don’t really want you to use my online ordering. I said, Look, I’m not doing takeout. Like, I’m not competing with your niche. This is just for catering. He said, Okay, so I did my screenshots with Excel like this is a workflow. These are the tabs I want. Took two years to build, cost me 30 grand, and he was nice enough to basically charge me per license per month, so I didn’t have to invest in all this infrastructure. And that’s how I was able to launch it. And literally, I bootstrapped it with nothing, and I feel I was ahead of the curve based on where we are now. And, you know, it’s just it’s grown and grown and grown.
Jeremy Weisz 47:53
Michael, talk about enterprise for a second. You’ve always been really good at you mentioned even from the direct responses, hitting the pain points, finding the need and serving those need and I know you have enterprise clients with CaterZen. What’s you found different than need to be in CaterZen for those enterprise clients?
Michael Attias 48:14
Well, we pivoted in enterprise because the enterprise leader got acquired, and then it’s not so advantageous in the marketplace to use their software. And so we saw that eventually there was going to be an opportunity with people are going to look for somebody else to service their needs than this company, because they got acquired. And I don’t want to get in all the background. And so the biggest thing is, is managing multiple units, whether it’s reporting pricing. So here’s a perfect example. If it’s Jeremy’s deli, it’s simple, you know, you want to change your prices. You go in and say, the corn bee sandwich is not 9.95 it’s 11.95 you change your price. Well, what happens if you have 100 stores, you know, are you going to change 100 prices? So you have to do tier pricing. Most chains have tiered pricing. So am I in a tier one city? Tier two, tier three, tier four, tier five, some have three, some, you know, whatever. So now I don’t have to change the prices for 100 stores. I just have to assign their tier level. And then when I change all the tier two pricing, it automatically updates, right? The same thing with reporting. If you have three delis, you know, you could look at all three stores together combined whatever. Well, what if you have regions and sub regions and stuff, kind of thing? So there’s been more. It’s more about the reporting taking orders. Like, you know, if you have a phone team, how do you take orders when you have all these stores? So it’s just building tools, a more robust CRM, like we had a good CRM for catering software. But when you’re working with a big chain and. Call Centers? Well, we come from the background that you assign a call to a person, right? It’s Jeremy’s client. He’s going to call him back on Monday to see how, how the wedding go, right? Michael’s client, I’m going to call Tuesday. How’d the how the event go last night? What if you have a call center and now you need 100 people called from this weekend, but I’m not going to sign them. I just, I’m putting it to the group, right? It’s assigned to the group. And then anybody in the group is going to see this is something. And whoever grabs it, grabs it, right, you know. And then you have, and then you have to have the reporting. I need to see what Jeremy did. I need to see what Jeremy’s Call Center did. I need to see, I want to listen to the recording of the call. You know, there’s just a lot of moving parts and pieces, you know, that you have to keep adding. You know, a lot of sales reporting, a lot of, you know, there’s just a lot of moving parts and pieces that it has more to do with managing multiple locations, then the core functionality is still there. It’s more. How are we going to slice and dice the data?
Jeremy Weisz 51:08
Yeah. Michael, first of all, I want to be the first one to thank you. I want to encourage people to check out caterzen.com, to learn more. I don’t care if you’re in a restaurant or not in a restaurant. You know, definitely. Check out the resources page. He has several books, because these things apply to everyone you know. Catering Multipliers: The 17 No Cost Lws of Catering Sales Growth. He also had the book Cater or Die: The Step-By-Step Plan for Doubling Your Catering Profits. Now, obviously you’ve been great on the niche part, but this, those concepts and principles apply to any business. Obviously, if you are, you know, in need of CaterZen, then just go to caterzen.com as well or share it with someone else. But Michael, thank you so much for joining me. This has been fantastic.
Michael Attias 51:58
I’ve had a great time. Jeremy, thanks for including me.
Jeremy Weisz 52:01
Thanks everyone.
Outro 52:01
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