Shownotes
Our discussion today centers on the transformative journey of Shawn Walchef, the proprietor of Cali Barbecue, as he elucidates the significance of integrating media and hospitality in the contemporary barbecue business landscape. Central to this conversation is the notion that every establishment can harness the power of the internet to cultivate a media presence, thereby enhancing their outreach and profitability. Shawn shares his experiences of navigating the challenges of launching a restaurant during economic downturns and the subsequent evolution into a multimedia enterprise that effectively tells compelling stories of barbecue. We delve into various strategies for utilizing social media to engage audiences authentically, emphasizing the importance of showcasing the intricacies of the barbecue preparation process. Join us as we explore how passion for craft barbecue, combined with innovative marketing, can yield sustainable growth in the culinary domain.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Penn Hills Natural Beef
- Cali Barbecue
- Toast
- Heritage Steel
- Hammer Stahl
- Pig Powder
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
It's time for Barbecue Nation with jt so fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.
Speaker A:Now from the Turn It Go Burnett Studios in Portland, here's jt.
Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker C:Hey, everybody.
Speaker C:Welcome to the nation.
Speaker C:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker C:I'm JT along with my co host and co commander, Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Speaker C:Hall of famer, I might add, Camaro.
Speaker C:Dave, Commander Chris and the rest of the crew are lurking around in the shadows as normal.
Speaker C:We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker C:Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker C:And don't forget to look at the new online store at Penn Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker C:And if you kind of type in the word or the thing, BBQ nation, you'll get 15% off your order.
Speaker C:That's something new for them, and we're helping them promote it, and we appreciate that.
Speaker C:Well, we've got a special guest today.
Speaker C:All of our guests are special, but this one's kind of really special to me because I think it was on Sean's show seven years ago or something.
Speaker C:You called me out of the blue and said, would you like to be on my show?
Speaker C:I want to do an interview with you.
Speaker C:And I. I didn't even know who you were at the time.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And I said, sure.
Speaker C:So, Sean Walcliffe from Cali Barbecue and Cali Media.
Speaker C:But now I'm reciprocating, buddy.
Speaker C:Now you're on our show.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Seven.
Speaker D:Seven years later.
Speaker E:Later.
Speaker E:It's okay.
Speaker E:It's okay.
Speaker E:We.
Speaker E:We build our.
Speaker E:Our media like we build our barbecue, and that's low and slow.
Speaker E:So it's all.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Before we go through these litany of things we're doing, what made you decide to, like, get in the barbecue restaurant business and then do a media offshoot of that?
Speaker C:And is this something you woke up with one day, Sean, and went, hey, I got an idea.
Speaker C:Or was it something that you had been kind of nurturing for a long time?
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:So we own Cali Barbecue in San Diego.
Speaker E:We have five barbecue locations, two stadium locations, two ghost kitchen locations.
Speaker E:So delivery only and takeout only.
Speaker E:Those are in Cloud Kitchen locations.
Speaker E:And then our master smokehouse and media center.
Speaker E:And we're going to be celebrating 15 years in business coming up here in April.
Speaker E:So it's been quite the journey.
Speaker E: When we opened in: Speaker E:Don't open.
Speaker E: In: Speaker E:They tell you location, location, location.
Speaker E:So I'm, I'm very bad at following advice.
Speaker E:I like to do things the hard way, and we picked many hard paths.
Speaker E:But because of all those hard paths in the last 15 years, what we've found is that any business can become their own media business because of the Internet.
Speaker E:It's allowed us to not only stay in business in the beginning, early years when we couldn't get anyone to come in and we were struggling, paying payroll and paying our bills and figuring out how to run a restaurant.
Speaker E:Now we have a barbecue media company.
Speaker E:So we work with over 13 different hospitality technology brands where they pay us money to help them with online storytelling.
Speaker E:We have four different Internet shows.
Speaker E:You can call them podcasts, but we do video as well.
Speaker E:We work with some of the best companies there are.
Speaker E:Toast is our primary technology partner, publicly traded company.
Speaker E:When we onboarded them at our barbecue restaurants, we told them we're a barbecue media company.
Speaker E:And they said, what does that mean?
Speaker E:Doesn't make any sense.
Speaker E:And we said, we're going to make B2B content.
Speaker E:So business to business content, because we learned how to do it for our own restaurant.
Speaker E:We learned how to use face, we learned how to use Instagram, use YouTube, Google, Yelp, you name it, all the different apps that come out on the phone, we figured out how to, to use them to stay in business and to build a profitable business.
Speaker E:Now we're able to produce content for our business partners in ways that, frankly, they can't do themselves.
Speaker E:And as a business owner, having another conversation with another business owner is much different than a company making a commercial.
Speaker E:So we're really excited about the future.
Speaker E:And, you know, the biggest thing for us is trying to figure out how to get more barbecue to more people, Craft barbecue.
Speaker E:The problem with barbecue is takes time and it takes expertise.
Speaker E:What we leverage is technology.
Speaker E:So if you can get more barbecue to more people, whether that's a ghost kitchen, location, stadium, airport, if we have one master smokehouse, we do it the right way every single day, focus on the craft, then we can build a more profitable and sustainable business into the future.
Speaker E:Instead of.
Speaker E:It's tough.
Speaker E:The restaurant business is a tough business.
Speaker E:It's very low margins.
Speaker E:I mean, Leanne, you know how difficult it is.
Speaker E:And you guys have interviewed all the, the best restaurant tours on the planet.
Speaker E:Now the crazy thing for me is I, I'm such a huge fan of, of this show.
Speaker E:I listening since I got into the barbecue game, Way back in the day.
Speaker E: And in: Speaker E:And we presented how to turn your barbecue business into a media business.
Speaker E: much more of a theory back in: Speaker E:But we had.
Speaker E:We had incredible people in the crowd.
Speaker E:I mean, Mike Mills, Amy Mills.
Speaker E:We had, you know, Malcolm Reed, who was in the audience.
Speaker E:We had gq, you know, Jason Ganal from GQ Barbecue, all, you name the heavyweights, they were all there.
Speaker E:And we were telling people, like, it's great to have a barbecue business, but you need to be a media business.
Speaker E:Like, you need to publish content on all these free platforms.
Speaker E: And now here we are in: Speaker E:We reached 12 million people last year.
Speaker E:Toast is our title sponsor.
Speaker E:Atmosphere is our sponsor, Davo.
Speaker E:I mean, we've got a lot of these incredible people that are paying us to have conversations that we would love to have anyway, so that's it.
Speaker D:Wow, that's a lot.
Speaker C:The big conundrum, though.
Speaker C:Yeah, it is fantastic.
Speaker C:The big conundrum, Sean, for a lot of people, is they.
Speaker C:They create content for YouTube or on the web, whatever, but they.
Speaker C:It takes a while to build up, so you've got a reach that you can then talk to significant sponsors.
Speaker C:A lot of people in the barbecue business, they go to, we want to get a charcoal company, we want to get a grill company.
Speaker C:We want to, you know, that's fine.
Speaker C:Those are some of the basics.
Speaker C:But when you reach out to mega companies, if you will, and is it really all about downloads, numbers, clicks, whatever you want to call it, because they're all kind of in the same bowl?
Speaker C:Or is it also about content and concept, especially when you're getting started?
Speaker E:It's a great question.
Speaker E:You know, I'm fortunate that I go and I give keynotes, hospitality conferences all over the United States and Canada, talking to hospitality professionals about what we call smartphone storytelling.
Speaker E:So you don't need permission to publish on the Internet, but you also need an audience in order to get a sponsorship.
Speaker E:So if you're a barbecue team, if you're a barbecue restaurant and you want a sponsor, you want a brand deal.
Speaker E:This is the new, what we call creator economy.
Speaker E:And the creator economy means that you can use audio, video, words, or images really well.
Speaker E:So you're really good on YouTube or you're really good on TikTok, really good on Instagram, or a great podcaster, and you build an audience.
Speaker E:Now you have that audience, that engaged audience.
Speaker E:Which you can go and leverage a big barbecue company to say, hey, would you like to get in front of this audience that I've built?
Speaker E:The problem that we all have as humans is that we don't want to look stupid and sound stupid.
Speaker E:It's the same thing, same problem that we have in the barbecue game.
Speaker E: rbecue, but I'll tell you, in: Speaker E:Brisket was the last thing that we added to the menu because we just couldn't get it right.
Speaker E: got it right, our brisket in: Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker E:And the same thing goes for the videos that we first started to make, the photos that we first start to take.
Speaker E:The podcast we first launched, nobody was listening.
Speaker E:You know, you have to have the courage to document what you're doing and know that, number one, people probably are going to make fun of you.
Speaker E:The people that you love the most, they're going to say, what are you doing?
Speaker E:Why are you podcasting?
Speaker E:I mean, Jake, you probably know, how many friends do you have that said?
Speaker E:Who.
Speaker E:What are you publishing on the Internet?
Speaker E:What are you crazy?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker E:Now, it seems like everyone has a podcast, but they don't.
Speaker E:There's only 3 million podcasts in the world.
Speaker E:That's such a small number for 8 billion people on the planet.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Well, there's the last number I saw, Sean.
Speaker C: There was somewhere between: Speaker C:And I don't even remember where I got that breakdown, but if you think about that, and I'm going to tout this show a little bit, when you, you know, you look at your numbers from your different platforms and all that, but.
Speaker C:But Barbecue Nation usually lands somewhere between 50 and 150 in the weekly, you know, ratings, if you will.
Speaker E:Amazing.
Speaker C:I. I don't.
Speaker C:I put some measure in that, but I also don't because I'm never sure none of the numbers ever match on all the platforms.
Speaker C:You know, they.
Speaker C:There.
Speaker C:That's a for.
Speaker C:If you're dealing with ad agencies and stuff, which you've had to.
Speaker C:And I've had to, and Leanne has had to.
Speaker C:You can't really come in.
Speaker C:And even if it's a AIB certified, they still don't match.
Speaker C:So you do the best you can, I think, on that.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:I mean, you know, the ultimate goal when you're selling a brand deal, and the question that gets asked all the time is, what's the return on investment?
Speaker E:If I spend X, what do I get out of that?
Speaker E:And ultimately, for us, our biggest goal is to have conversations on the Internet that matter.
Speaker E:So if we have conversations that matter, then the sales side of an organization and the marketing side of an organization.
Speaker E:You know what's crazy?
Speaker E:The bigger the organizations, those.
Speaker E:Those sides of the business don't talk to each other.
Speaker E:Yeah, you're laughing because you know I'm right.
Speaker E:Yeah.
Speaker E:There's sales professionals that are literally out there selling grill, selling charcoal, selling rubs, and they don't even talk to the marketing team.
Speaker E:And the marketing team's creating collateral that they don't ask the sales team about.
Speaker E:And ultimately, what matters is the end user.
Speaker E:So whether that's a backyard barbecue cook, a professional barbecue cook, a barbecue restaurant owner, whoever that end user is, what do we care about?
Speaker E:What do I care about as a business owner?
Speaker E:I care about improving my business every single day.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker E:That's the things that I watch on Instagram.
Speaker E:Those are the podcasts that I listen to.
Speaker E:Those are the books that I read.
Speaker E:Those are the people I surround myself with, is who's improving their business and how can I impact my business so that I can build a more sustainable and a more profitable business.
Speaker E:If I do that, I can make a greater impact on my community and on my family.
Speaker C:You've.
Speaker C:I was looking at some of your numbers here.
Speaker C:30 Million in sales in 13 years for a barbecue restaurant.
Speaker C:I think that's pretty damn good.
Speaker E:Sean, thank you.
Speaker E:Thank you very much.
Speaker E:If you.
Speaker E:If you go to Google Earth and you see where our restaurant's located, that'll.
Speaker E:That number will mean a lot more because all.
Speaker E:All odds are stacked.
Speaker E:We have an incredible community, but literally everyone that's in real estate or in restaurants says, why would you pick that location?
Speaker E:And we picked that location because it was underserved.
Speaker E:There's people, incredible people all over San Diego that have been thankfully willing to drive to San Diego or Spring Valley to come and enjoy our barbecue.
Speaker E:But now our goal is how do we open up different locations, smaller locations that cost us less to open, cost us less to operate, but allow us to deliver fresh barbecue every single day.
Speaker C:We're going to take a break.
Speaker C:We're going to be back with Sean Walshev from Cali Barbecue, and he's got some good stuff to say, so stick around.
Speaker C:We'll be right back.
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Speaker C:You'll love it, I guarantee it.
Speaker C:This is an encore.
Speaker C:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker C:I'm JT along with Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Speaker C:If you want to get a hold of us, very simple.
Speaker C:You can go to the website and there's a, you know, one of those infamous things you fill out and send an obnoxious email in.
Speaker C:Those are the ones that go to Leanne.
Speaker C:But you can get a hold of us there.
Speaker C:You can just go to the Facebook pages, Twitter, I mean, we're on all of them.
Speaker C:It'd take a half hour to list all that stuff.
Speaker C:I want to stay on the, on the kind of the, the Internet marketing stuff for a minute.
Speaker C:Sean, are there too many platforms?
Speaker C:Can people get lost?
Speaker C:Especially when they're getting started?
Speaker E:So what we like to do is simplify social media.
Speaker E:The problem with social media is that everyone knows that they need to be on social media, but everyone wants someone else to do it.
Speaker E:And it gets very complicated once you start to go down the rabbit hole of what do I need to post, when do I need to post it?
Speaker E:What does the algorithm want?
Speaker E:Ultimately, what we care about is what we tell business owners all the time is be the show, not the commercial.
Speaker E:So document who you are, what you do on a daily basis.
Speaker E:Don't go out of your way to come up with some trending video that you saw on TikTok or on YouTube.
Speaker E:What the Internet wants is real open and real build in public.
Speaker E:So if you're willing to show an open kitchen, an open pip, the prep process, the recipe process, most of most business owners, especially in the barbecue spaces, these are protected recipes.
Speaker E:Until somebody goes out of their way and publishes a cookbook or creates a content channel where they're literally, go ahead.
Speaker E:These are the recipes.
Speaker E:Try to make it.
Speaker E:Yeah, like no one can make the same barbecue.
Speaker E:We all know that.
Speaker E:No matter who the pitmaster is and no matter what Secrets they share that what they do is a special craft.
Speaker E:And what they do for that book is different, what they do at the restaurant.
Speaker E:So it's having the courage to.
Speaker E:To do that and then also to understand.
Speaker E:I always say remove the logo.
Speaker E:When we talk about social media, people start to have subjective feelings.
Speaker E:If I say Facebook, you think a certain thing.
Speaker E:If I say Twitter, you think of Elon Musk.
Speaker E:If I say TikTok, you think it's a dancing app.
Speaker E:If I say YouTube, we have all these preconceived notions about all the platform platforms.
Speaker E:All I talk about, it's Internet storytelling.
Speaker E:It's audio, it's video.
Speaker E:It's words and images.
Speaker E:That's all it is.
Speaker E:So if you can do that.
Speaker E:And now it's just video, because video gives you audio, right?
Speaker E:You can also take a screenshot, a still of the video that gives you the photo.
Speaker E:You can transcribe it.
Speaker E:You can use, you know, chat GPT to transcribe the video and get yourself an article out of it.
Speaker E:So literally, if you just focused on one thing, it's a thing that every single person that's listening to this has.
Speaker E:It's an app that's installed on every phone, whether it's an iPhone, an Android, a Pixel, whatever.
Speaker E:It's the camera app.
Speaker E:Use video.
Speaker E:The empower of video.
Speaker E:Short form video.
Speaker E:And I say short form.
Speaker E:Less than 45 seconds of just capturing a little bit of your day.
Speaker E:You know, who are you?
Speaker E:What do you do on a daily basis, and what makes you unique?
Speaker E:The problem is we think of when I say be the show, not the commercial.
Speaker E:Everyone wants a commercial about their business.
Speaker E:I want some sexy drone footage of my barbecue restaurant and, you know, the brisket coming off, and this is how incredible it tastes in a full restaurant.
Speaker E:My kids, My son is 5 and my daughter's 3.
Speaker E:They know what the skip button is on YouTube.
Speaker E:They do.
Speaker E:They don't want their content interrupted.
Speaker E:Who wants to sit down and watch commercials?
Speaker E:Nobody.
Speaker E:We have no problem engaging in a show, following personalities that we like going along for the journey because they're willing to show us.
Speaker E:This is what inventory is like in a restaurant.
Speaker E:Guess what?
Speaker E:Inventory is not sexy.
Speaker E:Nobody wants to see it.
Speaker E:But when it shows up on an Instagram feed or a Facebook feed or a YouTube, as a business owner, you're like, oh, my God.
Speaker E:I've never seen anybody talk about inventory.
Speaker D:Mm.
Speaker E:Do I need to do inventory?
Speaker E:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker E:You need to do weekly and daily inventory.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So, Sean, I've got a.
Speaker C:This is kind of A bit of a satirical question.
Speaker E:Good.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:I. I probably look at 90% of the same feeds that you do and Leanne does in that.
Speaker C:And Leanne's heard me complain about this many times.
Speaker C:Over the course of a month, you will see at least 2 to 300, if not more, little clips on a brisket.
Speaker C:And they're plopping it on the cutting board, and they're cutting it and they're holding it.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:What advice would you have to them to make it look a little different other than the 14 that came before you that morning?
Speaker C:So, look, it's like you said, looking at the inventory is not sexy.
Speaker C:Cutting into a brisket the first time, the tenth time, maybe the hundredth time is kind of cool.
Speaker C:But after the thousandth time, people go, oh, they cut, slice, and brisket.
Speaker C:Okay, next.
Speaker C:And so I use that just as an example.
Speaker C:How can they.
Speaker C:In the agencies, they used to say, we'll sex it up a little bit.
Speaker C:And in tv, they say, we sex it up a little bit.
Speaker C:And that's nothing physical.
Speaker C:It's just the, you know, the atmosphere, the image, that type of thing.
Speaker C:So what would you say to that?
Speaker E:It's something that on.
Speaker E:On one of my shows, a guest that came in, she.
Speaker E:Phyllis Williams Stratter, she actually used to own barbecue restaurants, and now she does brand coaching.
Speaker E:She's.
Speaker E:She's incredible.
Speaker E:But she said, you know, the problem that most people have is that they're not willing to lean into their crazy.
Speaker E:If you're not willing to lean into your crazy, if you're not willing to show the weird part of who you are and what makes you human, what makes you a business owner, what makes you care about barbecue?
Speaker E:You know, telling the different sides of the business.
Speaker E:One of the easiest ways that I tell restaurant owners is if you're really good at showing off the barbecue in your restaurant, and you've done really well on Instagram or TikTok or you or Facebook, whatever platform is your preferred platform.
Speaker E:Why not.
Speaker E:Why not talk to.
Speaker E:To the team?
Speaker E:Why not talk to your general manager?
Speaker E:Talk to them for.
Speaker E:For a one minute.
Speaker E:What do they order at the restaurant?
Speaker E:You know, when did they start?
Speaker E:Why did they buy into the mission?
Speaker E:You know, I just interviewed Chris Doe, who's this incredible brand strategist.
Speaker E:He has a company called the Future.
Speaker E:He has 2 million subscribers on YouTube.
Speaker E:But I just talked to him, and he said, you know, something that's always stuck out to him is he has friends that work in these huge brand agencies that work with Fortune 100 companies, bigger the company gets, the further away the brand gets from the founder story.
Speaker E:So literally, their job is just to go to these huge organizations, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of employees, and go, well, why did we start?
Speaker E:And how do we get back to why we started?
Speaker E:And as a restaurant owner, I'm guilty of it myself, is it's hard to get back to that origin story.
Speaker E:And when you get back to the origin story, who else was there around the time?
Speaker E:Because it's not just my voice.
Speaker E:The more that I give a voice to my gm, who was employee number one that I hired in the parking lot, and I told him, we're building something bigger than a restaurant here.
Speaker E: even a barbecue restaurant in: Speaker E:We were a breakfast concept turning into a sports bar.
Speaker E:Now we're a barbecue media company.
Speaker E:I mean, 15 years later, we're nothing compared to what we were before.
Speaker E:But he was along for the journey, and to hear him tell the story is completely different than to hear me.
Speaker E:Different voices, different characters, that's what people buy into.
Speaker C:We've got to jump out, take a little break.
Speaker C:We're going to be back with Sean Walsh, wall chef.
Speaker C:Excuse me.
Speaker C:And Ms. Leanne.
Speaker C:And we're going to tell you about Ms. Leanne's pig powder when we come back.
Speaker C:So please stay with us.
Speaker B:Hey, everybody, it's JT And I have eaten.
Speaker B:If you've ever looked at me, you know that.
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Speaker C:Check it out.
Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker C:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation here on the USA Radio Networks and all sorts of platforms out there.
Speaker C:Again, we'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker C:Beef the way nature intended, and also pig powder.
Speaker C:There she is right there.
Speaker C:Put a big smile on for the people there.
Speaker C:Leanne, hello.
Speaker C:You tell them about pig powder?
Speaker D:Well, it's a formula my dad came up with actually in the 70s, but it still hangs tough as being one of the top pig powders used by competitors and home cooks.
Speaker D:And it's sweet with a little bit of heat.
Speaker D:It's won the Best Rub on the Planet award and multitude.
Speaker D:A multitude of awards.
Speaker D:And you can go to pigpowder.com to.
Speaker C:Get yours and a signed autograph picture of you.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:There you go.
Speaker C:Pigpowder.com the answer I Sean, in the last segment, you know, we were talking about, you were saying about talking, you know, the, the guy, the people that actually do the work, you know, the behind the scenes people.
Speaker C:I find that really great advice.
Speaker C:When I'm watching any type of media, a lot of times I don't want to see the star.
Speaker C:I want to.
Speaker C:You know, I used to be in the rock and roll radio business a long time ago.
Speaker C:I was always enthralled with the backup singers.
Speaker C:I didn't care who came to town because we got asses to see them anyway.
Speaker C:But I love the backup singers or I love the drummers, you know, because he could always go have a beer with the drummer.
Speaker C:You can't get close to Mick Jagger, but, you know, you could.
Speaker C:Foo Fighters, you could probably go with Dave Grohl or something back when they were starting.
Speaker C:So I think that's, that's really good advice.
Speaker C:But Leanne, you, you have to work in that world.
Speaker C:You work in that world more than I do.
Speaker C:As far as you have to post stuff all the time.
Speaker C:You've got commitments and that.
Speaker C:How tough is that?
Speaker C:How tough is that to.
Speaker C:To either really think something through and post it or just freewheel?
Speaker D:Well, sometimes freewheeling is good.
Speaker D:I mean, you know, because, you know, as Sean was saying, just catching kind of the everyday.
Speaker D:Like today, for example, I am opening up a food truck April 20, all right?
Speaker D:And I'm thinking about documenting the whole thing.
Speaker D:And today I'm going to Sam's Club to buy a chest freezer, you know, like, so that kind of stuff, the real behind the scenes, you know, I just went through health inspection.
Speaker D:I should have filmed it, but I couldn't, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker D:And people that even want to start a food truck business, they're going to be interested in that instead of me pulling brisket off, as you say.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:So what you're saying is critically important and also bringing the team in now that I have a team on the food truck.
Speaker D:But, you know, just really being in the trenches, you know, working outside in 90 degree weather and, you know, in the heat by the pit, you know, I think people would appreciate that.
Speaker D:And that's something I'm considering.
Speaker D:So when I think about posting, I think about the audience.
Speaker D:Of course you want the numbers, but you kind of can't get engulfed in that and let it wear you down and staying away from what's the craze this week?
Speaker D:I started off that way, looking at, oh, maybe I should do this and no, be your true, authentic self and be real.
Speaker D:I think is, is really ultimately what people want, a real person.
Speaker D:That's my thought.
Speaker C:I think it's a great thought, Sean.
Speaker E:No, Leanne, should that you wrapped up everything that I talk about, everything I go and I teach is.
Speaker E:The answer is you.
Speaker E:Whoever's listening to this show, you're the answer.
Speaker E:No matter where you are in your barbecue journey, no matter where you are in your business journey, your brand journey, we have the Internet.
Speaker E: I mean, it's: Speaker E:We have this incredible tool at our fingertips.
Speaker E:We don't need to go and create YouTube.
Speaker E:You can start a YouTub YouTube account today.
Speaker E:You can start a Facebook page today.
Speaker E:You know, that's why we call it smartphone storytelling.
Speaker E:You don't need an iPhone to do it.
Speaker E:Any phone works.
Speaker E:If your phone's connected to the Internet, learn how to take video and publish that video, and the next day make a better video, and the day after that make a better video.
Speaker E:And after you've made a hundred videos in a hundred days, you're like, sean, that's a lot.
Speaker E:Well, guess what, You.
Speaker E:A long time ago, you didn't, you didn't.
Speaker E:You weren't able to check one email.
Speaker E:Now you can check how many emails a day.
Speaker E:You weren't able to respond to one text messages.
Speaker E:How many text messages do we respond to today?
Speaker E:You know, there's no excuse.
Speaker E:The, you know, the big unlock for me was after five years of running a business in San Diego, you know, we finally built a profitable business.
Speaker E:We were finally making great barbecue, we had great hospitality, and I started researching, you know, PR and press releases.
Speaker E:You know, why was the local media in San Diego ignoring us?
Speaker E:Why were the magazines not coming, the newspaper, the local news, Right.
Speaker E:And I sent out these press releases and, you know, granted, they were probably bad press releases for a five year anniversary, but nobody came.
Speaker E:And I realized at that time, no one's coming to tell my story.
Speaker E:I need to tell our own story.
Speaker E:The better that I get at telling our story.
Speaker E:Now we're in a position where we have a media company.
Speaker E:It's no longer about my story.
Speaker E:Now I want to go hear other people's stories.
Speaker E:And the more that I can give people a seat at the table on one of our shows and I ask better questions and I follow, follow my curiosity, then, you know, not only am I selfishly improving my business, but anybody that's Able to listen.
Speaker E:They, they, you know, respond to me.
Speaker E:And I, we're fortunate to have people all over the globe that tune into what we do on multiple different channels.
Speaker E:And, you know, some channels are stronger than others, but that doesn't prevent us from posting.
Speaker C:I'll tell Sean, I'll be honest.
Speaker C:I'll tell you a term that I really don't like, and that's the term influencer.
Speaker E:It's funny.
Speaker E:I, I, yeah, it's, it's a loaded word for sure, that.
Speaker C:Yeah, it is.
Speaker C:I mean, how about tick tock?
Speaker E:Tick tock's another, another one.
Speaker C:Yeah, sure.
Speaker C:But, you know, I had never.
Speaker C:I think it was five years ago or so.
Speaker C:It doesn't matter.
Speaker C:I was interviewing somebody, president of a company, and got all done.
Speaker C:He says, I got to get you some of our product.
Speaker C:You're a big influencer.
Speaker C:And I'm like, I'm just a radio host, you know, I mean.
Speaker C:But then I think we kind of went way over this way with the influencers.
Speaker C:And now I see it kind of coming back a little bit, because I think some people were, and I'm not being snarky, but some people were awarded the title of influencer that probably should not have gotten that, if you know what I mean.
Speaker C:And then there's other people that really should have have been able to jump on that surfboard, and they never did, for whatever reason.
Speaker C:So I wanted to get your take on that, because that's part of Leanne's in my business, too.
Speaker E:It's a great question.
Speaker E:And as somebody that hosts a show on Entrepreneur that's called Restaurant Influencers, we were very strategic in picking that name because we wanted to highlight storytellers that were in the hospitality space that were online.
Speaker E:You know, I prefer, if I'm being honest, I think I prefer the term creator more than influencer, because.
Speaker E:But then when I think of influencer, I don't think of an influencer as an Instagrammer that has hundreds of thousands or millions of followers or a YouTuber.
Speaker E:For me, an influencer is somebody that carries an important opinion.
Speaker E:So when a mom comes to our restaurant and it's a group of 15 people, and she's the one that's making the decisions of why we came to this restaurant, why we're ordering, what we're ordering, if we're ordering dessert, if we're not, she's an influencer.
Speaker E:I don't care if she has, if she's even on the Internet, she is an influencer, not only at that table, but I guarantee you, at the PTA rooms, wherever this woman goes, she is an influencer.
Speaker E:So for us, we look at it a lot differently.
Speaker E:We don't think of it as just an online influencer.
Speaker E:We think of people that influence in real life.
Speaker E:Sometimes it's, you know, a local fire, a firefighter, somebody that gives back to the community that is well connected.
Speaker E:But when you look at the ecosystem, it's very easy to look at the metrics and go, that person's more important than somebody else.
Speaker E:And I don't look at it that way.
Speaker E:I look at it as who is willing to consistently evolve.
Speaker E:Because no matter what the platform is, if somebody's phenomenal on Instagram and, you know, maybe they're not on Twitter, maybe they're not on Facebook, maybe they're.
Speaker E:You know, so many of the influencers that I talk to, they want to be business owners.
Speaker E:They want to figure out, how do I build a business around my influence?
Speaker E:And that's what I tell business owners all the time.
Speaker E:You are creators.
Speaker E:You're the original creators.
Speaker E:You're the original influencers.
Speaker E:You just need to learn how to tell a story better on the Internet and publish because it's hard to look stupid and sound stupid.
Speaker E:And I understand.
Speaker E:I mean, I talk to CEOs of publicly traded companies, and I ask them why they're not producing content on the Internet, and everyone has an excuse.
Speaker E:And for me, you know, we're living in the greatest time ever, where you have the ability to connect to people all over the globe.
Speaker E:You know, like Leanne was saying, she's opening up a food truck truck.
Speaker E:Food trucks are global.
Speaker E:This is a global thing.
Speaker E:And anybody that's opening up a food truck would love to listen to Leanne's journey.
Speaker E:What was it like?
Speaker E:You know, were you nervous about the health inspection?
Speaker E:What did you do to prepare for the health inspection?
Speaker E:And, like, we think, well, how many people are going to care?
Speaker E:It doesn't matter how many people care.
Speaker E:All you need is one person to care.
Speaker E:One person to care that goes.
Speaker E:Thank God Leanne made that video, because she gave me the courage to go and pursue my dreams, to stop this job that I hate and to open up my own food training truck.
Speaker C:Isn't that amazing?
Speaker C:You just put that that way.
Speaker C:Because I think out of our last dozen guests, we've probably had half of them, Sean say, well, I was in the job I kind of liked, but that wasn't my dream.
Speaker C:And then something changed, and they stepped up to the plate, literally and figuratively.
Speaker C:And then all Of a sudden, they were, they were recipe developers or they're like, Harry sue, you know, he's doing all the this and that and spices.
Speaker C:Look at, you know, Leanne.
Speaker C:I mean, she's going a million miles a minute all the time.
Speaker C:So I think that's, I think when you stand up, like you said, you know, stand up, face it and say, is this what I really want to do?
Speaker C:And then get the best information you can from local, national.
Speaker D:From Sean.
Speaker C:From Sean.
Speaker C:I was gonna say I'll.
Speaker E:I'll share.
Speaker E:I'll share a recipe, a recipe for Internet creation with you, with the audience.
Speaker E:So the answer to the Internet is quantity plus speed plus consistency equals quality.
Speaker E:So I'll say that again.
Speaker E:Quantity plus speed plus consistency equals quality.
Speaker E:And the problem that everyone has, myself included, is that we want quality first.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker E:When I opened up a barbecue, when I say that Cali Barbecue is becoming a barbecue brand, I want a quality brisket, but the problem is I had to make a lot of bad brisket before I made great brisket.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker E:They're all asking me, how do you do it?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker C:No, it's true.
Speaker C:We're going to take another break.
Speaker C:We're going to be back and wrap up Barbecue Nation with Sean.
Speaker C:And Sean is going to stick around for after hours.
Speaker C:He's never been through that torture process, but we'll, we'll get him trained here very shortly, so please stay with us.
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Speaker B:J.T.
Speaker C:Here.
Speaker B:I want to tell you about the Hammerstahl knives.
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Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker C:Welcome back to the nation.
Speaker C:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker C:I'm JT along with hall of Famer Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Speaker C:We've got Sean Walshep with us today.
Speaker C:Like I said, Sean's gonna stick around for a little bit for after hours, and that ought to be fun.
Speaker C:I want to jump back a little bit, Sean, for a second.
Speaker C:You talk about your ghost kitchens.
Speaker C:I Have a friend in Seattle who has a barbecue restaurant.
Speaker C:It's down in.
Speaker C:In SoHo, which, if you're not familiar with Seattle lingo, it's just down south of the city a little bit.
Speaker C:When Covid came around and they had restaurants closing like crazy, he went, excuse me.
Speaker C:He went and.
Speaker B:Leased them.
Speaker C:Some that had shut down.
Speaker C:I mean, they are.
Speaker C:They already had, you know, certified kitchens like that.
Speaker C:He never did the sit down dining because you couldn't.
Speaker C:But much like what you're doing, he did that in those little satellites or ghost kitchens, if you will.
Speaker C:And he was one of the few restaurants up there that really kept things going.
Speaker C:And he.
Speaker C:I think he quadrupled his business once people caught on to what was going on.
Speaker C:Instead of one main store, he now had one main store south of the city, which is where everything was cooked, cooked and processed.
Speaker C:But then he had these four ghost kitchens scattered around because Seattle's pretty spread out.
Speaker C:And so I think that was an incredible, you know, thought process and stroke of luck actually for him and I.
Speaker C:Is.
Speaker C:Is that kind of where you came up with the Ghost Kitchen idea?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker E:You know, we have been, you know, my team, I've got an incredible team.
Speaker E:Eric and Jean and Howard and Stover and Chris.
Speaker E:And we're always looking at opportunities for what we call digital hospitality.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker E:Understanding that our greatest strength is being hospitable and making great barbecue in real life.
Speaker E:So how do we use that strength and distribute it to more people?
Speaker E:There's 3.3 million people in San Diego.
Speaker E:So, you know, the Ghost Kitchen opportunity presented itself, you know, really during the pandemic for us as a way to continue to expand, to get more barbecue to more people.
Speaker E:So 200 square foot, you know, an investment less than $75,000 to get open, much less than spending half a million, $1 million on a full restaurant build out.
Speaker E:Very interesting to us.
Speaker E:And by opening in 200 square feet location, delivering fresh barbecue there every single day, we've proven that if we can do it in 200 square feet, well, maybe it's a hybrid location where there is a walk up space or a small patio space, but Maybe it's an 800 square foot location that we're looking at.
Speaker E:So right now we have, we're working on Navy bases, we're working local, Amazon facility, doing pop ups.
Speaker E:We're trying to get a deal with the local stadium for basketball.
Speaker E:Aztecs are in the final four.
Speaker E:So for us, whether it's stadiums, whether it's airports, whether it's ghost kitchens, our goal is to get slow food fast.
Speaker E:You know, back to the problem with barbecue is it takes time and it takes expertise.
Speaker E:And right now, we have technology, we have toast, we have all these incredible technology partners that work with us to help get more barbecue to more people.
Speaker E:And if we get more barbecue to more people, then, you know, we can build a more profitable and sustainable business into the future.
Speaker C:What's one of the biggest problems we have?
Speaker C:About six minutes left here.
Speaker C:One of the biggest problems you've had in developing this.
Speaker C:I mean, Leanne comes from the restaurant.
Speaker D:Business, but interestingly enough, we kind of have a parallel here.
Speaker D: location in chesapeake was in: Speaker D:I signed the documents right before the falling out.
Speaker D: Well, in: Speaker D:Okay, so how are you going to serve authentic barbecue in a mall food court?
Speaker D:So the health department, because of the proximity, I was able to transport authentic barbecue to that location.
Speaker D:And it's kind of like, that was a long time ago, but it's kind of like what you're talking about.
Speaker D:Smaller spaces, you know, fast, whatever.
Speaker D:Unfortunately, that went by the wayside because, you know, TJ Maxx Marshalls opened across from the mall.
Speaker D:The mall started going down, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker D:But I think it's important with those smaller spaces that you are doing not ghost kitchen, but is when you're serving barbecue fast, the perception is it's not good, so it has to be marketed properly.
Speaker D:And I think that's the.
Speaker D:Those two have to be together in order to really build the credibility with your customer.
Speaker D:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker D:And how do you do that?
Speaker E:You're 100.
Speaker E:So we don't like the term ghost kitchen.
Speaker E:If there's any kind of kitchen, we call it a friendly ghost kitchen.
Speaker E:Nobody likes a scary ghost.
Speaker E:So the only way to tell the story is through social media.
Speaker E:So telling people, when they go on Cali BBQ's Instagram page, they can see the smokers.
Speaker E:They can see the process.
Speaker E:They know that this stuff we care about the art and the craft of barbecue.
Speaker E:You know, the.
Speaker E:The story of barbecue is, you know, we have so many incredible barbecue aficionados that come from all over San Diego to come and enjoy our barbecue.
Speaker E:But really, if you look at the percentage, it's probably 10% that care about the wood, that care about the smokers, that care that they're all hickory pits like the rest of the people.
Speaker E:They just want great barbecue, you know, they just want great barbecue.
Speaker E:But to your point, Leanne, I Think you're absolutely right.
Speaker E:Is the marketing and understanding that this isn't Subway that's all of a sudden brisket sandwiches.
Speaker E:Like, no, we actually smoke this today.
Speaker E:Delivered today.
Speaker E:You know, once we're out, we're out.
Speaker E:And at.
Speaker E:The only way to tell that is, you know, on the Internet.
Speaker C:You know, Sean, you probably.
Speaker C:Somebody on your, on your team probably came up with this.
Speaker C:But why didn't you call them Casper Kitchens?
Speaker C:Because Casper was the friendly ghost.
Speaker E:You know what, it's funny, I think there is a Casper Kitchen brand.
Speaker E:I'm not exactly sure what they do, but ye.
Speaker E:Pretty sure I follow them on LinkedIn.
Speaker E:They might be like a finance.
Speaker E:They might be like a ghost kitchen financial brand.
Speaker E:But yeah, Casper Kitchens for sure.
Speaker E:We've definitely used the hashtag.
Speaker E:So.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker E:Okay.
Speaker C:If you got a.
Speaker C:We got a couple minutes here.
Speaker C:Piece of advice for people.
Speaker C:I mean, we've been discussing general and very intense knowledge for the past 45 minutes.
Speaker C:But if Sean was going to give somebody a really good piece of advice, maybe right now they're sitting on the sidelines and they're thinking about it and maybe they've even got the resources financially to start something.
Speaker C:What would you tell them?
Speaker D:Like, yeah, like where would they start?
Speaker E:Yeah, the, the easiest place to start is with your phone.
Speaker E:You know, we call it smartphone storytelling for a reason.
Speaker E:You start with the phone today, right now, stop the podcast, stop the show and record a video of who you are, what do and what you do, and publish that on your preferred digital playground.
Speaker E:And whether that's LinkedIn, whether that's Facebook, whether it's Instagram, wherever you spend most of your social media time, publish it there and then do the same thing tomorrow.
Speaker D:And until I, I.
Speaker D:Go ahead, you finish first.
Speaker E:No, no.
Speaker E:And, and that's it, you know, 45 seconds or less.
Speaker E:You know, it's amazing to me.
Speaker E:We, we host multiple Clubhouse rooms.
Speaker E:Clubhouse is a social audio app.
Speaker E: every Wednesday and Friday at: Speaker E:But we teach people the elevator pitch.
Speaker E:You know, your elevator pitch.
Speaker E:Who you are and what you do matters, right?
Speaker E:You need to be able to grab the attention of a crowd.
Speaker E:And it could be a crowd of one.
Speaker E:It could be one person you're trying to get a hold of.
Speaker E:If it's one person that you need to invest in your business to start your food truck or to start your restaurant business business.
Speaker E:Who are you and what do you do?
Speaker C:Speaking of reps, that's a wrap on this rep, at least for the radio.
Speaker D:That was fast.
Speaker D:Yeah, really fast.
Speaker C:I want to really thank Sean Walcheff for coming on the show.
Speaker C:Like I said, I was on Sean's show, I think, when you were just starting it, or.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker E: ,: Speaker E:I believe we published that.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Remember our motto here.
Speaker C:Turn it, don't burn it.
Speaker C:And Sean is going to stick around for after hours.
Speaker C:We will have Will Homer next week.
Speaker C:And so after that, we're going to bid you adieu.
Speaker C:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Barbecue Nation is produced by JTSD LLC Productions in association with Envision Networks and Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserved.
