Your Why is Your Freedom: Building a Business Around Your Life, Not the Other Way Around w/ Andrew Martino (Part 3) - Ep. 37

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Uh what you just touched on is uh has been my version of what uh people have uh uh laughed me at. I one uh one time literally, uh just a meeting with someone in person uh or a couple of different people. Um another veteran industry owner in my industry literally like kind of like dismissed me and laughed, like kind of laughed me out of the this lunch meeting from this idea, uh which really just uh with my personality lit more of a fire to be like motivation. Yeah, like because I you know as a uh as a personality trait, I have definitely have uh a healthy dose of uh that uh of pettiness of like and in the way of like like oh proving something wrong. Yeah, oh like I didn't need more reason to succeed than the reason why I want to succeed internally. Um but thank you for also giving me just a little bit more fire to be able to say fuck off now because uh and prove you're wrong, right? That kind a chip on your shoulder type deal. And um it was related to what you how you talk about stress and anxiety, um and how I wanted to look I was seeing, you know, just in general, you know, people talk about wanting to, you know, how can you create a you know a stress-free life, anxiety-free rel life. Like it's just seems like the you know, the common kind of theme is people want to eliminate stress and anxiety because they just tag it with this like negative connotation that it's bad. And because yeah, sometimes stress doesn't feel particularly good, right? Uh sometimes stress can uh can suck in the moment, but I was like I was looking at this and I was like, I think we're looking at stress wrong, or not looking at it fully, um, and we're just seeing it one type of way, and then I was like, okay, like if you take stress, stress just as whatever the word means, um, apply it in a different setting than stress you feel mentally, right? What is that what does stress do? And it's like, okay, well, um what about when someone goes in a cold plunge? Like for under you know, the right temperature, right? Not too cold, you'll too cold and you you get hypothermia or die too long if it's too cold you could die, get hypothermia. But in a controlled dose, that is quite literally by definition putting extreme temperature stress on your body. And I don't think that I don't think the science can be really disputed anymore on the positive health benefits on doing cold plunges on on your health. And I I d I'm not sure. I'm again I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure that's like now like known as fact.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Common sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah. Um and so like alright, so that's stress. Alright, what about when you go to the gym and you work out? You're literally tearing your muscle fibers and ripping them apart. And what is the what's the outcome of that? It's growth, you know, growth of your muscles. Like, yeah, work out every day for six hours, it's probably not gonna have a good outcome. Just like if you have chronic stress and that's all you have, it's probably gonna do negative things for your health. But the absence of stress, I think, is just as bad as too much. And so this is where I got laughed at, is I'm like, you know, from my and my business and my lens of working with with founders and and businesses is you know, through this finance financial lens. So I'm looking at um and I'm like, well, I know for me personally, I w I want to inject stress into my life in these healthy doses. Um because I always know that that's you know that's a catalyst that always has created uh positive outcomes financially and otherwise. Um and so then I started uh I took my aura ring that I had had for about a year at the time, exported the data, and then looked at that compared to uh some of our financial metrics, so margins and revenue, revenue growth. And it was a perfect over the 12 months that I looked at, it was a perfect correlation that my highest aura stress amount of hours per day for that month spent in what oracles like high stress.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

High stress, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Correlated with the highest revenue months and revenue growth months and margin months that we had. And it was not just one off or almost, it was perfect correlation. My lowest stress month was our lowest revenue month of that 12 months. 100%. And I'm like, okay, I know that's a small sample size, but like I think there's something here. Yeah. And then and then this ties into also your mentality of doing something different, not just the way it's always been done. I'm like, and I googled, I was like, uh the current uh PL and balance sheet that uh all companies essentially uh use to look at the financial performance and health of their companies. When was this general structure of financial statements? When was this when did this first come about? And it was like 1932, and it has not changed really that much in how we look at financials for a company since in almost a hundred years. Yeah. And I'm like, there's things that I if I could create at my ideal PL and my ideal balance sheet, it's not just gonna be financial metrics uh that I want to look at when I analyze my company because it's not just financial inputs that are important to creating those financial outcomes. And I was like, I would have stress as some kind of financial line because I know that it's important, and the correlation of more having in a certain amount of stress is has for me thus far created positive financial outcomes. And I was like, these numbers on on a PL are they're just lagging uh indicators of a certain amount of inputs that the inputs are not solely financial inputs that that drive these. But why in my industry do CFOs uh uh really only look at financial inputs that cause those things? Because what if it's some what if you were able to measure on your financial statements your team's like your team buy-in to your mission or your cause and be able to s uh identify why you're churning you're you have an up tip uptick in your team member churned, people are quitting. Maybe it's not compensation package and all this other financial you know, this financial way of looking at it. What if the missing piece is this thing that we know we know is important? Most people I don't think a lot of people would argue that team culture and buy-in is important, but why do have we not tried to find a way to measure that and track that, knowing how important it is? And so, and then that's when I got laughed out and was told people don't care about that stuff, uh and and that uh that like that's not a real thing, and uh and I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I think that that says that says more about uh that person than it does about you, you know, so you can see where their values lie. But I'm agreeing, right? It's like it's like how you look at soft skills, right, that a person might have. Okay, they might not go on a resume, but soft skills are one of the most important things you could have in any world, right? So that's why people love to hire hospitality workers or people that have had a hospitality background, because you get these certain soft skills, which how to read a room, how to read a person's behavior, how to read their body language, you know, like all these things that are important for our business, but they're important in any business, right? It's important in how to communicate. And then you talk about like for us, KPIs, right? Essentially, right? What we're talking about is KPIs that were are hard to quantify. Um we have an investor, and he's very hands-off, doesn't all he wants to see is the quarterly snapshot, right? And there's no context to that. So I can send it to him, but without me going through it and then and the context and our own internal KPIs, he doesn't really know how the bit is it, is it doing well? Is it doing poorly? Like, what's the vibe, you know, kind of situation. So like we have our own internal KPIs that aren't stress indicators, but are things that we know are underlying indicators of our success. So for us, it might be like, you know, some of this guest satisfaction stuff or time to delivery or refund percentage or like these small things that we know that if they're off, everything else is going to be off after it. And I think it's important for every business to have, you know, underlying KPIs that are extremely unique to their business. Um yeah. And if you're able to figure out a way to freaking quantify, you know, something that's generally qualitative, hell yeah, I'd be all for that. So I will not laugh you out of this podcast room and uh it's good.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

And what are some of the for you guys specifically, what are some of the important KPIs that you guys look at?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, so we we look at um time from order to delivery, um, you know, which is really important for us. Uh we're big on on underpromise, over deliver. So like, you know, if we pick, we if we say the delivery is going to take 45 minutes, you know, we really want it to get there in like 35 minutes um for that. Uh uh consumer satisfaction obviously is important. So you look at like our aggregate scores across like you know, the apps and Googles and Yelps and our internal metrics and things like that. Um, that's really important for us. Um we do look at our uh uh you know refund or chargeback percentage uh from each different revenue source. So like is there a particular is it Uber Eats that there's more refunds? Is it a certain item? And like we like to drill down to try to figure out is it an operational thing, is it a delivery thing? Um so that refund percentage and item is is pretty important to us. Um what else will we look at? Uh I think it's mostly stuff that revolves around consumer satisfaction. Um because usually sales or profits will lag that. So if that's dropping, we might not see it in sales at first, right? So it's really important it's like an early indicator for us. So we try to look at early indicator stuff or stuff we know um we should be at a certain level. Um, I think those are the main ones, delivery ones. We have we have one or two that I'm keep keep tight to the belt because I consider them pretty unique to how we operate. Um yeah, I think every organization, again, should have, you know, underlying KPIs that even if it's just shared internally for your team, that they're more measurable per department, you know, it's it's really helpful. Um, you know, financials are great, but that really only affects a certain certain percentage. So, like, you know, if you're I'll use the restaurant analogy, like my line cooks, right, their KPIs might look totally different. It might be more on like food waste, right? Or or errors or something along those lines, um, versus uh my front of house person who might be based on like uh you know customer satisfaction or feedback or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah, no, and I think that's um the ability to do that for like for you guys and anyone who else else who does operate that way, is really like it's in this in essence, like uh uh uh the ability to really change what I think a lot of people, especially you know in your industry, because of how um fast-paced it can be and how you know really you know challenging it can really be and is um being able to go from being in that reactive mindset, reactive kind of way of operating to being proactive because um and how how you know if if if you know if I'm a if I'm the owner and operator of a restaurant and you know I'm listening to you and I'm like, man, this makes a lot of sense. Like I love this, this is opening my eyes to a whole different way of thinking about this, but I'm in the camp of I don't have any of this set up, I haven't been doing this, and we're I'm really just reacting and trying to get through today. What advice would you give to me to how I can make that transition to be more like how you look at this and proactive?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, you have to prioritize it because this is a big potential piece of your business. So you really need to set some time aside to think deeply about it. What's your end goal? Is it attention? Is it bottom line profitability? Is it to show that you can grow sales? Is it to reach a new audience? So I would always start with what you hope to gain from it and then really think about if you have what it takes to do that. Do I have a budget for advertising? Do I have a budget for um, you know, for extra kitchen staff should I need it? Uh, is my kitchen staff burned out right now? Is introducing new menus gonna bring us complexity that we aren't ready for? What is our package, you know? So, like again, it comes back to thoughtfulness and giving a fuck, but really setting some time aside. This is not something that you're gonna be able to figure out, oh, 20 minutes a day, or I laid some time aside. This is like, hey, I need to spend like a full day or multiple days across, you know, one day a week for the next four weeks to really answer some questions to yourself. It's really holding yourself accountable for what you want to get out of it and then making a strategic decision from that point. Okay, this matters to me. I'm gonna spend this much on a consultant that can set up everything for me because I don't have the time. This matters so much to me that I'm gonna hire, I'm gonna train someone else to take this other thing off my plate so I can really give this the time and attention it deserves. Right. There's no correct answer, but it all starts with that care, you know, that we've spoken about, that true hospitality care, knowing that this is a part of your business. It doesn't need to be an incremental part of your business. It can be your whole business or it can be none of your business. But the only thing you shouldn't do is let it happen to you, right? You cannot be reactive. You can't just let it happen to you. Because let me tell you, all of these apps, they are way savvier than you and smarter than you, and they will take you to the cleaners time and time again. Um, so you need to take ownership of you know your business. Um, and if I'm uh owner operator, again, I'm thinking about what my goal is. I figure out what my main goal is and I'm reverse engineering everything from that.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

No, I love that. Um reverse engineering is uh is uh such a useful way of thinking about things, especially when you're trying to design something new or change something huge. Um working backwards from what exactly is the goal here is is is always uh the best way, at least for me, to to go about these. And so then say, all right, I I I I do that, I set the time aside, I start taking action on things and implementing things, and uh there's you know, there's gonna be things that work, there's gonna be things that don't work. And um obviously like I know you appreciate the and understand uh uh the skill of being able to pivot and you know not hold on to something uh to know when you need to pivot and when something's not gonna work. But I think that's uh you know, I don't know, I think it's through reps, uh obviously that you you can you can b become better at this. But if I'm so I'm the I'm implementing these things, you know, that you said, um, I'm putting the time aside, and I'm now I'm with something, I'm like, I'm not sure if this is something that needs more patient or I need to pivot from. How what what framework has has worked? Uh is there a framework that you kind of follow to know when to pivot and when to abandon?

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Yeah. Um the first thing I would do is have an honest conversation with my whole team. Um, because these are decisions that affect the operations of your whole team. They might have insights that you don't understand, like, hey, if you want to do delivery, just so you know, it makes ticket times in the kitchen 10 minutes longer for all our dining guests, right? So I would always go to my people that are on the front lines dealing with customers or in the kitchen. I want their buy-in, right? Because if I don't have their buy-in on my decision, it's not gonna go well for me. Um, so I really want to ensure that we're all on the same page. I tell them, again, the why, right? Hey, we're gonna make these moves. Why? We want to pick up more guests, we need to pay more bills, and guess what? If we're able to execute this, I can give you guys a bump. You can get an extra day off, we can hire a new person, whatever it is, that way people are bought into your strategy and your vision. Um, so I think you this is not uh not time for a dictatorship, especially in the restaurant world. You know, everything needs to be cohesive, everyone needs to be on the same page. So you really want to explain your whys and your buy-in, and you might get really helpful nuggets from your frontline employees on something that you didn't even think about, right? Like you didn't think about how uh, oh, okay, at eight o'clock everybody's gonna start to order this and our fryer can't handle it, and the temp drops on our fryer, and now our signature item doesn't stay as crispy as it should. Like, there are so many down the line impacts that can happen from a wrong decision that you want to make sure all of your stakeholders are part of that conversation to ensure that you're uh getting as much information as you can to make a huge decision.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

And not only is that information extremely valuable, but it's also going to contribute to your team buying in because they then feel a part of shaping the mission in the direction of where you're going as a company versus being told this is what it is, and you know, um, participating in that is extremely especially you know, as a um as part of a team where you you know don't have any you know direct ownership stake in this, and you know, it it can really shift uh something from being just a job to being something that you you really are excited to be a part of, you know. And it's you know it's gonna you know the downwind effects of that and the buy-in that that creates, I mean it's gonna it l it's gonna level up your people. They're gonna start looking at things with more. Of an entrepreneur mindset because they've been a part of this and they understand the bigger picture and they're not just isolated into you know a line cook's not just looking, I'm just a line cook. They're they see that this is where they operate and this is the part of the big picture that they contribute to, and they see what role that what they do contributes to the whole picture, and then can see things from just a different perspective. I think perspective is super important because you know whether you're a CEO or um or you know a role that is very entry-level and doesn't have um any response, you know, much responsibility, uh, you know, in in you know, kind of the typical sense, you're gonna have one's gonna have a completely different view of the others. Uh and no one view is uh you know more important than the other. Uh it's it's all just different perspective. Uh and so I think uh uh yeah, I think it's really powerful including your team in some of those decisions because everyone enjoys being a part of some feeling like they're a part of something, uh especially when it comes to to, you know, like at the end of the day, like, yeah, you know, like this is this is uh for a lot of people, like this they understand this is their job, you know. There's things that they care about more, right? It's the only the entrepreneur is gonna care more than every single other person about the success of this business. Um but the the power of how of getting your people on board to care more than they otherwise would is just is incredible. I I've seen it with my team and obviously you've seen it with your team. And and it makes me and also it makes me want to ask you too, like as an entrepreneur, as a founder of something different, something that you know you really pioneered and shaped like a new way of doing something, and obviously putting yourself through all of the challenges, like intentionally. Um what and like for this and and the role that this plays in your life, what like what was your why for for doing this? You know, because I think it's super important to have a why that goes beyond the money, because like in the beginning, you know, hitting those sales goals or signing a new client like is great. And it's like, man, I'm making you know, I'm making way more than I made doing the same thing for this other company. Yeah. But then at a certain point, like that's not that it stops doing it stops doing it for you. And you have to you have to have a a why that goes beyond that, that can sustain longer. What's yours?

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Uh so there's a there's a quick answer and there's a longer answer. I'll I'll try to go somewhere in the middle. Uh but right before I started this company, I already had the idea. I kind of sketched it out. Um my now wife, we were I don't know if we were engaged or dating in the time, but we were living together at the time. She had a very steady job, um, which is always great to have a partner with a steady job if you're about to embark on a fucking crazy solo journey, right? But I had an opportunity, uh job offer with a very prominent restaurant and hospitality group in New York City, um, with a very nice salary uh and anything that, you know, I I probably could have wanted at the time. And what I kept coming back to was this idea that I had, which I couldn't get out of my head. I just felt like I would always regret it if I didn't go for it. And the job that I wasn't taking or the job that was up there, I felt like there would always be a similar job available to me if my idea failed. So the timing and opportunity is the first part of it, right? Which is that I had a partner who had a steady job, which allowed me to take more of a gamble and a risk. The reason that I really wanted to do it and continue, I think my actual wise, I just like being my own boss. Um, I like being in charge of my own schedule. I like being in charge of what I want to accomplish and what I need to get done. I've always been very self-motivated. Um, I've always liked a lot of autonomy. Um, I always worked my ass off. And I figured if I was gonna work my ass off to make someone else money, why don't I try to do that for myself? So I think like, you know, a confluence of factors, but ultimately I like being having as much agency as possible in my own life. I like to try to create my own success. Um, and if I failed at those things, or if anytime I changed my mind, I certainly could go back into the real world as I call it, right? The the employee, corporate, W-2 type world. Um, but that's it. You know, I didn't have kids at the time. I can't say, I know I need to make money to feed my no, I did not get into this to be rich. If you meet anybody in restaurants that's entering it to get rich, you're in the wrong business. Um, you know, success to me does not mean scaling to $3 billion. Success to me doesn't mean franchising. Success to me means running an honest business, giving great people that work for me and with me an opportunity to grow. It means being able to be present with my kids for dinner and put them to bed every night. It means that I have time to do other things outside of work that I want to do. Um, that's what true success means to me. And so I just want to keep pursuing that path to what my own definition of success is, not what you know the outside world is telling me that it should be.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

I love that more than more than you know. Um, and a lot of similarities uh for me for myself too. And it's uh at the end of the day, it's like that you know, that's your definition definition of success, but also like it's like it's your version of freedom too. Like, and like who doesn't want to who doesn't want to be free, right? Whatever you want to be free of, right? Whether it's someone telling you what to do, whether it's of living paycheck to paycheck, and you know wondering how you're going to make ends meet to feed your family, uh, whether it's being free of not being able to do things that you want to do, or not going and experiencing that thing with your friends or your your wife, or um being, you know, and you know, a big one for me. I don't have any kids um yet, but since the beginning, um I've had you know, I've had them in mind uh of I'm gonna be there for every sports game and every recital and every family dinner and every memory, like because I saw uh in one of my earliest corporate uh jobs, uh I was uh I s I looked at these partners and I'm like this is not making any sense. You're yeah, you're you're making a nice salary, right? You got you're making a nice salary, but like the the cost of that, it seems the higher up you get on this ladder, the h the true cost of that salary is is uh really higher than what you get paid for it. Like you're you're missing out on memories with your kids because you're you're now expected to be at the office and listen to some dude who doesn't give a shit about you or your family.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Absolutely. Go go read, go Google what people say on their deathbeds. That's was powerful for me, right? Go go Google what people say as they're reaching the end of their life. What do you think they talk about most? Everybody, every single person. I wish I spent more time with my family. I wish I was more present more for these things. I wish no one's like, oh man, I wish I got that extra promotion so that I could have gotten, you know, an extra hundred K a year, not one person, right? So why not take those lessons and apply them to life right now? You know, um, no need to wait. You know, I know what's really important in this world. The shit isn't so serious. You know, I tell staff all the time, like, yeah, we care. We're not curing cancer. You know, like we still gotta enjoy ourselves. We still gotta realize like there are more important things in life, you know, like stuff happens, you know, life happens. Um, so yeah, I'm I'm I'm with you there. You know, enjoy enjoy the things that are really true and meaningful. Work can change. You shouldn't be defined by your business or your job. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

It's the deathbed one as well. It's you know, the I think the the common overwhelming theme is is regret, but regret about the things you didn't do. And I've thought about that a lot too. And you know, that's something, you know, like I can live with I was like, I can live with trying this and crashing and failing miserably. I can live with that because at least I tried. At least I wasn't too scared to take a bet on myself and to see what happens by by trying it, right? Life is short. You get you get to live at one time. Like don't don't live it in fear and have those regrets. You know, it's time and memories with people that you love. That's like doesn't matter how rich you are and how fat your bank account is, or how many zeros your net worth has, time and memories are things that you can never ever get back. And like that's to me, that's like there's nothing more important than that.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

100% agreed. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

So I like to close each episode with asking each guest uh the same question. So I'm gonna ask you, what is your one trade secret in business or life? And I know the common theme with the asking these questions is like we get so deep and go into a lot of things that it's like it's it there's so many that have already come to light, you know. We just yeah, we just talked about, you know, we just talked about the meaning of you know, the true true meaning to each of us of life and doing what we do. So it's like it yeah, but what is your if there's just one uh that you can give to someone out there, whether they're a founder or an entrepreneur, or they're aspiring to, or they're just um you know, to business or life in general.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

I I think we did touch on it. So I well to put a bow on it, tie it all together, is you have to love what you're doing, especially as an entrepreneur, because you need to love the journey, right? Again, the the goal can't be I want to exit for this much money, or like you have to really be engaged, whether you find the problem you're trying to solve super challenging, you're really passionate about the topic. Um, it doesn't need to be your entire life, but you really need to love what you're doing because you have to love the journey. Um and if you love the journey, you're guaranteed success because even in failure, you're learning and you're meeting people and you're ready for the next journey. Um, so you know, love, pick something that you love, uh study as hard as you can and learn as much as you can, but ultimately you're never ready and you got to take the leap. So at some point, take the leap.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Man, I love it. Um that's uh I mean that's wisdom that is even just it's great for me to just to hear you know in different ways and from different people. You know, it's uh that's so so important. So Andrew, thank you so much, man. I've really enjoyed this, uh, especially uh especially talking about you know what we did at the end. Like I love talking about that kind of stuff, and uh, you know, to be able to have you on here to share your experience. And uh, you know, I definitely know that um, you know, if there's any aspiring entrepreneurs or people out there that are uh have been second guessing or waiting for the right opportunity or you know, trying to decide whether they can and should take the leap and bet on themselves and do something different and and bet you know, really t just believe in themselves no matter what anyone else tells them, if there's something they truly do believe in to their core, um your journey uh is is an aspiring one and uh one that people sh really um I know can find a lot out of uh for themselves. So thank you so much, Andrew. Uh uh it's great, uh great talking to you and getting to know you and to learn your story. And uh and I know that um I know that whatever um direction you go in the future, I I already know that it's impossible then not to have that le uh you know end in success because success as you define it is uh is just uh is is an amazing thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Absolutely. Uh it's been great. Been great chatting with you. Thanks for having me. And uh yeah, let's keep it going out there, right? Enjoy the journey.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Absolutely, enjoy the journey.