Josh Kopel is a Michelin-awarded restaurateur, entrepreneur, and Founder of Flo Hospitality Solutions, a company helping restaurants enhance customer experiences and profitability through innovative marketing strategies. With decades of experience owning and operating successful restaurants and generating millions in sales through viral campaigns, he is a proven leader in the hospitality industry. Josh specializes in crafting brand narratives, launching impactful social media campaigns, and creating strategies that drive revenue, build loyalty, and boost profitability. He is also the host of the Full Comp Podcast, creator of the Restaurant Marketing School, and a former President of the California Restaurant Association.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [02:02] Josh Kopel shares his early experiences selling fruits and his father’s influence on his mindset
- [05:56] Secrets to success from an 80-year-old mentor at a uniform store
- [07:38] Why Josh fell in love with hospitality
- [09:27] How connecting with celebrities can skyrocket your brand
- [11:11] The challenges of managing supply chains and financial hardship in the 2008 crisis
- [18:15] The importance of learning the fundamentals of fine dining
- [22:00] How diversifying menus can transform restaurant fortunes
- [29:43] Josh talks about his partnership with Yelp to create the Full Comp Podcast
- [34:33] Why Josh started Restaurant Marketing School
- [38:04] The three pillars of marketing for restaurant success
In this episode…
Running a successful restaurant in today’s highly competitive and fast-paced market comes with unique challenges — from standing out in a crowded space to maintaining profitability and customer loyalty. Many restaurateurs struggle to create effective marketing strategies, build authentic brand narratives, and adapt to changing consumer expectations. Without the right tools and insights, even the most passionate entrepreneurs can face burnout, missed opportunities, and financial losses.
Josh Kopel, Michelin-awarded restaurateur and entrepreneur, shares his proven strategies for overcoming these hurdles. Drawing from decades of experience, Josh emphasizes the importance of crafting compelling brand stories, leveraging viral campaigns, and utilizing social media to boost visibility and profitability. He highlights how consistency, resilience, and customer-focused messaging can turn ideas into results, transform struggling businesses, and create lasting customer relationships. By pairing storytelling with data-driven tactics, Josh demonstrates how restaurant owners can build loyalty, optimize operations, and thrive even in challenging markets.
Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Josh Kopel, Founder of Flo Hospitality Solutions, about making an impact in the hospitality industry. The conversation takes us from delightful stories of Hollywood nightclubs to the grind behind scaling a fine dining restaurant, culminating in the pivot that led Josh to partner with Yelp and launch a successful podcast. It’s an enlightening look at the intersection of grit, social connection, and resilience.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- John Corcoran on LinkedIn
- Rise25
- Josh Kopel: LinkedIn | Website
- FULL COMP Podcast
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Cialdini Robert B, PhD
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization
Quotable Moments:
- “Just because it hurts and you feel like stopping doesn’t mean you should. Grit and resilience are muscles you can strengthen.”
- “If you sell yourself, they will buy whatever you put in front of them. Few things have proven truer.”
- “Attempting to become the best in the world doesn’t make you popular. The way you get to the top isn’t the way you stay there.”
- “People willing to pay for food aren’t necessarily willing to pay for eating and drinking. That’s where the premium comes in.”
- “Most people, regardless of industry, are selling what’s not selling well — instead of doubling down on what’s working.”
Action Steps:
- Cultivate grit and resilience: By intentionally facing challenges and pushing through discomfort, individuals can strengthen their mental resilience, which is crucial for overcoming obstacles in any professional field.
- Leverage storytelling in marketing: By embedding meaningful narratives into marketing strategies, businesses can connect emotionally with their audience and foster loyalty, making them stand out in a crowded market.
- Prioritize customer engagement and feedback: This proactive approach to customer feedback shows the value of building genuine relationships with clients, which can lead to improved services and increased customer retention.
- Embrace the power of consistency: By maintaining a steady and reliable presence in their field, professionals can build a trustworthy reputation and ensure long-term success.
- Expand your network and seek mentorship: Actively seeking mentorship and expanding one’s professional network can open doors to new opportunities and provide valuable insights that can guide career development.
Sponsor: Rise25
At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution.
We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work.
What do you need to start a podcast?
When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk.
The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate.
We make distribution easy
We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create a copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.
Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.
The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.
Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.
Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win?
Contact us now at [email protected] or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall.
Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
Episode Transcript
John Corcoran: 00:00
Today, we’re talking about how to make you stand out as a thought leader in your space and really create a cult-like following to those people that follow your thought leadership. My guest today is Josh Kopel. I’ll tell you more about him in a second, so stay tuned.
Intro: 00:17
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built key relationships to get where they are today. Now let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran: 00:33
All right. Welcome everyone. John Corcoran here. I’m the host of this show. And you know, if you’ve listened before that every week we talk to interesting CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs from all kinds of different companies.
If you check out the archives, we’ve got Netflix and Grubhub, Redfin, Gusto, Kinkos, YPO, EO, Activision Blizzard, lots of great episodes. Go check them out. And of course, this episode was brought to you by Rise25, our company where we help B2B businesses to get clients referrals and strategic partnerships with done-for-you podcasts and content marketing. And you can learn all about that in our new tool podcast Copilot at Rise25.com. Or you can email us at [email protected].
All right. My guest here today is Josh Kopel. He is a Michelin-awarded restaurateur and entrepreneur and the Founder of Flo Hospitality Solutions, which is a company that leverages technology to improve customer service experience in restaurants. It’s also the host of a podcast, the Full Comp Podcast, and also creator of the Restaurant Marketing School Resource that provides digital marketing tips for restaurant owners. And it also has been the president of the California Restaurant Association, which is an interesting role as well.
So we’ll ask about that. But you know that I always like to start people off by telling us what they were like as a kid. And Josh, you started out at 13 years old in the sweltering heat of Southern Louisiana, just selling fruit from your cousin’s fruit stand, which I imagine may not have had air conditioning. What exactly was that like?
Josh Kopel: 02:02
That was miserable. But I’ll tell you what it did. It did a great job of like, benchmarking what hard work was. I wish I was selling fruit. I was the guy that was unloading and loading the trucks.
And during pumpkin season and watermelon season, especially for being small, heavy age. It was a lot. What I learned through that process, which served me really well in my entrepreneurial journey, is just because it hurts and you feel like stopping it doesn’t mean you should. There’s a lot of data now that proves it, but like, there’s a muscle in your brain like this, this thing that if you work on it around grit and resilience, it’ll get better. And that experience in my formative years was great fodder for that.
John Corcoran: 02:46
Your father was a traveling salesman, and we don’t hear about that type of role much anymore. And how much of that grit did you learn from observing your father?
Josh Kopel: 02:57
A lot. You know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs would say this, that, you know, we’re all inspired by our parents in both positive and negative ways. My father was an excellent salesperson. Excellent. But he didn’t enjoy his job.
So it was this interesting parallel of seeing someone that was amazing at what they did for a living best in the world, and hated it every single day.
John Corcoran: 03:22
And so I see that so often, don’t we? Because I think maybe it just comes naturally to them maybe. Or they’re just naturally good at it. So they’re more drawn to something that they’re not as good at.
Josh Kopel: 03:33
You know, I think that certain predilections lean themselves, lend themselves to certain things. What he liked was he liked the safety and security of life, working for and with companies. So he never struck out on his own, even though there were certainly times in his life that he had the opportunity. But he was so good with people and like he could connect with people in a really human way. You know, the best advice he ever gave me was he said, if you sell yourself, they will buy whatever you put in front of them.
And few things have proven true without exception throughout my life, more so than that.
John Corcoran: 04:09
But we’ll get into that when we talk about thought leadership, starting a podcast and all that kind of stuff, because I think that that’s relevant there. You actually went on and sold uniforms at a uniform store. I did that.
Josh Kopel: 04:21
I did, and that’s when I realized that, like, attempting to become the best in the world doesn’t make you popular. You know, I can remember I got that job. It was the first legal job I had ever had. I was 16 at the time, and was working at the uniform shop part time. And I remember this moment where the other salespeople crowded me in the employee locker room and they said, you need to calm down.
You need to just chill out like no one needs to work this hard. It’s not that big of a deal. Like just chill out. And I just didn’t have that in me.
John Corcoran: 04:59
It’s funny because as we talk about that right now, you and I, I think we both get that they’re jealous or they felt like you’re setting the bar too high. That’s exactly what it was. Right. Did you get that, though, at 16? Did you realize that’s what was happening?
Josh Kopel: 05:14
I, you know, God bless my mother. My mother instilled me with just an incredible amount of confidence to the degree that, like, I figured if someone had a problem with me, but I thought I was doing world class work, it was probably on them. And for me, it wasn’t a popular game. Now, granted, what we’re here to talk about today is the popularity game. But the way you get to the top isn’t the way you stay there.
And so I was relentless. I was ruthless in my pursuit of excellence from my very early age. And it was this, this uniform.
John Corcoran: 05:52
I think there was a story around the founder of this uniform? Yes. Yes.
Josh Kopel: 05:57
So if you were to ask me today, what is the most critical element of success when it comes to sales? It’s consistent. Consistency and execution in. This came from a man named Ernest Dam, who I am sure died a very long time ago, but in his 80s, and this was in the early 90s, he hit 80 something years old. He came to speak to all of us.
And this was this is.
John Corcoran: 06:22
While you were at the uniform store.
Josh Kopel: 06:24
This was like the orientation for the uniform store.
John Corcoran: 06:26
Okay, okay.
Josh Kopel: 06:27
an 80 year old man walks in with Parkinson’s, stands in front of everyone and says, this is a true story. And I was young. Everyone else in the room was young too. Totally inappropriate. But spot on he goes.
Sales is like standing on a street corner and asking every woman that walks by to sleep with you, you’re going to get slapped in the face a lot, but every now and then you’re going to get laid.
John Corcoran: 06:55
You’re 16 and this guy is 80 years old.
Josh Kopel: 06:58
Man with Parkinson’s. But he’s right. Like, what makes you successful in sales is the consistency and execution. It’s understanding that no’s are part of the process. And it laid fertile ground for what has been, you know, a successful career.
John Corcoran: 07:14
Wow. Did the uniform store business lead to the clothing line that you eventually founded? Local God clothing? It did. Unrelated.
Josh Kopel: 07:26
It’s completely unrelated. I then got into the first time I walked into a bar. I was 17 years old. Everyone was looking at the girls. I was looking at the bartenders going, oh my God, I want to do that.
John Corcoran: 07:38
Because they. Because the girl, because they’re kind of the gatekeeper. They’re in charge. They’re the gods in the.
Josh Kopel: 07:44
And I saw a stage, I saw a platform. I saw a place where nobody could immediately become somebody.
John Corcoran: 07:52
Was this like a Coyote ugly bar type of thing, or what was it about it?
Josh Kopel: 07:55
Yeah, it was I mean, not not exactly that the bartenders weren’t dancing on the bar, but it was a stage and they were performers. And the energy that stemmed from the bar and the bartenders is ultimately recreated. The energy that everyone else got to enjoy. And I saw that, and I wanted that. I didn’t just want to be a part of that, but I wanted to wield that.
I wanted to host those parties, and that was my entrance into hospitality.
John Corcoran: 08:22
Yeah. And so you eventually get into managing nightclubs, right?
Josh Kopel: 08:26
I was in Hollywood in the early 2000.
John Corcoran: 08:29
Okay. Crazy time.
Josh Kopel: 08:31
Wild. And what I realized was that the model for nightclubs could ultimately be adjusted for different purposes. And so I asked myself at the time, and I wasn’t an entrepreneur. I said, what is something that I could do that is relatively low cost, where I could leverage the relationships I have for a better outsized outcome. And I knew every celebrity on the planet.
Like, everyone came to this nightclub and to the other ones. And so I had this amazing network. So I made shirts which, looking back, weren’t great to begin with. But I turned to all of these celebrities and I said, Will you wear these clothes? And they said, yes.
And then I photographed them in the clothes. Now I understand they’re not in stores. You can’t buy them. But then I signed up for a trade show for like $1,500 in Las Vegas. And in there, all I had was a rack of these samples and photos of celebrities wearing the clothes.
John Corcoran: 09:27
Okay. Okay.
Josh Kopel: 09:28
Flash to record breaking sales for a company that had no inventory. And we launched through Barneys New York and Kitson LA, which is unheard of. Those are aspirational brands when you start a clothing line.
John Corcoran: 09:43
What was different about it? Was there anything different about the product itself, or was it just that this is basically early influencer marketing before everyone had been using that term.
Josh Kopel: 09:53
Yes. So what we did was every shirt had a screen print on it. You remember the early 2000?
John Corcoran: 09:59
Oh yeah. It wasn’t it wasn’t a high point for t-shirts for sure.
Josh Kopel: 10:02
Certainly wasn’t. Yeah. And every shirt had a story screened on the inside of it.
John Corcoran: 10:07
Story screened on the inside of it. Right on the.
Josh Kopel: 10:10
Inside of the shirt that told the story of why we made that shirt with the images on the shirt meant. And so it did a couple of different things. Number one, when you look at t-shirts in general, it’s a commodity business. So what we did was we went to every Barneys New York that was carrying the clothes in the first 30 days. We gave the entire staff clothing and we walked them through the stories on the inside of the shirts.
Because how do you sell a commodity? You need a differentiating factor. Yeah. So instead of saying all of these shirts have screens, pick the one you like best. I’d say, check this out.
This is the story behind this shirt. Yeah. So in giving salespeople the tools they needed to sell, we were able to sell through across the board, which ultimately led to 8000 doors in seven countries nationally over the course of two years.
John Corcoran: 10:58
Wow. That’s crazy, crazy growth. There must have been some challenges along the way. You alluded to it didn’t have any supply. What were some of the biggest challenges to keep up with that growth?
Josh Kopel: 11:11
It was a supply chain. I mean, and this is the pattern throughout my career is I get into things I know very little about and then I’ve got to learn rapidly. Marketing is my core competency. I understand what people want because the only people I sell to are people exactly like me. And fortunately, I am as average as they come.
So would I, like most people like. So I’m able to play the averages that way. Supply chain was an issue. It is a tight margin based business, and ultimately it was so hard to tell whether we were making money or not, because the way you pay is not the way you get paid. And so all of the vendors you work with are net seven or Cod.
But like once you hit the big boys like we do Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, Federated like expect.
John Corcoran: 12:01
60 day terms, 90 day terms, maybe a lot longer.
Josh Kopel: 12:04
You have 60 days. They’ll see you in 120.
John Corcoran: 12:08
Yeah.
Josh Kopel: 12:08
And they’re going to send back all of the clothes that didn’t sell.
John Corcoran: 12:11
So you have a cash challenge.
Josh Kopel: 12:12
You do. So there was a constant cash crunch. Yeah. And so four years into the financial crisis happened.
John Corcoran: 12:21
And we’re in 2008 here.
Josh Kopel: 12:23
Yeah.
John Corcoran: 12:24
Okay. Okay.
Josh Kopel: 12:25
And so I had a choice. I could either sweat myself in a bar at 4:00 in the morning, or I could be at a screen printer in downtown Los Angeles at 4:00 in the morning. So I decided to get back to my roots. I saw a hole in the market, especially with the economic downturn. And so I opened a dive bar, and I licensed the clothing line and used that money to finance a dive bar in Hollywood.
John Corcoran: 12:50
Oh, wow. All right, before we get too far away from the managing nightclubs, what was kind of the craziest. Give me a couple crazy stories of managing nightclub stories.