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The Restaurant Roadmap is your guide to building and running a successful restaurant. Each episode explores the full journey of operations—from planning and development to menu design, execution, and growth. Hosts Danny Bendas, Amanda Stokes, and Chef Eric Lauer bring decades of expertise, joined by industry leaders and restaurant professionals who share their insights and stories. Together, they uncover strategies, tools, and lessons that help operators improve performance, strengthen teams, and elevate the guest experience. Whether you’re opening your first location or refining an established brand, The Restaurant Roadmap equips you to navigate every step with confidence.
Danny: Welcome to The Restaurant Roadmap podcast, powered by Synergy Restaurant Consultants, your go-to source for actionable insights and real-world strategies from the industry’s top experts, clients, and special guests. Whether you’re building a new concept or refining an existing one, we’re here to help you create a forward-thinking sustainable brand, elevate guest experience, streamline operations and maximize your bottom line. With decades of hands-on experience, our mission is simple: to deliver practical, proven solutions to the everyday challenges restaurant operators face. Let’s dive in and get to work.
Danny: Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Restaurant Roadmap, powered by Synergy Restaurant Consultants. Today’s subject—we have this great team of experts here—rebranding, how to create a great concept, things you want to look for, look at. So, I’d like to introduce, first of all, my managing business partner, Dean Small. We’ve been together for so long I can’t remember. 35, 36, 37 years. Say hey, Dean.
Dean: Hey everybody. Good to be here, Danny. Glad to be part of this process.
Danny: There you go. All right, Mandy is our Chief Strategy Officer, does a lot of concept work for us. Say hi, Mandy. How are you today?
Mandy: Hi everyone. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I’m really excited to be here.
Danny: All right. And everybody has probably seen Amanda before, but once again, Amanda, say hey.
Amanda: I am just happy to be here with this prestigious group of people.
Danny: All right, today we’re going to talk about concepts branding, what do you look for, how do you create a concept, the good, the bad, and how we can help you if you want to rebrand, or at least rethink about, and if you’re creating a brand, how we can make that happen. So, we’re just going to throw questions out. Everybody’s going to kind of chime in as we go, and let’s get started. So, we’ll start off with saying, before we get started, you guys, there are some things that you have to think about in order to get your focus and get you directed to a new concept. So, I’m going to start with Mandy. So, throw out some ideas on how do you think that should work?
Mandy: We are fortunate enough to help many clients start new concepts, and usually, you know, our first conversation goes something like, you know, “I love pizza. I want to start a great pizza concept.” And it’s like, “Okay, well, what kind? Are we going to be a build-your-own-pizza fast-fire? Are we a delivery concept? Are we Neapolitan? Are we New York style?”
So, you know, I think part of it is that idea of positioning. What are our points of difference going to be, and what are the voids in the market that we’re going to fill with our new pizza concept that will make it successful? So, it starts, I think, with an idea or a vision and one of the things that we do as a team is help people structure their thinking around that concept to make it successful in how it’s perceived by the core customer or the audience, right?
Danny: Right. Dean, you do a lot of concept work. What say you?
Dean: Well, I think the most important thing for an operator is to really understand, you know, set some expectations, what do they want in this business? What’s their end game? Are they doing this to create a restaurant concept that they love or is it for a target market that they’re going after? And really understanding who is that customer that they’re going after: their needs, their wants, their expectations. And then is your market, the trade area that you’re in, is that really where those customers are going to be or do you need to be in a different area? Because oftentimes people go into the business and they build a restaurant that’s in their market, but there’s really not enough guests or people to support the concept. Therein lies a problem.
Danny: And I think also, you know, are you interested in opening one, or are you planning on opening a chain because that can affect a lot of things too, right? Amanda, one of the big things, too, for you is points of differentiation, points of difference. How would you describe that?
Amanda: Yeah, so I think the market is super-saturated with a lot of [light 00:04:22] concepts. So, you know, if we’re speaking with a client, I think finding out the points of difference really helps us to figure out what we’re going to do in terms of taking them on a discovery tour. I might be getting a little bit too far ahead, but if the market is saturated with tacos, you know, what’s going to make people go to their taqueria versus the other 22 that are on the same street? So, really helping them and ultimately, maybe that’s not the right decision because the market that they want to be in is super-saturated. What I was going to say, kind of back to the original question, is I put my operations hat on a lot when we look at this and I think to myself, this is a very complex brand that this family or this person has for their vision. They may not be able to execute that. Is this the right brand for these people?
Danny: So, it would also be safe to say that all these things we’re talking about and we’ll talk about is creating a framework of really defining who you want to be when you grow up, as I say, and staying true to that. You know, Mandy, we were just on a project this last week where everybody’s throwing all these ideas out, and pretty soon, you’re nothing to nobody because you want to do everything for everybody, so you just don’t have any focus, right?
Mandy: Well, and I think, too, oftentimes when we’re working with clients or making recommendations, it’s starting with your business goals. So, back to your point, Danny, do you have a historic building that you want to put one restaurant in for your community? That’s one approach to development. Is it, you know, I want to create a scalable concept that will grow across, you know, my region or across the country? Starting with your business goals and sort of like, what does success look like can really help you make some of those decisions.
Danny: Absolutely. So, I put up on the screen here just some things for everybody to comment on. You know, some key takeaways: what makes a strong brand? How do you define it? So, I’m just going to ask each of you to kind of chime in, give some thoughts, just randomly, and Dean, I’m going to start with you. So, just kind of tell us about some of these points, if you would.
Dean: Well, I think, you know, it all starts at the top. It always starts with the visionary, the creator of the brand. How passionate are they? Are they going into the business for the right reasons? Some people go into the restaurant business just because, believe it or not, they’re bored. They’re [laugh] looking for something to do. They have extra money or they are in a midlife crisis and they decide that, you know, they want to transition out of their current role into a new role of being an operator of a restaurant, and they want to scale it.
And they’re passionate about it, and those people that are passionate oftentimes are the most successful because they’re in it for the right reasons. They genuinely care when you’re in it for the wrong reasons because, hey, I just want to—I’ve got some money and I want to be able to do something with it as an investment, you don’t have the same drive, you don’t have the same commitment. You’re committed, but it’s at a different level. So, I think the passion is essential in making sure that you’re going to be sustainable.
Mandy: Yeah, and I would just say that what makes kind of a robust or strong restaurant brand is the emotional connection that it makes with its guests. So, if you think, you know, about the best or most popular restaurant brands, for example, think of Chick-fil-A, I mean, they understand their target audience. They give them what they want across all platforms, so online, in person, you know, from a food and beverage standpoint. So, I think starting with who your customer is and making yourself sort of indispensable or really loved by them is actually key to it. And there’s a lot that goes into that. It’s not as simple as it sounds but I do think that most successful restaurant brands get that right.
Danny: Amanda, what do you think?
Amanda: And I think something that Mandy does a superb job at is really helping our clients to understand their target market, not just from a demographics, but from a psychographics. Do we have enough people that would enjoy this brand within a particular radius? How far will people drive for that? Because a lot of times, hey, their target market is not within a five to ten-mile drive. So, you know, I think doing the research, doing the homework, understanding do these people live in a reasonable drive time is a really critical part of building a brand.
Mandy: Yeah, and I think back to Amanda’s point, it’s two things, right? There’s, like, the idea of it, like, this person, and you might create a really fantastic profile of that person, but you know, how many of those people are there [laugh] and you know how easy it is for them to engage with you and your concept? So just, you know, there’s the idea, and then there’s the reality. So, validating those data points is really important, too, before you launch.
Danny: And again, really defining your brand gives you the guardrails to stay true to yourself. And I think that holds true with your logo, your design, your menu and, like, if somebody says, “Well hey, I think we should do this,” if it doesn’t fit within the context of your brand, you shouldn’t do it. Or if you say, “My brand requires a drive through,” you can’t find a location that doesn’t have one, which is something that happens quite often also. So, then we also talk about, you know, people think their logo is their brand, right? So, but it really is—you know, that’s just a name. What’s behind the name that really creates the brand, that makes you relevant and sticky, and people remember you for something that’s part of your brand, right? Anybody have any comments on that?
Mandy: Yeah actually, Danny, you know, it’s kind of interesting because sometimes we’ll use brand development and concept development interchangeably, like internally, but really, your brand is this kind of this space you occupy in the mind of your guest or your consumer, so how do they think of you when they think of that brand? The concept are, like, the operational touch points that your brand represents. So, if we go back to our pizza or the Chick-fil-A example, Chick-fil-A is the brand. The concept is, you know, a chicken-centric fast food with, you know, all these different things. And then there’s a brand visual design, so the graphic design, then that would be the logo, the menu, of those things. So just, you know, in terms of the rest of this conversation, thinking about those as actually distinct buckets.
Dean: You’re right. Mandy. We have a lot of people that come to us. They say they have their brand all figured out. In their mind, they’ve got their name, of their logo, and their graphic, and they think they’re ready to open.
Mandy: [laugh].
Dean: That’s great, but that’s not a brand. A brand is a promise. It’s set of expectations that you create, both for your external guests and your internal customers, your employees, so that everybody is, kind of, aligned on the same vision. Oftentimes, brands are not clearly defined, and they get open, and within a few months, it becomes very murky because nobody really knows what we’re all about and what we stand for because it’s never been clearly articulated because it’s in somebody’s head what their vision is. And the restaurant does get open and they think they’ve got a brand, only to find out when they start trying to market they don’t know how to communicate with their guests because they really don’t have it figured out in terms of how they’re positioned, and that makes it very difficult to market your company, and you end up spending a lot of time and money wasted going down rabbit holes because you never got it right from the beginning.
Danny: And Amanda, I’m sure you can attest, knowing your brand—you’re one of our training experts—you know you got to be able to know your brand to influence your training, your culture, and your team, right? Very important.
Amanda: Yeah, and I think I’m probably jumping ahead, but that’s why we’re so passionate about, you know, having a concept brief that really defines all of the guardrails of the brand. Think of it as the lenses in which we do everything and we see everything. And if it doesn’t fit in there, to Dean’s point, you know, 60 days down the road, they’re going to introduce something that doesn’t fit into the brand. It does get murky. And then, from a training standpoint, if we have a hospitality style that has been determined in the concept brief and everybody’s agreed to it, and then, you know, three months from now, they’re like, “Oh no, we’re going to change how we do—we’re going to go from full service to quick service,” but we trained on full service, it can be very, very confusing.
Danny: Very good. Very good stuff. So, let’s move on—and I’m going to put this up here for everybody to comment on—you know, your mission and your vision versus your positioning, and you know, and they’re different, so I wanted you guys to react to this. Mandy, I’m going to ask you to kind of lead this off and we’ll kind of go through everybody. So, what do you think?
Mandy: Going back to Dean’s point, people come to us and say, I have a brand, and they’ve got a logo. And, you know, the mission statement, if we think of who, what, where, why, you know, your mission is your why. Like, why are we doing this, right? The vision is, where do we want to go, so who do we want to be when we grow up? What’s our end goal? What does success look like? And the positioning is kind of the who, right? It’s, who are we in this competitive marketplace of other concepts that might do something similar? So, really parsing it out for people and thinking of it in those buckets, I think can be helpful.
Amanda: I love that. And then for me, like, you know, I love to do business with brands that I know what they stand for and what their values are. Like, I love TOMS shoes. Everybody knows what their values are and what they stand for and when you can be easily identified by a consumer for what you believe in, whether it’s, you know, compostable materials, or that you’re, you know, earth friendly, you know, people love knowing that, especially in today’s market.
Dean: Good points, Amanda and Mandy. Very well articulated.
Danny: Mandy and I just came back from working with a client, and one of the first things we ask is, what are your business goals, you know, which gets to your vision. You know, ultimately, why are you doing it? When are you doing it? How do you want to do it? And all of these things keep you on focus, right?
And this gentleman that we’re working with, he really wants to be able to give back to the community and create something that is memorable and he wants to educate and he wants to help people and he wants to create jobs for the small town that they live in, so those are all parts of this mission, which gets you to position, which gets you to the direction for everybody to stay on the same track.
Mandy: Yeah, and Danny, that’s a good point. You know, the reason this slide is like this is that, you know, why are we doing it, and where do we want to go become factors in who we want to be and how we want people to perceive us. It is quite kind of a step-by-step process is figuring those things out first, and then using those to inform your brand.
Amanda: It’s always interesting to me, when people don’t know what their why is. And we’ve had many clients like that where just they kind of know, but they’re unable to articulate why they want to open up a restaurant or be in the restaurant business. It’s always interesting to me, and you know, I think we do a great job of helping them define that, but you know, opening up a restaurant is a, you know, it’s a big goal, it’s a lot, it’s a huge undertaking, so understanding the client’s why is really important for us to help them.
Danny: Yeah, and again, we talked about, how do you have your team understand? If you don’t really have a strong brand, and if you can’t articulate it, how can you expect your cashier or your server or your cook? We always talk about the elevator speech, right? You meet somebody in the elevator and they say, “What do you do?” What’s their answer? And it really gets back to all of this.
And we do a lot of brand positioning, as we all do. If you ask five corporate executives, you know, what is your brand, none of them have the same answer, which is a little scary, and this is why all of this stuff gets really important. So, let’s talk about brand positioning. Maybe Amanda, if you can talk through just some of the general what comprises a brand positioning statement, which really sets the tone for what you’re going to be, right?
Amanda: I’m going to defer to Mandy on this. This is her lane and her expertise, and so I’m going to defer this to Mandy.
Mandy: Okay, sure and Danny, I don’t know if there’s another slide that you want to put up, but you know, a brand positioning is when you define who you’re for, right? So, you can’t be everything to everyone, so who are you for, what are you going to offer that’s unique and different to them, and then what is the benefit to them from that offer? So, a brand positioning statement might look like—especially for your target audience—my brand is the business that you’re in that makes people feel a certain way. So, it becomes a template for decision-making.
So, if we say Amanda’s restaurant is the place where you get locally grown healthy food, then later someone says, “You know what, we should add fried green tomatoes.” It’s like, “Okay, well, I don’t know if that fits. That doesn’t fit our brand.” So, it becomes a blueprint, a template, and ultimately a filter for decision-making. When you define who you’re for, what is unique and special about you, and why that unique and special thing is really important to your guests, it really helps focus everybody in terms of the work that you do.
Amanda: I couldn’t have said that better. And I love that you have this slide up here because, you know, when you think about helping guests to define whether they have a sweet spot or it’s risky, you know, sometimes what they want to do just isn’t the right thing for their market or isn’t the right thing for them; they don’t have the target audience for that. So, I think really understanding, you know—to Mandy’s point—what guests care about, what you do best, and then what your competition does. Something we do a really good job of during discovery, when we’re taking our guests to restaurants that are similar, is really looking at the competitive set and saying, what do they do best? And then, what do they not do best? And then what could we own because there’s a white space there.
Mandy: Yeah, what is the opportunity? What, you know, another way to look at it is, what is the void? Or where is the place that could be entered into that there’s somebody’s not doing it, or they’re not doing it well. And that could be a market-by-market situation, if you’re, you know, in a place that doesn’t have something, whether it’s, you know, a chicken concept, or something like that, but also, if you’re looking at national growth or even regional growth, you have to really understand your competition. And you know, this kind of cross-visual on the right is about whether or not your guest cares about it.
So, if you say, oh, we—I remember, Danny, you guys had a client that hand-peeled the chickpeas for their hummus because they thought it made it taste better. But they didn’t get any credit for it and it wasn’t actually significantly better, and so if your guests don’t care about your hand-peeled chickpeas for your hummus, you know, and your hummus is 2% of sales, why are we spending so much time, money, and energy doing it? So, other thing that’s kind of good about brand positioning and decision-making is really leaning in. So, just one more, kind of, example we talked about—or I talked about—Chick-fil-A, but, you know, if you think about Chick-fil-A and Cane’s, Raising Cane’s chicken tenders, they’re in the same business, right? They’re in the drive-through, you know, quick-serve chicken business, but they’re really different business models, the concepts are very different, and they don’t compete. Their sweet spots are different, right? When you think about what Chick-fil-A offers and when you think about their points of difference, like Cane’s people love that sauce, they do one thing, so they’re not necessarily competing in that same space. They can both shine and be the best at the thing that they do.
Danny: Yeah, and you know, again, the nice thing about this diagram here is finding that sweet spot by really researching and understanding your market. What do you want to be? Who do you want to attract? Are you in the right location, if you’re a single unit, you know, to accomplish the various things that we’re trying to accomplish, right? And that gets us to… let’s talk about who is your ideal customer. So Dean, you want to take a run at this or start it off, and everybody can chime in?
Dean: If you’re going into a high end, if your goal is to create, let’s say, an elevated casual or even a steakhouse type of concept, you have to make sure that you’ve got enough people in your trade area in your one, three five mile circle that has the financial resources that can eat in your restaurant frequently. It’s hard to be a successful and sustainable restaurant when you don’t have frequency. And for a lot of restaurants, you know, they’re only seeing some of their guests once or twice a year, so you have to really think about, can you survive, you know, if you’re only going to have guests coming to visit you once or twice a year. That almost makes you somewhat of a special kind of occasion restaurant.
A lot of times, people, when they open up restaurants, Danny, you know, they build restaurants around the foods that they like to eat, and here again, that’s a classic mistake. If you’re in a meat-eating town, maybe opening up a vegetarian restaurant isn’t, you know, the right concept for that area, you know? You won’t get the frequency that we’re looking at. So, I think it’s really important that you do a deep dive and you really take a look at who is in your trade area because people typically like to patronize restaurants that are within the three miles. You start getting five, ten miles out, you’re not going to get the frequency that you’re looking for unless you’re in a very rural area.
So, I think the first thing that you need to do is really do a deep dive and look at the restaurants that are successful in your trade area. Why are they busy? What is their unique proposition? What hours of the day are they busy? And determine whether or not these are the customers that you’re going after, too.
Danny: You know, we find also, I think all of you would agree that, you know, we do work with some clients that want to start a new restaurant, they start with the location, they say, “I want to do this.” Unfortunately, ‘this’ doesn’t fit in the location. As opposed to creating the brand and then finding a location that satisfies the needs in terms of these geographics, demographics, psychographics, and everything else. So, there’s a tendency to kind of do it backwards, right, which is kind of—we’re trying to help people succeed, you know, not do the wrong thing, right?
Dean: And Danny, you know, that could be okay because, you know, there are a lot of times, but you know, people are opportunistic, you know? They find this amazing location. They don’t know what they want to put in it, but they know it’s an amazing location, and they come to us and they need help trying to figure out, given this location and who are, you know, our trade area, what would be successful in this type of concept? And sometimes you have to approach it that way, too, because there are just numerous locations that are perfect for the right concept. It’s our job to figure out what that concept is.
Mandy: It’s true. I always say that we have to start from somewhere, right? So, sometimes people will come and say, “Oh, I got this great location in this town.” And you think, “Okay, well, let’s make something that will work there.” Or they say, “Have this great idea. Help me find a location where this is going to work.” So, we have to start from some point and then move forward from there. But to Dean’s point, I think that you can be successful either way; you just have to be strategic.
Danny: Yeah. Well, you have to just make sure people understand that methodology. A good example, we’re working, and have worked with a client that wants to do a very high-end restaurant. They’re already committed to a location that would cost a whole bunch of money to turn it into what they want to turn it into. So, that becomes the disconnect of, well, it’s just not going to work, right? So, either change what you want to do or find a different location once you understand what your brand is and what business you want to be in.
Mandy, I’m going to ask you very quickly because we do a lot of psychographic work, and for those that don’t know, just kind of explain psychographics, what does it mean and how is that different than demographics or a person’s income overall.
Mandy: We’ve talked a little bit already about the one of the most important things in a brand is defining your target audience. Like, who are we for? Oftentimes, people say, “Well, I want everyone to like my concept.” It’s like, okay, well, you can’t market to everyone. You have to [laugh] you have to pick some buckets.
And so, you know, this slide kind of represents those buckets. Obviously, we’ve talked at length about geographic, which is very practical, right? Who lives near you, okay? And in that geographic area there’s demographics, okay, so that’s, you know, how old is someone? What kind of occupation and income do they have?
But psychographics is a little bit different. It’s a mindset, and it’s people who care about the environment we talked about that, or people who care about their health, you know? They want organic or they want clean ingredients. So, psychographic is really about putting those other pieces together to build a picture of that person based on their beliefs and the things that are interesting or valuable to them.
Danny: So, this would be, sort of, some examples, maybe, of things that you’re talking about, right? Different types of opportunities, or people, right?
Mandy: Right. And one of the things that we didn’t touch on from that last slide but is actually very relevant, is behaviors. So, it could be that, oh, this is someone who picks up dinner after they go to the gym every night, or this is someone who loves to watch sports, okay? So, that’s more of a behavior or a habit. So, you can build a menu or an occasion around that.
So, those things together, you know where they are, their data, their mindset, and then their habits and behaviors, builds a profile. And so Technomic, this slide is actually a graphic from Technomic, which is a market research firm, and they used all of that information to put together profiles, so different types of eaters. And so, looking through this, functional eaters are people who are just like, “I just have to eat. I’m going to get a burrito because I know I won’t be hungry for six hours.” Okay, so that’s, like, a functional eater. Affluent socializers are people who are like, oh, I love to eat out with my friends and I like to make it a whole experience.
So, by creating profiles based on behavior, psychographics, and then you can see on the far side, there’s the demographic piece of it, too, it helps people really think about—because it can be overwhelming to [unintelligible 00:26:50], you know, I don’t know who my target market is. Who are these people? You can use resources yourself that are available online to look at and build a profile of your target person.
Danny: Yeah, and Amanda, you do a lot of concept work as well, so anything you want to add to this because we’re always trying to identify all of these things to get to a successful brand, right?
Amanda: Yeah, it’s interesting. So, we had a client—Danny and I—recently, where they had a belief who their target market was. As we started to go out in the market, like, those people weren’t there. And so, they were one of those people who had a location already, and they’re like, they were sure. Like, these people existed, and this is how they wanted to dine.
And so, I think, you know, we’ve got access to this amazing, robust—also scary—statistics and, you know, psychographics, and it’s like, you know, we need to lean into them. So, for us, sometimes a client is entirely convinced that this is their demographic in this particular area, or generally, they don’t really lean into psychographics and that’s why it’s really important to visit restaurants within the trade area. I think Dean said it earlier: who is there? What time were they there? What are they eating?
Sometimes it’s hard for us because we’re sort of [creeping 00:28:03] when we go in and we’re really looking at who’s there, we’re looking at what’s on their table, and what are they spending? What do you think they’re here for? Is it a ladies lunch? Is it a business lunch? And are there more of these people, so that when we’re building their brand, we know that who we’re for, and it just helps us to stay aligned.
Mandy: Yeah, that’s a good point. It’s, you know, how are people using those concepts? What is that opportunity? And sometimes there are markets that are seasonal. You know, we do work with clients where they have a peak season, whether it’s winter or summer, and so then that kind of changes that geographic part.
It goes back to habits, where it’s like, okay, so who lives around there? How do we get those guys in? But in peak season, how do we appeal to the people who are coming to our region or coming to our site? And that takes a strategy, you know, low and high and all of that. So, there’s a lot that goes into thinking about who you’re building it for.
Dean: You’d be amazed at how many people that come to us do not know who their target market is, really do not know their trade area very well, but they are determined to open up a restaurant. And then when we go out there and we do the preliminary work, you know, we’re questioning them about whether or not, one, there’s enough of these people here, do they have the financial resources, and whether or not they can be successful, given the fact that they have a great location. And it brings to mind, Danny, a project that we did in Texas so many years ago where it was a pizza concept. We had phenomenal pizza, we had—everything was great, and it was really supposed to be kind of a carry-out concept. And they found the location that they thought was good.
They didn’t do the research. They opened it up, they opened up a really big restaurant and they thought, okay, well, we’ll just do delivery. And so, we did all this work, all this conceptual work, financial modeling, everything for one concept, they did something totally different because they thought that there were enough people living across the road that would come to them, and it didn’t work out because they just didn’t bother to do they didn’t bother to do the heavy lifting and really figure out who is their core customer.
Danny: Yeah, there’s a whole idea that restaurants are easy, right, until you really get into all of these details, all of these things that can cause you to be unsuccessful, right? So, this is why we’re trying to point out all of these opportunities, all these things you need to think about that are critical to being successful. So Dean, I’m going to ask you to just kind of walk through this. So, if you have a brand strategy now, you’re impacting all of these other things that are going to set you up for success. So, if you want to talk to that, and everybody else can chime in.
Dean: Well, when we talk about the brand strategy, so we have a very clear vision, and with that, we start to kind of craft, kind of a menu that we really believe will meet the expectations of the target market that we defined. And again, we do a lot of research to make sure that we are very close to that bullseye when we define who that target market is. And then from there, we go through that whole process of doing the development of all of the food and the beverage, with a mindset that it needs to be operationally sound to be able to meet our financial, kind of, goals and expectations. So, that whole process is very thoughtful in terms of meeting the business goals, Danny, that we talk about with a client. If your goals are to create a sustainable brand or a scalable brand, and you want to be able to franchise it and grow it, well, that means we need to meet certain financial expectations of, you know, we’ve got to be investment grade, you know? We need to be able to realize anywhere’s from 18 to 20% net operating profit.
That requires thoughtful planning, both on the menu, on the engineering, and the labor piece of it because that’s the part that could also create problems for operators. They seem to think that labor is not going to be their Achilles heel, and we know for a fact, talking to so many operators, that it is. Then we get into the whole aspect of how are we going to develop and launch the brand and what is the marketing piece going to look like for pre-launch and the design piece. We bring all of these elements into to the fold or under the umbrella when we’re developing that brand strategy. Because everything has to work. Everything has to fit how the brand is positioned so that when a guest walks in the door, it feels like they belong. It feels like it’s been well thought-out. Everything seems to just fit perfectly, so that everything is intentional, okay, in terms of from a design standpoint or from a food standpoint and from a decor standpoint and a uniforming so that when people walk in, it just feels like it was well thought-out; it wasn’t thrown together.
Amanda: Yeah, no, this is like, you know, something that I get really jazzed up about, and a lot of people don’t, but I love the strategic planning session, where it’s lots of nuts and bolts on how we’re going to operate. It’s tedious. It could be an eight hour meeting where we are really defining all of the small, little operating parameters of the brand. And so, when you think about it from an operation standpoint, you know, what is the journey of the guest? How does this work? You know, what is our service model? You know, what do we want our culture to be? Is it hometown hospitality? What exactly is it? And then they all need to work together.
So, in this meeting, it’s a collaborative session where sometimes we help guide the client, and sometimes they have very strong ideas. Danny would like to say it’s group think. So, everybody brings value to the table. And once we develop that strategy, you know, that becomes the guardrails of what we do for our concept brief. Everything that we put into the concept brief, you know, works in conjunction with the brand strategy.
Mandy: Just to make it really clear, you know, if our brand strategy is, we’re for busy people on the go, seeking convenient, healthy options, and we’re, you know, a healthy, locally sourced, fast casual, well, then our operations decisions become easier, right? We don’t need deep fryers and, you know, we don’t need a deep freezer; we just want a reach-in for cold food. And then our culture, for our people, how do they talk about, oh, we—you know, do we have stuff on the walls that talk about the farms that it comes from. And when we’re marketing it, everything becomes more clear if you use that brand strategy as a filter to make decisions about all the aspects of your business.
You know, the interior, does it speak to freshness? Does it speak to healthiness? And then obviously, for food and beverage, what goes on your menu? So, using your brand strategy to does, you know, to drive decision-making for all of these bubbles does create a cohesive experience that feels authentic. There’s not that disconnect. It’s like, oh, that’s weird. Why do they have this toxic hand sanitizer in here if everything else is so healthy? So, you know, it is sometimes those small details that make someone loyal to a brand because it feels real.
Danny: Yeah, those details can be the devil, can’t they? You know, again, I think when we do strategic planning, as Amanda described it, is having your brand positioning and your brand strategy there on the wall so all your decisions run through that filter. And if somebody has this idea, which could be a really great idea, it just doesn’t fit your brand and you don’t want that diversion to compete, to be confusing, into everything else that goes into this. So, it’s really, really critical that you really clearly have your brand and it just filters through all of the other things that we’re trying to show you here.
Dean: You know, Danny, you used always say that the brand is really the DNA of what you are. You know, the brand is the nucleus of everything, that all decisions are made around. And especially the culture because oftentimes a culture becomes a defining factor of your brand because it’s one of the anchors, right? A lot of things that you do, you feel strongly about that culture piece is also a critical part when you’re developing your brand strategy, not only before what you deeply believe in, okay, oftentimes becomes your guiding principles of how you develop your brand.
Mandy: And I think this slide does a good job of illustrating the difference between a brand strategy and the concept execution, right? So, the brand strategy drives the development of the concept and how it’s executed.
Danny: Mindy, I’m going to ask you to kind of pull it all together for us and just kind of go through this. These are sort of some of the things you really have to think about as you create, or if you rebrand.
Mandy: Sure. You know, sometimes we work with clients who have a brand that maybe it’s 10 or 15 years old and their target audience has changed, or, you know, the world has changed around them. And you have to kind of update and keep modifying and making your brand relevant. So, you know, we talked a lot about trying to define who we’re selling to, right? So, even as a consumer ourselves, where do we spend our money, and why?
Just think about yourself as a focus group? Why do you shop at one place versus the other and use that kind of insight to help make those decisions thinking about that person. So, you know, there’s a reason that there’s arrows here is that each one leads to the next. So, once we’ve defined who we want to get as our target audience, what kind of differentiators from the other—like, what are the things that we can do differently from the competition that will make them love us? Going on from that, creating your brand positioning statement, which we’ve talked about a lot, to become that filter, to become that North Star, the DNA, for all of the other decisions, and then you pull that together to create your communication strategy, but also your concept, using that as the filter to make decisions about your menu, your facility, and your service model, and then executing that well, but also revisiting it and making sure that your staff, your team, your website designer, your interior designer, everybody understands where we’re going. And that helps keep you focused, so that there’s not, you know, that kind of squeaky wheel that doesn’t quite fit everything else on your machine.
Amanda: And some of the best brands do this every five years. They kind of look and say, hey—I love what you said, Mandy—you know, are we still relevant or do these people still exist or has the market changed? Has the love for chicken changed? Or, we’re going to narrow our focus, so that’s why I love Cane’s, and it was only in the last year I’ve been to a Cane’s and I’m, like, these folks really—you know, they probably did something similar like this, and they looked at what they were doing and just narrowed their focus. And I think it’s a brilliant strategy that can be used when you’re building a brand, and then five years after you’ve been a brand, does it still make sense? Is what we’re doing making sense?
Mandy: I think a clear example of that, too, is it—not restaurant—is Amazon. You know, they started as a bookseller, and their positioning when they started, and then where they saw the void and the opportunity, they evolved. So, you know, just thinking about that, too, from your own brand and concept is, how do you stay relevant and also stay successful?
Danny: Yeah, I always like to use the FedEx example. Everybody thinks that FedEx has a bunch of planes that fly stuff around, but that’s really not their brand. Their brand is, you know, the tagline: “Absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” They built a trust in their brand that you can count on them to get it there when you need it. Forget the fact that they’re a package delivery company; that really is what has made them successful over the years.
So, I just wanted to put up this final slide as we kind of close for today, and if anybody has any comments again, just sort of another reiteration of an example of all the things that you need to consider, you know, for a successful brand. So, does anybody have any other comments here? If you don’t, we’ve kind of covered most of this as well. So, any final thoughts?
Mandy: Yeah, just that, you know, again, there’s brand, there’s concept, there’s graphic design, there’s lots of ways to think about it, but this is what someone that we used to work with who was brilliant marketer, would kind of describe the brand-scape, what does all of the pieces that go into a branded experience. And also to say that a brand-positioning statement may not be guest-facing, right? It’s not your slogan. It’s not your tagline. It is a business strategy that creates the framework for how we want people to think about us out in the world.
So, you may not have it written on your wall, but it might be the thing that becomes distilled into a slogan. And so, Cane’s is a good example of that because it’s, “One love,” right? They have one core product and one sauce. So, you know, internally, their brand positioning statement might be something else, but using that, doing that work, has allowed them to distill it down into something that becomes a marketing tool.
Amanda: And thinking about even, like, Olive Garden, like, “When you’re here, you’re family,” it’s probably—it’s not in their brand positioning statement, but that drives the culture. “When you’re here, you’re family.” We’re treating you like family. Everything they do is around family. They’ve got—and it’s embedded in their training. So, I think it’s important for a brand to have that.
Mandy: Just to say, Amanda, what I think is so interesting is actually that you are not Cane’s target market, and so you had never been there. You went there for work, and that was the first time, but you loved it. If they had positioned themselves differently and invited you in this other way, you might have had a chance to try it sooner, but they know their market so well, and that’s not you. And so, that’s a case of, “Well, we want everyone to love it.” And so, it’s just like, okay, you do love it. It’s delicious, but they’re not—their marketing is working and I think that’s just kind of an interesting example of that, that you didn’t go because you’re not their target.
Danny: Yeah, I think that’s a great example of focus, right? They are very focused on their brand. You know, the brand positioning is behind the scenes, it’s not guest-facing. It’s what, kind of, forms everything that you do, you know, behind the scenes that is really, really critical.
Dean: I just wanted to say, when we do brand positioning, you know, our goal is really to define who is the target market that we’re going after. And you know, you’re always going to have a primary and a secondary, you know, customer or guest that you’re trying to reach. Oftentimes, we have clients that will tell us, “Well, everybody’s our customer, okay? Everybody loves pizza. Everybody loves tacos.”
Well, that may be true, but there’s all different types of tacos, you know? You’ve got your high-end tacos, you got your kind of middle-of-the-road and your street tacos, and those are different customers, okay? So, I mean, every restaurant needs to clearly understand who their customer is and who they’re going after because have a primary and a secondary because not everybody in the white pages is your guest or your customer. And then the other thing is, Danny, we always say to our clients is that, you know, you can’t be everything to everyone, or you become nothing to anyone because you dilute your concept. And that really is kind of the beauty about Raising Cane’s or in-N-Out. It’s a laser focus on one item. They do it great, they do it better than anybody else, they price it right, and that’s why they’re so busy because they are laser focused on their core customer.
Danny: Yeah, and you look at some of the best brands today, Raising Cane’s, Chick-fil-A, in-N-Out burger, they do very limited number of things extraordinarily well, consistently, with a great culture. So, last thing I want to say before we close here is that obviously a big piece of this which we haven’t touched on, although we have in other podcasts that you should watch, is the whole financial thing. You know, does your brand, once you figure it out, is it financially viable, is it going to work, and will it be successful in terms of the bottom line and the growth strategies that you want to have as well? So, we have done two other podcasts, you know, around finance. I would recommend that everybody watch those. There’s some really great information there as well. So, to wrap it up, I want to say thank you to all of you guys, it’s been really a very fast 45 minutes. Any final parting words?
Dean: Wishing everybody a great holiday. Make lots of money if you’re in the restaurant business and try to spend quality time with your family.
Mandy: Thanks so much for having me, Danny.
Amanda: Appreciate being here. Happy holidays, everyone.
Dean: Happy Holidays.
Danny: Stay tuned for further podcasts in the future. If you’d like to email us thoughts, ideas, what do you want to hear about, we are going to be, in January, sending out an email to a bunch of people. Send us questions. If your question is chosen for a podcast, we’re going to offer you a 30-minute free consultation with one of our consultants that will be relevant to the subject that you’re talking about. So, look forward to that coming in January. You can reach us at info@therestaurantroadmap.com. Reach out anytime. Thank you guys and everybody take care. Bye-bye.
Danny: Thanks for tuning in. We hope today’s episode gave you valuable insights you can put into action. If you have questions, want more info on today’s topic, or need support with your restaurant-specific challenges, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out anytime at info@therestaurantroadmap.com, and visit synergyrestaurantconsultants.com to explore our services, sign up for our newsletter, and catch up on past episodes. Don’t forget to follow and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook so you never miss what’s next. Do you have feedback or a topic you’d like us to cover? Contact us. We’re here to help make the world a better place to eat.