AI marketing strategies that boost restaurant revenue with Josh Kopel | 059

AI is changing the restaurant marketing game in ways that can save you time while boosting your revenue. In this episode of The Pre-Shift Podcast, I chat with Josh Kopel, a Michelin-awarded restaurateur who's truly mastered the marketing side of the business.

Josh breaks down how restaurants of any size can use AI tools like ChatGPT to create better email campaigns, design loyalty programs that actually work, and analyze menu performance - all without needing a marketing degree.

What I love about Josh's approach is how practical it is. He shows you exactly how to get started, even if you've never used AI before. And for just $20 a month, you can access tools that Josh says are like "hiring an expert instead of a teenager."

Restaurant owners drowning in spreadsheets and those looking to bring more guests through the door will find Josh's strategies helpful for saving hours each week while potentially adding thousands to monthly revenue.

Resources

• Connect with Josh on LinkedIn 🔗
• Check out JoshKopel.com 🌐
• Join Josh's monthly 5-day challenge for restaurant owners 🚀
• 7shifts: How Top Multi-Unit Restaurants are Using Tech to Grow📱

Chapters

• 01:27 - Meeting Josh Kopel
• 05:15 - Getting started with AI (even if you're intimidated)
• 07:05 - Creating marketing campaigns that actually convert
• 13:14 - Building loyalty programs inspired by credit card companies
• 19:39 - Using AI to identify menu winners and losers
• 22:44 - The future of restaurant tech that excites Josh
• 28:13 - Final advice for the overwhelmed restaurant owner

📲 Connect with D.J.
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About Us
7shifts is a scheduling, payroll, and employee retention app designed to help restaurants thrive. With an easy-to-use app and industry-specific solutions, 7shifts saves time, reduces errors, and helps keep costs in check for more than 50,000 restaurants.

Transcript

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Number one. Download it. Number two, pay the $20 a month because once you start using it, man, it is literally the best money you will ever spend in your entire life. It is like the difference between hiring like a 17-year-old kid. To work for you and hiring like a veteran, an expert in the field. Hey, and welcome back to the Pre-Shift podcast, and we're finally talking AI and restaurants, and I couldn't think of anyone better to bring on than Josh Koal. Josh is a Michelin aborted restaurateur. He says he realized he's a better marketer than restaurant operator, and he has a lot to share via restaurants of any size can use AI tools like Chat, GPT to create email campaigns, design loyalty programs, analyze their menu performance. I love Josh's approach to AI because it's just super practical. It shows you exactly how to get started, gives you frameworks. To use, even if you've never used AI before, just makes it very approachable. And I think restaurant owners, whether you're drawing in spreadsheets or just looking to bring more people through the door or don't have any idea where to start, where it comes to marketing, I think Josh's strategies are a great jumping off point and first foray into using AI tools for your business. As always, the pre-shift is brought to you by seven shifts. Enjoy the show. Hey Josh, how's it going today? I'm so good. Excited to be here. So you are, you've been on the show before. Back when we were the Restaurant Growth podcast, we're now the pre-shift. It's been a long time. Uh, you're our first repeat guest, which I'm very excited about. And I think it was 2022 that you joined us for the first time. So for folks that didn't listen to that one, tell me a little bit about yourself and also, uh, let's catch up and, uh, let me know what you've been up to for the past year or two. So, I mean, I, I guess first and foremost, I am a restaurateur. Um, I operated at other places, but for more than 20 years, I owned and operated. Restaurants and hospitality concepts and multiple tiers of dining in Los Angeles, which I think we can all agree is probably one of the most competitive dining markets in the world. When the pandemic hit, I sold my restaurant group and I decided to wander right to put on some flip flops and try and figure things out. Out of that Wandering and discovery came the full comp podcast, which like 500 episodes in, and that's when I figured out that the reason I did well in the restaurant industry is not because I am a. World-class restaurateur. Probably an above average restaurateur, but I'm a world-class marketer, and so I was able to use the skills that I had honed across multiple tiers of dining to start a podcast, which today gets more than a million downloads a month. Marketing works. Out of that came a coaching and consulting practice because when I spoke, I said things that people thought were not stupid. Some of them were even interesting and people began to reach out about my ideas. So I took a course. The reason that I did was because I'm a nerd and like I wanna, I wanna dive deeply into things. And so if I was gonna get into coaching and consulting, I wanted to learn from the best coaches and consultants in the world because it's not about what, you know, it's like how do you codify it in a way that it is actionable information for the people that are listening. I launched a program and I launched a program to what was a big audience, and today I feel fortunate in that, you know, I own and operate one of the largest media assets. In our industry, and I have one of the largest coaching and consulting businesses in our industry as well. Amazing. So you've grown your culture, your coaching and consulting business, uh, since we've last chatted, I mean dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of podcast episodes since I'm curious what you've learned in the past couple of years, you know. We, we chatted the first time about profits and maximizing capacity and you know, you talked about how every restaurateur is leaving, you know, 10, 15 grand a month just on the table. They can make that back or they can find ways to make that and build that revenue stream with what. The tools they already have. I'm curious where you feel, again, what has changed in the past couple of years? Do you still feel that way, I guess is my first question. Yes, I do. Here's what's changed in the last couple of years. You know, I, everything is about context. It's about aperture. Like what do you see? If I am a world class restaurateur and coach today, it is not because I was that when I was a restaurateur myself. It's because of sample size, dj. I've run 200 people through my program. I've got 500 plus interviews under my belt, so it's just, I've tried a lot more things than most people in the industry. My scope as a restaurateur was limited to. What I could achieve across three concepts in one city. But now I've been able to experiment globally, and so it's not that I think people aren't leaving money on the table, it's that I found way more money than people are leaving on the table to the degree that, you know, I actually built out, I. Every month I do this five day challenge, and it's like a free five day challenge for one hour a day, five days a week. I run restaurant owners and operators through literally the program that I sell because I, I believe that in order to be top of market, whether you are a restaurant or a consultant, you've gotta out give. And so simply by sharing what I learned, I'm improving the industry. Very cool. That's something we aim to do here as well. You know, we can learn from the single restaurateur, but we can also, that's why I like to talk to folks like you and, and talk to restaurant owners and operators and people making changes and, and doing, doing cool things because we get to amplify that. Right. And like you said, it's increasing the aperture. So before, uh, you know, we hopped. We were talking a little bit about AI in restaurants, and I'm curious where you're at with that. I do wanna dive into that today. So I guess from a, you know, 10,000, uh, foot view, 30,000 foot view, or however high up you want to go, you know, what's the big opportunity, or rather, what's the big misconception you're seeing from restaurant owners when it comes to utilizing AI tools in their business? Let's, let's start with AI at a high level, and let's talk about like a chat. GPT is an example because I think that. Whether people realize it or not, they've been using AI for years. Alexa is ai. Siri is ai, and over the years you've figured out all of the different ways that you can use Alexa and Siri in your day-to-day life to add value. I think the problem with Che GBT and AI models, language models like it, they do too much. And when something does everything, you do nothing with it. And so the, the learning curve isn't learning how to use it because it's a language model. You just. You talk to it, the hurdle is figuring out all of the different things that you can do with it. You know, with my restaurant owners and operators, we build out custom GPTs, which is like an AI built for that restaurant that understands all of the facets of the restaurateur. All of the facets of the restaurant messaging, brand positioning, everything, right? Because it's consumed just an ungodly amount of historical information. And so when you say, write me a three email workflow to pitch the Super Bowl, it sounds like you. It's gonna ask you a handful of questions. What are your specials? What are you doing? When does it start? When does it end? And then it's literally going to create an email workflow that is tailored to not only your business, but to your audience. And so, you know, where's the biggest missed opportunity It is that I don't think, and dj, you're a professional marketer too, so you are going to get me on this. It's not that people aren't marketing, it's that they're not marketing enough. You know, when you send out that Super Bowl email or the Valentine's Day email, you don't send out one email. You send out three because people are gonna miss it, right? You're not doing one social media post a week, you're doing 10, that you're not doing one blog post once a year. When you get around to it, you're doing them every week because this thing knows so much about you. It can extrapolate. And if it doesn't know something about you, you can ask the AI to ask you questions to learn more about you. Very cool. So I guess maybe rewind a little bit. You know, we're talking about custom gpt. I know what that means. I. You know what that means? People probably just know, you know, chat, GPT or Gemini, or what's a new one? Deep seek, whatever it is. Where if I'm a restaurateur, I'm curious, like there's these tools out there. I don't know how, where to start. Where do you recommend folks, uh, take a dive in. So I think Che GBT is probably gonna be the easiest model to use. I also think from a marketer's perspective, it's a really good place to go. The simplest thing that you could do is number one, download it. Number two, pay the $20 a month. Because once you start using it, man, it is literally the best money you will ever spend in your entire life. It is like the difference between hiring like a 17-year-old kid to work for you and hiring like a veteran, an expert in the field, and it's $20 a month. That is the first step. And the second step, if you remember absolutely nothing that I say lead with curiosity. So what you would do is you would open up the language model and you would, you would say, I am a business owner. Ask me as many questions as you need to, to have a firm understanding of my business. And then you would say, these are my goals. How could you help me achieve these goals? I mean, again, it's, I know it sounds crazy DJ, and I think it's first principles cure all ills. So like if you don't know where to start, whether it is with AI based language models, or it is like the marketing strategy for your business. Starting from scratch and asking foundational fundamental questions will get you there. I would tell it to ask questions about me. I would tell it to ask questions about my audience on a Saturday night. Who is sitting in your restaurant? What do your best patrons look like? Are they men? Are they women? Are they 35 to 45? Are they 18 to 25? Do they come in on the weekends or do they come in during the week? Like there are all of these, do they live in the area? Do they work in the area? And then like, right, and you, you segment, but like this is second nature to you. And over time it became second nature to me. But like as a restaurant owner and operator, especially when you're at the top of your game, man, it is to the exclusion of everything else. AI is one of the few things that's gonna be able to level all of us up because it is very easy to get started when you lead with curiosity. So be curious, you know, download it, go in, tell to tell it to ask about you. So, you know, I'm a fast casual joint in here in Atlanta, where I am, where I, where I'm a located, you know, my typical customer is X, Y, Z. Once you get to a point where it seems to understand you. You know, we talked about some of the, for example, some of the marketing, um, uses. So it can help you write three email, super Bowl sequence to get folks to order your, you know, your Super Bowl combo, uh, for pickup, you know, catering kind of, or maybe it's a Valentine's Day, you know, we're recording this the day before Valentine's Day, or maybe it's Easter, which is coming up when, around when the episode launches. So marketing, social posts, it can help with those kinds of things, right? Yeah. But then it also has, it, not only does it have historical data, it has access to all of the world's knowledge because it can talk to the internet. So what you would say is, I'm located in Atlanta, Georgia. You understand because you've already talked to it, right? So you're like, you already understand my restaurant concept. I want you to do a competitive analysis in my area. I want you to figure out what everyone else is doing for Easter, and I want you to help me conceptualize a concept that will be better than my competition. That's just the first step. Can we dig deeper? DJ? Then it comes down to, and like we do a whole podcast on this. I'm sure you don't want to, but I could. It's on offer creation. That's the other big opportunity. Most people listening to this have great restaurants and terrible offers. You can use it to create a sense of exclusivity. Right scarcity, urgency, like it understands everything that I do. And so I am able to take it and say, based off the principles of scarcity, urgency, and incredibly high perceived value, I want you to take this special that we're running this weekend and create an email that would inspire people to come in. What does that offer look like without discounting or freebies? So you say offer, you mean, you know, a, a. A limited time menu, special, a pitch, a pitch, a call to action. And so are you, are you telling them what you wanna do or you're asking, saying, what could I do? It's both, right? So it is, what could I do? And then once you determine that thing that you're doing, so you've decided you're gonna do an Easter brunch, right? And it's already supplied you with all of the elements based on a competitive analysis of what it is going to do. And then you've gotta tell people about it. And so rather than like going rogue. With all of our no marketing experience, we use the GBT and say, all right, understanding my brand, understanding my brand voice, and understanding my audience, take this idea that we just came up with and create an offer that will convert at a high level. Your offer is worth very, very little if nobody opens the email. So you would say, give me 10 options for a subject line. Optimize for high open rate and high click through rate. Restructure this email in a way that's going to increase the click through rate. Give me eight samples of calls to action that you believe will have a high click through rate, and then we'll pepper them in throughout the email. It's just taking everything that you're already doing. It is bad to mediocre at best and making it best in class and learning how to work with AI and through AI in order to get this done better. There's definitely a lot there and it seems like the, the big focus, at least, you know, in the, as we're talking now, is bringing more people in the door. Is that kind of the, the end result here of using these tools to help with your marketing? Is that, is that kind of what you're, what you're talking about? I think two sides to that. Right? So the first is bringing in more new people and then creating a flood of returning customers, bringing people in the door and bringing people back. And why would you even bring more new people in if you don't have a way to get them back? You know, one of the things that, that we also use it for is to orchestrate loyalty programs. Dude, I am in 2025. I am all in on loyalty. And so when I look at loyalty, I don't look at what the best restaurants in the world are doing.'cause the best restaurants in the world, in my humble opinion, have lackluster loyalty programs that are built around transaction. We are looking at the credit card companies. No one has done a better job of creating loyalty programs that actually inspire loyalty than credit card companies. Everyone sells food and beverage, right? It's a commodity. What differentiates you. It's gonna be perceived value. Credit card companies, it's a commodity business. Everybody does the same thing. And so they are able to spike perceived value based on almost exclusively their loyalty programs. And so we use Che GPT based on a firm understanding of my client's businesses. We then turn around and create loyalty programs, not rooted in transaction, which is get $5 back for every a hundred dollars you spend, right? Or whatever the thing is that truly, truly nobody cares about. And we make it about. Experience, we make it about status. And so we work with the AI to create these experience-based tiers and benefits that are available only to them. So you'll feed it, you know about the brand, about the business, about the offerings, you know, all this historical data, and you'll kind of look around what's in the area and you'll use it to create, for example, I'm here in Atlanta. I'm a, I'm a Chick-fil-A fan. I have my Chick-fil-A app, and I have the different tiers, right? There's like red tier, silver tier, blue tier, whatever. So you're using AI to help measure a restaurant against. Competitors against the rest of the world and help come up with, you know, a framework for how they can, uh, uh, reward their customers and entice them back. Right, but through the lens of a deep understanding of their customer base and their brand so that it makes sense for them. Can you gimme an example of, of a client that you've done that with? We work with the, uh, the RMD group, which is a, uh, multiple brands in the San Diego area. Fantastic brand. And so when we started with their loyalty program, it was exactly what you would. I think it was, it was literally $5 off every a hundred dollars that you spend. Enrollment was low. Engagement was incredibly low. I'm sure this has happened to you before, right? Like you're en enrolled in a loyalty program. You walk up to the counter and they're like, oh, you get $5 off today, and you're like, okay. I mean, I'm already in line. I'm already here, and in no way influenced my decision to come here. You're just burning money. At this point because it's also not gonna inspire me to come back. So what we did was across all of these really amazing high-end compelling brands, we started to cross pollinate so that like you would get access to an off menu you thing here. You know, they also, they changed their menu seasonally, and so we started doing these events that were like seasonal previews of the menu where people could come in for an hour before they open and there's a tray pass and tastings and all of that, and people stay for dinner. I mean, it's not like it's a net negative. It's always a net positive. They're bringing friends, so they're exposing people to it. They have a chef at home experience that you can't buy. You can only earn, they have, uh, liquor lockers. So like you can buy a high-end bottle of booze that they'll store for you with your name on it. And then when you come in, you know, you obviously tip on it, but all of your cocktails are free because you've already bought the bottle. At a premium rate and like these things cost the RMD group. Nothing, nothing like these people are paying not only to be a part of the loyalty program and to generate more points through more spending so that they can then in turn spend more money to get exclusive access to things that otherwise they wouldn't have the opportunity to buy. Exactly. So yeah, I'm just thinking about it like in concept, a restaurant knows I've been there five times in the past six months. They say we've got a new menu. You know, you're a loyal customer. We'd love to invite you to come by at five o'clock and try some of our new menu items on us. You know, members only kind of thing, whatever. These are all wonderful ideas. And then the language learning models and the GTS are just helping you refine those based on what you're offering. Is that kind of just helping you come up with ideas? It is. And, and refine the ideas and ref. Find the messaging. You know, the hardest part about being a restaurateur is that when you work on such slim margins, you are obligated to be great world class. It's so many things and so many of those things fall outside of your scope of interest and your circle of genius, and that's the opportunity that Chet GPT gives you or any one of the language models, is the opportunity to work with someone much smarter than you to help amplify the things that you are already. Doing or the things that you aspire to do. One of the things that, and I know you know this is a professional marketer, when we start working with someone we don't add to their marketing, it's not like they end up with a bigger menu or you know, more events every year. Like you, you're whittling away. You're chiseling out everything that is noise to get down to the truest reasons why people love this business. That is the opportunity that chat GBT gives you. It's working with the AI model. You're able to whittle down. To the purest, most compelling version of your business. It's interesting, and as I think, and kind of just ruminated in my brain, right? It's like, I like the example of the, you know, spring menu, you know, tray Pass. If I'm a restaurant owner, I can organize a tray pass in my sleep. It's simple. Hor d'oeuvres, you know, bites. That's easy to me to get people to come to it, to filter the right guests to invite, that might not be in my wheelhouse. So it's kind of enabling that, if you will. It's amplification. It is who you are, who you aspire to be covering any gaps that exist there. All at the same time for, I mean, again, dude, for like $20 a month, it's insane. If I could give one recommendation, 'cause Lord knows we've covered a lot of ground. It's to start to do it every day, to work on it every day. You know, understanding what I do for a living, what could you help me with today? And it's just like, it's like a digital assistant in that regard. I'm curious, so we've talked a lot about how it can, you know, enable marketing and. I'm curious if, if you've ever had experience, you know, using it to work with numbers, you know, uploading sales numbers, schedules, working with it in that regard to help find, find, uh, opportunities there. For sure. So one of the things that we do, again, it's all about whittling down one of the first things we do when we onboard a client. Is we ask for a product mix ranked by unit sales for the year. But like, the reason that I need it is I need to know like, what are the clear winners and what are the clear losers? And I've gotta tell you 200 restaurants into this dj. No one's ever come to me with a clean menu. Like it's, we're always whittling down, repositioning, repurposing. And so then what we do is we, we pull out everything that's not selling or reposition it so that it will, and then we, we use the model to create a new menu that is a roadmap. Not a compass to their desired per customer average spend. The menu is a tool, right? It's not, these are my wares. Choose your adventure. It's, this is the most logical outcome. This is the best imaginable version of this restaurant. This is how you get there. There's just, there's so much to dig into and I think I want to explore those things and I think we've done a good job of that. But I also don't wanna overwhelm folks and, and give to be like, well, I'm just more confused than I was. I think when you come and say, you know, be curious. Pay the 20 bucks a month. Try it out. Start telling it about yourself, asking it questions, you know, gimme ideas. I'll be boost sales, you know, for Easter brunch and gimme some email subject lines to get people in the door. And small things like that seem to be the best way to, to start. Right. What copy do I need on my website to increase the conversion rate? Like drop the link to your website and say critically evaluate this and help me optimize it for conversion. I interviewed, uh, Adam, the founder of owner.com, and he was the one that told me the statistic, which I looked up and was true and is very sobering that the conversion rate eyeballs to butts in seats. On a restaurant's website is 10%, nine out of every 10 people, they go to your restaurant's website statistically say, nah, no thanks, I'm not into it. And then you look at like the other high intent pages, right? Your Yelp listing, your Google listing, your TripAdvisor. Like did a professional copywriter write that optimized for sales conversion? Well, what happened if they did? I believe that in the near future, like it's not going to be that AI is going to replace restaurants or restaurateurs. It is that restaurants that are not using AI are going to be overwhelmed by restaurants that do 'cause you're just able to do so much more, so much better. I think they're probably just overwhelmed in general. For sure. That was my life. Somebody reached out to me based on a LinkedIn post I did the other day and he goes, you're trying to help people not be afraid. And I was like, the entire time I was a restaurant owner, I was afraid I was motivated almost exclusively by fear. You know, the hope is because this is a recorded conversation that like in those moments of overwhelm, they just hit pause and like, go do that thing. And then they can come back to it when they're ready. And if you do that, that'll only help DJs downloads. Because I think we've, we've, we've covered a lot of ground and I, I don't wanna go too deep, but I am, I'm curious, you know, beyond the language loading models and the GPTs and things like that, what, what are you excited about where it can go in the next couple of years? Things you're seeing or just, you know, where do you see it going from, from where you're at now? I mean, outside of the stuff that we can do, the stuff that I see other people doing, that's super exciting. I mean, you guys are working with it and you guys are doing really, really cool stuff with it. I mean, what I want is I wanna see a, uh, an AI that can look at the weather, uh, the seven day forecast in Los Angeles. Look at my historicals also, you know, for like last year. And then also look the historicals in the weeks leading up to this week, and give me a schedule that is, it is going to be dynamic in nature. That it is changing in real time based on the estimated needs of the restaurant. I think that is incredibly, incredibly exciting and I don't think we're that far off. I think that there are ways for it to, to pinpoint who they're gonna trade shifts with, who's most likely to pick up a shift based on historical data. I think stuff like that is really exciting. A buddy of mine is building out this AI for inbound catering. That is so smart that it can actually, because when you look at like catering and events, there's this marketing phrase that you know, but I'll share. It's called Time to Lead. Time to lead is everything. When people make an event inquiry or a catering inquiry at your restaurant, you think, oh, they want a book with me. But no, they just want to book and you are one of 10 calls they made. And they're not gonna book with the bet they're gonna book with the person that calls them back first. And so what you're gonna see is you're gonna see both phone and and chat AI agents that are able to successfully sell your catering and events offering as good or better than a human. I think that's down the pike. I don't think it's as far away as we think dynamic pricing. I think it's going to be. Critical in the future is that you look at, uh, the whole tariff situation that's going on right now and I have a bunch of clients in Canada and they're like, oh my God, like the cost of goods has already started to skyrocket. And how nice would it be if the point of sale system was able to look at the inputs from Margin Edge or me and say, yo, the price of this went up. We need to adjust the pricing accordingly. So the restaurants are always, always at a flat profit margin.'cause that's where we wanna be. If you're trying to hit 18%, like we are a couple of years away from you, being able to upload your invoices, upload your menu, upload your labor, and it will tell you how your menu should be priced and adjust it based on these variables moving forward. Yeah, and I, I, I think a lot of those tools exist. Just without the, the smart aspect of it. You know, in seven shifts we do have historical data, we do have weather reports, but it is up to the restaurateur to look at that information and make the decision themself, right? They know they're coming in, that their avocados are more expensive than they are, so they have to then go make the decision. Say, well, I'm gonna go into my menu. I'm gonna raise the price of the guacamole. These tools will enable them. To not have to think about it essentially and just give them a leg up in, in terms of speed and, and time is effectively the idea of let's go, let's go back to your original thesis. That was not wrong. I believe that the greatest hurdle in our industry is not a lack of knowledge, it's overwhelm. Knowledge is everywhere. And so, you know, if we are coming out of in era, we are coming out of the era of data. Big data, data everywhere, spreadsheets for days. Let me show you a new dashboard that you can look at. And we are moving into the area, into the era of actionable information. People don't need more information. They need actionable information. And at some point, you know, and who can afford this today, which is I think one of the most exciting things about AI is the interpretation of that data. Actionable data. You need to cut these people. Press this button if you would like me to cut them for you. I think you're gonna see all kinds of stuff like that. I don't think it's ever gonna be Amazon esque in the way that like robots are ushering line cooks up and down the line and telling them they need to chop faster. But I, I do think that what you are. What you're seeing is the opportunity, and it starts in marketing as all great things do. The opportunity for great people to retain their jobs by making more money, by amplifying their efforts. And that makes sense. And I, I, I think that there's a lot of conversation about, you know, we've written about this too to before you said it was, it's going from the data overwhelmed to just actionable data. And I don't think this changes the idea that technology will make restaurants less human. It'll just enable people to actually just. Be the hospital people they want to be, but you know, remove a lot of this. And I think that the AI and the, the tools that we're talking about today will just continue to enable the human element to be more present rather than in the back office making all these decisions and being overwhelmed with spreadsheets. You can actually be on the floor with your guests. In my darkest moments in the hardest. Eras of my life and my career as a restaurant owner. I just wanted someone to tell me what to do. I just wanted a clear path forward. I wanted to help when I, I most definitely could not afford it. And I think that the opportunity here is that, you know, there's so many people on this call that understand today that marketing is a priority. They don't even know how to clearly define marketing. And even if they did clearly define it, they don't have the time or the bandwidth or the inclination or the talent to do it, and they can't afford to hire people to do it. That is the great para. Paradox of our industry, right? And this is, at least in these early salad days, this is a huge step in the right direction as we come in time, I think. I guess I'm just curious, I mean, we have kind of just the general advice, I guess I'm just curious, you know, next steps and then maybe some other resources that, that you would recommend for folks. You know, you said obviously download the app. Check it out, play with it, you know? But where do you look for inspiration and just other, other places to, to really just find ideas, I guess? I think it starts with the language models. If it was me, I would be subscribing to everybody's newsletter. I would subscribe to the Seven Shifts newsletter and the Triple C newsletter. You know, like I would, the Margin Edge newsletter, me's newsletter. I would, I like, I wanna know what everybody's working on. That's what I wanna know. And then the other thing that I would do, you don't need to look at the tech industry to see what's going on in tech. I would argue that's actually a terrible place to start. I would look at comparable industries, right? What are product and service-based industries that are five years ahead of us? And what are they doing? I think a great place to look is online retail. I think when you look at models like Shopify, you're able to steal ideas. Like I didn't become a great marketer DJ by like looking at other marketers in the restaurant space. All three of them back in the early two thousands. Like I learned by looking at other industries saying like, who's doing it right? Who has like. Loyal fans that come back time and time again, that are willing to pay a premium rate for a commoditized product. Who are they? Who are they talking to? On what platforms are they talking to? What are they talking about? And then, you know, in terms of next steps, what it looks like. I'm giving it all away. I mean, the reason that I wanted to come on this show was to share what I know, which ultimately I'm sure leads to overwhelm to some degree, one of those. Sure. When will I get around to that? And then offer the olive branch of every month. For five days, we can sit down together for 40 minutes a day and I will walk you through not only the frameworks that we use to scale up these clients, but also like templates and tools and frameworks because a rising tide raises all ships. And what I have found is in the hundreds of people that that do this, people follow up. Weeks later, months later, man, like, yo, I did this and this happened and I made more money this way. What I figured out in my own business, and I think this idea serves everyone really well, is like I had thousands of problems when running my restaurant until I didn't. I only had to solve one problem to solve all of my other problems, and it was money. He was dj. When I had no money, I had a thousand problems. When I had money, I was just able to throw that money at those problems. And it's amazing how these, these problems just become minor inconveniences when you have money and the floor drains back up and you've gotta close for service early on a Saturday, which is your busiest night. Like when you have money, you call a plumber and when you don't have money, you're hyperventilating in the employee restroom. If we can just solve money for. Everyone that's listening, everything else becomes a minor inconvenience. And that's, I mean, that's, that's, that's the key to all of it, right? But I think these types of tools and these types of practices and curiosity can help solve that money problem. It is, this is the path there. All right, Josh, if folks wanna find you, where can they find you? Josh oppel.com. I'm pretty easy to find. We'll put it in the, the show notes. Um, but. Thanks again for joining us today. There's a lot of great insights there and you know, we'll be following up with it on our blog and in our newsletter. Our newsletter is called The Food Runner, which there's a link to subscribe in there as well. And we'll be doing an, an issue on automation and AI and things that you can, you know, explore with that. But with that, I. Thanks again and uh, we'll talk soon. Thanks again for checking out this episode of the Pre-Shift podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review and share with one of your friends to help our show grow. We could not do it without your support. As always, I would love to hear what you think about the show or let me know if you want to be on it or if you know someone that you would love to hear on it, you email me directly, dj@sevenshifts.com. It's also in the show notes, and I look forward to hearing from all of you. Talk to you next time.