Monte Silva [00:00:00]:

I think that you've got to create this perfect box that has phenomenal service and hospitality, a great product, a strong brand, sales growth, profitability, and a great culture that's going to make you become an employer of choice. And I think if you can do all those things well, then success comes very easily.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:28]:

Welcome to WISKing It All with your host, Angelo Esposito, co-founder of WISK.ai, a food and beverage intelligence platform. We're going to be interviewing hospitality professionals around the world to really understand how they do what they do. Welcome to another episode of WISKing It All. We're here today with Monte Silva, owner and restaurant executive coach of Monte Silva coaching. Monte, thanks for joining us.

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Monte Silva [00:00:57]:

Thanks, Angelo. I appreciate being on the show.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:00]:

Absolutely. I've been seeing a ton of stuff on LinkedIn. We have a lot of connections in common, and I could see you're quite knowledgeable in the hospitality space, to say the least. I believe it's something like 25 years or over 25 years of experience. So, having said that, I was excited to have you on the show and kind of share some of your knowledge with our restaurant listeners, because I'm sure they can learn a lot, maybe to kick things off, like, I was, like, understanding the story of how people got into the hospitality industry. So I'd love to maybe hear your version. How did you get into the hospitality industry and how did you get started?

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Monte Silva [00:01:35]:

My story's not too far off from a lot of people. I started off at 15 years old, washing dishes, and it was mostly a job to help pay for track cleats and I, soccer gear and stuff like that. So I did that. I grew up in a middle, lower middle income family, and so being able to pay for that allowed me to do the things that I loved. And so I started off as a dishwasher in a hotel for a restaurant, and very early learned the side hustle idea. I ended up saving the bone and steak scraps from the plates and sold them to the servers to give to their dogs.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:27]:

Oh, wow.

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Monte Silva [00:02:29]:

Yeah. I actually made more money saving the scraps for the servers dogs than I did in my hourly pay.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:37]:

Wow. I love the entrepreneurial spirit. There's nothing better for me when I meet other people who think outside the box and figure out solutions and, you know, look at. Look at challenges as opportunities. So that's. That's awesome. So where did, where did life go from there? So start off in the, you know, 15 years old dishwasher space, obviously tell tale signs of, you know, an entrepreneur at heart, because you're already doing these things. Where do you go from there?

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Monte Silva [00:03:01]:

So I then moved into a neighbor. A neighbor was a chef and he hired me and I came in and started doing prepost, started doing working the line positions. And so I spent a little bit of time in the kitchen. And then being a young teenager, I determined that I was more interested in the front of the house. We ended up moving to the front, becoming a busser, a server, a bartender, and from there spent the next 1012 years doing that before I got into.

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Angelo Esposito [00:03:37]:

Restaurant management, you know, shifting gears, I guess, you know, so ton of experience, I think, like I said, over 25 years of experience in the hospitality space. What made you shift from, you know, working in the industry and kind of being, you know, more of a restaurant operator to then going on the more of the consulting side, so. And I guess, you know, founding Monte, Monte Silva coaching. So what was that shift where you're like, hey, I learned a lot, but now I want to help people. Like, what made you want to, I guess, go on the other side?

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Monte Silva [00:04:06]:

Yeah. So I spent 15 years taking care of people, right? Working in the server, bartender side, taking care of the guest. And so my next phase was 25 years. So really 40 years in the industry.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:24]:

Oh, wow.

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Monte Silva [00:04:24]:

25 years. 25 years in restaurant management where now not only did I take care of the guests, but I also took care of my staff. And so my realm of taking care of people moved from just taking care of the guests to also the employee, which was really cool, and then spent 25 years doing that. I was GM for Wolfgang Puck, worked with him in southern Cal, in Vegas, moved to Nashville, ran restaurants as a GM, was a director of operations there. One of my stops in Nashville was Acme Feed and Seed, which was the 31st highest grossing restaurant in the country. We did 18 and a half million in sales. And then I moved up to their director position, and they had two restaurants in the top 100 in sales in the country. So I over saw those and a couple other concepts.

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Monte Silva [00:05:19]:

The transition for me going from operations to what I do now was pretty much Covid, you know, but I say Covid happened for me, not to me. My friend Christian Fisher says that all the time that I was kind of pushed into a position of losing my operational, my director of Ops position with a lot of shutdown going on in Nashville and then, and then basically reemerging in Tampa.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:49]:

So as you said, Covid happened, you know, for you not to you so love to hear, like, what did that transition look like? Right. So now Covid hit kind of that director of Ops role, you know, is not really a thing anymore. And, you know, understandably so. A lot of things are being cut at that time, to put it mildly. So then where do you get the idea to be like, hey, I want to go into coaching? Obviously, you have a wealth of experience, so it makes sense. But I'd love to know, like, what, what triggered you to think of, like, I want to get into the coaching side of things.

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Monte Silva [00:06:19]:

Yeah. So I tried to stick around in Nashville for a while and started the coaching company. Had a couple clients in 2020, but realized I wasn't at the level where I could launch and do this full time. And so Florida was wide open. The governor, I think, did a really great job about protecting businesses, especially the restaurant industry. And so I moved to Tampa. I became the managing partner of a restaurant called Steelbach in Tampa and did that while I built the coaching business on the side. And then, as of last October, went full time with the coaching company.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:03]:

Yeah, congrats. That's awesome.

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Monte Silva [00:07:05]:

Thanks.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:05]:

Yeah, it's everything, that leap of faith and going full time on something. So I respect that. Congratulations.

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Monte Silva [00:07:11]:

Thanks. But it was, you know, it was challenged because when Covid hit, I didn't really know what this business was going to look like. I had to determine who my avatar client was going to be, what their pain points were, what I was going to offer them, how I could help them, and then how do I market that to where people know what I'm doing, what I'm doing, and then really building the, what is the frameworks that I'm going to work in within this. So it took really a couple years, really, to kind of figure out and really fine tune and pinpoint what I wanted to do, who I wanted to serve. I just posted something on LinkedIn that success, to me, is doing what I love with people I love. So that's really been a great transition for me by starting Monte Silva coaching, because now I work with a hand select group of restaurant owners. Typically they have one to three restaurants that do a minimum million dollars in revenue, and they want to scale to ten or 20. And so that's kind of my niche.

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Monte Silva [00:08:24]:

And so I can help them put together the systems they need, the teams to make them successful, kind of revisit their product or their brand or anything that isn't quite where they want it so that we can create this perfect box that could be replicatable.

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Angelo Esposito [00:08:43]:

I love that. And, I mean, side note, the fact that you're in Tampa, we should definitely get together. I mean, a lot too. Farming. I'm based in Miami, so if ever you're down here, that'd be awesome. And if vice versa, if I'm ever down, I'll definitely hit you up. But one of the things that I'm curious about is, so one, three locations, million dollars in revenue. Are these typically full service restaurants? Are these fast cattle QSRs? Like what type or for you, it doesn't matter.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:06]:

I'm curious, like does the type of establishment matter?

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Monte Silva [00:09:09]:

QSRs. I can do QSRs. That's not something that excites me as much. If there's a full bar program, that's exciting.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:20]:

Yeah.

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Monte Silva [00:09:21]:

Because a lot of times I'll work with establishing a beverage program, which is very different than putting together a beverage list because it involves training and marketing and making your beverage program be brand specific towards, you know, who you are. And so I prefer full service. And it's typically mid casual, you know, upscale comfort type experience. But I do find dining as well. After working for Wolfgang Puck and a couple high end steak houses, I definitely do the higher level as well. So I would say mid level and above.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:56]:

Okay, nice. I mean, as a side note, definitely after this episode airs, we need a chat. Cause at WISK, like, that's our exact demographic. It's a million plus in revenue. You know, we also filter by certain PoS systems, we integrate like 50, but like, you know, the cloud based ones. And funny enough, it's exactly that. Cause we started back in 2014 and we were only a beverage program. So think of liquor, wine inventory.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:18]:

That's what we did best. We naturally end up doing really well now that we also do food with full service restaurants because they have a lot of liquor or wine, and that's what we did best for the longest time. So, anyways, having said that, I think we'll have some fun together in the future. But going back to you. So I know Montesilli coaching now. We know the type of clients who helped. What are some common issues that you kind of, or some common challenges you see these typical restaurants facing? So you don't, you don't have to like, pinpoint exact clients you're dealing with, but like, being in the industry and coaching that type of clientele and FSR restaurant, what's the typical pain points you see them hitting when you first kind of come in?

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Monte Silva [00:10:55]:

Well, I think, you know, everyone talks about the labor market and how that's really drastically changed. And, you know, some of it's for the better. I think that the newer generations aren't willing to put up with the crap that we put up with for the last years of working long hours and all of that. So I think It's understanding the new labor market and what they're interested in, and being able to create a culture that attracts the best talent is important. Obviously, for a while, it was having difficulty getting the product you needed and having some of the supply chain issues, and that's kind of shifted to inflation. So I think that inflation is a big deal. The work, labor force finding great talent is something that comes up. But I think really, we've focused on the wrong things for about 50 years.

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Monte Silva [00:11:55]:

And The reason why there was such low success rate in the restaurant industry for so long is because we didn't really know how to do things. We kind of tried to figure it out, and I think then we followed whoever our predecessor was doing, but doing the same thing. And, you know, I have a new book coming out called Shift happens. And it talks about, it says, seven strategies to crush the new economy. But what I first do is I talk about mindset and how we have to change our mindset and how we look at things, and then we have to look at these beliefs that we clung to that are really false. Beliefs like, you don't have to work 70 hours a week to be successful. You don't have to underpay your people to make profit. Marketing isn't expensive.

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Monte Silva [00:12:44]:

A penny saved is not a penny earned. Some of those things we clung to just aren't true. A lot of these things I developed pre Covid, but it really took Covid to get people to start talking about what does our industry need to look like moving forward. And so this book talks about some of the mistakes we made over the last 50 years. Many of the mistakes I made in my early management career, how I shifted to some of these new strategies over the last 15 years and how successful they've been. So those are some of the things, though, you know, inflation and supply chain, the labor industry, Getting to a point where you really trust someone having the right systems in place, but having the right people that you trust are going to implement them so that when you're not in the building, things are still running the way they're supposed to.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:40]:

Yeah, that makes sense. And so for people who want to actually get the book, so it's shift happens, right? Shift happens. I like the title. That's cool.

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Monte Silva [00:13:48]:

Thanks.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:49]:

And I love the idea of just. Yeah, the limiting beliefs. Right. You just kind of take this on and it's what you were told and it's like, wait, it doesn't have to be like that. And some of those I could really resonate with, like, you know, it's not, you know, example, paying people less is the only way you make money. Like, those are suit. Like, we see it all the time with the restaurants we work, but there's a lot of those. I mean, I mean, you nailed them and you only named, I think, four or five.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:08]:

So I can imagine how many more in the book, but where can people find it? So people are probably listening to this and say, okay, cool, we're gonna get more nuggets out of this podcast. So we're gonna go through some, some of your wisdom, but we can only do so much, you know, 30, 40 minutes. So, hey, I want to, I want to check out Monte Silva's book shift happens. Where do they go to get it?

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Monte Silva [00:14:27]:

So I don't have an official launch date yet, but sometime in August. In August, it'll be available on, on Amazon, and it'll be available in 14 languages. Oh, wow. There'll be also. The KDP will have the Kindle version.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:44]:

Nice. Okay.

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Monte Silva [00:14:46]:

Going to create an audiobook out of it. And there will be a journal as well to help people kind of work through the examples in an exercise kind of a setting.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:58]:

Cool. So super exciting. That's really cool that you wrote this book. And like, maybe we can go through a couple, one or two nuggets. You know, obviously we're not going to give away the book in 20 minutes. It's, it's, it's a whole book. But maybe to share some wisdom with our restaurant listeners. We have a lot of operators and owners listing in what.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:17]:

Let's go through one of those limiting beliefs you named, one that resonated with me. So maybe we could dive a bit into that one. But the one related to labor and the idea that the only way we can make money is if we pay our employees a lot less and kind of take advantage. Tell me a bit about that thought and that idea and then why. It's kind of a false narrative, so to speak.

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Monte Silva [00:15:39]:

Think about this. We always want to save money, right? But think about when we automatically go to the lowest bidder, right? We don't get our money's worth. And I think you create this energy between you and the employee when you don't value them enough to pay them a proper wage, number one. And number two, someone's not gonna stay with you if they can't pay their bills, right? So you've gotta be careful when you hire someone with the idea they're gonna work 30 hours a week, whatever that number is, and then you go, you know, we're slow. I'm only going to schedule you 20. Well, what are you doing to that person? That's a human being that has bills to pay and things like that. And so you create this animosity with your employee. They then feel undervalued.

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Monte Silva [00:16:31]:

I talk about in the book, you know, if you buy a bottle of water in a grocery store, maybe it's $0.50, but if you buy it, you know, at a snack bar, at your pool, maybe it's a dollar 50. And if you buy it on the airplane, maybe it's a $4. Right? It's the same bottle of water, but the value is based on where you are. And so if your employee feels like that dollar 50 bottle of water and knows it can be a four dollar bottle of water, why would it stick around in that location? And so that's kind of the first thought. The second thing is, I think that one of the things that we focused on negatively is our p and l, and how labor is a negative on your p and l. It's subtracting from your income. And so our general philosophy is, hey, let's cut their hours. Hey, let's not pay them and do not give them a raise.

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Monte Silva [00:17:33]:

Let's cut their training short because we can't afford it and things like that. Let's make them have a bigger section that they can't really handle, thereby not giving great experience, because we don't want to have as many people on the floor. Well, if we flip that instead of looking at them as a liability on the p and l, what if we looked at them as an asset on the balance sheet, where they're actually producers? For you, a server is a salesperson.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:02]:

Right.

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Monte Silva [00:18:03]:

If you cut your sales force, your sales go down. Right. Your line cooks are your production. If you cut your production, your sales go down. And so If you start looking at your people as an asset on the balance sheet, driving top line, then you look at them very differently. You want to make an investment in them and make them better. And by doing that, you create a culture where they're happy to be there, they feel respected, they feel important. and you have a working relationship, and you're not constantly churning through bodies and hiring and starting the process all over again. So that's one of the mindset strategies behind changing your idea from let's pay our people less so we can make more profit.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:55]:

Right. That makes sense. And so what are your thoughts when it comes to, you know, you think about prime cost in a restaurant? You know, you got your cogs, you got your labor percentage. So when you look at your labor percentage, I totally agree that, like, you can't just look at the labor costs and say, let's cut. But there must be, I think, I guess, some value in the, in the percentage. It's not the only metric. And cut at all costs, because like you said, there's. There's clear thing, negative things that will come out from that turnover, guest review and, you know, trickle effects and hiring new people and time to train and whatever.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:27]:

There's a million and one reasons. You can't just be like, let's just lower this at all costs. But do you have a recommendation of, like, what you typically see or what you strive for when it comes to, maybe labor cost percentages in full service restaurants that you work with and maybe some strategies of how they can get to that. That goal?

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Monte Silva [00:19:47]:

I mean, there's obviously, we have to set some goals, right? Because we want to. We want to try to do that. I think that the problem in the past has been that we're so focused on percentages that we get into cut mode, we get into protect our pie, right, instead of, let's make a bigger pie. So here's an idea. We don't take percentages to the bank. I've never walked into a bank and say, I'd like to deposit 15%, right? It's always a dollar amount. So if that's the case, would I run a special promotion that drives an extra 50 grand to my bottom or to my top line if it increases my bottom line by 2503 grand, of course I would, right? Because if my take home at the end of the day is greater, I'm going to the bank with more money. And I think the problem has been that every boss that I've had, except for one over 25 years, was always so percentage focused.

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Monte Silva [00:20:51]:

There was no conversation about driving top line. And I think that we fantasized about winning the lotto, right? And what are we gonna do if we hit the lotto? So we spend time thinking about, what if we add more money, but we don't have a strategy to make more money. So I think the first strategy is to drive your top line. And if you need to, if you need to sacrifice a point here or there to put more dollars in the bottom line, it's a win win for me. With that said, it depends on the concept when it comes to percentages. I've told people I can run whatever percentage you want me to run. I can run whatever labor percentage you want me to run, whatever food costs you want me to run, whatever liquor you want me to run. The problem is, is that sustainable over a long period of time? And does it work for your brand? So if I have a high end steakhouse, I'm not going to set 15% as my food cost because my steak prices would have to be so exorbitant on my menu that I wouldn't, I'd be out of business.

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Angelo Esposito [00:22:00]:

Yeah.

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Monte Silva [00:22:01]:

Now if it's a pizza place, 15% might be a doable number. And so I think that first you have to establish what brand you are and what that looks like and be true to that. And then come up with some aggressive but fair asks. I always say if my kid, my five year old kid is standing flat footed and can reach the cookies, that's too easy. If it's way up on the top shelf and he needs to go to the garage and get a ladder and bring it in, carry it in himself and set it up and climb 10ft, that's too hard, right. You want to make goals, percentage goals, at a point where your team has to get up on their tippy tones and reach and have to make some effort to hit the numbers. But they need to be attainable, number one. And they don't.

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Monte Silva [00:22:59]:

And they, and they shouldn't be too easy. So there's some standard numbers. You know, if you can stay between 50 and 60% on your prime cost, you're probably doing, gonna do okay depending on your sales and your other sales, your other costs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:16]:

That makes sense. It makes sense. And it's funny because even at risk, like internally, when we look at our KPI's, is exactly that. When we set KPI's every quarter, it's how do you make it enough of a motivator where it's like attainable? But it's also not so easy that like we're not moving the needle because part of the way to think differently and to innovate is to have goals that are just out of reach. I like that, that analogy you gave. Because if it's just out of reach, you start thinking differently of like how can we get to where we want to get with the resources we have? And it's the same thing in the restaurant world. And I always say like, strategy at the end of the day is really just like how you think about allocating and prioritizing resources. Because like everyone has a finite amount.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:58]:

It's just some people might have $100 million budget, some people might have a million, some people might have 100,000. But in the day, you still have a limited budget, limited staff. Again, some people is a ten person theme, some people may be a thousand person team, but it's still finite amount. And so the question I will say is, like, how do you decide what to do next? What are you working on? What are you doing? And so, like, when you think of it like that, that's where I think something like your consulting services come in where. So you're going to help people figure out what to prioritize, what's going to move the needle, setting goals that are attainable. And so to me, that that's a really, really powerful thing, especially in an industry that historically is not an easy one. Right. Entrepreneurs in general, it's not easy to be an entrepreneur, but having restaurants even have a worse statistic.

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Angelo Esposito [00:24:41]:

I'm sure it's changed now, but it's something like 90% feel in the first two years. It might be three years now. I don't know if it's probably updated somewhat, but a really tough stat to read. And so you realize having guidance, having coaching, I think, is monumental. Speak.

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Monte Silva [00:24:58]:

One of the false beliefs in the book is that restaurants are not profitable or a bad investment. And the reality is, if you change the idea. When I took over, when I came in to work with a restaurant client in Richmond, Virginia, their only KPI were food cost, liquor cost, labor. And I said, okay, well, what about sales? Well, we don't really have that. And so I created a new dashboard, KPI dashboard that had sales. Yeah, it had labor, food costs, liquor cost, and then I added reviews, because we can run the numbers, but if our reviews suck and our guest experience is, it's a matter of time. Yeah, yeah. It's.

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Monte Silva [00:25:45]:

Eventually, it's a race to the bottom and to close. Whereas if the focus is to build a bigger pie, which is always my focus, then. And I share this with service teams, because when I was the director of Ops and the GM for Acme feed and seed in Nashville, I added, we had low sales on one of the. It was a four floor restaurant, and we had low sales on the second floor, and I added bodies. And when I got there, the restaurant was guaranteeing $50 in tips for anybody that worked on that floor. And if they only made $35, the restaurant paid them the extra 15. And when I left, they were making five to $600 a shift. And so what happened was, I added the service was, the service could be okay if, like, nobody showed up.

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Monte Silva [00:26:38]:

But if anybody showed up, then it wasn't great. And the servers didn't have an opportunity to sell. They just were order takers because they didn't have the time to be able to build a check. And so I added a server, and they're like, we're not even making $50 now. And I said, okay, we're going to build a bigger pie. And what I did is I drew up a small pie on a piece of paper and I divided it by two. Then I drew a large pie and I divided it by four. And I said, would you rather have half of this little pie or a quarter of this big pie? Well, obviously, when you look at it, the quarter looks bigger.

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Monte Silva [00:27:15]:

And they're like, well, of course I want that one. Okay, so here's part of the strategy. And I got the team to buy into that. And next thing I know, we started implementing things that were going to drive sales to that second floor. And we continued to staff just a little more than what we really needed to make sure that the guest experience continued. And so rather than be a race to the bottom to cut, cut, cut, because that's all you're doing, is racing to the bottom, making your pie smaller, smaller, smaller. Imagine making a pie, but you use half the ingredients the next time you make it. Well, that pie is going to be smaller.

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Monte Silva [00:28:00]:

It's the same thing if you're not spending the money where you need to spend it. And so the idea that restaurants are bad investments is only because the model's been wrong, because we focus so much on percentages, because we haven't driven top line. And so my KPI dashboards include sales and include reviews because I want to know that we're executing at a high level that's going to continue to build a bigger pot.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:25]:

Love that. That's a great perspective. And, you know, speaking of, you know, we're speaking of teams, we're speaking of staff. So, like, obviously we're speaking of labor, but taking a step back, you obviously have interesting, I guess, approach or at least thoughts around building these great systems and teams in a restaurant environment. Like, can you provide any examples of how you've led? Maybe some of these transformations? Because, like, finding the right people, I think is half the battle and, like, training them and whatnot. So, like, any, any guidance or advice you can, you can share when it comes to kind of building a great team.

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Monte Silva [00:29:03]:

Yeah. Abh. Always be hiring. We have a tendency to be reactive and not proactive. And so if we're fine, fine, which is not the word we want to hear when we ask a guest how their experience is. If we're fine on our staffing, and then all of a sudden, three people go back to school, one decides they don't like working there, and one changes careers. Right? You just lost five people. They don't sit there and tell you, hey, six months from now, I'm going to quit.

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Monte Silva [00:29:40]:

And so then what we do is, okay, we're short. Oh, crap. Now we're going to go hire the next person that walks off the street. We run an indeed ad or whatever next person that comes in. If they have a heartbeat, you're hired. Right? And then because we are behind on getting them on the floor and getting staff back up, then we cut their training short. Then they don't get the training they need. Then they make careless mistakes later on that don't transcend to profitability.

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Monte Silva [00:30:09]:

Then they get frustrated, the management team gets down on them, and then they quit. And you start the process over. But if you're always hiring or always with the mindset of hiring, then you could be very selective. If somebody walks in and they are better than the bottom five servers in your restaurant, as far as execution, you know, the skillset or the mindset of that employee, why would you not hire them? Right. The Yankees, yes, they have a high payroll, but they will always sign a golden glover. Jeter was already on the team. They didn't need a rod. They didn't need a rod, but they signed him anyway.

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Monte Silva [00:30:51]:

And they said, okay, who's going to play second base, right? And so I think that if we're always hiring rock stars, then we're proactively putting our team together. And if we're constantly evaluating our players and using coaching techniques to bring C players to B players and B players to a players, and we're creating a culture where turnover is low, then I think that you solve a lot of those problems.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:19]:

I love that. I love that. Really well said. And it's funny, I love the acronym AvH. I always be hiring. It makes me think. Even, like, at WISK, like, or any software company, let's say it's like the minute you stop investing and developing, like, that's when you go to the graveyard. And it's like, you know, we've been.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:36]:

We started in 2014, and even though we're ten years old, we haven't stopped. Like, if you check the app store or what, like literally every few weeks, there's a new release and an improvement and an improvement and this. And it's like the minute you kind of stop, that's where, that's where it ends. And so I see that parallel with, with both the hiring, but you know, another parallelography sometimes is like with any business but restaurants included, they, when things are going well, they don't really invest in maybe the, the restaurant because things went well, why change it? You know, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. But then when things are not going well, we don't have the budget to renovate or to do this or to reinvent. And it's like this catch 22 where sometimes if you hold off too long to your point and you're not proactive, it's hard to be reactive because now you're in a tougher situation than if you would have been proactive in the first place. Right?

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Monte Silva [00:32:22]:

Yeah. And that's where the penny saved is the penny earned. False belief comes into play because first of all, money sitting in a bank we know doesn't make any money. Inflation goes up and so that valuation goes down. And so why not reinvest that into growth opportunity that's going to spur your business. And so, yeah, there's a lot of times where those savings either go in someone's pocket and buys them a new car and then eventually they go out of business, but they have a really nice car to sleep in. So I think that reinvesting in your people, reinvesting in your business and growth strategy, bringing in a, when things are going pretty well, bring in a coach to help you get to the next level, you know, spend that money.

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:19]:

That makes sense. And speaking of growth opportunities, you know, for our restaurant listeners or restaurant owners, restaurant operators looking to maybe scale their operations, what are some critical factors you think they need to consider?

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Monte Silva [00:33:31]:

So obviously they need to have scalable systems. You know, when you buy into like a franchise, you're buying the system more than anything. Yeah, you might have recipes, a brand, things like that, but you're really buying the systems that are going to make you profitable. And so systems is a very important part of that, or processes. And then again, how do you build the bench? How do you. I'm working. I'm in the back nine right now. It's a really cool concept with golf simulators in the back and a full service restaurant and bar in the front.

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Monte Silva [00:34:10]:

You know, they're scaling. We're looking at our next location. We've got another client in Pennsylvania called the metropolitan. It's an american diner and bar. They do four and a half million dollars a year, and they're looking to scale to the next location. And so how do you build the bench? How do you build. How do you develop your servers into managers? How do you develop your managers into GM's? How do you develop your line cooks into kitchen managers or chefs? What's the system for that? How do you attract great talent? And then how do you put them through a training process so that you're not. Only because you know that, yes, the Yankees will sign a golden glover, but they also have a farm team that they're working with people to bring them up.

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Monte Silva [00:35:00]:

And so I think that Focusing on putting systems in place that are super duplicable and then finding people that are willing to do the work and implement those systems are the two key priority things. Product is important, but not as important as people and processes.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:21]:

I love that. It's funny when you speak about systems because it sounds like such. Or my limiting belief was like, ah, it's boring. And then, like, as early days of WISK and you start scaling, you realize how it's all about systems. And even though it seems boring and dull, it's like, the perfect example. Like, I'll give you a concrete one. This podcast, I originally started years ago, like, five years ago, I think I got, like, six, seven episodes in, and then I just kind of, like, trickled out and stopped. And the second time I implemented systems to be like, okay, I'm gonna film it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:50]:

Once it's filmed, I'm gonna upload this Google Drive. Then my editor is gonna do this, then someone else is gonna cut it up. Like, really created systems in the whole process. And now in this new season, because first season, I think I made it to eight or ten episodes in this season. Number two, I think this rad episode 40 something, I don't know, probably 44, 45. And it's like you always, you know, a quote I heard, which, like, it resonates so much now, is you're always going to fall to the level of your systems because anyone could be motivated, but you can't rely on motivation, because one day you'll be motivated, one day you won't. So you need to have systems that you can fall back on. So I love that.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:22]:

And I want to touch on one last thing and then at least relate to growth strategies, because I know you helped. I was, you know, looking online and stuff. You've helped business. Like, I think it was Fozzie's bar and grill and secret sandwich society grow significantly. So any strategies or common growth strategies that you can recommend or share, obviously, maybe can't go in crazy detail, but anything that kind of stands out with those brands or that. Yeah. That you want to share with our audience.

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Monte Silva [00:36:50]:

Yeah. I think first is just building the perfect box. You know, if you've got a restaurant that is struggling to grow sales, struggling to control costs, it limits your growth opportunity because you don't have the resources necessary to go to the next level. You know, I hate to say it, because I don't never, I don't like to speak poorly, but McDonald's is probably my least favorite burger on the planet. Right. But they're the most successful. But they're the most successful burger joint. And why is that? Because of their systems.

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Monte Silva [00:37:28]:

And so I think that you've got to create this perfect box that has phenomenal service and hospitality, a great product, a strong brand, sales growth, profitability, and a great culture that's going to make you become an employer of choice. And I think if you can do all those things well, then success comes very easily. I put a ranking survey on LinkedIn that basically said, how would you rank your restaurant? And nine and ten is like, I've got a great systems, I have a great brand, I have great guest experiences, I have great product, I have great sales, I have great profitability, I have a great marketing plan. I have a great tech stack. Okay, that's a nine or a ten. The next level is, you know, we're doing really well. We're successful. We have a great product, we have great systems, we have great people.

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Monte Silva [00:38:26]:

We're just kind of needing a little help to be able to expand beyond to where the owner can work on the business instead of in it. Well, that's like a seven and eight, right? And then you keep going down where one and two is like, if I don't get immediate help, we're going to shut the doors. And I think that the primary difference between, you know, one or a two versus a nine or a ten is that you are, it's your systems and your people that are really making a difference and creating that perfect box.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:55]:

So, yeah, you know, just to summarize, basically, like, the difference between a one or two to that kind of like nine or ten. The main thing is the people in the systems, which, which says a lot. So that's, that's another great, you know, piece of wisdom. I have to ask one. You know, I was kind of going to segue to my final question or two, but I got one side question because you mentioned McDonald's is your least favorite burger. So I got to ask you, what are your top three, top three favorite burgers?

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Monte Silva [00:39:20]:

I love in n out burger. The double double with grilled onions is awesome. I think five guys makes a great burger.

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Angelo Esposito [00:39:30]:

Interesting.

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Monte Silva [00:39:31]:

You know, there's. I think that where I am right now, the back nine has a really strong burger. And I would say secret Sandwich Society has a phenomenal burger.

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Angelo Esposito [00:39:43]:

Okay. Very cool. Very cool. It's fun. It's funny. I think in and out is up there for me. But I think in terms of, like, big chains, I think shake shack is. Might be my number one.

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Angelo Esposito [00:39:53]:

I gotta say, I love a good shake shack burger. I don't know why, but it's. For me, it all hits the spot. But just kind of. Yeah. Wrapping up here. What, you know, the kind of last question is really just what's next for you? Right? So I love hearing your journey from hospitality industry to helping all these, to kind of going into your consulting business to writing this book, which we'll also plug at the end again. But what's next for you? Anything exciting that you want to mention kind of coming up?

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Monte Silva [00:40:21]:

Well, I've got. I have a podcast, so I'm behind you. I've only done. I think I've only done about 24 episodes, but it's called Restaurant Success Club. And what I do is I write a newsletter on LinkedIn every Monday, and that's called restaurant success newsletter.

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Angelo Esposito [00:40:40]:

Okay.

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Monte Silva [00:40:40]:

And then I do a LinkedIn live event that Thursday on the same topic, but I bring in another guest, so I have to have you on the show.

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Angelo Esposito [00:40:51]:

Yeah, I'd love to. And.

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Monte Silva [00:40:53]:

And then that LinkedIn live gets stripped down to a podcast that I do on. On Spotify and Apple.

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Angelo Esposito [00:41:03]:

Okay, amazing.

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Monte Silva [00:41:04]:

So that's a good thing.

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Angelo Esposito [00:41:05]:

Okay. That's. That's really cool. So. Yeah, definitely. So let's plug all those right now. So for real listing, Monte Silva, you can check. You can check him out on LinkedIn.

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Angelo Esposito [00:41:13]:

Montesilva. M o n t e Silva. Exactly how it sounds. You can check out the restaurant success newsletter on LinkedIn. He does LinkedIn live. He's got his book called Shift happens coming out in August, which we'll eventually plug here. Any other plugs website you mentioned the podcast. Like any other plugs, you want to make this your chance so you can.

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Monte Silva [00:41:34]:

Book a free call. If you're interested in talking about coaching, book a free call with me on www.montesilvacoaching.com. i've joined a group called Maverick Theory. You should check them out. It is the hottest consultants and coaches in the industry, all under one umbrella. And Maverick theory does everything from branding to restaurant design to poaching to beverage program development to chef and culinary stuff. It's a great thing going on as well. I'm speaking at next Gen restaurant summit in September and then in San Antonio at bar and restaurant Expo in October.

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Angelo Esposito [00:42:20]:

Very nice. That's amazing. So we'll definitely plug all those. So for people who didn't have time or they're in their car listening to this, we'll put it in the description so you'll have all these links easily accessible. So once again, Monte Silva, owner and restaurant executive coach of Monte Silva coaching. You can check him out. Excuse me@Montesilvacoaching.com. finding on LinkedIn newsletters, podcasts, you name it, he's got it all.

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Angelo Esposito [00:42:44]:

So thank you so much for joining us today, monsieur, I love the wisdom you were able to share with, you know, 40 years of experience. So thank you for joining us and sharing some of that knowledge.

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Monte Silva [00:42:54]:

Thank you. Angelo. Angelo, it's a pleasure being on the show.

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Angelo Esposito [00:42:57]:

Feel free to check out WISK.ai for more resources and schedule a demo with one of our product specialists to see if it's a fit for.

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