Josh Kopel: 12:59
So this is the early 2000, and it is just wild times. If you can imagine, this is the area of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and the Simpson sisters and the Duff sisters and all of these people, quite possibly the greatest night. There are some funny, sad stories in there, but I’ll tell you about the greatest night of my life as a young man from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I am like 22 years old, running an 8000 square foot nightclub in Hollywood. I mean, just the dream of all dreams.
And Justin Timberlake had just released his first single, and at the time, we had this, like, live drum performer that had this gigantic drum set that, like, he would, like, jump up and slam the cymbals. It was this whole thing and he played along with the DJ. Okay. And I’m talking with that guy. He’s not performing at the time, and I’m standing on the stage and I’m looking out, and it’s every celebrity you could imagine.
And like the guys from that 70s show and everyone, everyone is there. It’s an amazing time. Everybody’s having an amazing time. Justin Timberlake’s new single comes on, and all of a sudden I hear the drums, the guy performing the drums, but the guy that’s performing the drums is standing right next to me. Who’s performing on the drums?
It was Justin Timberlake. He had come through the back entrance and was performing to his own song. And so in a 20 year old’s mind from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Yeah. It was just surreal.
John Corcoran: 14:29
Yeah. That’s nuts. He seems like a deliberate guy. Like, he would have, like, orchestrated that somehow. Or do you think it was just a total coincidence?
Like he happened to be there, heard the heard it and then just hopped on the drums?
Josh Kopel: 14:39
It was just that he was there every Tuesday, like everyone else. I still don’t know how he snuck on the stage, but yeah, it’s crazy.
John Corcoran: 14:46
That’s crazy, that’s crazy. So you end up. So you end up selling them. Oh, there was also a Paris Hilton story. Is there a Paris Hilton story?
Josh Kopel: 14:55
Yes. Back when Paris Hilton was dating the other Paris. Her boyfriend. When they were leaving the nightclub, one day or one evening, they ran over my head of security, literally like a roll. He rolled over the hood of the car as they were trying to escape the paparazzi.
John Corcoran: 15:11
Oh, crap. Wow. That’s nuts. All right, so you end up that, like you said, you licensed the clothing line in order to fund your first bar. So you’re moving out from managing bars to managing your own bar, owning your own bar and managing it.
What was that transition like?
Josh Kopel: 15:31
It was great. I mean, it’s, you know, like people that experience early success, you become a victim of your own success. So the story gets worse and harder as you go. But I saw a pain point in the market and it was this mixture of these nightclubs with this exclusive access and all of that paired with when you think about Hollywood, the bar was on Hollywood Boulevard. You think about tourists.
But what I saw as a local was that this is a densely populated residential area, and more than anything, and you hear about it on the news today, these people are transplants. Me too. And they’re lonely and they’re seeking connection. And what I love most about the bars I grew up in is that you could go by yourself. The bartenders would befriend you and they would introduce you to other people.
And so in creating that and creating inclusivity instead of exclusivity, we developed a cult following. And the bar made a fortune from the day it opened. So the.
John Corcoran: 16:28
The, the kind of the opposite of the clothing line.
Josh Kopel: 16:31
Yeah. Well, yeah, absolutely. The opposite of the clothing line. The opposite of the nightclubs. It was an entirely new thing.
And what was a market that was desperate for it?
John Corcoran: 16:40
I’m curious because, you know, in my career, I’ve gone from the high of highs to the low of lows. I think a lot of us have. Right. Sure. I mean, I worked at the white House and.
And then a few years later, I’m in law school where I’m just one of many. Right. You know, and just nose to the grindstone type thing, and everyone’s. Well, you look up and you’re like, shit, what happened to me? Right.
What was it like for you going from that high of highs, managing these nightclubs, all these celebrities to, like, schlepping, putting together a dive bar? I mean, there must have been times where you’re, like, mopping the floor or cleaning the toilet or something, and you’re like, what did I do?
Josh Kopel: 17:13
Oh, see, for me, that was the next adventure when I got into fine dining because nothing, nothing was translated. Okay, okay. So.
John Corcoran: 17:22
So the dive bar wasn’t as much of a jump as the switching to find.
Josh Kopel: 17:26
Out, you know, going into fine dining at a 900 square foot bar on Hollywood Boulevard that printed money. And then I went to A600 zero square foot, two story fine dining restaurant. And I literally never worked in a restaurant a day in my life. It came exclusively at a nightclub before opening this thing. And so when I talk about being a victim of my own success, it’s that hubris that comes from, you know, how could I fail?
Everything I touch turns to gold. And that thing lost a quarter million dollars its first year in business. Oh my.
John Corcoran: 17:59
Gosh. Wow. So do you have investors for this or is it all your own money?
Josh Kopel: 18:03
You did. I did, and some of my own money as well.
John Corcoran: 18:06
What are you thinking at the end of that year, as you’ve lost all that money and it sounds like it was more evident to you than it was with the clothing line where you have these payment terms and you’re not sure what your profitability is.
Josh Kopel: 18:16
Oh, it was brutal. I mean, it’s, you know, and on top of it, we were doing a terrible job. So it’s not like people enjoyed the food and beverage or they enjoyed the experience. We were constantly scrambling. And, you know, if you were to ask me to define success at the lowest point, it would be breaking even and not apologizing to someone.
Which is not where you want to be, you know? Right, right. And so.
John Corcoran: 18:40
So how did you turn it around?
Josh Kopel: 18:42
I took over, and I just became a student of the game. And so it became more about learning the fundamentals of fine dining, meeting the expectations of an entirely new audience. And I got very lucky. I fired the executive chef and brought in a new executive chef, who ultimately became one of my partners in that project. He was a very experienced chef who was generous with the wisdom that he had.
And he taught me so much of what served me well as an operator in fine dining.
John Corcoran: 19:14
And the fine dining restaurant. Was it in the New Orleans theme?
Josh Kopel: 19:18
So they were all southern in nature. I’m a one trick pony. Well.
John Corcoran: 19:24
Talk about that. I mean, do you think that that differentiation helped also because, you know, there I you know, I live in San Francisco. You live in San Diego and there are southern fine dining restaurants. There are some, but not a lot. It’s different in the fine dining world.
So was it very different? Was it? Did it help to differentiate you?
Josh Kopel: 19:49
I mean, I think a lesson that applies to everyone in business was what we learned was like for us what did they say? The riches don’t exist in niches. We launched as Cajun and Creole and so and we captured 100% of the demand that existed for that. Unfortunately, in Los Angeles it was like 18 people. And I’ve got one right.
And my lease rate is $21,000 a month.
John Corcoran: 20:15
So you expanded into more southern broads.
Josh Kopel: 20:18
We went from Cajun and Creole to Southern to New American, ultimately to American cuisine. Yeah. And then once I got your attention, I could niche down. But it was about creating a wide enough top of the funnel that once you were in, we could then effectively differentiate. Yeah, I think that’s a mistake a lot of people make.
like yeah, and went out looking for Cajun and Creole food. Right. But if you’re looking for American food, this might work for you.
John Corcoran: 20:49
And when you were going through this struggle this first year or two years, when you’re trying to get the traction, I don’t know what years this was, but, you know, now today we’ve got Yelp, we’ve got all these different review sites, and many of these restaurants are just are victim to these things. I’ve seen restaurants start and then totally rebrand three months later because they got a ton of bad reviews and they just can’t continue to exist with all those bad reviews. Was the landscape a lot different back then? No, it is.
Josh Kopel: 21:19
Was the same. I mean, look, I don’t want you to think that, like, you know, when I took the helm, we turned this thing around in six weeks or in six months? Yeah. I still spent a year apologizing. I was just spending a year apologizing for what we did the year prior, I reached out.
I mean, thank God I didn’t need to rebrand. I reached out to everyone that left a bad review and I was like, you’re not wrong. Here’s what I would like for you to do. I’d like you to bring in the same people, and I want you to come in for dinner, and I’m going to pay for it.
John Corcoran: 21:49
Wow. Really? Wow.
Josh Kopel: 21:50
Absolutely.
John Corcoran: 21:51
Wow. And what was that like when, like, diners came back in and they’re like, I got this message on Yelp from this guy who says that he owns it, and he’s going to pay for my meal. Really?
Josh Kopel: 22:01
Yeah. For sure. That’s exactly what it was. Look, I think you do a good job. You get paid, you do a bad job, which we did an objectively bad job.
We’ll pay. I just, you know, I think that people that are passionate about food are foodies. People that are passionate about people open restaurants. And I never took a single bad review with a grain of salt. Every bad review is true to them.
That is their truth. And they are so true, in fact, that they took time out of their day to talk shit about you online. And so like if I failed to meet your expectations, regardless of where your expectations were. I’m sorry. Now, I’m not sorry that you have a gutter palate.
I’m not sorry that you don’t get what we’re trying to do here, but I am sorry that, like, you came to me in good faith, and either I failed to set the right expectation or I failed to meet the expectation established. And I think that’s a great takeaway for all of the businesses I’ve been a part of, you know?
John Corcoran: 23:05
Yeah. I want to take a little bit of a detour here, because you eventually became president of the California Restaurant Association. How many restaurants are there in California?
Josh Kopel: 23:13
22,000 are members of the organization.
John Corcoran: 23:16
That is insane. What was that like representing? I mean, that that takes a heavy level of involvement to get to that point. But what was it like representing 22,000 restaurants? And I mean, imagine you’re like talking to legislators and things like that.
Josh Kopel: 23:29
Like, and if you could imagine this was like 2020 to almost 2022.
John Corcoran: 23:35
Oh, Covid time. Wow. Not the best.
Josh Kopel: 23:39
Time to be at the helm.
John Corcoran: 23:41
Oh, man. What was that like?
Josh Kopel: 23:42
Busy. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. And it was with.
John Corcoran: 23:47
Josh in 2020. Have said that too. Or you now say it’s amazing.
Josh Kopel: 23:52
Both.
John Corcoran: 23:53
Okay, so.
Josh Kopel: 23:55
At the top of 2020, I sold my restaurant group.
John Corcoran: 23:57
Yeah. And then that was the only thing I was going to ask about. Is that you? So you’re representing the restaurant association, but all at the same time, you sell off your.
Josh Kopel: 24:04
I sell my restaurant group. And then I decided because I didn’t want to do it anymore. Like, I just, I knew what it was going to take to keep these things afloat. Some people doubled down. I wasn’t one of those guys.
I had the entire group in escrow and sold by May of 2020.
John Corcoran: 24:21
He sold them all together.
Josh Kopel: 24:23
I sold them individually. Oh, you did okay.
John Corcoran: 24:26
Yeah, because fine dining was one of those categories that really struggled because they couldn’t do any takeout. You know, they had no.
Josh Kopel: 24:34
Delivery that took it over thought they were going to be open in 60 days. Right. And they got to this amazing location with this studied past. I gave him the recipes, I gave him the branding, I sold everything.
John Corcoran: 24:47
All that because.
Josh Kopel: 24:48
They thought they were getting a turnkey $5 million a year business. Which didn’t end up opening for another, I think 16, 17 months.
John Corcoran: 24:57
Oh, brutal. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And it was out.
It would just drag you down, I imagine.
Josh Kopel: 25:04
Oh, for sure.
John Corcoran: 25:05
Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Kopel: 25:05
And I was already burnt out anyway. And what I was interested in at the time was really impactful. I’m sure many of us, I’m sure many of the people listening. You fancy yourself a thought leader? Yeah.
I just thought I had interesting ideas. I thought I saw the world differently, I thought I saw my industry differently.
John Corcoran: 25:23
Let’s get to it. I want to get to the podcast that you end up starting in partnership with Yelp. But before we do that, California Restaurant Association. So you’re you know, I imagine you sell off your restaurant group at the same time you’re advocating, I imagine, for the restaurants to give them greater leniency to allow them to open up because many of them were being forced to shutter during this period of time. Talk a little bit about that, those conversations and what that was like.
Josh Kopel: 25:49
So I’ll start by saying I think most politicians are well-meaning. Having said that, like they lack deep understanding of, you know, I am a great example. I think that in almost any industry, most of what they prescribe, most of the changes they want to make to our industry would make sense, but not in our industry, not when the margins are this thin, not when the workforce looks and behaves in the way that it does. And so you spend a lot of your time educating your base about what they need to watch out for. But you also spend a lot of time educating politicians about the nuances of our industry.
John Corcoran: 26:28
And that was that, you know, I mean, you, you know, we have politicians who’ve been to a restaurant, but that doesn’t mean they worked in a restaurant. So was that a struggle to educate them on what it was like to manage and run a restaurant?
Josh Kopel: 26:41
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a massive delta between the life within a restaurant and the life of a restaurateur. And so just because you own a beautiful, nice restaurant doesn’t mean you own a beautiful, nice home. You know, and so being able to separate the two and explain, like, this is what it’s like to run these things. These are what the statistics look like.
It’s one thing to know that like eight of ten restaurants fail in the first five years. It’s another thing to meet the restaurateurs that are struggling. That number also negates everyone that’s breaking even every year. That just keeps it going for a couple of decades. Yeah.
John Corcoran: 27:19
Yeah. Yeah. You hear about that all the time? Yeah. You do.
What is behind the fundamentals of restaurants that you hear this all the time. Those restaurants have super thin margins. Why is that?
Josh Kopel: 27:30
It’s because you’re in a commodity business. so people are willing to pay for food and beverage, but they’re not necessarily willing to pay for eating and drinking. And that’s really where the premium comes in. So when you look at the burger on your plate and you say, why is this burger and fries $26, it’s not the chair that you’re sitting in in the building that you’re in, right in the labor associated with getting this done. Now, our first employee for a fine dining restaurant, our first employee arrived at the restaurant at 5: 30 in the morning for a 6 p.m. dinner service.
John Corcoran: 28:03
Wow. Wow.
Josh Kopel: 28:04
That’s what’s required in a scratch kitchen. And I think that the hurdle from a restaurateurs perspective is that if we’re doing it right, it seems effortless. And so without seeing the effort that goes into an effortless process, you think.
John Corcoran: 28:21
Why am I paying $150 for this meal? That looks like I could have done it, and they don’t realize how hard it is?
Josh Kopel: 28:26
Right. You look at the burger and you say, I could make this at home. To which I would say, make a thousand of them at home, John. In the.
John Corcoran: 28:35
Thousand. Right. Right. And serve them hot to people when they expect it within, you know, whatever it is 12 and 14 minutes from when they are there. But I was in the seat.
Yeah.
Josh Kopel: 28:45
Yeah, absolutely. You know, we would have to love my people from Louisiana. And you know when you’re serving cultural food, you’re not competing against other restaurants in that cuisine. You’re competing against uncles and aunts and grandmothers because that’s how they remember gumbo and etouffee and jambalaya and all of these things. And people would pop their heads in the kitchen and they’d say, you know, my grandmother makes better gumbo.
To which I would say, let’s get her on the line. Let’s see her push through 1500 covers tonight and let’s see how she does.
John Corcoran: 29:16
Yeah, right. One is fine, right? Sure. Well, let’s get to you. Sell the restaurant empire and you decide that you had a relationship with Yelp.
I’m not sure what that relationship was, but you decided to partner with them to create some media, create a podcast, which a lot of people did at the start of the pandemic. Talk a little bit about that idea, because, again, another complete pivot for you in your career.
Josh Kopel: 29:43
Yes. So I had started in the winter of 2019. I created a short video series that I had done nothing with. I had just shot it, and I was friends with one of the executives over at Yelp, and we had gotten coffee like once a month. No expectations.
He wanted to get closer with restaurateurs. He was a former restaurateur himself, and I just thought he was an interesting guy. So we met when the pandemic hits, everything gets shut down, and he checks in on me. He goes, how are you doing? And I said, I’m good.
And he goes, what are you thinking about doing? And I said, well, I guess I’ll get into the thought leadership space. And he goes, you know, those full comp videos that you made? I sent those to a couple other guys and we’re interested in doing media. What do you think it could look like?
And I told him I was obsessed with the idea of doing a show. Because you need context. Like if I just called you on the phone, John, and asked you a bunch of intimate questions about your business, you’re going to give me a restraining order.
John Corcoran: 30:44
Exactly. Right. Right.
Josh Kopel: 30:46
But if I’m like, hey, John, I have a podcast. And I asked the same exact question. Yes, you know, the context proves the model. So I wanted to do a show and, like, you know, an artist would tell you, I don’t care if anyone listens. If I’m able to impact one person’s life, then it’s all worth it.
I’ve never been that guy. I never wanted to scream into the abyss. So I turned to Yelp and I said, you have an audience and no content. I’m creating content with no audience. And it created this beautiful, meaningful strategic partnership where we were working collaboratively to create world class content.
Hands are off. They let me say what I want to say. Interview. I want to interview. Do what I want to do.
And then they would push it out to a quarter million restaurant owners and operators that had claimed their Yelp for business profile.
John Corcoran: 31:37
Amazing. Wow. What did they get out of it? Is it just like the good quality content that they can share with their community?
Josh Kopel: 31:47
So you think about Yelp, which is a $1 billion publicly traded company, and you think this ubiquitous thing needs nothing. But I wasn’t working with Yelp. I was working with this small startup within Yelp called Yelp for restaurants. And it started out as this, like, little singular product, a couple of professional marketers and a bunch of former restaurateurs. And so this tiny division within Yelp was looking to create an impact, looking to differentiate, looking to specialize, looking to make a name for themselves within this highly competitive industry.
And that’s who I worked with. So it was great because I went from working with restaurant people to working with restaurant people on this thing that we were all super passionate about, and.
John Corcoran: 32:32
It allowed them to kind of get the word out about this product, this new startup idea within the larger Yelp ecosystem.
Josh Kopel: 32:39
Exactly.
John Corcoran: 32:40
What has it been like for you? I know you’ve had a bunch of celebrity chefs and, you know, amazing restaurateurs on the show. What has it been like for you as a former restaurateur now to have these conversations with these incredibly successful restaurateurs?
Josh Kopel: 32:54
Oh my God, I mean, you do it for a living as well, so I’m sure you can appreciate it. But it is like your childhood dream or your adult dream that comes to fruition to sit across from and look not just like the brightest minds in my industry. Like I’ve interviewed Seth Godin and Robert Green from the 48 Laws of Power and Grant Cardone and all of these different people that I was interested in, that I was curious about, that. I had specific questions I wanted to ask and to be able to sit across from them, definitely engage them in conversation that they seem interested in, which is super flattering, but also to be able to walk away with actionable information. I mean, it’s been transformative.
It’s made me a better restaurateur after the fact.
John Corcoran: 33:40
Yeah, yeah, that’s so cool. It’s amazing to be able to have those types of conversations with people. And sometimes you’re just pinching yourself like, I can’t believe I get to ask this person questions that I’m curious about here.
Josh Kopel: 33:50
Dude, John, I get on the call with Seth Godin. And the first question I asked him, I was like, why did you choose me? Because I just cold emailed him and I was like, why did he like it? I need to know. I need to know what it was that I said that did it. And he was like, that’s not really germane to the conversation.
Let’s move on. And I was like, okay.
John Corcoran: 34:09
I withdraw the question, I apologize.
Josh Kopel: 34:11
I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t looking for a hug. Let’s keep going.
John Corcoran: 34:14
It doesn’t seem like a fairly innocuous question to me. So, I don’t know, maybe he didn’t like it. The guy’s been interviewed a lot. Maybe he’s like, come on, move on, get to the meeting.
Josh Kopel: 34:25
He was like, let’s just do this thing.
John Corcoran: 34:27
Very cool. Now you also created a, you call it restaurant marketing school. It’s a.
Josh Kopel: 34:34
Restaurant. The restaurant scaling system is actually like that. It is the Productized coaching and consulting platform. Okay.
John Corcoran: 34:41
Yeah. So talk about that idea behind it.
Josh Kopel: 34:43
So, you know, as it relates to thought leadership and all of this, the idea was, you know, that was what’s the old marketing phrase like, what can you do with an audience? Anything you want. So once I had achieved the audience, right. And I had like this massive following, they were like, so what do you have to sell me? Yeah.
And I had nothing to sell. So what I did was, I signed up for a mastermind that would teach you how to codify what you know, that mastermind was called block black belt. Nothing but good things to say about it and talking more. They’re brilliant. And so I learned how to codify what I know and how to effectively coach in a group coaching model, And then I took that to marketing or to market.
And I can tell you, you know, you learn by doing, but you also learn by teaching. And I would argue that I have become an exponentially better restaurateur since no longer actively operating restaurants than I ever was as a restaurateur, because I am able to ideate and iterate across more than 100 restaurants simultaneously.
John Corcoran: 35:53
And were there any there? Were there any beliefs where, once you got into this teaching, kind of challenged your belief? Like you mentioned earlier, the idea that riches aren’t in the niches. That was one example. But are there any other beliefs that you had fundamental beliefs that were kind of rocked by getting into teaching this?
Josh Kopel: 36:16
Yes. If you can envision a scenario where you get into something and you build an entire thing out believing that, like, no one’s going to be into this stuff, no one’s going to want to do this. When it comes to consulting, like the most popular models are done for you, right? Then the next most popular is done with you, and then the third is you do it. Yeah.
I’m the best in the world at marketing, I think, especially as it relates to my industry. There are few, if any, that are better than me in what I do for a living. But I’m not going to do it for you because there’s no value in that. And every, every other consultant I had ever worked with throughout my career attempted to immobilize me. They didn’t want me to know what they were doing or how they were doing.
They just wanted to do it for me and create some level of dependency. And I just didn’t want that. So the model that I created was like, you do it and I’ll help you do it. And if you hit roadblocks, I’ll help you overcome them. But like, you need to learn these skills and you can’t delegate it out until you’ve mastered it yourself, because that’s the framework that served me well.
And so that’s what I built. Believing that people that work 80 to 100 hours a week would have absolutely no interest in doing what I’m offering. But as it turns out, people were ravenous because they wanted to be told what to do, and they wanted to learn the skills and they didn’t want it done for them.
John Corcoran: 37:44
I’m curious, are there any examples that come to mind of clients that you’ve worked with or restaurants that you’ve worked with, where they came in and they were struggling and they didn’t know how to market that restaurant? Like any examples you can give of, you know, how you helped them through that. You know how to get attention for their restaurant today?
Josh Kopel: 38:04
Absolutely. So I’ll supply you with the framework, which I think would be useful for anyone in any industry. There are only three pillars to the program, and I could cite 100 examples of how people turned around their businesses, how they doubled and tripled revenues and all of this, but in my mind there are only three pillars and the first is profitability. Like, are you running the most profitable version of your business today? So in full transparency, I only work with businesses that are doing at least half $1 million in revenue a year.
So because if you’ve hit that, we then get into the next pillar, which is awareness. So once I’ve helped you achieve profitability at whatever your current sales volume is, then it makes more sense to try and drive new traffic. Now, awareness for me really only consists of two things, right? And I think this is true for everyone. If you’re not getting enough new customers, it’s either due to a product market fit issue or an awareness issue.
There’s nothing else that could possibly be. Either everybody knows and nobody cares or nobody knows, but if they cared, they would come. And so we figure out which one it is. Sometimes we’re massaging product markets fit slightly, ever so slightly. But again, if you’re doing half $1 million a year in the restaurant business, there is some degree of product market fit there.
And so then we scale awareness and we do it through storytelling. I think by and large, social media has been used the wrong way. And so I teach them a very prescriptive way to use social media in a way that creates massive conversion in addition to massive awareness. And then the third step is customer frequency, which I think is true for all of us in my industry. It’s, you know, what, if the infrequent people came once a month?
And what if once a month people came twice a month? And it’s something nobody ever focuses on? What I find amazing is people will ignore their best customers to try and get this proverbial new customer that they don’t even know.
John Corcoran: 40:11
I think that’s true in many industries where it’s kind of more exciting to go after the people that they don’t know, rather than the people that have been dining there once a week, every week for years, in many cases. Yeah. Yeah. And what are some of the levers that people can pull on for customer frequency these days?
Josh Kopel: 40:29
Is it so for me? So you’ve read the book, the marketing book influence.
John Corcoran: 40:34
Yeah. Robert Cialdini. Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Kopel: 40:36
So, like, one of the greatest things that I took away from that book was this idea that people just need a reason. They just need a reason to act. It doesn’t matter what the reason is. The reason doesn’t need to be a good reason. They just need a reason to act.
And so what I have seen, and when it comes to customer frequency, is that you look at a restaurant’s newsletter and we all receive restaurant newsletters and it’s about awareness, right? We’re doing this and this and this and this and this. Come to any one of these things. And so what do you do? You delete the newsletter and you don’t go to any of them.
I believe that most people, regardless of industry, have a messaging problem, a focus problem, as it’s related to their marketing, and they’re always trying to sell the things that aren’t selling well, instead of trying to double down on selling the things that are selling well. So like when my restaurants and they see massive conversion as a result when they send a newsletter, that newsletter has three reasons to come in for dinner this weekend. I’m not trying to get you in on Tuesday when you don’t actually want to go in. I’m just saying, if you’re already going out this weekend, here are three great reasons to choose us with a singular call to action. Click here to book.
And so it’s the focus in marketing. I’ve never gone into anyone’s business and like to build out their marketing. It’s always been about pulling away the non-essential, leaving them only with a focused message which directly relates to an action.
John Corcoran: 42:00
Yeah. That’s great. Josh, this has been really interesting. I’d love to wrap up with my gratitude question. So I’m a big fan of giving my guests a little space to acknowledge people that have helped them along the way in their journey, especially peers or contemporaries.
Anyone in particular you’d want to shout out and thank.
Josh Kopel: 42:19
I always think about this guy, Gerald Franks. So if you could flashback like 30 years at this point, I just moved to Los Angeles before the days of the nightclubs and all of that. I mean, Kinko’s Xeroxing resumes to go drop off at bars, and this guy walks in with one of those 24 hour fitness gym boxes. You know, enter here to win a year long membership. And I turned to him and I said, hey, are you guys hiring?
And he goes, you have an accent. Where are you from? And I said, I’m from Baton Rouge. And he goes, oh, my whole family’s from Mississippi. What are you looking to do?
And I said, you know, I’d love to be a personal trainer. I thought I could be good at it. I don’t have any certifications. He goes, oh, well, they’ll certify you as a trainer. You seem like a nice guy.
Come in tomorrow. I’ll tell the manager that you and I are close friends, and I’ve known you my whole life. And she’ll hire you. Little did I know that there were, like, eight, 24 hour fitnesses in Los Angeles at the time. So I kept ping ponging from one to the next until ultimately I found him at one and he did exactly that.
And it was through that job that I met the door guy at the nightclub that I ultimately ran, which is where I met the designer that I started my clothing line with. And it was through that clothing line that I met my business partners that I opened the bar with, and the rest is history. But it all started with Gerald’s generosity.
John Corcoran: 43:41
And just sticking out your hand and introducing yourself to someone in line at a Kinkos and having striking up a conversation with them. That’s so cool. I love that story. Josh, where can people go to learn more about you and connect with you? And check out the Full Comp Podcast.
Josh Kopel: 43:56
Go to joshkopel.com for all things me.
John Corcoran: 44:00
Awesome. Josh, thanks so much.
Outro: 44:04
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