Jeremy Julian
Jeremy Julian
33:13
Owner: Jeremy Julian
franchisees, restaurant, online ordering, shop owners, franchise, shop, teriyaki, talk, systems, third party, loyalty, bit, brand, grown, audience, delivery, people, big, product, sauces
Jodi (59%), Jeremy (40%), Intro (1%)
I
Intro
0:02
This is the restaurant technology guys podcast, helping you run your restaurant better.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
0:13
Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast. We thank our audience out there every single time for joining us. But we know that you guys have lots of choices of podcasts. And it feels like there’s 40 new podcasts a week that show up. But we appreciate our loyal listeners for showing up and hanging out with us today. I love it. Love it, love it when I get the chance to talk to restaurant tours and people that are in and out of the restaurants every day and today is not an exception. In that regard. We are talking to Jodi Boyce from teriyaki madness. So, Joe, do you want to introduce yourself to their audience, and then we can talk a little bit about the brand that you get the privilege to work with?
JB
Jodi Boyce
0:49
Sure. Thanks, Jeremy. So my name is Jody and I have been in the restaurant industry probably for 25 years now. Then with lots of franchises, all all franchising and restaurants, so it’s been a fun ride. But my claim to fame is my first job out of college was driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile around the country. So still in the food industry. But that’s my my claim to fame
JJ
Jeremy Julian
1:12
that you claim to fame, I would say I think our audience is going to want pictures before they before they believe that that’s what you got the privilege to do. I promise. Very, very cool. So for those that are not familiar with teriyaki madness, why don’t you tell tell our audience a little bit about what teriyaki madness is. And then, and then we can dig into a little bit about the brand story and how it how it got created.
JB
Jodi Boyce
1:32
Sounds good. So we serve huge bowls of really fresh ingredients. Everything’s made to order, it’s all so teriyaki is technically marinated, and grilled meats, over rice, or noodles and fresh veggies. So it’s as healthy or unhealthy as you want it to be. But you know, it’s not a fried burger or fries or pizza. But we have sauces all made in house. Most of our sauces are actually gluten free just because of the quality of soy that we use. We have sticking steak, chicken, tofu, salmon, noodles, rice, and veggies. So it’s a pretty simple menu. easy to navigate. And overall, it’s really delicious.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
2:14
I can concur. It’s very delicious. I know we talked a little bit about that pre show and I got a a, our longtime listeners know I moved to Dallas and there’s not one as close as there was one almost walking distance from my house in Southern California. And it was on my way home from work. And so we used to go go there quite often. We used to go there quite often. And I can I would also concur that the sauce is, you know, different than than some of some of the other teriyaki bowl places, you know, the product offering and then one of the things I love about your guys’s brand is that the product offering is a wider product offering to your point. It’s simple. And at the same time, it’s wider than some of the other competitors that you guys might have. Can you talk a little bit about you know, you got chicken? You got beef? You got tofu, you got salmon, which is not that common for for your contemporaries. Is that a fair statement?
JB
Jodi Boyce
3:02
Yeah, yeah, salmon and tofu are probably two that that most don’t have. And they’re just they’re really good. So chickens are number one. A product, it’s the majority of our menu. But yeah, the salmon and the tofu. I’m not even a vegetarian. But the tofu is actually my favorite, I get the spicy tofu. So it has our spicy sauce, which is our probably our number one sauce, our spicy chickens are number one bowl of our best customers. So the number one bowl for people who just come in the first time is usually teriyaki chicken. But then once they taste the spicy chicken are usually hooked.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
3:38
That’s so funny, because that’s one of the other things that I love is you guys also have a plethora of different sauces that you guys throw on. So again, for those that are less familiar with the brand, and maybe have been to some of your competitors, that it’s really just chicken or beef and over rice with vegetables or no vegetables. I mean, again, having been in Southern California for a long time i i got the privilege of seeing lots of those different teriyaki places come and go. One of the things again, that I loved about what it is that you guys did, as you guys had quite a bit more options in forest sauces, as far as all of it.
JB
Jodi Boyce
4:09
Yeah, and it’s all customizable. So you know, if you don’t love onions, you can get no onions in your your veggies. So it’s fully customizable, which is really important people they want what they want, and they want it the way they want it.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
4:23
Awesome. So how did the brand come about? I mean, you know, because I think it’s a cool story to tell our audience where did the brand come from an A, you get the privilege of telling that story as the as the CMO there but but tell our audience a little bit more now they kind of understand what what the brand does, but where did it come from? Was
JB
Jodi Boyce
4:40
it actually a really cool story. So it was founded in 2003 in Las Vegas, and it was two brothers and a cousin who went to school in Seattle. And in Seattle tech is on every corner it’s on. It’s like Chicago hot dogs in New York pizza. So they were living in Las Vegas after school and decided, You know what, there’s no teriyaki down here and we need to bring it down here. So they went back up to Seattle, they went to their favorite mom and pop shop, which was called Terra humanise. And the little old couple who ran the shop for whatever reason agreed to let them shadow them for a week and said, write down our recipes follow us just don’t get in our way. Then go start your own and never open one in Seattle. And so that’s what they did they, they started it in Las Vegas. We own the rights to the recipes, the logos, everything. But we’ve kept our kind of handshake promise and have we’re franchised in 49 states, but will never open one in Washington. So pretty unique. Pretty cool.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
5:41
It is pretty cool. I don’t know whether you were there at the time. But I remember hearing the first story a couple of years back when when, you know, teriyaki madness started getting pretty big. I was like that is like, I mean, I don’t know, I it’s just such a unique, unique idea. And I love that you guys have held true to the 49 states but not hitting the 50th I wonder at some point, if that’s gonna, if that’s gonna be they’re gonna come say, You know what, you guys are big enough. You guys can come in or? Or maybe not? I don’t know.
JB
Jodi Boyce
6:06
There are three locations in Seattle. And they’re not related to us whatsoever. And yeah, we have no plans to go in there. So we’ll populate the rest of the US stuff.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
6:15
Very cool. Very cool. So um, so you talk about 49 states. I was, I learned about the brand early on. But um, but didn’t really know that you guys had grown quite as big as you guys had talked to me a little bit about where’s 49 states come from? How have you guys grown? I mean, it’s, you know, close to 20 year old brand. And at the same time, I’m guessing you didn’t start with 49 states early on, and it’s kind of grown grown as time has gone on. Talk to me a little bit about what that growth is look like and how that’s how that’s happened.
JB
Jodi Boyce
6:45
Sure. And just to clarify, where we are able to open in 40, United States are currently open in 33 states. So we have so many shops opening it, we’re gonna hit that 49 Before we know it. Yeah, so the guys started in 2003. And they started franchising in 2005. majority of them were in Las Vegas, and in Southern California. And then Michael, who’s our CEO, now, he bought the company from our founders, about seven or eight years ago. And we’re in Denver, because he’s in Denver. And so we were very much like a startup. So even though they’ve been around since 2003, the last seven years, we’ve really been building kind of the basics of the company, you know, operations manuals, and we had no technology in place at the time, we didn’t have an app, we didn’t have online ordering or gift cards. I mean, we literally had a phone in the counter and a establishment for a restaurant. And that was it. So we’ve really been putting in place all the processes and the systems. We have an amazing team here who have a lot of restaurant and franchising experience, so that we can bring on franchisees who potentially have no experience running a restaurant, or potentially even no business experience. And as long as they’re coachable and can follow a system, we have the tools to basically train them. And if they can follow a system, they can be successful.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
8:11
I love it. I love it. So talk to me a little bit of what you know, I guess first and foremost, because it’s always interesting to me, how much of the how many of the stores, how many stores are open? How much of it is is corporate versus how much of his franchise and then we talked about kind of the growth and where that’s all gone?
JB
Jodi Boyce
8:28
Sure. So we have I think 127 open and I say I think because you blink and we opened another one. Yep. 127 open today. We’re 100%. franchised. So we don’t have any corporate locations. We’re opening. So of those 127. I think the total number in 2022 is about 30 or 31 that we opened. And in 23, this year, we’re opening 59 locations. That’s insane. Yeah, it is insane. It’s crazy. It
JJ
Jeremy Julian
8:59
is really insane. And so what kind of franchisees, you know, so I know, I’ve been doing this for a long time, we’ve talked about, you know, doing restaurants stuff for a long time, there’s a lot of franchise groups that are like, you can have one store, and that’s all you get. And then there’s others that are like you can have as many stores as you want, you’re looking for big franchisees, you’re looking for small franchises, you’re looking for owner, owner operators that are that are looking to do these things. What does that look like? So I’m sitting on the other end of this call and listening. Or I’m sitting and listening to the podcast while I’m on a jog in the morning. And I’m like, oh, you know, I had teriyaki medicine in Vegas. Last time I was there. And I I’d love to figure out how to get that here. What kind of franchisees are you guys looking for? What does that look like to to the audience out there that might be considering, you know, adding a brand to their portfolio that they already have one or two? You know, tell me a little bit more about what you guys as criteria is and what that what that feels like. Yeah,
JB
Jodi Boyce
9:48
and we are pretty flexible. So when we started out it was a lot of, you know, onesie twosie franchisees who just wanted to open one and own their restaurant, as we’ve been growing and as our model is just proving itself, we are definitely attracting kind of the bigger guys who own other Restaurant Brands and want to expand their portfolio. This year, though, we’re accepting both sides. So it’s not that we won’t accept the single unit guys, or even the three and that guys, we ultimately look for someone who’s going to number one fit our culture, it’s really important to us. This is a pretty tight group, we’re a very transparent company, we work really well and collaborate with our our shop owners. But someone who’s coachable, someone who wants to follow the system, and that’s ultimately, part of the benefit of being in a franchise is not recreating the wheel. So we want someone who’s going to follow the system, and be coachable and want to grow. Ultimately, though, we see probably the most success with with the shops who are opening three or more locations, because then they really get their systems down, and they’re able to duplicate efforts across all of their, their locations and in one market.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
11:03
So it’s funny that you say that, because I have had so many franchisees that are like, well, I bought the franchise, but I want to do it my own way. And it’s like, well, why did you buy a franchise? Then why don’t you start Steve’s burger shop, because it would have been the same as you, you know, launching and paying franchise fees to somebody else to have their brand name on the outside, but then want to do it, do it your own way.
JB
Jodi Boyce
11:21
Exactly. And you know, those those come through every once in a while. And they kind of weed themselves out, they don’t make it or they sell to another franchisee. And we this is one of the best groups of franchisees I’ve ever worked with. I’ve been with several different companies over the years and different cultures at different companies. But like I said, we’re very collaborative with our our shops, we don’t pretend to know everything. We do have a lot of experience in our corporate office, and we offer that up. But we like to learn from our shop owners, and if they’re doing something better, we learn from it, and then share it out with the rest of the company.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
12:00
I love that. I love that. And that’s I think there’s all too often. The one thing I’ve seen with franchisors is there like we know everything, you have to do it our way. But quite frankly, when you go into a market, different markets might react differently to different different product offerings, different ways that you go about it different service styles. So it’s having moved, like I said earlier from, you know, Southern California to Dallas, even just the way you interact with Restaurant Brands is different here than it was there. So you wouldn’t think that that’s the case, but it’s just the truth. So you talked about it. And I’d love to to how long have you been there? By the way?
JB
Jodi Boyce
12:36
I’ve been here a little over six years. Okay.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
12:38
So you’ve been there through the majority of the growth that you guys have had and the majority of this re franchising and going out there. You talked about it earlier in the conversation about getting there and really building a system for growth. You talked about the investment and the systems, the processes, getting technology stacks down, getting an app build getting a website built, getting new online ordering Bill getting third party delivery figured out all of that. Can you talk me through that journey? Where did you guys start? Because you’ve been doing this for a while? Yeah, there’s a lot, there’s a lot, you know, I mean, you eat the elephant, one bite at a time. And at the same time, there’s a lot of elephant eat when you’re trying to take that on. So talk to me a little bit about kind of your leadership team and how you guys got to the place and what you guys decided to do first and how it worked.
JB
Jodi Boyce
13:19
Sure. So when I started, we had 33 locations. And we only had I was the 16th. employee here at corporate, we didn’t have online ordering, we didn’t have anything. And so one of my first initiatives was to really push getting these systems in place. And it was a big deal to add online ordering and an app to a company who didn’t have it at all. So we worked with punch and Olo and had to integrate with rebel was our POS. So it was a really big project, we didn’t even have an IT, we still don’t have an IT department. So it’s a lot of hands on, you know, all hands on deck to get it done. But it was a game changer for us. And it kind of started us out on the technology path. We were lightyears ahead of other brands. We jumped in with both feet on third party delivery. And one of the reasons we went with Oh, is because at the time, they were pretty much the only one who was integrated with the delivery partners. Yeah, so no one knew six years ago, if this delivery thing was, you know, just a fad, or if it was going to stick around, obviously has very much stuck around. And we needed to figure out how to make it profitable and how to make it work. And we’ve pretty much cracked the code on that. So the the biggest pieces for us as we look at new technology, and as we’re growing so fast is I guess two part one is finding efficiencies. Because we just don’t have the manpower here to do what we used to do. We need to get you know higher level and not be in the weeds so much and so we need to find all the efficiencies we can find to do Opening, you know, 60 and 100, and several 100 locations. And then the other big piece for us is integration, having 10 or 15, different technology systems that don’t talk to each other. It just is so painful. And you know, we still have some that don’t, don’t work together. But for the most part, any new technology that we bring on today, it’s an absolute mandatory to green green space to be able to be integrated with systems that we already have. I love
JJ
Jeremy Julian
15:31
it. Well, it sounds like you’re playing part time CMO, part time CIO over there, because you know more about technology than most CMOS that I talked to. But I love that I love that, that that idea that you guys started with understanding the core of how you wanted to interact with the guest, we talked a lot about it on the show of just you’ve got to figure out what the guest experiences that you want to create. And I love that. I love that you consider that before you guys make investments. You know, nobody likes the tablet, hell when you walk in, or nobody likes the guest experience when you’re having to deal with a cashier that’s also dealing with third party deliveries. And they got to figure out how to deal with all of that because I got a tablet, and I got interested in the POS. So I love that you guys have have figured those pieces out. It sounds like you guys implemented the majority of that before COVID. Is that a fair statement?
JB
Jodi Boyce
16:18
We were really lucky to have done that in 2017 is when we started our app. And I think we finally launched it and 2018. And then we added the loyalty component in 2019. So we already had those systems in place, we already had our shop owners trained. So when COVID hit, you know, our sales were down, I think Sumerians were down 90 95% In sales, the most we were ever down was about 60%. And for only about six weeks. So you know, March, whatever it was 16 to 2020 is when kind of the world shut down, or March 5 Or about whatever. And by May, sometime in May, we were back to flat. And we’ve been up double digits ever since. And primarily that was because we already had the systems in place. And we were didn’t have to pivot too much, we just kind of had to crank the volume up and let consumers know, hey, we have an app, we have online ordering, we did add curbside but because we already had it all in place, it was literally a flip of the button, you know, the switch, and just some training. But we didn’t have to pivot too much because of that.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
17:27
I love it. I love it. So in that regard, you know, going through COVID It’s, it’s amazing. It’s always fun to talk with brands, and the fact that you guys happen to be fast casual also helped because you know, you didn’t have to have sitting down and dining rooms. And that and it was a relatively healthy product, because you talked about that’s quick to get in and out and you can get good healthy food. You know, you’re not driving through a fast food chain. That’s a greasy burger or whatnot. Did, did you you know, you talked about the sales volumes and you guys are up. You also talked about cracking the code on third party delivery is that something you’re able to share with our audience because a lot of people that I talk with they struggle, they struggle with the the unit economics of the third party delivery, they struggle with staffing it, they struggle with making sure that they’ve got the right product in the right place. They struggle with even the the redesigning of the stores, because like I was just talking to a casual dining chain, who was doing I don’t know 15% takeout before the pandemic another up to almost 40%. But he was struggling because he wasn’t gonna have the physical space to store the products for the third party delivery drivers to get. So talk to me a little bit about kind of how that journey went as you guys kind of accelerated that and turn the volume up on on all of those pieces.
JB
Jodi Boyce
18:40
I mean, it is by no means a perfect system. We’re constantly learning and, and making the best of it. You know, when we first started, we did have five or six tablets up at the counter and you had to accept the orders in order for them to go through. And then you had to retype the order into the POS so that it would track inventory and get back to the kitchen. And it was just clunky. And so the integration allowed, it just allowed it to be seamless. But what it also did through Olo something that they added, you know for us and other brands, because it was kind of mandatory is inflation tools. And so we were able to inflate our prices on the third party sites. It didn’t get rid of the Commission’s but it certainly you know, helped bring them down. And just as we grew, the numbers that we’re showing basically allowed us to have better partnerships with our delivery partners, which in turn brings the commission down. The other key piece is that we tell our shops not to hire additional employees just because you’re doing third party delivery. We use the same employees that we already have in shop. We have one line where we’re doing an order whether it’s for delivery pickup curbside or someone standing there in front of you. So we use the same people that we are Have we just become more efficient with their time?
JJ
Jeremy Julian
20:04
Got? Yeah, yeah, that’s I have actually told a very true story. Because there are some brands that struggled with that, that I was working with. And I tell the story not permanent, I’ll bring up the brand names because there’s no value, but they struggled because they didn’t staff for that. And it happened to be a Mexican place that happen to have Taco Tuesday and my family went to Taco Tuesdays in a row. And third party delivery. And, you know, online orders overtook their kitchen to the point that it was a fast casual place, and we ended up having 45 minute wait times to get our food in a fast casual environment. And, and to the point that I still sneak back into that brand. When I when when I want to my wife’s like, I’m just I’m done. I’m done dealing with it. But it was it was a tough deal, because a lot of people didn’t understand how to manage all of that. I love kind of just just where you guys were at how did you How do you guys deal with product? Product Updates. So you talked about the inflationary stuff. But when you guys run out of salmon, how does the shop owner deal with that on third party? How do they mean, in line somebody orders a salmon that’s on the on the menu board. And you can say I’m sorry, we’re out of salmon. But that doesn’t always that doesn’t always work in third party. And there’s that management aspect of it. Tell me a little bit more about how you guys have been dealing with that and how integration at least allows you to deal with that. Whereas when it was on the tablet, it was so much harder?
JB
Jodi Boyce
21:15
Yeah. Well, what’s interesting is, you know, 2020 was interesting, because it was none of us had ever done that before. 2021 was still kind of in it. But I guess finding our way through being scrappy 2022 was probably harder in a lot of ways, then 2020 and 2021, because of supply chain, and the the whole hiring and labor issues. So yeah, I mean, it’s it’s just constantly chasing, you know, the next fire putting up the next fire. But because of the integrations and because of the technology we have, it is as simple as a shop owner, sending us an email saying, hey, tofu didn’t arrive today, can you turn it off, and just flipping it off through one place, and Olo will turn it off through third party delivery and our app and online and in rebel. So it’s huge is huge. Because it just saves so much time. And then as soon as they have it, they let us know. And we turn it back on it’s instant.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
22:18
Well, and I think that that’s one of the biggest things that I’ve seen people is they took on third party delivery, or they took on but the guests management and the guest recovery pieces they’ve struggled to figure out especially when they’re not integrated. Because when they order it and you know, the door dashes, and those are like, Well, do you want us to substitute it? Do you want, you know, what do you want us to do? But still, the guests, the guests continue to get their expectations continue to rise, even, you know, at the beginning of 2020, when when all of the world was shutting down, everybody was super, super grateful. But it felt like 90 days later, they’re like, I don’t give a crap, I want my food and I want the way I want it. And I want it now and I don’t want to pay any more than I was paying before the pandemic. And like obviously, those things don’t always exist. But as a restaurant brand, you gotta you gotta manage it, you got to figure that out.
JB
Jodi Boyce
23:03
Yeah. And we still get those customers occasionally who just don’t understand what’s going on in the world. For the most part, our customers have been very understanding and then our loyalty program actually helps us with customer service issues. So whether we can be proactive and send something out, do we have about 460,000 members, we could send something out to let them know, like pay our, our spicy sauce has not been our famous spicy sauce for a while because of the pepper crisis of 2022. But you know, it’s back and here’s, you know, a free bowl on us or whatever it is, or we could be reactive. And if someone emails to complain, we’re able to at least push something to them to try and save that customer and get them back in the shop and gives us a chance to talk to them and explain you know, what’s going on?
JJ
Jeremy Julian
23:58
Yeah, that was that was gonna be one of my questions is you guys implemented loyalty? You talked about it earlier in the in, you know, in our recording, what was your guys’s goals? You know, you get the privilege of playing, you know, cmo that a lot of people talk a lot of different things about loyalty. Obviously, there’s a lot of different definitions of what that looks like. But what Where did that go for you guys? What were you guys hoping to get accomplished? And it sounds like you’ve already been accomplishing some of that. But where’s it at now? And what are you hoping to do going forward?
JB
Jodi Boyce
24:25
Well, what’s interesting is in 2017, when we were first looking at online ordering, you know, the goal was online ordering. It kind of came with online ordering an app and loyalty. And at the time apps were around, they were questionable for restaurants, people didn’t want them on their phones as much and so we just did it anyway. And then with loyalty. There is something that you have to prove with loyalty and and the whole goal of loyalty program to me is to part it’s to get customers to come in more often. And it’s to get them to spend more money. And now that we’ve had it for about three years, we do have the data. That’s the other thing is we’re very data driven. And punch gives us a ton of data on our customers. But because we have a loyalty program, we are tracking the consumer behavior, we know exactly if someone’s coming in every Friday at 6pm. And getting the same bowl, if we haven’t seen them in 60 or 90 days, and we need to send them something to get them back in. And so it’s just helped us manage the customer journey, and their spend. And so we know, this, this number has dropped since this data point, but for a long time, our customers are mad rewards, members were spending 16 to 19% more than our non loyalty guests. That number in the last probably six months has dropped, it’s dropped for the whole industry. I think the industry is around two to 3% of the loyalty spend versus non loyalty, and we’re hovering somewhere between nine and 10%. Higher, and it’s still proving itself, it’s paying for itself, essentially.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
26:03
I love it, I love it. I’m gonna pivot a little bit, you guys are 100% franchise. franchisees oftentimes don’t like to spend money, but corporate likes to roll out new initiatives that caused them to have to spend money. Talk to me a little bit about that change management journey that you guys have to go through whether it’s rolling out a new loyalty app, or it’s putting in new ovens, or new stoves, or new grills to cook product or new bowls that need to meet certain requirements, whatever, you know, you know the story. And I think anybody that’s ever worked on the franchise group knows I’m sure of your 127 stores, you’ve got some that you know, might need to go later in the list after you after you get on board, some people that can become evangelists. But talk to me a little bit about how you guys manage that change.
JB
Jodi Boyce
26:44
Sure. So I’ve worked for some companies, franchise restaurant companies that have had endless funds, millions and millions of dollars. We don’t hear we have grown very organically, we have never been backed by big investors. And we’ve only grown as fast as our royalties and franchise sales have allowed. So we’ve been very scrappy, and I guess we’re just we’re very conscious of the shops putting you know, their life savings into their restaurants, we’ve done the same here at corporate. So we’re very much on the same page. And we haven’t added something that’s super expensive, unless we can absolutely prove that is worth their money. So we spend the time to test things, gather the data, we don’t just roll things out, we make sure that you know it’s going to be worth their time and their money. And we use you know the our ad fund or royalties sometimes to offset some of the costs for our shop owners so that we can help them be as profitable as possible.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
27:51
I love that. I love that because I think a lot of franchise groups could could take heat in that same that same idea, because they come up with these crazy idea. I mean, you’ve been there, they come up with these crazy ideas and they just expect everybody’s just gonna line up and say how do I sign up? And where do I go and then it doesn’t pan out and then you get get some really nasty conversations where then they just had to do things on their own. Because they don’t trust the corporates gonna help them out. Right? Where’s where’s teriyaki madness going? Like, you know, you guys have had 50, some stores on the docket, 60s, close close to 60 stores on the docket for 2023. Where’s it going, it’s just continuing to grow product innovation. Talk to me a little bit about that
JB
Jodi Boyce
28:27
sky is the limit right now. So I feel like we’re kind of in that, almost past the adolescent stage where we’re really getting our feet under us. As far as our systems, our process, our business model, people are taking notice. So the food’s really good. Sales have been strong. And our pipeline is full as far as opening shops, and we’re doubling the number of shops we open next year. I anticipate that to for the next several years to keep doubling exponentially. So yeah, we are in a massive growth phase. It’s exciting, we still we’re gonna keep our team small and lean and keep those values that we have of not going crazy and still working with the finances we have versus the ones we want. We spend a lot of time talking about new processes and systems. Is it a need or a want? And we’re pretty good at pushing things to the side. If it’s like Nope, we we just can’t afford that right now. Or it’s not a priority. So it forces us to prioritize.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
29:33
I have to tell my teenage daughter from time to time I need a new pair Lulu pants. No you don’t need them. You want to pair a new Lulu pants girl, you know, tell me I want a new pair. I don’t need a new pair. So yeah, I think I love that. I love that, that that idea and that thought what if we miss God, like what else? What else is going on within within your world that our audience needs to know about?
JB
Jodi Boyce
29:59
I don’t know. Thank, you know, in my history of being in marketing and the restaurants, we used to have a huge focus on on LTE O’s, and innovation and new products. And even that mindset has really shifted in the last few years, and especially the last two years, you know, we’re not going to introduce a brand new product that’s going to bring in new skews, we’re trying to make sure we keep the ones that we have. So we’ve gotten really creative on promotions or programs, using the skews that we already have in the shop. And that’s just a different mindset. You know, we want new news, we want things to be exciting, I think we’ll get back to some innovation one day. But on the other hand, I also think, you know, playing it and keeping it simple, there’s something to that. One of the brands I was at, I think we did nine or 10 lt O’s a year, for four to 5000 locations system, it is a lot, it’s a lot of training, it’s hard on the shops, it’s hard on supply chain, it does help sales, but there’s a cost there as well, you know, with, with employees, and just the heck of it. So, you know, limiting that to three or four a year and making two out of the three or four of those products or programs we already have. I just think there’s something to that that’s going to stick for the long term.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
31:27
Awesome, awesome. Well, if people want to learn more about the brand, find a shop to go to where do they find out more? How do they how do they get connected to the brand?
JB
Jodi Boyce
31:38
Yeah, they can go to Teriyaki madness.com to find a location near you, or if you’re interested in franchising and get to our franchise site through that as well. It’s really delicious. I highly recommend the chicken teriyaki or spicy chicken as your first on your first visit. And yeah, it’s it’s awesome, you’ll be addicted.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
32:00
I was I was gonna say it’s, this is the worst part about being in this industry is I end up talking and looking at food all day long. And I end up getting off these calls and I’m like, I gotta go get some I gotta go find a shop near me to go get some karaoke madness. So it’s almost lunchtime. So this is almost lunchtime for me so well God I thank you so much for for hanging out with us and sharing a little bit more about the story of what you guys do. It’ll be fun to continue to cheer you guys on from the sidelines as you guys are continuing to grow the brand and. And to our audience guys. Like I said on the onset. I know you guys have lots of choices of places to go to spend your time and energy. Go check out teriyaki madness while you guys are online. If you haven’t already subscribed to the newsletter, please do so. Every month, you get a listing of all of the podcasts and any of the blog posts that we have just to kind of keep connected to what we’re doing. Jody, thank you so much for your time and to our audience. Make it a great day.
JB
Jodi Boyce
32:53
Thanks, Jeremy.
I
Intro
32:56
Thanks for listening to the restaurant technology guys podcast. Visit restaurant technology guy’s dot com for tips, Industry Insights and more to help you run your restaurant better
