40:46
Owner: Jeremy Julian
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
restaurant, people, operations, operate, processes, accounting, purchasing, operator, prices, scaling, hr, big, industry, companies, system, purchases, pricing, problem, implement, cost
SPEAKERS
Ufuk (75%), Jeremy (24%), 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. I thank you guys for joining us. As always, it’s it’s a privilege to get on the air and talk to you guys about things that are going on in the world of restaurants and restaurant technology. I’ve been spreading my wings the last couple of weeks, and I’ve been on a couple of other people’s podcasts, which is always also fun, because I get to be on the opposite side. So keep an eye out for those on social media as well as on the, the blog. Today we’re gonna be talking restaurant consulting, restaurant, accounting, consulting, from the founder and CEO of across accounting across the spelled a little bit differently. And, quite frankly, I told him in the pre show, I’m not gonna not gonna say his name properly, so I’m gonna let him introduce himself. But why don’t you let everybody know who, who you are, and then what you get a chance to do for across accounting, and then we’ll dig into to why we’re here for today.
US
Ufuk Soyturk
1:01
Sure, thank you, Jeremy very much. I appreciate it. And I love what you guys do in restaurant technology, guys. My name is Flo Turk. I’m a proud Turkish American and I’m the founder of a cross restaurant consulting.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
1:18
Wonderful, wonderful tell tell our audience a little bit more about about across accounting consulting, what do you guys do? Is it is it just one on one accounting is it you know, talk to me a little bit more about about what it is first and then we’ll talk a little bit about how you got there, because I everybody, when I talk to people that they love to hear integrator stories and how they got to where they where they got to
US
Ufuk Soyturk
1:39
Sure. So, I always had the patient for cooking food and few people know this about me, but at the age of 18, I wanted to be a chef, I at that time, I didn’t have the courage to pursue that dream. So, I moved into a different direction I started I wrote I started my career at PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers basically the kitchen for you know accounting and finance. And I worked for my other patient for the first half of my career which is automotive you know, I worked with some of the biggest companies in the in the world automotive companies, some other manufacturing companies and I learned a lot in the in the process. The most important being is that most of these businesses are in a cutthroat industries, and it is vital that they create a cross functional business basically, how each business function is connected to each other and support each other. Hence, you know, the word across this is where it’s coming from. Because the whole business is inter interconnected. So, what we do in a Croesus we are the back of house to the restaurant operations. So, we are back off house to the back of us you can you can you can say that, we look at functions as a whole. And what I discovered is that, you know, back office tasks at restaurants aren’t given adequate attention and resources. So, how do I know that before I found the cross I was the CFO and corporate representative for major high end restaurant group you know, I was in charge of accounting, finance, purchasing, legal construction and I opened many restaurants, a lot of these during the pandemic and I discovered that you know, restaurants operate with with some excesses. What I mean by that is we are not a cutthroat industry is yes, as it pertains to, you know, economics as it pertains to efficiency. So, what I aims to do is basically solving two problems for restaurants one is scaling up, and the other is improving profitability. I learned a great deal over the years about both of these. And, you know, I would like to help the whole industry to improve their profitability so that they generate more profits, cash flow and service customer’s better.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
5:02
So talk to me a little bit about about what brought you from PwC, you know, working in all of these industries into restaurants, because there’s some, like really disparate industries that that might not necessarily, you know, work well together. But at the same time, I’m sure that you found a lot of synergies without costing and human capital management all that were important to, you know, before you found it across.
US
Ufuk Soyturk
5:27
Jeremy, in my opinion, all businesses operate in a similar way, even in the restaurant industry. QSR is different from a fine dining organization, a high end restaurant has slightly different problems than than the mom and pop operation and the opportunities are slightly different. But if it the heart of it is about, you know, turning a profit and the actions that are necessary to enable that are quite similar. Granted, that restaurants are more interconnected more, should be more connected. HR is such a big function of the operations, there are a lot of manual processes without necessarily being supported by the IT systems a whole lot in the in the industry. So there are some differences, which makes it more challenging. So what I found is that more administrative support is needed in restaurant operations, rather than less meaning in an automotive company, you have an integrated system, anything from like budgeting, which goes into ordering to receiving to production and sales, all of these functions operate in certain tools in restaurants, though, all of these tools are distinct from each other. So it’s very hard for a restaurant to make sense of an expensive or sort of like a food invoice, and how that relates to its revenue, whether that purchase was necessarily what price it was purchased. That way there is very little automation. And when there is little automation, what we as human beings need to do is step up and close that gap. And I don’t see that in restaurant industry either. So there is a big gap that I see, like billions are lost. In these operations, people work extremely hard in restaurants, I worked extremely hard during my five years. You know, opening a restaurant probably needs like, you know, 1500 different tasks to be coordinated. You know. So my goal is to help restaurants find that find a place I know a lot about, you know, improving profitability, scaling up finding weaknesses and risks. So, I wanted to change the industry, because as a customer, first and foremost, you know, I love to patient for food, as I, as I’m, as I mentioned, and what I see is like, there are a lot of like headwinds coming in the direction of the restaurants, some folks may not see this, given how good the results were, last year, in 2022, we bumped up the prices, you know, shrink the portions, you know, the food quality might have suffered, you know, service quality might have suffered, but customers continue to come in. So a lot of the folks might think that, you know, this is the new reality, but things are changing in 2023. And I think operating in a more efficient and effective manner is more important than it has been in the last two years. We had different problems in 2021, and 23. And two. So now it’s time to address in my opinion, what can be addressed?
JJ
Jeremy Julian
9:13
So why do you think so? You came from PWC? You went automotive? You know, you talked about that earlier in our conversation, and then you kind of moved into the restaurant vertical? Why do you think the restaurants are so far behind? Because I, I feel like there’s there’s two things that I see behind, it’s not necessarily behind, but I work with 1000s of restaurants in my career, a lot of them think of themselves as artists. Don’t tell me how to food cost something don’t tell me. You know, my job is to take care of the guests in the front of the house. But to your point, you know, yes, people oftentimes get into the restaurants to to make money. And if they’re not making money than then they’re suffering. And so why do you think there’s such a divide in in, you know, whether it’s HR to operations, finance operations, there’s this stigma and a lot of restaurant have friends that I’ve worked with where it’s like, well, corporates just telling me I have to insure these things, and they don’t necessarily put value in it. Do you think it’s an education problem? Do you think it’s a systems problem? Do you think you know, because I’d love to, I’d love to talk about why you think it’s that way? Because I’m assuming that’s that’s what your consulting group is helping people overcome those objections. But why do you think it is that way? What are you hearing on the street, when you talk to people?
US
Ufuk Soyturk
10:23
There are many reasons for it. Number one, this is this has been how restaurants operating for a long time, right? And now you want to change things, and change has a lot of resistance. One reason is basically a training, right? One other reason is that restaurants themselves, they don’t operate with, with adequate support resources, right. And in order to implement anything, like it’s basically a project, which, you know, mean, restaurants don’t really spend time or money space, it’s not basically like, considered like a project, like I’m sure. In the in the POS implementation space, or even with the many implementations that you have seen. You know, a lot of them were weren’t easy implementations, because, you know, there are probably 100 different parameters that needs to be considered with a POS and there’s the core core of operations. So everybody knows about this, this parameter split alone, you know, when it comes to accounting, or finance, or purchasing or HR. One other aspect is the ego aspect. Like, I was talking to a restaurant group, and I tell them, you know, I can save them 10% in their, in their purchases, which I’m being very modest with that, if you think about like 10%, improvements, opportunity in all of their purchases overall, is like on one unheard of right? In any other industry, like, they will look at you as if you are crazy. So this group tells me they’re about, you know, 15 20 million. They tell me like, oh, they do a great job in purchasing, and they don’t, they don’t understand how I can, you know, save them 10%. So, I discovered that, you know, there is a better way of doing to everything, right, and there are different tools. And if 15 $20 million restaurant, let alone my big Restaurant Group. You know, we don’t have negotiating power. Yep. Restaurant. companies like Cisco, they don’t operate with huge profit margins with restaurants, you know, healthcare is a different story, there’s a lot to be done over there. But restaurants, companies that service restaurants operate with tiny margins, so a single restaurant and they are negotiating, you don’t really get a great deal. So there are basically ways of doing things that people don’t really know about. And that’s why I founded this company, to basically make these tools base metals more accessible, to educate the folks. And I see, you know, resistance every day. And as I’m looking at their purchases, I see their accounting as well. And, you know, I must say like accounting is even worse than purchasing even this
JJ
Jeremy Julian
13:30
money that you say that? Well, because there’s two different sets of books. I mean, that’s one of the other things that we’ve historically looked at, and learned as there’s a set of books that the restaurant operator works off of, and then there’s a set of books at the corporate headquarters, and oftentimes they’re not the same. The operator might think that he hit bonus and the corporate office, you know, hasn’t and, and to your point, that someone that that hit the automotive industry, and you’re you’re one of the first people that I that I’ve known that that has transcended both, you know, as the whole chi Zan, Six Sigma, continuous improvement efforts, why don’t you think restaurants again, don’t don’t look at that. I mean, it’s some of its ego, but I think some of it if if Toyota had some of the same practices that our Restaurant Brands, you know, operate with, we’d be getting in car crashes in the cars would be breaking down all the time. And, you know, it would probably
US
Ufuk Soyturk
14:17
cost you know, the family will probably close leg 60 grams if these.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
14:22
Yeah, exactly. It’d be it’d be so expensive. And so I love that you’re, you’re digging underneath the covers and understanding how these people are doing this, so that you can help them. But why again, why do you think it’s just because they’re the ego and and they’ve operated this way forever? So they just don’t you know, or that or is it that the systems aren’t there to show them how to do it or is there not enough pressure I guess is the other side of it. You know, you talked about the industry is now changing. food cost has gone up. We’ve got inflation, we’ve got labor costs are going up, you know, all of these things have been happening. It Do you think it’s now hitting a you know, that moment, like the US car manufacturers had years ago where they were like, Oh, I gotta watch what Turner’s doing and as restaurant tours, they’re gonna have to figure it out because they’re gonna go out of business without it.
US
Ufuk Soyturk
15:05
If you if you look at a Trinitarian tool, right? We basically bumped up the prices in different markets did different things. If you look at overall statistics, like food prices, went up by 10% restaurants bump their prices by 6%. If you ask me, I live in Miami, I see restaurants about their prices by 50% 50%. So as long as you can basically charge directly to the clients, right, to the, to the guests directly reflect like, why would you try to improve? Yeah, and I want to try and fix that. That makes sense. So this, this, this number one, number two is principal versus agents. So what that means is, who has this, you basically test the chef and the sous chef with procurements? Yep. So among the other tasks is, you know, like, hire train, cook, you know, they don’t have employees, people are quitting. With all of this, what would you prioritize to visit procure competitively, or
JJ
Jeremy Julian
16:09
have a chance, I mean, they hit their their days are eaten up by, by all of the other things that are going on?
US
Ufuk Soyturk
16:15
So basically, is this why I think we need to approach to this holistically like, because one thing is preventing from another thing from happening, like because you are not profitable enough, you can’t hire good quality resources, that can you know, sell more, or cook better food, right? Because that doesn’t happen, then your revenue doesn’t increase and your revenue doesn’t increase you. It’s basically a cycle. That’s why everything has to be investigated. And it’s a holistic approach, hence, HR, right? I can put, I can design the best processes for a company. But if there is no incentive for the employees, then incentive is the big word here. Principal versus agent right? Compensation has to be part like mooks lobster, like CFOs of Luke’s lobster, Stephen did a great presentation on how they changed the way that the restaurant operates. And rt 65 restaurant 365 was a big part of it. So what they did is they they hired a higher tier manager, resources basically hired somebody who manages the business, holistically in each of the locations, and our 365 Basically, powers enables that. And that way, they improve their profitability significantly, because the resources now they have can, and they do take action, they see the results, and they benefit. They themselves benefit from the results. Hence, it goes back to creating a system that works right. By them, that’s the most important thing, it works for the employee. It works for the business as a whole and it works for the for the guests. I think the customers have given us significant leeway, significant opportunity to you know, for us to put our stuff together after the pandemic. And I think the mid covers that I see in 2023 what information I get from the distributors, volumes are going down. So we better take action now. Gentlemen, one thing that I would like to add is implementation, right, like we talked about tools, since we are in place around technology guys, podcast, significant amount of investment has gone into the industry in terms of, you know, technology investment the last 10 years. So we have gone from, you know, like a server that you host for the POS, you know, which is ridiculous if you ask me that it doesn’t connect to anything to the world of you know, like software as a service, like the rebels, the toss of the world that connects with everything, you know, like, you have our 365 in everything connects to everything, which is remarkable partnership on all of these companies to service us. But implementation is critical to utilize the adoption,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
19:32
implementation and adoption. You talked about it earlier. Change management is the hardest thing to sell within these restaurants because they’ve been doing it the same way forever.
US
Ufuk Soyturk
19:40
I’ll tell you usually see is like 80% You know, you put stuff 80% in there, but the last 20% is the hardest and that’s where most restaurants fail. You need dedicated resources to be able to finish because a restaurant might be probably getting, you know if $20 million every restaurant we’re probably getting like 50 In hundreds SK use. So who’s who’s going to enter that information and classify, categorize all that stuff into the system and updated when necessary. You know, all that information, different distributors, prices, everything, recipes, like somebody has to enter that information in order for folks to be able to utilize in order for the system to produce quality, timely, accurate information.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
20:30
Yeah, so talk to me a little bit about your guys’s process. I mean, we’ve talked a bunch about about where you came from how you got there, I’d love to understand. I’d love to understand, I guess, when you go into work at a brand, you know, let’s go take that, you know, looks offshore. If you were to go work with Steven and his team. What would that look like? From your perspective? Do you go in, you know, as across accounting consulting is that let me set up your systems to help you implement restaurant 365? Is it you already on 365? And you’re on toast and I need to help you build your processes? Is it outsourced accounting, talk to me a little bit about what your guys’s processes and if I was a customer, and I was like, oh, I need help. Because I know that this is not my forte, I’m a chef or I’m a guy that likes to run the front of the house and be that, but I know that I need to figure this out. What should they expect? How does it work working with you and your team to go to market? And what are the types of things that they can expect as as an operator and as an owner.
US
Ufuk Soyturk
21:29
So be who you difference services that are designed to target two different things. One is scaling up and the other is improving profitability. And the and all of these tools, processes, what have you, I have basically put in use in my previous life, five years is the CFO of this group. So I have seen great results. The first and probably like the foremost thing that I will have a conversation for is the is a procurement site, because that’s the fastest and easiest way for me to deliver great results for an organization. So I’m part of a $25 billion purchasing network, we have 1500s vendor contracts, and thus, we have significantly better pricing. You know, the other day, I was thinking to myself, like how am I going to explain a 35% improvement in the pricing for seafoods for a client. So I’m thinking to myself, like, I have all the all the numbers, but I move to say, 5% Yeah, I’m not sure how this group to be received on the on the other side. I mean,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
22:48
in truth, though, when you tell me you can save 10% And, you know, procurement cost, I’m a little bit skeptical, I’m not gonna lie, because, you know, I’m in. And I’m certainly you have have, you know, success stories of how you’ve done that. But, you know, it’s amazing to think that just by managing it and building some relationships, to get some of those, those contracts, you can go there, so I’ll let you keep going. But I was just like, when I heard you say that I wrote it down, I’m like, I need to figure out how to get you in touch with some of our clients, because there’s a lot of them, if they could save him five points, that five points just go straight to the bottom line, at the end of the day,
US
Ufuk Soyturk
23:22
Jeremy the key is in the in the volume, the bigger, you know, the bigger you are, the easier you will get discuss it, you know, restaurant by $5 million means nothing to, to the, to the to the Cisco’s of the world, to the vendors, you know, now, they might give you a couple percent, like the vendors might give you a couple of percentage points if you have like high concentration, but you know, rarely, you will have a concentration you want it’s a $20 million. In your purchasing volume standpoint, what I’m talking about is $25 billion of purchasing power. That’s insane. That’s insane. And the these are called GPOs group purchasing organizations. Yep. So what I do is I basically implement liaise and implement so we act as the procurement arm of the of the company. So you want to you’re not happy with the chicken, you want to change it, you just you know, send us an email and we get you samples with our vendors and we have the same or better quality products. The key is again, the volume, you know, it’s $5 million. How much chicken breast or you buy, you know, maybe like $50,000 $100,000 A year is nothing is nothing to Tyson, you know, but if somebody else is buying like $50 million worth of this with, like 100,000 locations, that party is going to get better pricing and it works like magic. I identify the SK use, we push the pricing to the distributor, and suddenly Wallah, you have better pricing, it’s like, you know, like, we give you different cards to purchase, you know, like one pricing for everybody else. But Jeremy, the other aspect of this is people don’t question there. The invoices, the vendors, the remorse, most people get street pricing, you know, what, what Cisco calls, you know, street pricing. So number one, you didn’t push hard enough. Number two, even if you pushed, you might get, you know, like 567 percent at most, after like months of efforts. I have $25 billion of purchasing power, not me through a group purchasing organization, what I do is I enable, enable the contracts to take place, finding the opportunities, and implementing this program at the speed that when the Restaurant Group is comfortable with,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
26:06
and love it, I love it. So talk to me. So that’s, that’s, I mean, that’s one of the methods that you guys helped with saving costs. Talk to me a little bit about the flip side, scaling up as a really popular book that that came up, you know, I don’t know if you guys use any of those principles, or any of the other principles from some of those things. But talk to me about somebody that’s in, you know, some of the some of the brands that have been on the show are at a place where they’re at five restaurants, and they want to get to 25. In the next two years, some restaurants are at, you know, 50 restaurants, they want to get to 200. Talk to me a little bit about what you guys do at across accounting, you know, in your consulting firm, to help people to scale, because oftentimes in restaurants, I mean, it is a manufacturing plant, as silly as it sounds. It’s a manufacturing plant. And you need to have systems and processes, going from your POS, to your purchasing, to your inventory management, to your labor management, all of those things we’ve talked about on the show hundreds of times, I think anybody that’s trying to restaurant understands these things. Talk to me a little bit about what your guys’s scaling up processes and how do you guys help people to get to where they want to get to
US
Ufuk Soyturk
27:04
Jamie, HR is crucial to create, to basically glue all of the parts of the organization to hire
JJ
Jeremy Julian
27:16
good underwriting,
US
Ufuk Soyturk
27:17
keep people accountable, and retain the good folks that you want to retain, you know, performance appraisals, all of those are critical. The other aspect of this is you get bigger, you know, compliance becomes a bigger issue. Now you want to open in a new state, like especially like, you know, wonderful state like California, that’s a whole different ballgame, then, you know, operating in Florida or Texas, right? Yep. So, and especially in a state like California, and slightly in New York, like you better do your homework, you know, do have a great handbook, train your managers, otherwise, you know, you’ll be facing you’ll be you’ll you will spend more money in you know, legal problems, then then you will make money in the restaurant business. So, number number one that I so my profession, my background is in accounting finance, right. But first thing I always say is HR, because HR is the glue that holds everything together. As I said before, that I can create the best processes, the best systems in place, if nobody’s going to, you know, to perform these processes after I leave. Then what is the point? What’s the point of the implementation, you have to hold people accountable, you have to create structures, compensation structures, you have to create a culture of accountability and a culture of collaboration and support. This number one is it pertains to scaling up. Number two is managing you know, tourist roles is very different from five managing five is different from 25. You know, depending on how big each each each of the operations is. That are when when I was an operator, each of our locations had, you know, 100 employees. So each location is, is big. So, as it pertains to accounting and finance, where are the problems, right? So you basically get the funds in, but are you really retaining the funds meaning, you know, credit cards, disputes, people dispute if you’re not responding to those disputes, whomever disputed, we’ll get the funds back like easiest way that the restaurant can lose money. Many people don’t really think twice about disputes. How about when it pertains to like recipes or conversion of you know, basic production of the food to be served to the, to the customers I have seen upwards of, you know, 10% deviation in food costs divided by revenue, the food cost ratio upwards of 10%. I mean, that’s insane, this and this, but there is what I consider to be fat in every operation, whether this is you know, 1% or 10% depends on how good the operators are. But without putting pen, you know, pen and pencil to the paper during demand. Implementing a system, you have no idea what your theoretical costs should be, and whether the cost of your eating is basically, is good. And this is especially true for the more processing you do the more vestige opportunities there are. The other aspect is, is that as I said this before, we need to look at this across the board, right? So in today’s world, especially in 2003, and two prices, were going crazy, like went from one week to the next thing, I was pretty good price could go up like 100%. So
JJ
Jeremy Julian
31:03
chicken eggs were 100% 150% increase to 100% increase, it’s insane. And if you’re not managing it, well, back to your point, it could cost you all of the profit that you potentially have.
US
Ufuk Soyturk
31:13
So basically, the job of Accounting and Finance is to support right support, then report basically provide the tool for decision making. So how is an especially if you think about the beef, maybe more significant than the asparagus, beef prices went up by 44% in 2022? So how is that affecting your operation? How soon should you respond to that by you know, menu optimization, changing the recipe, switching over to a new product, you know, all the good stuff that really smart people smarter than I am talking on the on the on the on the on the podcast, though, what kind of structures do you have that enable you to make these decisions? Part of this is basically designing in it. solution. And it stack, the tech for the business, implementing it with them? We are not. We don’t we don’t do operational consulting, I stick to the to the things that I know the best. And part of this is is going to be a technology solution and why because it gives you real time information when set up properly. Again, I want to underline when set up properly. The second aspect is we create tailored processes and procedures, basically internal controls that huge for the for the companies and why am I qualified to do that because I have done that in, in Fortune 10 companies in in Sarbanes Oxley environments where like there is a global organization with a lot of moving parts. But the problem with restaurants is actually as a problem, the risk at restaurants is higher. And the reason is, it’s not a system that operates and the things that we handle are more susceptible to theft or opportunities, like a bartender. You know, I’ve seen this a bartender pretending that she’s entering, you know, drink in the POS. And so when you look at the camera, you need to look at like very, you know, you need to pay attention. And when in essence just getting a blank piece of paper from the from the printer because the person she’s serving is hurt. Of course of you know, fraud opportunities, you can steal an axle, but you can very well steal. You know, a Chateau Margaux, you know, $600, wide, right? It’s small, very easy to very easy to steal. So all these kinds of things, whether or not just fraud isn’t the manual errors at the same time, because it’s a manual process, you get a vial from the shelf, you bring it to the client, and open it. What did you put it on the POS system? Who makes sure of that?
JJ
Jeremy Julian
34:28
Yeah. Or did you pick the proper wine and the POS system? Did you? Did you give a $50 bottle? Or did you charge them? $50 for a $600 bottle of wine? You know, I mean, those are all big pieces and not having the second part of what we talk about a lot on the show is having tech to make businesses better and more efficient. Is the reason to do technology, not necessarily for just technology sake so So I know we’re getting closer to time. We’ve just got just a couple of minutes left. How do people get in touch with you? What’s what’s the best method? Do you guys work just in Florida, you said you’re in And, you know, like, who’s the ideal client for you guys is a single unit operator that does high volume is at multi units. Talk to me a little bit about that and how how they can get in touch with you what what it looks like working with you guys as your guys’s, you know, firm,
US
Ufuk Soyturk
35:13
I will say, our ideal clients would be open operators that have you know, $10 million of revenue and up. And people who are looking to improve their operations operate, basically improve their business results, and who are looking to open more locations. How, how folks can get in touch with me, our website is www consulting a cross.com. And across his two C’s, you know, folks can book a free consultation call or send me an email at ook at consulting a cross.com. So those will be the easiest places to, to reach. Okay,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
36:17
I’ll put, I’ll put the website and the signup link for the for the free, the free meeting in the show notes for those that that are interested. Genuinely, and I don’t I say this to a lot of guests. But I really, really think it’s important for people to understand that watching these cost, watching the ways that you guys are portioning, watching what’s happening within the point of sale. I know so many operators don’t necessarily have the time and energy to do this, which is why it’s incumbent upon finding somebody within your business that gets to be responsible for this, if you’re the owner, find somebody that does this, but get the tools and get the people to help them set these things up. Because just because they were a great bartender doesn’t necessarily mean that they can build the bar process on ordering the proper liquor and, and all of that. And so I really would would encourage our audience to look back, is there anything that we missed in our conversation that that you would want our audience to hear about, about the ways that even you’re looking around the corner? You said it earlier? There’s a lot of pressures that are coming into the restaurant industry in 2023? And beyond? What are some of those things that that that I guess we may have missed on our conversation that you want our audience to hear before, before we sign off for the day?
US
Ufuk Soyturk
37:30
The headwinds are more, you know, macroeconomic conditions as well as you know, private equities coming into the space. They are extremely professional at one of these private equities, they have 80 operators, even default on their stuff. And their job is to scale up these these businesses. So they they operate significantly better than the most concept. So that’s the competition, sweet greens of the world, you know, do offer great value great products. I mean, I see great headwinds for, for the industry as a whole for smaller operations, especially. What I want people to think about is, is this across functional, some problems, you have to identify the problem and then solve the problem, something like workers comp claims, right? That requires number one, understanding the problem number two, putting in place all of the processes and training, which involve cross functional teams to work anything from like backhoe files, you know, safety protocols and training to HR, through basically to the folks who do insurance negotiation of these things aren’t as easy as they seem to be like, didn’t contract, it didn’t contract as the three line items. And I have not, I haven’t seen an operator who understands it didn’t contract. You know, everybody signs the contracts, but nobody understands how they charge in the universe or optimize these things. Just like you said, I think everybody is a specialty. Everybody knows a different part of this business. I don’t claim that I I can, you know, run operations or can do operational consulting, but in the areas that I do, or you know, that I can I can talk to folks.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
39:34
I love it. I love it. Well, again, I know that you’ve got a wealth of knowledge, and quite frankly, even if it’s just to help with some of that purchasing thing, you know, you talked about that GPO. That’s amazing. You know, and let’s take advantage of some of that. If you haven’t already connected with these guys, and you have them helping you out. I’d love to see you guys doing that. To our audience. Guys. We know that you guys have got lots of choices out in the podcast world and as I say often it feels like a new new pod. Cass pops up every day to help restaurants run their business better. So we appreciate you guys taking time to learn a little bit about more more about what these guys are doing it across accounting, and as well as listening to the show. So thank you guys for doing that. If you haven’t already done so, go check these guys out, as well as subscribe to the newsletter. Every month, we send out one email with all of the blog posts and all of the podcasts that we had that month. Thank you very much for your time guys, and have a great day.
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Intro
40:28
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