Dyson 0:00
Birthday is a celebration of life. And that’s why you get more numbers. And the biggest number that I can think of that’s important to all of us is the average ticket, you know, $78 or more for a birthday. You compare that to your typical guests check. And you’ll see two times 2.3 times, know what you’re making.

Roger Beaudoin 0:24
Welcome back. And thanks for joining me on the restaurant rockstars podcast, it is my goal, to continue to bring you information and ideas to improve your business and what we all need is new and repeat business. So in this episode, I’m speaking with a colleague who has a great solution to just that. And it literally target something that everybody everyone in the world has birthdays, you’re not going to want to miss this because it is a very unique and powerful marketing idea that is proven to drive new and repeat business to restaurants. So stay tuned.

Intro/Exit 1:02
You’re tuned in to the restaurant rockstars podcast powerful ideas to rock your restaurant, here’s your host, Roger Beaudoin.

Roger Beaudoin 1:17
Rock Stars, your team are the foundation of your business, and every shift, they’re leaving impressions with your guests in your restaurant. Now every impression counts and they have to be positive. Training is the key and absolutely essential to providing what I call amazing dining experiences. But effective training takes time and commitment. If you had to do it yourself. Well, imagine a staff training tool that’s completely customized to your restaurant, brand, and restaurant, it teaches your entire menu and what makes your restaurant brand special. Then it trains your team, your entire team to sell because sales are the lifeblood of your business. Now, it’s also important to recognize rising talent in your organization. This tool also trains future stars to become leaders that can run your business for you. I call that an exit strategy. Now this tool is called serve. Now learn more at SRVnow.com. That’s SRVnow.com. Check it out.

Roger Beaudoin 2:20
Listen, I’m all about marketing. But believe me very few marketing ideas today are fully trackable where you know exactly where the business is coming from. And you also know that it’s generating a positive return on your investment. Now I no longer own restaurants. But if I did, this idea would be at the very top of my marketing plan. It’s all about birthdays. Everyone has a birthday and they are a huge Let me repeat that huge source of business in your restaurant. Why wouldn’t you want to focus in on reaching everyone with a birthday in your area? Well, you can with the birthday club from fan Connect. Best part is they do everything for you. You get a turnkey marketing system that sends birthday cards in advance, inviting people to celebrate your restaurant from your area code plus a sign up strategy for your existing customers. New business repeat business higher check averages and a massive customer database. You can get all this with the birthday club. Check it out and sign up now at get fanconnect.com/birthdayRockstar.

Roger Beaudoin 3:29
Welcome back, everyone. This is the restaurant rockstars podcast. With me today is Mr. Dyson Barnett, and he is the president and CEO of fanconnect. And today we’re going to be talking all about birthdays and specifically the birthday club. Welcome to the show. Dyson, how are you today?

Dyson 3:46
Hey, man, it’s always a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Roger Beaudoin 3:48
Well, you know, before we get into birthdays, and birthday clubs, you know, this is a huge potential opportunity. And it’s just so glaringly obvious to me as a former operator, what that opportunity is, and I want to dive deep into that opportunity. But before we do, you’ve got restaurant operator experience, you’ve owned restaurants, you’ve been in hospitality for a long time, so you have a deep understanding of the business. Why don’t you take us back as far back as it goes and tell us what you’ve done in this business before you obviously launched this company?

Dyson 4:17
Yeah, sure. No, I remember as a little kid I used to sit under the sink in my uncle’s, you know, restaurant and watch all the hustle and bustle, go and buy get splashed by the soapy water. No, it was crazy often being in the way. I grew up in restaurants. And so, you know, I’ve done everything from the house back of the house hired hired. It’s been, you know, almost everything that you could think of running a restaurant. And then I got a little crazier and decided I wanted to own one. And so it wasn’t good enough to own one. We own many cafes across the United States. And they were a specialty concept store. So we mixed internet call Coffee and cafes together. And that was fun. It was a lot of fun, lots of headaches, you know, trying to keep everything running smoothly and getting the right people and, you know, just doing things that made us different from everybody else. And yeah, it’s been fun. So my family also, they’ve been in restaurant and for about 120 years, give or take.

Roger Beaudoin 5:25
That’s a legacy right there. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 5:26
Awesome. My,

Roger Beaudoin 5:28
the stories. Yeah, sure. You could talk all day about the stories. We all have restaurants, stories, but for something to be in the family that long, it’s just a tradition that’s passed down from generations. So that’s awesome.

Dyson 5:39
Yeah, I mean, that stories of you know, it used to just be a bakery, and then all sudden turned into making sandwiches, and then making soup and sandwiches, and then no adding to your menu and blah, blah, blah. So those those things were definitely in the family. And all that lineage, I guess you could call it of restaurant thing is definitely important to me. That’s for sure.

Roger Beaudoin 6:00
So how did you exit out of cafes nationally and get a brainchild for you know, your newest business? And you’ve you’ve had multiple businesses along the way, but what was, you know, what was your exit strategy? And then what did you do next? And how did it lead to fan Connect,

Dyson 6:15
you know, it just became a grind, no pun intended to the business. But it really became a grind with trying to be virtually stay ahead of, you know, rising food costs and stuff like that worth. In addition to that, no, it was really difficult to manage personalities across the US. And so one of the things that we started doing is selling, you know, it wasn’t intentional at first, but we started selling some of our units back to our partners. So most of our partners were 5050 stakeholders, so we’d sell them the other 50%. And then we sold a couple units to another developing franchise, and we just decided, you know, what, it seems pretty fast to sell these things. And we just wanted to try something different. You know, after years of doing it, so 10 year run, it was good enough for us. And we just said, Okay, time to go. So we sold them. Yeah. And one of the things that became clear to us is a lot of business owners just simply didn’t know how to run their business, take inventory, stuff like that. So it’s gotten to the point of sale is a man what a headache. I mean, at first, I didn’t really like doing that. Yeah, we were doing that. And we we became successful very quick. We put it out on the internet in the late 90s. And before you know it, we were selling cashiers, receipt printers, barcode readers, full blown point of sale all across the country, and South America. And, you know, after a while, people started catching on to that, and they started selling it out of their garage, you know, the same profits. And, you know, unlike anybody, everybody thinks, you know, when it’s your own small business, no reduce the price. And that way you become, you start selling more? Well, it got to the point where our margins slipped well under 25%. And so moving a box after that point, just was not fun anymore. So we sold that business. And as we were doing that one of the things on there, forget this one of our past customers have asked us if we knew of any way that could help get people coming in the dorm loft. I said, Well, I mean, you’ve got loyalty, you’ve got gift cards, you’ve got all kinds of things that can you know, accomplish that. That said, Yeah, but everybody has said, Well, that’s true. So, you know, I kept on thinking about it. And my goal comes to me not even too much later and says, you know, what? Do you think there’s a way to go and get more people to come in for their birthday and anniversaries? like boom, yep, light bulbs, everything he so I sat down and started talking to people. And yes, there’s a way and I stopped and I asked my uncle, I said, you know, why are you so interested in birthdays and anniversaries? Because they said, Listen, I get 348 1012 20 people, the back room is reserved for a night. And we’re making a much more profitable decision because of birthdays. And my staff loves them because they make more money. So I caught up the other restaurant, and I told him I got a proposition for you. I want you to try birthdays. I’ll go and find the people that are having a birthday and send them to your restaurant. You treat them like kings and queens and let me know what happens. And that’s how we became the birth

Roger Beaudoin 10:00
They call sweet. Well, birthday Club is a simple name with a big powerful idea behind it. And restaurants are the number one most celebrated restaurant event. And that is a statistic that is verified. You know, National Restaurant Association will tell you that all day long. It’s like it’s just Eureka, right? So we know that lots of restaurants right now will do the standard Happy Birthday song. And you know, if they find out that it’s a birthday, because somebody at the table says, hey, it’s so and so’s birthday, you know, you have a cameo, you can stick in a dessert chair, and then the staff come over and they sing the Hokey song and all that kind of stuff. And that’s where it ends, there’s no pizzazz, there’s no flashing sizzle. It’s like, okay, people are happy, maybe the dining room claps but then it’s like, okay, nothing, nothing memorable or special about that beyond what it is, but they don’t recognize what the bigger picture opportunity is. And, and to me, when you run a restaurant, you can’t be reactive, you must always be proactive, and you know, restaurant managers, leaders, whatever the unexpected is always around the next corner. And restaurant operators are focused on putting out the food and delivering good experiences to the people that are already there. But the marketing piece of the forethought of getting new people in the door, and building that business is sometimes lost in the day to day everyday putting out the fires. Okay, and therein lies the opportunity. So let’s talk statistics, right? There’s a very large percentage of adults that dine out for birthdays, right? And what you said earlier, lots and lots of people accompany them. It’s rare that somebody just goes out to dinner, almost impossible to say, one single person, it’s my birthday. So I’m gonna go have dinner by myself, right? And sure, you might just go out with a spouse. But most likely, you’re gonna bring a crowd, you know, a bunch of people with you. And you said, yes, it could be seven 810, even 20 people. And now you’ve got an event. It’s not just a biannual stuck in a desert and people singing the song. Now you’ve got an event. So how do we capture this? Because I think the percentage is 70 plus percent of adults will dine out on their birthday. We know that and that everybody loves getting gifts, right? So what you have, you’ve worked out a formula where you’re capitalizing on the idea, you’re giving a gift, you’re giving people a reason to bring their friends with them. And what happens now the check average goes up, and people are more free spending, because it’s their birthday. And it’s just a domino effect of beautiful thing and a restaurant. Tell us about how that works.

Dyson 12:21
Yeah, sure. So again, just capitalize on some of the numbers, right? Yeah, number one celebrated event, these are things that you must accept to is 70% of people seven out of 10 That’s a big number. Yeah, die. Now. There’s or someone else’s, someone

Roger Beaudoin 12:39
else’s. That’s That’s key point to mention. It’s not just the person’s birthday. It’s your, your uncle, your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, your kid, it’s like, yes, the the immediate circle around you is your network, and somebody is going to have a birthday really soon.

Unknown Speaker 12:53
Exactly. And as we tell everybody, you know, a birthday is a celebration of life. And that’s why you get more numbers. And the biggest number that I can think of that’s important to all of us, is the average ticket, you know, $78 or more for a birthday, you compare that to your typical guests check. And you’ll see two times 2.3 times, you know, what you’re making? So how do you put all this stuff together? First things first, is you have to get away from this idea that I don’t want to give anything away for free. Birthday parties are based on reciprocity. And you have to think to yourself, if I do this for you, you know, what do I get in return, kind of put that over there for a second in the corner, that thought process and look at it this way, the cost of acquisition for a new customer? If you could do that for as little as four bucks, you should be happy. You should be dine happy

Roger Beaudoin 13:55
and do it over and over again.

Dyson 13:57
Exactly. Well, here’s the thing. It’s actually less than $4. Because if the truth is National Restaurant Association says it’s about 3.8 people per party in a birthday party. Okay? Yeah. So if you say, well, it’s gonna cost me four or $5 for a free meal to give to that person, then you got four people, it’s only costing you $1 per person for an acquisition. That’s crazy talk. That’s crazy. And your return on investment is 4050 6070 times. So, you know, I tell people all the time, you really have to sit down and do the math. Now, because if you do the math, you’re gonna find this is probably the most profitable experience in marketing you will ever have. Okay, so, you know, early on, we didn’t call it the birthday club. We just call it a birthday marketing. And, you know, one of the things that I kept on hearing from people is I don’t have a list I don’t have a list. I don’t have a list. And I thought to myself, well, we do we have

Roger Beaudoin 15:07
strikes. I mean, you need to build the list, no matter whether you do birthdays or not, it’s like database building is critical to future marketing and future, you know, repeat business and all that kind of stuff. So go on exactly. The list is critical. And this is I’m glad to bring up that point. Absolutely important. But yeah, so make that sound simple.

Dyson 15:24
Exactly. With that in mind, the very first thing we thought of, is what we would call strike one, strike two, right? You only get three strikes before you’re off home plate, and the next batter comes up. So strike one strike two was, how do we first off, we have a list. Second off, how do we get you to make your own list. So we put our heads together, we created some technologies. And now what we deliver to people is literally a birthday club. So you’re joining a company that has a database of 250 million people in the United States that we know when their birthday is, in addition to that, we give you the tools. I mean, you’ve got diners every day, that by the way, have a birthday. So we give you the tools to acquire the customer information, their name, their birthday, their email address, or mobile number, and they don’t get to put into a database. So the from the very beginning, in your first 30 days, you receive a return on investment. Very beginning.

Roger Beaudoin 16:31
Let me ask you a question. That’s that’s an excellent statistic. And an interesting point, it comes to mind that birthdays happen every day of the week. It’s not just they don’t randomly occur on Saturday, sometimes they do. But you’ve got literally seven days a week where somebody is having a birthday, right? I know in my own family growing up, and even now, it’s like, we don’t want to wait for a weekend to go out and celebrate. If it’s somebody’s birthday on a Tuesday. It’s like we’re going to make that day special. And a lot of times, think about the number of days that you could use new business, you can use an extra 810 20 people in each party and maybe have more than one birthday that night. It’s a beautiful thing, where you can literally drive business on a night that isn’t a busy night already, like us Friday or Saturday and you got five other days of the week, you can drive business to with this idea. I think if it works that way, I think that’s awesome.

Dyson 17:21
It does work that way. As we tell every restaurant tour, its predictable frequency. So you know, you’re setting yourself up to turn your restaurant into the place to celebrate. And anytime you’re celebrating a birthday, you really talking about a party. The people around you that are dining, they also get in to I mean, how many times have you been in a restaurant where people know clap? They even sometimes join in on the birthday song? Yeah, buy drinks. I mean, it’s just crazy, right? I mean, that’s how you make money. Yes. So now as time went on, we figured out something restaurants just are not eating and we as owners are not always great at marketing our restaurant. And so you know, what we decided to do is do it for you. So we take that burden away from you, of knowing whose birthday it is I mean, every month we’re getting give you a list of your current patrons that aren’t going to have a birthday. You can even send them a birthday card through our service center that says Happy Birthday with a gift certificate attached. And every month knowing key gotta think know how you’re gonna community how many people you think every day are having a birthday, there are 188,000 birthdays every single day in the United States. 180,000 So, you got to think there’s at least you know, a couple 100 here in your restaurant. Why shouldn’t they be dining with you? If seven out of 10 people are you know, dining out for a birthday? Why shouldn’t they be dining with you?

Roger Beaudoin 19:05
That’s scream secret weapon and competitive advantage because all the other restaurants in your market area chances are aren’t thinking about this either. They’re just saying their birthday song is sticking the candle in the cake.

Dyson 19:17
Exactly. So we make this super simple. So you don’t even have to think about it. Okay, it’s it’s kind of like coming into a restaurant and turning on the lights. That’s how you should think of fan Connect. Fan Connect. When it wakes up in the morning it runs. The software starts obviously. And it finds you new customers through social media that are near your restaurant and have visited your restaurant already. So you get the Triple Threat of marketing there.

Roger Beaudoin 19:47
For me, Dyson, you said a statistic earlier, something about 250 million people in a in a national database that has birthdays attached to it. How do we make that connection between somebody’s market area and that big List and how many people within those zip codes that you select around your restaurant are part of that two 50 million? And how do we how do we tap into that massive amount of people that we know their birthdays, in order to market to them?

Dyson 20:14
Yeah, we just sit down with you in the very beginning. And through an interview, most restaurants, the average patron will travel up to five miles to go and celebrate the rest of their birthday at a restaurant. If you think about that, we use that same philosophy, about neighborhood marketing, to go and put a five mile ring around your restaurant, and invite those that are having a birthday. So we take, you know, the first things versus that five miles. Second thing is, we also look at discretionary spend. Now, we know that people that have $40,000 or more in a household income, you know, have discretionary spending of at least 3% of that money. So we go and use that philosophy, then we asked you the most important question, what do you think the average age group? Is that comes to your restaurant? Is it 25? To 65? Is it 40 to 65 is 50 to 75. And based on those numbers, we put that into a database. And sure enough, it comes up with an amazing, you know, hundreds of different personalities that are about to celebrate a birthday. Now, one of the things we know for certain is females celebrate their birthdays out more than men do.

Roger Beaudoin 21:31
Or wouldn’t have guessed that, okay. Yep.

Unknown Speaker 21:35
It’s literally almost three times. So you know, three out of four women die now on their birthday. And only one and a half out of four men die now on their birthday.

Roger Beaudoin 21:48
Is that because men generally go play golf or something, or they do some static event? And women are like, very social, I want to go have a glass of wine, I’m gonna get exactly that sort of thing. Okay,

Dyson 21:56
exactly. Men usually give men the birthday gift card, whereas women say, oh, let’s go out and get the drinks. Right? So that’s pretty much how it is. We’ve done study after study to validate that in several different markets. And in every market, females hands down, say that they would celebrate at a restaurant more so than men.

Roger Beaudoin 22:18
Okay, well, that’s that’s an interesting statistic. But so now you can zero in on females too, because yeah, decision makers, and they’ll clearly make this whole thing work whether men participate or not, you’re marketing to both, but you’re really targeting females because of that, that’s why stick. Okay, gotcha so far. And

Unknown Speaker 22:35
then. And then what we also found is type of food or type of restaurant really dictates how far you can go with your marketing mileage. So if you’re a steak joint, or a seafood joint, with an average ticket of 60 bucks, you will be able to reach up to 2025 miles, because your product is that good. But conversely, if you’re like a fast casual, or something like that, you’d be stretching 10 miles, he really would be stretching. Okay, that makes sense. So we have all these expert, you know, opinions and strategies that we’ve looked at, that can really help your restaurant, zero in on targeted birthday market.

Roger Beaudoin 23:23
And this is a system from start to finish done for you, we’ll get into some more of the details. But it’s proven to work a certain way, by following a formula that you don’t deviate from, or don’t deviate from very much. It’s like this is tried and true. This has worked for 1000s of restaurants and blah, blah, blah, and it’s custom designed for your restaurant, which means it’s your brand. It’s your theme. It’s your concept. It’s appealing to, you know, your not only your restaurant internally, but to the guests that ultimately receive it. And you work with a restaurant to graphically create this because you’ve got a graphics team that does this right on a very personal basis.

Roger Beaudoin 24:01
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Dyson 25:27
Exactly. And the most important part is, you know, when you’re, you know, everything we do is personalized, right to the restaurant and to the Patriots. So we think to ourselves, you know, if the patrons never heard of a restaurant, we have to make them want to go to your restaurant. So it’s not just the premium, but most people are not triggered by that. It’s, you know, definitely goodwill. Yeah. But what they’re triggered by is the thought that you recognize them. And so we want them to see your brand in the best light, the colors, your logo, the food, the drink, and we put that into the you know, that’s how we we eat today is with their eyes. No, of course we get those great pictures on everything that we do that tell the story about what I’m about to get. And why are they sending it to me on my birthday?

Roger Beaudoin 26:23
Okay, very cool. And it’s a big mailer, it catches your attention, right? It’s not just a standard postcard. It’s like it’s good. So it’s a jumbo postcard.

Unknown Speaker 26:30
Yeah, that’s all about birthday. It’s themed around birthday. Because we don’t want the customer to think that it’s junk mail. We want the customer to say oh my gosh, this is it’s my

Roger Beaudoin 26:42
birthday. With an offer an offer that’s clearly visible. Right? That’s right. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 26:47
it’s gonna say happy birthday, Roger, right. I’m just gonna say your brand. Rogers Cafe wants to give you a free birthday meal.

Roger Beaudoin 26:57
Let’s share the screen really quick. And we can sort of go through the custom mailer, which I know is on here. Right? I think right there. You just fast. Oh, I’m sorry. Let me go. Sorry. Go. Keep going. There we go. There we go. Happy birthday, Alison. Okay, so what are we looking at? This is looks like the back some boys. Yeah, backyard

Dyson 27:17
boys barbecue. They’re using our system. They’ve, you know, from day one, the guy said to me that you know if this is the first phone call that I’ve received, that absolutely makes sense and wants me to do it. So we designed this forum. And you know, we told a story a few moments ago, that women are most likely to dine out with you. Well, we put a woman on their loan out a birthday. So you immediately know, this is about a birthday, clearly. Yep. And then we put their best food items at the bottom to make you hungry.

Roger Beaudoin 27:51
All right, I’m seeing that. Okay. So yeah, photography from from the restaurants, best signature items, perhaps with a cake and the whole thing. And yeah, that’s, that’s very, very compelling. It’s like you get that in the mail. It doesn’t look like junk mail, like you say, and you’re not likely to throw it out, you’re gonna read what that offer is. Is there a catch? You’re really gonna give me a free meal? It’s like, but you’re gonna look at it. Yeah. So,

Dyson 28:13
you know, that’s the first thing that we think about just like everybody, is there a catch? So when the person who turns over the birthday mailer, it says, just come on in with your friends and family and celebrate. That’s all says there’s no catch. It’s not like buy one get one or anything like that. They bring your friends and family and celebrate. So we’re basically telling you how to do this. And how do you get, you know, your meal? Well, we tell you claim it, scan this QR code text in or go to a website that we design for you, right? And all of a sudden, you’re capturing their name, their address, their birthdate, their phone number, their email address, and you really want to do that. Because First off, this is all about reciprocity. Like I said before, to reciprocate, right, so I went to free meal, I’m gonna give you this information. So that’s the beautiful part. And that’s step one, captcha, build that list. And so, you know, we do the same thing for inside of your restaurant, you know, you got diners, you take the order, you whisk away to go fill the order through the kitchen, they’re making your food, and all of a sudden, you want to jump on the internet to check the score today. You know, last night, it was no the first game game one of the seven series game in hockey. So you might want to be checking the score well, to get on the internet. You know, we provide the restaurant a hotspot, and the customer just simply puts in their email address, their name and their birthday. And they’re whisked away to a website that says hey, enjoy your meal. Thanks for stopping in, join our birthday club. And you’d be surprised how many how Hundreds of people, you’re capturing a month, hundreds.

Roger Beaudoin 30:05
Well, yeah, you use the word capture. But you also have sort of a catchphrase that I like, I think it’s connect collecting cash in, right? Yeah. So you’re connecting with people, you’re collecting their debt, you know, their email addresses and their contact information so that you can later market to them. And then obviously, you’re cashing in on the loyalty, the increased spending, the number of customers that come in and all that kind of stuff. So, okay, so far, so great.

Dyson 30:30
Yeah. So, you know, and then if you, we do the same thing on Facebook for you. There’s something unique about Facebook that I don’t think a lot of restaurant tours, think about. Okay, what does that Facebook captures their birthday? Oh, okay. So every single person that’s like, your page has a birthday, of course. Now, that’s where we start. What’s amazing about this, as you know, almost every restaurant that we we talk to has, you know, lots of likes, likes don’t buy from you. They’re just thumbs up. So what we do is we target those people that liked your page,

Roger Beaudoin 31:09
it’s not the action of like, it’s exactly I see it, I think about it for a split second, and then I move on to the next thing without that missing call to action that gets them to take some kind of action.

Dyson 31:20
Exactly. So we have a very unique formula with your database attached to it. So this example where it says Happy Birthday, and it says, if your birthday is the month of January, get a premium on us, right? And that says it’s up to $15 is how you get it. And there’s a bunch of little emojis in there to go and get you to look at it. Well, here’s the cool part. Soon as you click on that, or text in, you’ve captured the customer. Soon as you do it, they get the offer of that free birthday meal. It’s built in with an expiration, so it’s valid for that entire month. As soon as that month expires, it goes away.

Roger Beaudoin 32:01
Okay, good. Good. pointing that out. Thank you. Yep.

Unknown Speaker 32:04
And now we are also doing something a little more unique. If it goes away. Five days later, our system very soon will go and touch you again, say, You know what we’ve noticed shooting claim your birthday, you know, come on in and get it.

Roger Beaudoin 32:19
Whoo, I like that.

Dyson 32:20
Yeah. So,

Roger Beaudoin 32:22
so you’re not losing them, you’re giving them another opportunity to take advantage of something that they missed, which

Dyson 32:28
exactly, it’s a perfect opportunity to really drive your business and reclaim lost opportunity. So if you want to get to the next one that a lot of people always ask us next slide and know how does the system work? What’s exactly in it. So what we do is we send you what we call the birthday club in a box, it’s a big box, you will not miss it. It’s very attractive when it comes to your storefront, I think your neighbors are going to be jealous of you when you get it. And basically inside of that box is everything you’re going to need for in house customer data capture everything. So we’re going to give you a customer hotspot that allows for free guest Wi Fi. So, you know, we’re going to solve two problems for you. One is building that database. Two is securing your Wi Fi network, okay? Now, there’s a big risk to having Wi Fi. So leave your credit card processing your point of sale on the other side, and just use our hotspot for Wi Fi marketing. We’re going to give you software that you can use any tablet to go and claim that customers information, it’s really easy. All you do is just walk up to the table. And you ask the customer Hey, do you want to join our birthday club, you also get the instant Hopper from us for your next purchase. And they just enter in the 10 digit phone number, and you’ve just captured their information. Got it. And then we give you shareable mobile coupons through QR codes. So you we literally can give you a sticker, put it on your table, the customer can scan that and enter your club. Okay. And then of course, we have the back office dashboard that allows you let’s say you’re in your back office customer calls and says, Hey, I’d like to reserve a table for five I’m having a birthday, you can capture their information right then in there.

Roger Beaudoin 34:20
So capture that information. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 34:23
And that’s not including Facebook or mailers. Yeah, no texting. There’s a gazillion ways that we do it. And you know, what, if you don’t collect 500 people, or more, and this is not for you.

Roger Beaudoin 34:38
But it seems as though you’ve thought of everything and it is really dialed and you’ve had a lot of clients that have had success by following this formula. Like we talked about, you know, this has been proven to work. It’s done for you. So you don’t have to think about it. All you have to think about is giving those guests a great experience when they come in. They know you know and then everything else is it’s like on autopilot. Right, exactly.

Dyson 34:58
I mean we really have thought about from years and years and years of doing this, how to take that burden how to take the struggle off of your shoulders in getting something like this to work. This is an autopilot system that allows the customer to engage you. And get it done.

Roger Beaudoin 35:18
When’s your birthday? Dyson,

Dyson 35:20
he just passed me 17 Oh, we missed it. I know. That brings me back to that, you know, thoughts, you know, oh, we missed it. You know, somebody might log in, you have a database. See this, the woman they’re looking at her phone right behind it. That picture, you have a database of all your customers, you know, you can run a report from our system that will show you every single person that had a birthday this month, next month, and the prior month. And that’ll give you the opportunity to hit those people immediately. And invite them to come in.

Roger Beaudoin 35:54
Tighter. Yes, but No, this is SMS and you’re texting people and SMS email. Yep. Okay. Either or. Now, there’s also a statistic about SMS being more effective than email now, is that

Dyson 36:06
correct? Yeah, yeah. 97% of people are gonna open that, you know, text message, think of it yourself, your your phone sent by you. And it goes Bing, yeah, we’re decreasing. And

Roger Beaudoin 36:18
it’s like, okay, who is it? And what is this? And yeah, it’s almost like you’re winning the lottery. It’s like, your phone dings you and it’s like, you gotta pick it up. Like right then in there. Everyone does. That’s human nature. It’s kind of silly. But we’re, we’re so connected to our phones that way. It is silly. But you know, that’s an advantage for the restaurant operator to send them

Dyson 36:36
every few restaurants. You know, a lot of people try to sell SMS on its own. That’s fine. But the thing is, if you have a system like this, where there’s a real reason for connecting with your patriots, right, it’s more likely to have a return on investment.

Roger Beaudoin 36:56
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Dyson 37:36
I mean, you’re not selling them anything. You’re telling them happy birthday. That goes a long, long, long way. That’s called goodwill and recognition.

Roger Beaudoin 37:46
Yeah, that’s right. Making people in a personal way. Yeah, exactly. Which is so important. Because there’s technology here, which is super important, but not to replace the hospitality and give them a real experience. It’s just a catalyst or sort of a bridge to getting them there. But it’s recognition. It’s making people feel good. And it’s, yeah, I mean, it’s impulsive. You might say, Wow, I wouldn’t have thought of doing this. But now I’m going to do it because I got that message.

Dyson 38:15
Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, you know, everything that we talk to you, you should see their eyes, and its face to face. And you ask them, you know, we always ask a very silly question. Do all of your customers have a birthday? Yeah, of course.

Roger Beaudoin 38:31
Oh, yeah. Exactly. We’re gonna sing Happy Birthday.

Unknown Speaker 38:36
Exactly. And then all sudden, they look at us. And then you can almost see that they know where we’re going.

Roger Beaudoin 38:43
Oh, yeah. Right, because you had to plant that seed. Because otherwise it’s an unrecognized opportunity. That literally is rock solid there. I mean, yeah, I can’t think of too many other things like that, that are that are almost a guarantee with with all the things we talked about in the statistics, and how people just love birthdays, and everyone loves to get a present. Everyone loves to be recognized. And, you know, it’s like, but you wouldn’t necessarily think about taking it to this level in your own restaurant, if you had to do it yourself. That’s the right. Details to deal with.

Dyson 39:15
Exactly. I did a customer or prospect and once upon a time ago, say, Yeah, you know, we’ve been open for 25 years. We don’t need something like that. I said, Oh, okay. I said, you know, um, you know, do you have, do you know, what a financial advisor does? Because what are they do as well, they take your money, and they advise you where to invest it, so that you get a faster return or profit from your existing money? Because, yeah, okay, that sounds cool. So let me do the same thing for you. You said you were open for 25 years, right? Since Yeah, I said, Okay. Well, on average, how many people do you think you see in a month and goes well, we do roughly around 2500 Guest checks. Is that okay? Well National Restaurant Association says that the average restaurant sees, you know, per check 2.3 people. So that means us in a month are seeing about 5700 people. Now, quick question, you’ve been open for 25 years. So that means in 25 years, you’ve seen roughly 1.7 million people. Now question out of the 1.7 million people, how many of them have a birthday? And what do you do to get those folks to come into your restaurant on their birthday? And the reason why I’m asking you this is because the same organization, the National Restaurant Association, says seven out of 10 people were going to dine out. So if you’re not doing anything to get those diners to come to your restaurant, isn’t it true, you’d lost 1.7 million sales,

Roger Beaudoin 40:55
and your competitors got it?

Unknown Speaker 40:57
Right. I said, What do you think they died? Here’s the other thing. If your average, let’s say the average tickets 40. Box, which in his case, it truly was, you know, that’s over $69 million dollars over a 25 year period.

Roger Beaudoin 41:15
Wow. That’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, it’s

Dyson 41:18
not saying that every single person’s going to come there. The rule of thumb that I tell everybody is, you know, if only 5% of these people came in and dine with you, that’s life changing. 5% such a tiny number. But a big result. Oh, totally.

Roger Beaudoin 41:35
Yeah, yeah. What does that mean to the bottom line of a restaurant? Exactly that 5%? Yeah, exactly. So especially when margins are shrinking, and all these other problems we’re having, it’s like, you got to do everything you can to capture as many sales in the door as you can and make them profitable sales and make people obviously, you know, work with them to get the check average is where you want them to be. And that’s where, yeah, I’ve come in, but

Dyson 41:58
everything across the board has just recently inflated. And so at a 5700 People just 5%, which by the way, you’ll find the numbers are much higher, but we’d like to be very ultra conservative. And you know, by percent, let’s say your tickets are 40 bucks. That’s $11,000 in additional revenue a month. Take That’s craziness.

Roger Beaudoin 42:23
Don’t leave it on the table. Exactly. Pun intended. Oh, all right. I mean, this yeah, there’s so many, so many opportunities that are lost forever if they’re not captured at that precise moment of truth. And here’s an opportunity where you either get that birthday, or somebody else gets that birthday.

Dyson 42:40
Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s a birthday. Birthday. marketing’s not new. It’s often underused. But I guarantee everybody, just taking your time this afternoon this morning, whenever you’re seeing this podcast, and just ring that bell. So you know what I’m going to try birthday mark, tell you how to do it real quickly, what you’re going to do is create a comic card. And you can ask every single guest to fill it out. At the bottom, it’s going to say we have a special gift for you on your birthday, then you’re going to hire a high school student, maybe even your own kid. Yeah, go and put it into an Excel spreadsheet. And every, every month, you can open that cheat, find the people that have a birthday, send them something through your mail, and get it done. That’s the hard way of doing it. Or you could choose a system like us and automate the entire process. So you don’t even have to think about it. It’s just automatically done. Yeah, but you know, I’ve got you I just gave you the keys to your own success. I mean, it is something that you could do,

Roger Beaudoin 43:44
right. And the ROI is proven. And you’ve got great testimonials from from some of your really satisfied clients that say, Wow, if I hadn’t done this, it’s I don’t even want to think about if I didn’t do this.

Dyson 43:57
Yeah. So you know, a couple of, I think it was a slider for we were talking about, we should the example of backyard, boys barbecue. You know, when these guys started, it was telephone call to them. And we basically introduced them the same concept that we’re talking about right now. That’s around your restaurant this month, there was 4600 birthday parties occurring in your restaurant, there’s probably two or 300 that we can get as well. And I guess the big question for you would be can you afford more business? Because if you can, we’ve got an amazing proposition for you. Well, they’ve been using us for seven months, and their ROI is $9,376 a month. Awesome. And they spend less than 1000 to do it.

Roger Beaudoin 44:55
So 70,000 bucks in like seven months, right? Yeah. And you said it’s a $1,000 spent Wow, that’s, I mean, again, we talked earlier in this podcast about if you could have that kind of return over and over again, I don’t care what it costs because you keep doing it over and over again, like it’s, you know, if you had a money tree in the backyard, you could somehow figure out a way to, you know, to print something and get a huge ROI. And this is done for you. Pease,

Dyson 45:21
this is what Tim, the owner of backyard boys barbecue had to say. He said, we’re seeing more birthdays and celebrations and never they get about 130 birthday parties or more a month, and their Facebook interactions and engagements have gone through the roof.

Roger Beaudoin 45:37
It’s a constant party in that place, isn’t it? Like? There’s like 10 Birthdays happening all around you at the same time. Exactly.

Dyson 45:43
And, you know, think about your what’s interesting is, I get really excited every time I go to Texas Roadhouse, that’s exactly what you just said is the experience. Right? You could sit there literally for an hour meal, serving eating desserts, drinks, and literally here and witness eight to 10 birthday parties. At backyard boys barbecue, it’s almost the same.

Roger Beaudoin 46:15
That’s awesome. It’s a party spot.

Dyson 46:17
Yeah. Another one. Julian’s Little Italy, this guy. Now we’ve turned actually, Julie and I have turned into friends. And really what happened here is, you know, he didn’t have a customer database. He was looking to grow his business. His sales were under $55,000 a month. And he really needed to turn things around. His rent, like all of you was going up every single year. Yes, his food costs every single day. Right? His labor costs every single day that’s really needed change something. Right. And so we met him at his most needed time. And I the first thing I talked to him about was a database, birthdays. Those are the only things I talked about. And he was very skeptical. And also nice. Why would you be skeptical when one of your neighbors is using our system? And then last year alone? They did $110,000 with us? I said, you know, what do you have to lose? So he tried it. In his first month, he saw a 22% increase in sales. First of all, afterward, he’s now doing somewhere in the neighborhood between eight and $12,000 a month because of the birthday. Now, folks, the interesting part about this is Julian nor Tim are doing anything extra in their business. What they’re doing is they’re cooking more food. That’s what they’re doing. And they’re plating more food, and they’re serving more guests. Notice I didn’t say then they’re doing more marketing? No, or they’re spending more time. Yeah, you know, with the heart stuff. You know, what we’re doing is a godsend for you. We become your chief customer getter. That’s what we become. I love it. Yeah, Chief Customer getter. And you’re not paying us, other than for the fun work of getting that customer into your restaurant. And you benefit 100% of it.

Roger Beaudoin 48:23
Awesome. Seems like common sense. But not everybody is thinking about it, but they should.

Dyson 48:29
I always wondered that, like, you know what, why, why? Why don’t you think? I mean, you own a business. Why don’t you think about another new way of monetizing? I mean, it’s not a charity is business. So we have to think to ourselves, every single day, you know, I had so many seats in my restaurants, how do I keep them pull more butts new seats. And this is a surefire way to do it, because it’s an endless supply of customers.

Roger Beaudoin 48:57
Well, that’s that’s the best part because again, owner operators managers are just trying to deliver hospitality to their guests. And you know, selling more product is something everybody wants to do. Everyone wants to get more business in the door, but they don’t necessarily have the wherewithal or the time to come up with a program that’s going to deliver that they have to execute themselves. So that’s a beautiful thing.

Unknown Speaker 49:20
And you know, using backyard boys barbecue again, yeah, we did a study, it actually cost them more to have a dishwasher than it did to go and run the birthday club. Granite Well, that

Roger Beaudoin 49:31
brings in a whole new perspective,

Dyson 49:34
right? I mean, and you don’t have to worry about any attitude. You don’t have to worry about them calling out. You don’t have to worry about 941 You don’t have to worry about workman’s comp. You don’t worry about any of this stuff. This is a autopilot system. Well, that’s real humans.

Roger Beaudoin 49:54
Yeah, I mean, a dishwasher is absolutely required by the board of health but it’s not generating any error. Why for your business? It’s just a cost of doing business that you have to have in order to do what you do. So that, you know, that’s a great analogy.

Dyson 50:08
Yeah, I mean, like you just said, you need your dishwasher, you know, he he, she can literally break your business, dirty plates, no one’s gonna eat off of them. clean plates, you love them, because you can put food on them. So they’re in necessity, electric, the gas and necessity for cooking and dining. Well, this should be a necessity to getting customers in your seats.

Roger Beaudoin 50:34
Walk us through the timeline. Dyson let’s just say my audience is intrigued and they want to learn more about the birthday club and they decide this is for me, I want to do this. How long before they sign up? They get birthday in a box, and then it’s literally set up and they’re literally getting that return. How long does that process take? On average?

Unknown Speaker 50:52
Yeah, you wouldn’t go down? I think it’s two slides.

Roger Beaudoin 50:55
Okay. This one here? Yep.

Dyson 50:58
So first off, let’s let’s talk about your question. Your question is how long right? From the day that you get it within two business days, your perfect club is enabled, it’s ready. Within one week, your first ads have been put on Facebook and your Facebook postings started. Gotcha. Within 30 days, you start seeing your new birthday parties. That’s fast. Yeah. And like we tell everybody within your first one to four months, you’ll see a one and a half to four times return on investment. After your first three, four months, you’ll go all the way up to eight to 10 times. So, you know, when you’re thinking about this, I want you to put away Oh, my gosh, I have enough to do last time to do all this stuff. I want you to forget about that. Because this is what we do for you. We use our own platform to get it done for you. So you don’t even have to learn it. You don’t have to be, you know, sitting there and going through installing software and learning how to use it or getting your staff to use it. Nope, that part’s taken care of. We customize your program for you. So you don’t have to worry about what’s this thing going to look like because you’re going to prove it. Because we want it to speak your language to your prospect, then that provided birthday in a box has all the automation necessary. So again, you don’t have to lift the finger will teach your staff through a very simple 123 process on how to redeem any and all birthday redemptions coming in the door. We do that, so that we can measure how much money you’re making, and how much it cost you to make. This is not really cost this is how much did I invest? There’s

Roger Beaudoin 52:55
it’s not a cost. It’s an investment. And everything should be approached with that mindset. For sure.

Dyson 52:59
Absolutely. You know, if you have to think to yourself, This cost me money. This is not for you. Yeah. If you have to say, Well,

Roger Beaudoin 53:06
you can’t afford it because you don’t deserve it. Exactly. Pretty

Unknown Speaker 53:09
much. I mean, so if I’m going to invest 5000, what do you want to make when we suggest that these four times? Right? I mean, that’s a real investment. That’s what you would expect out of the stock

Roger Beaudoin 53:20
market? Yes. And that’s conservative too.

Unknown Speaker 53:24
Yeah. So and then you’re gonna get these new customers through Facebook, or massive database and your existing patrons. So you literally get 123 ways of making money, then you get the fourth way, the additional revenue from special occasion marketing that’s built right into your system that you already have. So remember, birthdays are the number one celebrated event. Guess what? Mother’s Day is number two, we got you covered.

Roger Beaudoin 53:58
Valentine’s Day it goes on and on and on. Exactly. Oh, this month. Oh, I wouldn’t have thought of that. Thanks for bringing that up. So yeah, we focus mostly on birthdays, which is the biggest opportunity here. But those other opportunities are pretty significant unto themselves. Like you said, Mother’s Day is huge. Valentine’s Day is huge. Other holidays during the year are big restaurant holidays, and this platform works for all those things. I just Yeah, so

Dyson 54:24
12 to 12 months in the year. Yeah. That aren’t 12 opportunities. And then you have your birthday club. Oh, also your hen of bursary club

Roger Beaudoin 54:36
oh yes the anniversaries do and now

Dyson 54:39
you’re talking about for teen built in marketing systems for the same price. All you have to do is just take care of your guests. Like that’s exactly let you know if customer get or get it done for you.

Roger Beaudoin 54:59
I’m I’m impressed. It’s it stands out to me that you’re not just the CEO of this company, but you’re a really hands on guy that works with a lot of your clients one on one. Yeah, you talk a lot on the phone every day like, this is your passion, you believe in this so strongly, and you love seeing results, and you love helping restaurants take this to the next level. And you actually work with them every every week, if not every day, in addition to your team. Right? So yeah, but you’re in the trenches with your people. And you’re getting people, you know, turned on to this and loving the results.

Dyson 55:32
Exactly. You know, there’s a million things out there that restaurants are, you know, introduced to or they’re tried introduced to, some of them work. Some of them don’t, some of them marginally, some of them greatly. But they say restaurant Ting is an industry, a community of folks that like to be hospitable to other folks, I call up my brothers and sisters, we’re on the same bed, we’re on the same situation. Some of us have X highly successful restaurants, others of us not so much. And you know, at the end of the day, this is a tool. This is a service that works from somebody’s advantage of being where you currently are. Whether again, you’re successful, or you’re not, I mean, I started a business that wasn’t thriving from day one, we had to work on making it thrive. Taking these ideas, giving them to you, is literally the Holy Grail. And the reason why is because you don’t have to change what you’re doing.

Roger Beaudoin 56:36
How do people find you Dyson? And how do they get in on this great opportunity? Just

Unknown Speaker 56:41
go down a couple of slides. Okay.

Roger Beaudoin 56:45
The birthday club? Oh, wow, your personal phone number is here.

Unknown Speaker 56:48
Exactly. That truly is my personal cell phone. Okay, please, you know, there’s lots of businesses out there that really need and want my help. So, you know, take advantage of it. But beam be ready to be helped or to work with me and understand what we’re talking about. Yes, you got to get that good feeling. Got to get to know me, like me, trust me, I get it. But at the end of the day, I’m giving you that opportunity. Now, I’d love you pick up the phone, call me. If you can’t pick up the phone, you can email me or better yet, go to bank connect birthday club, back calm and connect perfect club.com. And

Roger Beaudoin 57:30
in the show notes as well dice in the phone number in that URL. And and people can definitely check that out. That’s easy. So obviously, it helps for you to tell our audience that but if they miss it, they can just go to the shownotes and get this as well.

Dyson 57:45
And you know, it took a lot of time and patience to sit through this. Now, I hope that you’ve learned a lot of neat things through this conversation that Roger and I had, but you know, because you did take that time, I’d like to give you a bonus off. What would that be worth giving them include our special occasion marketing, at no extra cost?

Roger Beaudoin 58:06
I’m going to put that down to special occasion marketing included at no extra cost.

Unknown Speaker 58:12
That’s a $200 a month value

Roger Beaudoin 58:15
to extra cost $200 per month. Wow. That’s generous. Thank you. $200

Dyson 58:20
are welcome. And the reason why I’m doing that is because you came here with the idea of learning something new, and I hope you did. I gave you the ideas how to start your own club. And, you know, I hope, the insights, the numbers, all the accolades from you know, our customers testimonial to the National Restaurant Association. You know, these are real statistics that, you know, have been given to you, so that you can make not the decision to do it. But to use this information, starting today, if you really wanted to, yeah, just start banking more for your business.

Roger Beaudoin 59:00
Fantastic. Well, thanks so much. Dyson. You shared a lot of new thought provoking ideas here that I think you know, everyone should take a closer look at. I mean, it’s just obviously everyone has birthdays. And this is a done for you system. And you’ve thought of all the details and you know, wow. So I definitely encourage the audience to check this out and call Dyson up on his personal phone number and get started. Why not?

Unknown Speaker 59:25
Roger, it’s been a pleasure

Roger Beaudoin 59:29
Well, thank you so much. Dyson. Thanks to our audience for tuning in that again, was the restaurant rockstars podcast. We’ll see everybody in the next episode and I hope you all stay well. Thanks Dyson for joining us on the podcast. You’ve thought of all the angles here and you’ve really created something powerful that is proven to drive new and repeat business in restaurants and you’ve got the testimonials to back it up. So audience if you have further interest, please follow the link in our show notes. That’ll give you more information on the birthday club and what it offers. to your restaurant. I’d also like to thank this week’s sponsors serve the restaurant and hospitality training app that’s customized to your business you can find that@srvnow.com The birthday club, popmenu, and Smithfield culinary thanks for tuning in. We can’t wait to see you next time. Stay well, everyone.

Roger Beaudoin 1:00:22
People go to restaurants for lots of reasons. What the customer doesn’t know is the 1000s of details it takes to run a great restaurant. This is a high risk high fail business. It’s a treacherous road and SMART operators need a professional guide. I’m Roger. I’ve started many highly successful high profit restaurants. I’m passionate about helping other owners and managers not just succeed, but knock it out of the park. You don’t just want to run a restaurant. You want to dominate your competition and create a lasting legacy. Join the academy and I’ll show you how it’s done.

Intro/Exit 1:00:58
Thanks for listening to the restaurant rockstars podcast for lots of great resources, head over to restaurant rockstars.com See you next time.