1256: Kim Beechner, CEO of Embark Marketing

Summary

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Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast, Episode 1256: Kim Beechner, CEO of Embark Marketing

Date: February 26, 2026
Host: Eric Cacciatore
Guest: Kim Beechner, CEO of Embark Marketing

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Episode Overview

In this vibrant, candid episode of Restaurant Unstoppable, host Eric Cacciatore sits down with marketing maven and hospitality industry survivor Kim Beechner, CEO of Embark Marketing. Together, they explore Kim’s incredible personal journey—overcoming early loss and cancer—and dissect the dynamic, evolving world of restaurant marketing post-pandemic. With actionable insights, rich anecdotes, and a no-nonsense approach, Kim breaks down how to build resilient, authentic restaurant brands while facing down consumerism, technological disruption, and the challenges of staying relevant in a saturated market.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Kim’s Inspirational Backstory: Resilience & Purpose

• A Journey Fueled by Adversity

  • Kim grew up in San Antonio, working at Dairy Queen to support her family. Her mother’s passing at age 17 forced her to “adult” quickly—working multiple jobs, running a household, and learning survival skills in the hospitality industry ([11:14]).
  • In her words:

    “Ultimately, the restaurant industry saved my life.” (12:32, Kim)

• College as Launch Pad

  • Juggled multiple bartending jobs, inherited a house (and mortgage), and paid her way through college by outworking her peers.
  • Majored in International Business & Marketing, studied abroad thanks to accidentally double-paying her mortgage—a “blessing in disguise” ([17:56]).

• Mantras and Mindsets

  • Overcame stage II Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma:

    “I am strong. I am powerful. I have made an impact. I will continue to make an impact. I have a team and an army behind me and it’s going to be okay.” (05:23, Kim)

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The Evolution of Embark Marketing

• Organic, Word-of-Mouth Growth

  • Started during college, Embark became a 15-year-old agency focused on bars and restaurants, consciously eschewing “pushy” self-promotion for authentic connections.

  • “There has to be human connection in marketing…that’s getting lost.” (09:59, Kim)

• Internship & Mentorship Focus

  • Built an internship program to give students “what I would have wanted—real knowledge,” shaping 35–40 students into marketers with industry empathy ([41:35]).

• Strategic Niche and Capstone Moment

  • Narrowed scope to hospitality after students analyzing her business recommended she “do what you’re passionate about” ([40:23]).

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Marketing Best Practices in 2026: What Works, What Doesn’t

Kim’s Comprehensive Marketing Audit
When consulting with a new client, Kim reviews:

1. Website

   • SEO optimization (keywords, long- and short-tail, copy depth).
   • For small businesses: affordable, template-based sites (Squarespace).
   • For scaling: custom, SEO-friendly WordPress builds ([62:31]).
   • Skeptical of all-in-one platforms like Pop Menu or Bento Box due to underutilized and redundant tech ([65:32]).

2. POS Systems & Tech Stack

   • Loves Toast for integration (sales tracking, email/SMS, reservations) but warns about redundancies and unnecessary expenses ([66:21]).

   • “If there’s a way that I can track and measure it, then I want to do that.” (67:18, Kim)

3. Reservations

   • Prefers native tools (like Toast’s), but recognizes third-party networks (Resy/OpenTable) are essential in tourist areas—cautions to drive users to your own website to avoid higher fees ([74:03]).

4. Email & SMS Marketing

   • Email still powerful (50–60% open rates!)—advises against abusing these channels with autopilot campaigns ([80:20]).
   • SMS is sacred—should be respectful and measured. Texas laws make SMS tricky for restaurants serving alcohol ([70:38]).

5. PR and SEO

   • Earned media (press coverage) leads to valuable backlinks.
   • Proactively hosts events to attract press and optimize organic search rankings ([68:01]).

6. Reputation Management

   • Advocates for owner responses to every review (positive/negative), using them to educate rather than apologize ([84:43]).
   • Tools like Ovation can capture negative feedback before it goes public, but filtering reviews has ethical/legal dilemmas ([87:10]).

   • “We don’t apologize, we educate.” (85:34, Kim)

7. Social Media Mastery

   • Post with purpose: prioritize “quality over quantity.”
   • Short-form, people-centric, storytelling videos perform best (less than 30s might outperform longer content unless it’s genuine storytelling) ([95:57]).
   • Human faces and authentic stories foster deeper connections versus food-only posts.

   • “If you’re not on camera, you’re getting left behind.” (93:08, Kim)

   • Claim your brand on every platform—even if you don’t use it yet ([99:35]).
   • Restrict brand account management to trusted team, not random staff ([99:41]).

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The Big Picture: Surviving and Thriving Beyond “Marketing as Usual”

• On Consumerism & The Tech Juggernaut

  • Both Eric and Kim caution against over-reliance on big tech (platforms like Toast, Yelp, Google, Meta) lining their pockets while independent restaurants bear the brunt.

  • “The secret to marketing is have the most money.” (90:38, Eric)
    “We have to play the Google, the Yelp, the Meta game…in order for them to stay competitive, they do have to do that.” (107:07, Kim)

• AI & The Road Ahead

  • Both are excited, but wary: AI can either empower independents (if kept open-source and decentralized) or create a new “Google” to replace the old guard unless restaurant owners get proactive and collaborate ([109:24]).

• Community Over Competition

  • Unites on the need for more collaboration, advocacy, and restaurateurs thinking like community leaders, not just business owners ([114:25]).

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “I am strong. I am powerful. I have made an impact. I will continue to make an impact. I have a team and an army behind me and it’s going to be okay.”
  — Kim Beechner ([05:23])

• “Marketing has grown into this machine where that element of your business is becoming more important than the actual thing you do. And that’s weird.”
  — Eric Cacciatore ([09:39])

• “Don’t be afraid to ask for help. There’s always someone smarter than you. There’s always someone else that can help you, make you better.”
  — Kim Beechner ([124:47])

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• [05:23] Kim’s Success Mantra
• [11:14] Early hardship—losing her mom, learning restaurant resilience
• [29:07] Word-of-mouth vs. the world of PR & paid marketing
• [37:04] Early bar marketing: grassroots, guerrilla, pre-social
• [50:35] Pandemic as inflection point—tech awareness, word-of-mouth revival
• [61:36] Website as foundation, SEO best practices
• [70:38] SMS marketing quirks & legal pitfalls in Texas
• [84:43] Reputation management: “We don’t apologize, we educate.”
• [93:08] Social: Authenticity, entertainment, and the power of faces
• [114:25] Industry advocacy and taking back community leadership
• [124:14] Kim’s Three Pieces of Wisdom

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Memorable Moments

• Cancer-Free Announcement:
  “I am unstoppable. I just found out last night I’m cancer free.” ([04:26], Kim)

• Pandemic as Opportunity:
  The disruption forced restaurants and bars to adopt technology and reevaluate operational workflow—highlighting Embark’s role in survival and resilience ([47:18]).

• On Ethics & Fit:
  Kim isn’t shy about turning away business:

  "There have definitely been times where we’ve been contacted for work, and I’m like, we’re not a right fit for you." ([120:44])

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Kim’s Final Wisdom and Core Takeaways

1. Cherish the Little Moments:
   Celebrate small wins—they add up to giant leaps. ([124:14])
2. Never Be Afraid to Ask for Help:
   Seek out and treasure wisdom from others. ([124:47])
3. Hold Close Those Who Lift You Up:
   Your support network is vital through thick and thin. ([125:08])

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Connect With Kim

• Website: embark-marketing.com
• Social Handles: @EmbarkMarketing on all platforms

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Must-Listen Recommendations & Industry Shout-Outs

• Allison Belfor, Southerly — Advocacy and positive industry impact ([126:57]).
• John Russ, Clementine — Ethics, employee care, and deep community connection ([127:47]).

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In Kim’s Words:

“Are we making a positive impact… are we helping them? Do we feel good about that? If the answer is yes, then I have to say it’s okay for us to do it.” ([108:32])

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This episode is packed with hands-on advice, hard-won wisdom, and timely industry warnings for restauranteurs looking to become truly unstoppable. For the full experience, hear Kim’s story in her own voice and join the Restaurant Unstoppable community for interactive Q&A with future guests.

Transcript

[Podcast Host Eric]

A couple things before we get started today. First, thank you so much for showing up week after week making my vision

for Restaurants Unstoppable come true.

Your downloads are allowing me to do this show the way I've always wanted to do it. Boots on the ground, word of mouth, leaders, referring leaders, giving the industry an uncensored, no BS platform to share their perspectives and truth. That's on you. Thank you so much. And we're just getting started. So if you're enjoying what we're doing here and you want to help us do it even better, please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice. And if you do that, I promise to do everything in my power to continue to improve the show. I'll deliver the restaurant tours you want to hear from and we'll continue to make everything you love about this show better. Thank you. Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1,000 episodes, I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guest and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is made possible by Restaurant Systems Pro and beginning in January 2026, Restaurant Systems Pro is going to be doing a 30 day MAST program. This is valued at $4,000 and if you head over to go.restantsystemspro.netprofits you can for a limited time get this for only $97. But there is an even better deal if you sign up for a Restaurant Unstoppable network by heading to restaurantstoppable.com live. You can get this 30 day mastery

program for free when you join the

community and you also get access to this in perpetuity because they're going to be popping it off every month. 2026 with all the knowledge and resources and tools you need to be unstoppable. In partnership with Restaurant Unstoppable and Restaurant Systems Pro Again, Restaurant Unstoppable.com live join the community. Get access to this training. This episode is made possible by US Foods. Running a successful restaurant takes more than just great food. With US Foods you can expect more high quality products, advanced tools and flexible deliveries to grow your business. Their industry leading moxy platform also does more than just place. Your US Foods order uses AI to help you take control, save time and increase profitability. Visit usfoods.com expectmore to learn how to become a US Foods customer one more time. That is usfoods.com expect more this episode is in partnership with Giving Kitchen. The restaurant industry takes care of people.

That's what we do.

But historically, we haven't always been great

about taking care of our own.

That's why I want you to know about Giving Kitchen. They're a national nonprofit supporting food service workers facing real cris medical issues, accidents, unexpected hardship, the kind of thing that can really derail a career. Since 2013, they've helped more than 35,000 restaurant workers across the country and awarded over 17 million in financial assistance and stability resources. If you're an operator, chef or anyone food service, this resource is worth knowing. A lot of restaurants choose a rally around Giving Kitchen because at some point everyone in the business knows someone who needs it. Go to givingkitchen.org to learn more and see how you can be a part of it in your own home way. This episode is brought to you by Restaurant Technologies, the leader in automated cooking oil management. Their total oil management solution is an end to end closed loop automated system that delivers, monitors, filters, collects and recycles your cooking oil, eliminating one of the dirtiest jobs in the kitchen. Restaurant technologies services over 45,000 customers nationwide. Automate your oil and elevate your kitchen by visiting RTI Inc.com or call 8887 to get started with excitement.

Allow me to introduce to you today's guest CEO of Embark Marketing, Kim Beechner. Kim, my lady, are you feeling unstoppable?

[Kim Beechner]

I am feeling very unstoppable. I just found out last night I'm cancer free.

[Podcast Host Eric]

That is like congratulations.

[Kim Beechner]

I am unstoppable.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. And your story is inspiring. I'm sure it will come out in your story of what you've had to deal, not just being the CEO of your own marketing company, starting it from scratch. Well, I think you're like 19 or when did you actually start the marketing company? It was a while.

[Kim Beechner]

Like undergrad of high college. Yeah, undergrad of college.

[Podcast Host Eric]

It's amazing. Your. Your story is truly inspiring. You're a badass lady and you've. We've overcome a ton. So not only is this episode going to be inspirational and empowering because you're going to share a lot of marketing advice too. I know this is going to be great. I can't wait to dive into who you are and how you got to where you are today and all the cool marketing advice you're going to give us. But let's get that motivational inspirational ball rolling with a success quote or mantra. I already feel like we've got the motivation going.

[Kim Beechner]

Okay, so I actually have two. The first one I feel like really helped me get through a hard period of my life. I was recently, within the last two years, diagnosed with stage two non Hodgkin's lymphoma. And as I mentioned last night, I got my PET scan results and I am 7 months cancer free and I'm feeling super great. So I wanted to share with you guys the mantra that helped me get through those rough times. I am strong. I am powerful. I have made an impact. I will continue to make an impact. I have a team and an army behind me and it's going to be okay.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. You know, I love that message. Not just for the individuals behind this podcast that are listening to it, but the industry is strong, the industry is powerful, and this industry is going to make an impact, but we have to band together, together, share information, educate each other. And the hospitality industry, the food industry has been changing humanity as long as we've time.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes, yes.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So it's exciting stuff. Great way to get this thing started. So you came onto my radar. You emailed me. I get a lot of emails from marketing people and publicists and they're always trying to, you know, do their job, get their clients out into the world and to, you know, you just try to help their clients get discovered. Right. So when I first saw your email,

[Kim Beechner]

I was like, sketch? I was like, is this sketch?

[Podcast Host Eric]

It wasn't like out of the blue, like, you in your, like, you responded to my weekly newsletter. So, like, that instantly I was like, this is different. You're like, really cool. You never tried to pitch me anything. You just said, I'm a listener of the show. I was like, you know, I want to be better about connecting with my listeners. Like, I'm traveling. I want to find these people, I want to get the feedback. I want to learn about who's listening to the show. So I responded and I was like, I can't remember exactly what I said, but long story short, when you're based here in San Antonio, when I came to San Antonio, we linked up and I got to start reaching out to more of the people that listen to the show because I'm blown away by the quality of individual who actually listens to my podcast. Like, I think I publish this thing and it gets locked in a vault and, you know, but I forget that people listen and really amazing people listen. So we got to know Each other. You never once tried to pitch your services to me or your clients to me. We got dinner. Corey, your husband joined us. It was just a really great experience.

[Kim Beechner]

I'm so glad you feel that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

We had beers after dinner. We hung out. You let me park in your driveway. And I was like, in that moment, I was like, I really want to get Kim on the show, but I know I'm pushover and like, I need to make sure that like, I'm not just being like, you know, I got to do my due diligence. So I reached out to other people in this market who know people, and I got. Everyone I talked to said, Kim's bad ass. You should totally talk to Kim. So I'm so excited to have you here and thank you so much for reaching out. So that's a little more context, but now just get into your story. You were in college when you started this business, so like. Yeah, well, actually, before you get into your story, what is Embark Marketing today? Paint the big picture of what you do.

[Kim Beechner]

Okay, so today Embark Marketing has been. We're a little over 15 years old and we specialize in the bar and restaurant industry, providing kind of like a one stop shop for marketing companies. Everything from social media to content creation to public relations. Any way that you can touch your guest. We're kind of helping navigate that journey for restaurant owners. Kind of who we are working with is everybody from mom and pops to hospitality groups to franchise owners to multi units. I really enjoy working with people who are passionate about what they're doing. And so I kind of. We don't do a whole lot of marketing ourselves. I feel like similar to your journey, we kind of let the universe guide who comes to us. And that seems really hippie dippy. I know.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Well, I think.

[Kim Beechner]

But it has served us super well.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I, I think that's the way it should be done. You know, it's. Marketing has grown into this machine where that element of your business is becoming more important than the actual thing you do. And that's weird.

[Kim Beechner]

There has to be human connection in marketing. And I'm sure we'll get into that later, but like, I can see where that's getting lost. But we have to strive to be better.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, you're gonna share a ton of. Of marketing advice. I, I have a feeling. But I, I think we have to pay homage to your come up in your entrepreneurial journey. So just tell us your story.

[Kim Beechner]

So I have been in the restaurant industry my whole life. I grew up here and right down the road is a Dairy Queen. And so as soon as here being San Antonio. Yes, here in San Antonio. As soon as I could get a job and help contribute towards the family, I worked or I lived. My mom was a single parent, so I wanted to help out. So I would walk down to the Dairy Queen and work and then give her a portion of some money and then I'd have money to spend on whatever, and that was great. But when I was in high school, my mom passed away, and then I was like, oh, man, Dairy Queen ain't gonna cut it. You know?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Single parent.

[Kim Beechner]

Right.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Your dad wasn't in the picture.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Your one parent gets sick, passes away.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes.

[Podcast Host Eric]

How old were you?

[Kim Beechner]

19.

[Podcast Host Eric]

That's.

[Kim Beechner]

My dad is awesome. Super present. Love him to pieces, but just not in the place to. To take. Take me on. Totally. And at that point, I was already a junior going into senior year of high school. I kind of had things. I was 17.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Corey's off camera right now. If you see her looking.

[Kim Beechner]

Sorry. 17, God. You know the details. And I haven't talked about it in a while. So 17 mom passes away. Was working in the restaurant industry. Started working at another little burger joint, shucking onion rings, doing dishes. Worked my way up to cashier, then busser, then server. And then I realized, oh, you can make tips as a server.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And are you living on your own at this point or.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Wow.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah. And I was doing night school, sinking

[Podcast Host Eric]

17 years old, working full time in high school, paying rent.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah. Mortgage.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Mortgage. You owned your own home or. Well, did you.

[Kim Beechner]

I had my. Inherited my mom's home, so I had a mortgage. I had all these bills.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Wow.

[Kim Beechner]

Car insurance. All the things you would have as. Yeah. An adult.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

And this. This is the true. I guess why this is. I'm so passionate about what I'm doing is because ultimately the restaurant industry saved my life. So having those jobs and learning how to work in a restaurant and realizing that, okay, you don't get paid a lot when you work in a restaurant. It's like 215 an hour in Texas.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. Plus tips.

[Kim Beechner]

Plus tips. And so the tips is really where it was at. And for someone who's 17, you can't go get a big job that pays you enough to fulfill all these financial needs. Right. So I'm working this burger joint and then I realized, like, this is not going to cut it. And I happened to be driving down the road on my way to work, and this girl that I knew from high school pulled up next to me and she was Waving me down. Hey, hey. And I was like, what's up? It's been forever. She goes, how are you doing, man? I've been worried about you. And I'm like, yeah, it's been tough. You know, I'm struggling financially. And she goes, hey, I work at this bar. You get my number, hit me up. We're looking for, for people to work at this bar. And at the time I was 17, but I was going to turn 18 the next week. So I went, I interviewed at this bar. I told the bar manager my story, and I was like, look, man, like, I'm struggling. I really need money. And he was like, when you turn 19? And I'm like, next week. And he was like, you can work, right?

[Podcast Host Eric]

You said 19 or 18.

[Kim Beechner]

18. Because you have to be 18 to work.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I thought you said 19 by accident.

[Kim Beechner]

18 y. She's like, when did you turn 18 to serve alcohol? Yeah. For the TABC license. It was like, get your TABC license, come back, you can work. And that changed the game for me because then I could serve.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Going from making $300 a week to $1,000.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah. Or 300 bucks a night.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

You know, 150 to 300 bucks a night. And for an 18 year old, that was an enormous amount of money at the time, but was able to fulfill all of my financial needs and I really wanted to go to college.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Bartending is one of the only positions in the few positions, I should say, in the restaurant industry that you can actually sustain a comfortable lifestyle if you live a modest lifestyle.

[Kim Beechner]

Right.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And the fact that you could do that at 18 years old.

[Kim Beechner]

And to be fair, let's, let's just go on to say that like, I also rented the rooms in the house, so I had supplemental income. So it wasn't like bartending sustained everything. I still had other supplemental jobs. And I wasn't just working one bar job. I, I ended up working three jobs as I moved into college because then I realized college is expensive. Yeah. So I need more bar jobs. So then I was working like three different bar jobs. And I was smart about it. I was like, okay, on Mondays and Tuesdays, I'll work downtown when the tourists come in for the conventions. And then like Thursday I'll hop back over to this high end market and work at the high end steakhouse so that I could maximize the amount of money I was making to be able to afford to both live and go to school.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. And what'd you go to school for?

[Kim Beechner]

International business and marketing.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Oh, cool.

[Kim Beechner]

Here at The University of Incarnate Word.

[Podcast Host Eric]

What. Why that path? What was singing to you from that path or for that path?

[Kim Beechner]

I have a passion for travel, and I love traveling and experiencing new cultures. So I thought international business was going to. I knew entrepreneurship was going to be for me because I knew there was control in your life, your finances. And at the time, I was in fight or flight survival mode, and I needed to do whatever I could to survive.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

So I thought that that was the right direction, your path to freedom. Right.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I wish I thought like that. When I was 18 years old, I wanted to fly airplanes.

[Kim Beechner]

I did not know I was gonna do agency. That was not the plan. I thought I was going to get a corporate job.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Well, I said agency. I'm in. In the.

[Kim Beechner]

Oh, I see.

[Podcast Host Eric]

The actual meeting of the word. To, like, have autonomy, to have free will to do what you want.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes, yes. And maybe that's because of the organization of the bar jobs that I was like, oh, I see how I can work the system to my favor because I have to.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So you start taking these classes and do you. Do you love it? International business. Which one was standing up more to you?

[Kim Beechner]

I think I loved international business program because it required to study abroad, and I really wanted to live somewhere else, which that was a whole nother challenge. You'll never believe this, but when I was working all those bar jobs, right. I didn't understand how mortgages worked because I was a child. So every month I would get a bill from the mortgage company and it would say, I owe X amount of dollars. And then at the bottom, it would say a due date, but the due date would be in the future. And I was like, that's we. But maybe my mom set it up like that. So I'd pay it. Well, as soon as I paid the bill, another bill would come and I'd pay it again. I accidentally double paid our mortgage for like, two years.

[Podcast Host Eric]

But that money was going to principal.

[Kim Beechner]

It was going to. No, they were taking interest out of it because you have to designate it to principal. Okay. So flash forward, Right. I don't know that this is happening while I'm in college.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Money is going, like, towards paying off the loan. Right. It's not like double paying and only making credit for one payment.

[Kim Beechner]

Correct? Correct. It's double paying the loan.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So this could be like a blessing in disguise because it was.

[Kim Beechner]

It was so two years later, Right. This is happening while I'm in college and then I finally get the opportunity to study abroad because part of international business and Marketing was going abroad for my program at school. So I'm freaking out. Like, how am I gonna pay for all of this for six months while I study abroad? I had saved up tons of money from the bar jobs. I called a mortgage company and they were like, you overpaid your mortgage. You don't have to, you don't have to pay it for six months.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Nice.

[Kim Beechner]

And I was like, what a blessing in disguise. So, like, I was able to have rental income coming in from the house to be able to pay the utilities and things like that. And then the money I had saved from the bar job paid for my living expenses in Spain. So it was just absolutely the most incredible opportunity and blessing and all that hard ass work paid off.

[Podcast Host Eric]

That's awesome. Imagine if you did that for like five years and there was only 10 years left on the mortgage. Right? Then you could just own a house.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I mean, that is if you have the money, pay off debt, don't change your lifestyle. Yeah. I think that alone.

[Kim Beechner]

Live minimalist. Like, I, I personally live very minimalistically, like, because maybe that's part of the struggle bus in the background that, like, you're just always afraid the bottom's gonna drop out. So you're always like being very cautious and strategic.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. If you, you've traveled, oh yeah. Other parts of the world live, and you come back to America and you're

[Kim Beechner]

just like, what is this commercial?

[Podcast Host Eric]

What is wrong with us? Like, why do we need this?

[Kim Beechner]

Why do we need so many options? We do not need this many options.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And just abundance. Like, like keeping up with the Joneses. How many, how big does your house need to be? How many? Like, you go to like Thailand and you see people like living in like shacks and like, they're the happiest people ever. They don't have a lot. They will give the shirt off their back. They will. They're so generous. They're so hospitable. And we're so. We have so much abundance here and we're just kind of stingy, you know, we just want more and more and more.

[Kim Beechner]

Anyway, I agree. We should be satisfied with the small things that we have.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right?

[Kim Beechner]

Those are the things that are most valuable to me. I don't have a huge, like. And some people think it's weird because my house is kind of empty and we don't have a lot of things on the walls because I'm like, I don't believe in just buying things to buy them. When we travel, we see something cool or I see a local artist that I want to support that I'm going to buy that and drag that in my back, you know, and there's a story behind it and it has meaning for me and it brings me joy. It's not just that I bought at Pottery one and stuck in my house, you know, I just. That's just not my vibe, which I know maybe other people aren't like that and that's okay.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah, I have a whole spiel on consumerism that I don't need to get into right now.

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You were able to pay six months advance on your home. You're able to travel the world. How did this experience change you when you come back from this travel? How old are you now during this time?

[Kim Beechner]

During this time? I'm 18.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Okay.

[Kim Beechner]

I think traveling around the world exposed me to a lot of different cultures and a lot of different cuisines and how food became community. Because I didn't have a lot of money when I lived in Spain. I loved that you could go to a bar. And I was a bartender obviously, so I love to go to the bars. You could go to the bar. You had your local like bar person. You can get a beer and it came with tapas, which had like a little plate of food. So I was like, I can get a beer and I can eat for free. I was like, keep ordering beer and keep bringing me tapas. And as I got to know like my little local community around me, it just brought me so much joy. And then I traveled the world and I never stayed in hotels or anything. I stayed in hostels. So then I would meet locals and, and have this unique dining experience mostly with like street food and things like that. I had never had like fancy food, obviously because I couldn't afford it. Later in life when I was able to travel and could afford it now I'm like, oh, I want to try the Michelin restaurant. Or I want to experience those flavors. But honestly, there's something to be said about street food. It's just, and not just because you've been drinking. It's just damn good. Any country you go to, the street food is where it's at.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah, I miss those meat sticks in Thailand. Yeah, they're so good.

[Kim Beechner]

So I did, I did that. I came back, I graduated from college and then. Or. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Let me scale back here a second. My senior year of high, of college. My senior year of college, I was about to graduate and realized I needed an internship in marketing in order to get a job. When I graduated and when I was going to graduate, that was in 2010, there was a financial crisis and so I was in fear that I wasn't going to be able to get a job. And especially knowing my background, I needed a job that could pay for a mortgage. And that isn't what happens when you graduate from college. And so I did a marketing internship with a law firm. I had no idea what I was doing. He really took a chance on me and I made a lot of mistakes and he was so kind. His name is Ivan Ramirez and I just to this day he's still a mentor of mine.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Are those mistakes transferable to today?

[Kim Beechner]

Yes, I think when my biggest mistake with that internship was one, I was doing a marketing internship, but for not a marketing company for an individual business. And so most internships, which is a great asset for small businesses, is having interns because it brings in a younger perspective. But you have a responsibility as a mentor when you have an intern to provide them guidance and help them learn, they're not just there to be free labor, they're there to learn. They should have value in being there with you. And he did provide me great value in showing me the way. But I didn't know how to write a press release, for example, because originally my degree was in international business and marketing and press releases and marketing. Most of marketing's tactics come from the communications field and then that's a totally different degree path. And they don't touch, which is very odd in the educational system. So I didn't know what I was doing. I wrote a press release. I sent it out massly to all of these reporters. I didn't look up their beats, I didn't bcc them. I just. Reporters were pissed that I had emailed them about shit that they didn't even cover. It was a huge mistake.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

Fortunately my last name is different now.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Wait, so you're just kind of blasted out this email to random reporters not make doing the research to make sure that that's a market that they are like a niche they cover.

[Kim Beechner]

Right. Because I didn't know anything about public relations at the time.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I just thought all publicists did this because I get, I get like people email me all the time and it's like restaurant adjacent or they think I'm a food podcast or I'm like, no,

[Kim Beechner]

well then that they're shitty publicists then.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. There's a lot of shitty public.

[Kim Beechner]

Because you should 100%. And that was the biggest mistake. Right. So I run an internship program now. I've probably mentored 35, 40 students in the last, last 15 years. And when I teach them PR, I talk to them about researching the person being authentic and genuine. You recount, reach out, ask them if you can put them on your PR list before you put them on your PR list so they don't have spam. Because at the end of the day, it should be about relationships. It should be genuine and authentic. Otherwise, why are we doing this?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Honestly speaking, like, publicist PR is a big reason why I do things the way I do things. I've removed because I've. I, you know, 13 years doing this, you. You realize how much influence a publicist has and how much influence publicists have on the industry in controlling the narrative and deciding who gets the spotlight. And if you have the budget, you can go hire that person who has the network and you can warp reality. And I was like, you know what? I don't want to play this game. I don't want to contribute to this game. I want to just get in a camper, drive across the country.

[Kim Beechner]

And maybe that's why I was so attracted to you is your nomadic lifestyle and, and the, the willingness to want to, like, explore and just go do

[Podcast Host Eric]

honest, transparent, journalistic work, which is harder and harder to do today because the resources are all, all content. All kind of. A big part of the amount of content that's created today is marketing, and there's an agenda behind it. And it's hard. The goal is to, to not let people know that it's marketing, you know, and it's just like, what game are we playing? But if you just sever the cord and just go off on your own and rely solely on word of mouth, there's a level of you find people. I just had Chris Goss on the show. This guy was. He started like Indigo Bar in Charleston or in the Indigo Restaurant, not Indigo. What? Can't remember. I think Indigo maybe might have came out of it. Anyway, he was like an OG Charleston restaurateur, went on to Atlanta, started 5th street, and is like this like, behind the scenes culture guru guy that never doesn't have social media. He's never looking to promote himself. He was always about promoting the restaurant group. And then he went on to Vermont and he was like, he helped like, Stowe scale and become what Stowe Mountain Resort is. And then now he's working with Hen of the Wood, like, considered the best restaurant. The heirloom hospitality. Heirloom hospitality in Vermont. Point being is word of mouth is how I found him, because the people that he's had a, an impact on their lives and they're like, you got to talk to Chris Goss.

[Kim Beechner]

He's next level.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And like, I would have never found him if I was looking online for him. It's only through word of mouth that you get to find these stories.

[Kim Beechner]

Well, I'm a firm believer that, like, if I think if you and me jive and we're chilling, then whoever you are chill with, most likely I'm going to be chilling.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Birds of the feather.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah. So, like, I don't know when I re. Read your newsletter or as I've read your newsletters and watched you, I'm like, he's chill. Which is at first, like, obviously. I was like, God, I hope he doesn't think I'm creepy, that I'm like, hey, no, if you're rolling through San Antonio, let's go out and eat.

[Podcast Host Eric]

You know, it's lonely on the road, so it's nice to be able to connect with people and. And also, like, you're a marketer. Publicist in San Antonio, Austin. Like, I need to be more. I need to be better about not being so closed off to that world, too. At the same time, you know, maybe there's.

[Kim Beechner]

I get it. There are some that are not going to be maybe genuine or authentic.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

But the fact that you never once mentioned your clients, never once pitched your services even over.

[Kim Beechner]

I was more just wanting to hang out with you because I like you.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Thank you. And. But anyway, the point is, it's like, you know, I think my lesson from that experience is that don't be so closed off because I. I'm a gatekeeper. I close myself off to a lot of opportunity because I assume everyone has got an angle. And I just. I feel like my job is to protect my audience.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah, I feel you, babe.

[Podcast Host Eric]

You know, because so many people, that's what we all just want, exposure to a big audience, a targeted audience.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Of decision makers, you know, so, like, I'm constantly like this gatekeeper of, like, you will, you shall not pass.

[Kim Beechner]

You should be, though, because your audience and what you've built. God, you've been doing this, what, 12, 13 years, right?

[Podcast Host Eric]

13 years.

[Kim Beechner]

13 years. So, I mean, you know, this is your life. Just like this is my life.

[Podcast Host Eric]

As much as I love talking about me, we could bring it back to you, your story. I'm being rude?

[Kim Beechner]

No, no. Okay, let's do it.

[Podcast Host Eric]

How do we get here?

[Kim Beechner]

Okay, we.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I was asking what the mistakes were that you made.

[Kim Beechner]

Mistakes works. Yeah. I screwed up that in. At that internship. He was really nice. That's what it is. So at the internship, I worked for a law firm. He was super cool and he saw potential in me and he knew my story. And he was like, hey, if let's do a trade, like, I'll help you incorporate a business. You're really good at this marketing thing. I think you can make a living doing it the way that you need. And in exchange, like, I can be your first client. You can help me with marketing. So we did this trade. He helped me put everything together at the same time. I'm still bartending. I graduate from college. For the first two years of owning Embark Marketing, I didn't operate it as Embark Marketing. I operated as, like, just myself, like a sole proprietor. And I was still bartending. And I would, like, talk to my regulars. Hey, do you guys need help with marketing? I'm right out of school. I can help you. I could do something. And I was working with CrossFit, Gems and Dentists and all kinds. Yeah. Small businesses. And then I got a bar and I was like, oh, like, I know a bar, you know? And then I did that for about two years. And that bar owner started opening more bars and it started getting more successful. And by the time I was done working with him, he had like five or six bars and there was growth with him, which was great.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So is this two or three years in of doing this?

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So less than two now you're like 23, 24. And the timeline. And I don't want to get too much into the marketing strategy then because I feel like it's probably changed a lot.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Around this time, 2012, 2013, this is when I start the podcast.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And then my thought originally was, oh, I went back to school after resigning from aviation for marketing and hospitality. And I thought I was going to be like, maybe I. First it was either sales or I get into marketing and teach marketing. And the more I got into marketing, I was like, I don't want to teach this shit. It's like, it's just not like I realized quickly, it's marketing is a rule following and, you know, like, following the rules, playing the game. And I've never been good at following rules. So I was like, maybe this isn't for me. But that time, was it mostly social media marketing that you were doing for these people?

[Kim Beechner]

Facebook?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

So that was the only thing. Well, like, we had, like, MySpace and whatever. Right. But Facebook had just come out and there were no business pages. They were only personal pages. So what I was doing was making personal pages for each One of these bars and adding a bunch of friends and then promoting like that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Basically a list on Facebook.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah, yeah, My Facebook friends for the bar. Yeah. And similar to the same marketing strategies that most bars do now, like taking pictures of the bartenders. Come see us on Tuesdays. We've got this talking about our specials. The other piece was campaign marketing. So at the time I had gone to California or something and seen a concept that had giant games and I was like, ooh, we could do something with that at this bar. So we were. We brought in all these giant games like Red Big, Jenga. Jenga Big. The things you see now at every battle.

[Podcast Host Eric]

That's a Connect 4.

[Kim Beechner]

Connect 4. Like all these big games that you see now at every backyard place. That was just starting then. So we had like the biggest giant games and I made this a campaign for them. I started a bikini contest on Sundays. That was a big campaign. I started doing grassroots marketing where I would walk around and with the bartenders and we'd say, win a free happy hour party. And they'd fill out a little form and I got. I would enter it into a spreadsheet and then I would pull people to win, like bar tabs. And it was very grassroots. I had flyer girls that would put flyers on people's cars to get them to come to the gorilla.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Combination guerrilla marketing and social media marketing in Onslow, like a big thing too is like events.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah. And I think that's a reason to come.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. Don't.

[Kim Beechner]

And that. That still stands today for sure. So those like grassroots methodologies, like, it was a hustle to get people to come.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So how far in are we in your ownership of Embark? Around this time? You have this one maybe two years. Two years. You have one client that has five bars and you still have all of your other small business.

[Kim Beechner]

Right.

[Podcast Host Eric]

At what point? So the year now would be 2013.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes.

[Podcast Host Eric]

At what point did things start to pivot for you where you're focusing solely on hospitality?

[Kim Beechner]

So at this point, I have had a child. I have a one year old. And I'm trying. I mean, I'm 24 with a one year old trying to run this business. And I'm still part time bartending and we have roommates. Like, I mean, it was just a cluster of survival. Still in survival mode. And I realized that I wasn't happy doing marketing for anybody that wasn't a restaurant or a bar.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Why?

[Kim Beechner]

Because I realized that every industry needs adequate research for you to do it justice. And if I don't know enough about those industry, then I am not qualified to market it. And I wasn't interested in researching those industries. But this industry, I had already been in forever, and I understood the hard work and labor and love that goes into running it. And I was passionate about helping us. That's Willie.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Willie.

[Kim Beechner]

Oh, Willie. Nelson Mandela.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I jumped.

[Kim Beechner]

He's so sweet.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So you were saying that you have to be passionate about the industry. You have to understand the industry.

[Kim Beechner]

Right? So I'm two years into doing this, right, and I'm feeling so stagnant and stuck. So I called a professor of mine From Incarnate Word Dr. V. Quest, and I said, hey, excuse me, Would you be open to having my business be a capstone project for one of your classes? And a capstone project means that a group of students studies your business for a whole semester and then provides you their analysis at the end of the semester. So I worked with a group of students for whole semesters on the business, telling them what I did, what I loved. And at the end, they actually said to me, do what you're passionate about. You're working on all these different things. But it seems like you really love this over here. The restaurant and food and beverage industry, like, this is what you should focus on. You should niche down, and then you will find more success in the niche. And isn't it crazy? Like, you just needed a group of other people to look at it from a different perspective, to kind of like, show you what you already know. And as soon as they said that, I was like, yes, that was it. And so embark marketing was actually E M B A R. Because I thought, oh, I'm just gonna do bars, because, like, I was a bartender. And then I realized, like, that's limiting. Because I had also worked in a lot of restaurants and I didn't want to limit myself. So it became embark marketing.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Is the K for Kim or for kitchens?

[Kim Beechner]

No, it should be right? And then it just kind of been like. Or it became like, kind of cliche. Like, you're embarking on a new journey, you're starting something new. And that's kind of what how embark came to be. And thank goodness for that capstone class. So I slowly, after that, started telling the clients that weren't food and beverage, like, hey, I'm just not passionate about that, so I'll help you transition, but then I'm not going to do that for you anymore. And the bar owner that had all of the businesses that I had previously been working for, he ended up selling that company. And so the New owners that came in. They were my first clients under the new thing. And then I had this portfolio that I could share with others and strategies that I had figured out on my own. And I just started sharing that with as many people as I could during this time. Obviously, I'm just me by myself and I'm still bartending. I decided that I needed help, so I started an internship program. The University of Incarnate Word had given me so much that I wanted to kind of give back to students.

[Podcast Host Eric]

You have a network there, it's easier for you to pull on that.

[Kim Beechner]

Right. So I started having students come work with me for a couple hours twice a week. And I would teach them what I was learning and how I was manipulating and using social media to leverage businesses even though there weren't business pages yet, and teaching them graphic design and Adobe and all of these different things. And in exchange they would help me do the work. So I felt like I was doing the internship justice because what I would have wanted was knowledge and I would do anything for knowledge. And so I felt like it was a good trade off. And to this day, we're still running internship programs and doing that work because I feel like if you don't have an internship with a mentor who cares about you, you're going to graduate from college and be screwed.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Honestly, I think we need to do away with college and just have.

[Kim Beechner]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Same, same.

[Podcast Host Eric]

It's crazy the amount of debt people get into and like that. I mean that I don't, I don't need to go down that rabbit hole.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So.

[Kim Beechner]

But I'm here with you, man.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

So like that's happening. And then I start to realize that in marketing, especially as social media evolved, you need to leverage things like video, photo media, like real media. And I didn't learn that in college because business and marketing doesn't do communications.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

And so I decided to go back to school for my master's in communications because I wanted to understand the theory behind all of that a little bit more. The cognitive, the deeper thinking, the overarching stuff that I didn't learn in business and marketing. So that was kind of like a whole nother journey of schooling that probably wasn't worth the money. But I can't say that because it did open my brain to new thoughts and ideas. And if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't have that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

What were the new thoughts and ideas that you learned during the time that serve your marketing today?

[Kim Beechner]

How important storytelling is, how important mood and lighting can convey a brand. So like, if I'm working with someone who's a. I hate to use the example, but it's the easiest one. Like a speakeasy that. That's dark and moody and sexy. Like, how do. How do you translate that into your marketing so that when someone sees something about your brand, they can feel what they would feel when they were in that space. And to me, that's so important. And I didn't understand those connections before that. Cool.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And this is all taught in communications. What else do they teach in communications?

[Kim Beechner]

They teach writing skills, how to write for media, how to write for press releases, how to write for journalists, how to write for yourself in creating your own brand.

[Podcast Host Eric]

When you say write for journalists, like write as a journalist or write as

[Kim Beechner]

a journalist or more from a PR angle. Like when you're sending a press release, it has no fluff. It's like, who, what, when, where, how and why. You're just giving them the basic information. Because journalists are supposed to make their own conclusions. It's not your job to tell the journalist what to think. It's their job to think based on what the facts you give them. Yeah, that's not always the case, but that's how it's traditionally supposed to be.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Got it. Interesting. So now you're learning how to communicate. You're taking all of your marketing, which is more like the. I think when I think of marketing, it's, you know, the. What is the four Ps place, people, promotion, product. What am I missing?

[Kim Beechner]

I don't remember the other one. It's been a long time since I've been to school, man.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And it's really. But I think today marketing is. So much of marketing is just understanding the systems of communication and knowing how those systems work and doing the steps.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes. So that's what calm taught me was the integrated communications marketing approach, which is how you take one concept or idea and use multiple tools in your. Your tool belt. These marketing tactics to execute an idea or to communicate or to communicate it to a broader audience. And I had those pieces. I knew what email marketing was, I knew what a website was. I knew what all of those tactics were, but I didn't quite understand how to take one message and spread it across all these platforms for maximum exposure. And. And to do it in a way, because, let's be real, most restaurants and bars don't have any money. Right. To spend on marketing or we have very limited budgets. So how can I do that organically? How can I do that in a way that is cost effective for people who are distrusting of marketing. That was a big piece and hard in the beginning for me to get clients because restaurants and bars don't trust marketers. And I don't blame them. Marketers would come into the bar I worked at and try and sell shit. And I was like, that's not going to work for us. You don't understand us.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

And so my niche became. I do understand you.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

I have worked in your shoes. That shit sucks.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

So let's try and find a way to make it work so that you survive.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Cool. So how. Where are you at the peak of embark today? You have 30 clients. What was the peak? Or are you at the peak now?

[Kim Beechner]

So I think the best thing that could ever happen to my business, and this is going to sound crazy, was the pandemic. Because what the pandemic did was awaken bars and restaurants to the fact that technology is here and if you do not leverage it, you will falter. Yeah. And unfortunately, that is just the way society is. And you have to play the game. You have to do it if you want to survive. And so when everything was happening here in Texas, I attached to the Texas Restaurant Association, Emily would do these like weekly video things telling us, like, what is happening. And all of my restaurants are freaking out. They're just like trying to manage their own self. So I took it upon myself of like, I'm going to learn as much as they can learn as we move. So then I would send mass emails out being like, okay, now we can do beer to go. Now we can do this if we fence a parking lot. Now we could do this if we do this. So. And how do we communicate those messaging? Because things were constantly changing. So being able to say like, okay, for those clients that had been with me who already had social media set up and website set up and these networks of marketing tactics, email marketing setup, it was easier for me to communicate the ever a changing dynamic of the restaurant industry at the time to our consumers. And our consumers wanted to support us because we were local small businesses.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

For those who didn't have those strategies and techniques in place framework, they didn't have a way to communicate their messaging. And it became harder for them.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

And so I think after that happened, restaurant and bar owners realized, oh, like, I guess we do need that stuff, because if we don't, if this were to happen again, what would we do?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Where was your business prior to 2020 in terms of scale? You started it in 2010, so you're 10 years in 2020 or 2013, 1415 is when you're getting your masters. So now you're leveraging these new skill sets, these new, combining the world of communications with marketing. So you have about a five year run where you, you're like leveled up. What was, I'm just kind of curious not to like, is there anything like between 2015 and 2020 that kind of was a game changer for you and how you were evolving your business or is it not worth getting into this stuff? Because even over the past eight years, the world of marketing has kind of changed so much.

[Kim Beechner]

I think for those five years, my priority was on taking care of my son and I was just trying to stay afloat. I had hired a couple of employees who were helping me get the study workflow of people that we did have their work done. But I wasn't, I guess, looking to expand or grow. I was, I don't want to say stagnant, but I was a mom.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah, Priorities.

[Kim Beechner]

My priorities had shifted and my son was getting older and needed, needed my full time attention and I wanted to give him a good childhood. In 2020. He was 10. So at 10 you have a little bit more freedom to be able to step away and refocus your idea and ideas on, on another project. Yeah, that's not parenting full time in 2020. After that happened, we lost a lot of clients and it was hard. But as things started to open back up, word of mouth I think got out from our clients who had survived through the pandemic and they were telling other restaurants how we had helped them survive. And then organically, more people started knocking on the door and saying, hey, like can you look at my stuff? Like what do you think? In preparation of. They didn't know what was to come. What if this did happen again? How would they communicate? And that kind of became our foundation of grow or that's where we started to see more exponential growth. Because I think restaurant bar owners were more educated on what they needed for their business. Marketing wasn't a hoax. It was now. It was a necessity.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

And I think that's true that like marketing to your point you made earlier, it's necessary for survival. There's different types of marketing. I think the only way you can not do marketing as we know it today is if you are so good at what you do that you are just really good at four walls marketing. I do, I do think four walls marketing still has a place. The reality is most people can't be that good. Yeah, like Most people aren't doing something that's so outside of the box. The box.

[Kim Beechner]

And, and it's a sat. The food market is a saturated market.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

So you got to be really special.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. You got to be doing something special or just like a super magnetic human being or have like this like world class, talented staff that is this warm and happy and like, like the customer

[Kim Beechner]

service all the time.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Is it possible?

Yes. Is with the amount of restaurant seats per capita today, it's harder and harder to rely on four walls more marketing. It's not to say that you, you should still focus on four walls marketing, right?

[Kim Beechner]

Yes. Because ultimately that is what retains your regulars. That's what keeps people coming back. I tell people all the time I'm like, I can help you with marketing and get people in the door, but if you give them a shitty experience, they're never going to come back.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right? Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

So like it's on you to create that culture in your own restaurant or bar.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

To maintain guest satisfaction.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So I guess what I'm curious about, I mean, I want to get into what you know about marketing today. You know, what is working today, but is there. I also don't want to like cut any part of your story out that might leads into or provides context as to why you do it the way you do today.

[Kim Beechner]

I think that a combination of getting the masters and thinking about things in this new dynamic way and then experiencing the pandemic and realizing how to really leverage all of the tools that some of my restaurants had that helped to, helped me to study data and create a template, if you will, of like how I thought it could work. Like, okay, let's test all these different things and see if they work. And then if they work, let's write case studies about them and try them with different types of restaurants. And if it works, then that goes into the template best practices. Yes.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

And because I was working with so many clients in so many restaurants and bars, I had the opportunity to test a lot of different methodologies and see what worked for which types and then kind of build this out today. Now when I think about marketing strategies, I think about the type of what are they? Are they qsr, are they full service? Like, what, what is it? And I go through this like analysis in my brain of, of narrowing down, okay, what exactly is this brand and what are their goals? Short term, long term, strategically? And then they get dumped into a bucket that's like, okay, then this is the strategy I think is going to work for you utilizing. And this is a piece too. That I do. But I don't know if other marketing agencies do this, but I think about the operational perspective in the tech deck, and probably that's because I worked in operations. As a manager of a restaurant, I'm like, what is your POS system? What are we using for reservations? Where is that data stored? How is it connected? How do you know things are working?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Like, are you leveraging all those features?

[Kim Beechner]

Are you leveraging all those features? I start. I feel like almost sometimes when I'm talking to a new person, I'm interrogating them, and I don't mean to be, but I'm like. Like I'm trying to, like, click together how it's all pieced together so that I can give them the best advice I possibly can, even if we don't work together. Because sometimes I think restaurant owners meet with marketing people and they get the sales, and that sucks.

[Podcast Host Eric]

What does that sales look like? How do we identify when we're getting that sales?

[Kim Beechner]

Sometimes I think it's like their own agenda of what they're trying to sell. I don't know what that would be. Maybe it's social media. Maybe it's content creation. Maybe it's. I have no idea what other agencies do because I'm kind of of the vein of, like, I do my own thing.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

But what I commonly hear from restaurateurs when I meet with them, they're like, you came in here just telling me a bunch of stuff about my restaurant and, like, what I'm doing well and where I can improve. But you didn't try to sell me anything.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

You.

[Podcast Host Eric]

You. You first look to add value, not extract value.

[Kim Beechner]

Right. Because some of them that I meet with, I know that they're struggling or they can't afford marketing services. So I want them to walk away. Even if we don't work, work together.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Get them to the point where they can afford.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes. Or just say, hey, you're heading in the right direction. I know that you. Your weight on your shoulder. I know this. As an owner, it's probably really heavy. So let me tell you, like, you're doing awesome at these things. Keep doing that. You know, these are things, when you're ready, you could try. Maybe there are things that you can do on your own that I can tell you, you can start doing this on your own tomorrow. Because I. I know that there. It's hard. This industry is so hard.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

And I just want them to be successful.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Well, let's get into some of that. You know, you're bring us through the questions you're asking. I want to get more into that.

[Kim Beechner]

Typically when I'm meeting with a new restaurant or bar and I'm doing my evaluation, the first thing I start looking at is their website. That's like the foundation for me. And I look at do they have a template based website or a WordPress website and kind of trying to understand the structure of the site and, and the reason why this is so important is because of search engine optimization and being able to organically rank when people are searching, not just on traditional search engines, but today LLMs and unfortunately in the restaurant and bar industry, I do feel we're constantly 10 years behind in technology and marketing. Most restaurants are. And when I'm trying to talk to them about LLM models, they don't even understand what I'm saying. And I'm like, oh my God, if we do not help you get ahead of this, you're going to get left behind and I'm scared for you.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. And it's happening fast.

[Kim Beechner]

And it's happening so fast.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah, I, I know. I had a discussion with Mar to do a. I'm pretty sure we did this LLM search optimization workshop. I do so many conversations. It's hard. It's like we talked about it. Did it happen? I think it did happen.

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[Kim Beechner]

I'm looking at website first right now because I want to see like are they optimized? Do they have keywords? What is are they ranking for anything organically? Because most restaurants and bars I think can work can rank organically with long tail and short tail keywords if they just put more copy on their website.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

So as a marketer, are you out there trying to build their website or are you saying here is a list of companies that I would recommend you have build your website?

[Kim Beechner]

No, we build their websites.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Okay.

[Kim Beechner]

So I look at their website and I say okay, do you have something that suffices now? Because I'm trying to save them money if they have something that is sufficient that will work. Sometimes I'm like hey, this site is is good. We just need to optimize it and put in those keywords that you want to rank for so that people can actually find you organically without you having to pay ad dollars. And that's kind of like a one time thing. Then there are others where I'm like, man, this site is really, really old. I've worked with a lot of legacy brands that are like 60 years old and their websites are terrible. And I'm like we have to update this, this. Yeah, we got to start over from scratch.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So when you build a website, are you building it? What platform do you prefer to build it on?

[Kim Beechner]

I prefer WordPress if the brand is looking to expand and grow and has a long term strategy that's robust because WordPress allows you to do a lot more customization and it works really well with Google Ads, especially when you have multi locations. For smaller businesses that don't have as much money to invest in a larger scale program, I say go template base. We commonly build on template based. We commonly build on Squarespace because Squarespace is affordable for restaurants. It only costs 300 a year and it's a drag and drop system. So once we're done setting it up, we'll build tutorials of the most common pages. They're going to update, like the menu page or whatever it is, contacts, the hours and say, hey, like here's the site here. Yeah, here's some tutorials to help you so that you can manage it yourself. Then they're only spending 300 a year and they can do it themselves and they're not changed to a developer or someone who does coding, which is required when you're working with a WordPress site. They break more easily.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

However, WordPress does have benefits when it comes to search engine optimization. So it really just depends on the business model of where I'm going to recommend them go.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So in today's age, why wouldn't you just have a company or. Not to say that this is the best approach because I don't know. But there are so many services that exist out there, like Pop Menu, you know, Bento Box is one of the earlier ones. Now you have owner.com that does everything from, you know, website, like building the website, optimizing it for SEO and then also the app, you know, optimizing the online ordering. And they have like website greater like things that they're promoting now too. I mean there's more out there. I mean there's so many.

[Kim Beechner]

There are so many. So. And I've worked with, I've built websites on Bento Box and some of those other platforms as well. And I do like their platforms.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Spot Hoppers.

[Kim Beechner]

Spot Hoppers, the other one. But why I don't like those companies is because they promise restaurant owners that they're going to get this all in one dashboard, that they're going to be able to update their website, control this, control that. And it is more so used, I would think as a consolidation of your tech deck. But the problem is, is there is no one managing those sites or those platforms or those dashboards. So all of the tools they're paying for, they're not using the email marketing, the text message, all the things, right? So I commonly see restaurateurs who have those platforms. And then I'm like, so what are you doing with Spot Hopper? What are you doing with this? And they're like, nothing.

[Podcast Host Eric]

It's our website.

[Kim Beechner]

It's our website. And so I'm like, okay, you're spending how much money per month to have all those capabilities that you don't use

[Podcast Host Eric]

or redundant because you get those features, say if you have Toast pos.

[Kim Beechner]

So that too, I also see overlapping of tech when I evaluate them. So I'm looking at the website, I also look at the POS system because I start to question, I look at website, POS system, reservation system, if we do private dining or do we have another tech and then our email marketing, our text message marketing and how are those all integrated? And usually when I'm evaluating a business, I can see from the back end of the code or from their website what tools they're using. And then when I get in and I start talking to them, I'm like, why do you have mailchimp and toast and spot hopper?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

And from an operational perspective I'm like, you are paying for more things. Usually after I'm done with an evaluation, I'm like, you could save so much money if you just did everything through toast. Right. And I mean I love toast because I can actually track sales from what we're doing in toast and see the journey of the customer.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

Which like with things like mailchimp and constant contact which most restaurateurs were using, I was like, that doesn't integrate with your POS system. You have no idea what the hell that's doing. And I'm of the vein that like if there's a way that I can track and measure it, then I want to do that. Because most restaurant bar owners hate marketing because what do they say? Oh, they took my money and nothing ever happened and I couldn't check anything and I don't know what's going on. So because I had lived that already in the service industry, I'm like, how am I going to build a service that can track back and smart POS systems?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. And I think part of the issue we like, we think that we can look at marketing as a line item expense. And you're like, all right, just put this money over there, problem solved. But the reality is it's a whole department that needs to exist that is thinking about it, strategizing using all, like using all the features, email, sms, optimizing constantly for the, the, the, the changing world of how the algorithm finds you. And like that's a full time.

[Kim Beechner]

We haven't even touched on social. That's just right. The tech deck piece.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Exactly.

[Kim Beechner]

So I wrote data piece.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So you're, you're looking for the website, the pos, the reservation, the email, SMS marketing. What else did I did I missing the things you're looking at relative.

[Kim Beechner]

That's really it when it comes to tech. I also evaluate their PR aspect primarily for search engine optimization reasons. Reasons. Because if they're getting press written about them that creates a backlink. And backlink on higher authority sites help to raise your business organically on the search engine because it's backlink to an authority site organically. Organically, right. And so my goal was to organically try and get news people to cover my restaurants by hope hosting events by hosting unique things like whatever that is, the big games, announcing things like that so that we could get articles written about us so that we could organically rank up. And then what I was doing with the websites is I created a press page where I would backlink the news article so that now we're. We're linking to each other which also increases my search engine optimization. And then I would take that article and spread it across social media or email marketing. So the more traffic that runs to that article, the higher that article ranks on that engine and how. And at the same time pulls my site. Yeah. So it is kind of a tech game on the back end which most people don't understand that. But that was the whole purpose is I was. They didn't have money to spend in advertising so I'm like how can I organically put the dominoes in place so that they all stack nicely and lift.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So we unpackaged websites pretty good. You like to do it in house because you can get a minimal viable product that isn't more than what they need or. And you're not doing any redundancy. You said that you like toast as an option because of the. The one stop shop. You have all the features you need. Do they do SMS marketing too?

[Kim Beechner]

They do, but I have a bone to pick with them on SMS marketing.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Oh, but you do like their email?

[Kim Beechner]

I love their email and honestly I think the, the text message marketing would be great. I don't know if this is in other states, but specifically in Texas, which I think is a stupid rule. If you want to do SMS marketing you have to have a pop up on your website that says that you are 21 and up only because you serve alcohol. And that's normally only required for alcohol beverage brands like Texas whiskey or whatever, distilleries, wineries. But that is a requirement by toast for restaurants, which doesn't make any sense to me because every restaurant and bar sells alcohol and doesn't require a pop up in the state of Texas. So you can't have SMS unless you have that pop up.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Interesting.

[Kim Beechner]

So in the state of Texas I cannot utilize that feature, which is crazy.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. What about reservations? Where, where do you lay there? Do you Have a platform you, you lean towards?

[Kim Beechner]

Oh, this really depends on the concept. So like obviously I would love to keep the tech simple and all integrated in one platform. So like Toast offers reservations. I would prefer if they had Toast to use that for their reservation system because then every reservation that's made we get their email and their phone number and if they opt in, you can remarket to them. But that doesn't work for every concept. For example, seven rooms or triple seat depending on the way that the restaurant is laid out. Sometimes you need to be able to schedule like big parties in certain rooms. So what I've been strategizing is when they have those secondary texts or third party texts once a month I'll scrape the emails from those texts and then import them into Toast. So it starts tracking the email if that user comes in to the restaurant. And I believe this is how Toast works, or at least it did. It tracks the email address, but it also tracks the last four digits of your credit card. So I'm inputting the email. The email's not connected to someone yet, you know, so I send them an email. Within 15 days they come in and make a purchase at tote or in the restaurant. Toast picks up the email and the last four digits of credit card ties it together and then attributes that sales to the email marketing class.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Consumer behavior data segmentation.

[Kim Beechner]

You do a lot with that, right?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Tailored messaging.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah, I know Biki does a lot of stuff like this too. Biki B I K K Y Abnov Kapoor I know they have real robust data but at what point I don't know. I have thoughts but I'm intentionally biting my tongue until we go through so reservations. You like what Toast is offering. But I've heard where they're struggling right now is they don't have the same third party marketplace that say Open Table and Resi bring to the table.

[Kim Beechner]

They don't in other large markets like New York, Louisiana. Resi OpenTable have huge, huge reach and help bring consumers to the restaurants. I see this really, really beneficial for restaurants that are located in high volume tourists destination areas like downtown San Antonio because people are visiting and traveling and they're going to search on the platform that they already feel comfortable with. And those are those platforms. The complaint that I hear from restaurant owners about those platforms. So as a marketer I try to be very strategic. When you get a lead on those platforms you pay a certain price per lead per guest if they find you through resi OpenTable. But if you have that form for reservation embedded onto your website and the user makes the reservation through your website, it's counted as a different type of lead because you generated the lead not Open Table and you get charged less per person. So on the marketing perspective, I'm always trying to make sure that we're funneling people to our page and not directly to Open Table. That way the cons the restaurant doesn't incur the fee. Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So same thing with like you know, UberEats or DoorDash. If that entity is attributing the purchase of food from your restaurant and they're saying, well this is because they found they would have never known you existed if it wasn't for our. Which isn't always true.

[Kim Beechner]

No, it's not.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Because when you have a platform where like your first market like Doordash like you you end up capturing human consumer behavior. So it's not that they're discovering you, it's that they like the convenience of tapping one thing and not having to think about navigating a website. Opening up the. It's just easier.

[Kim Beechner]

And that's where things like pop menu come into Play. And even DoorDash now I think also host their own. You can get your own app with those parties.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. Owner.com is offering these types of things and I know but even then you [e-mail] and I know that there is. It's a super. At least when I last spoke to them, rigid platform where they're not trying to build you a custom website that is right for you and your business model. They. They're about throughput discoverability and throughput. They are trying to help you optimize for. For rank and then from there it's getting to the website and ordering food as fast as possible. It's engineered to get people to order.

[Kim Beechner]

Right.

[Podcast Host Eric]

They basically copied domino's and they said well what is. What's their system? Let's just make that accessible to everybody. Like they just were a student of the game on trying to get throughput. So which is smart.

[Kim Beechner]

Especially if to go and delivery is a big piece of your revenue stream.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

If you're a QSR and like you're doing you know, majority delivery, takeout catering. But even then catering isn't optimized for those platforms. Which is interesting. I just.

[Kim Beechner]

You need a whole nother tech deck for that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

You heard of Savory? They just launched. They were actually beta built out of Fajita Pete's out of Houston and that's hitting the market right now. I'm kind of look at this as a teaser because I think that I'm really. Yeah, yeah. It's S A I V O R Y. If you're, if you're doing a lot of catering, it's a, it's, it's, it's ordering for. Specifically for catering.

[Kim Beechner]

The only tech that I've used for that is Easy Cater, because Easy Kater also brings like Marketplace. Yes, Marketplace to the table.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I have a whole list of things that I want to like, really go into the weeds on, but I'm saving it, making some notes.

[Kim Beechner]

Okay. We talked about pr, we talked about website. The only piece we didn't touch on that I feel like we do that I look at and evaluate is social. And social is like such a hard thing to like talk about because it's ever changing and other people have so many different opinions about it. But I have like core things that I know that I know for sure work that I can tell you before

[Podcast Host Eric]

we get into that.

[Kim Beechner]

Okay.

[Podcast Host Eric]

We touched on SMS marketing.

[Kim Beechner]

Okay.

[Podcast Host Eric]

But you, if I'm. I'm guessing based off what I've heard so far, you're about Toast. You like Toast and you should use that platform they offer their sms. Is that. Or do you like something else for SMS marketing?

[Kim Beechner]

So I'm not using Toast for SMS because I can't.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Because of Texas. Because you're in Texas.

[Kim Beechner]

Because I'm Texas and I can't do that. Or I mean, I technically could, but then I would have to sacrifice putting that pop up on my website and I don't want that because that's not conducive to restaurant behavior in the state of Texas. So I'm using a couple of other different platforms for text, which off the cuff, like, I can't remember their names. I want to say one is easy text.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah, I know there's a bunch out there that sounds familiar.

[Kim Beechner]

And there's another one that I've used before too.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Chat. No, that's social.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah, Yeah. I can't remember. But for those, they're not integrated into the POS system. So the reason why I, I don't like using third party and reason why I like things that are integrated is because I want to know for facts. It works because what ends up happening is the restaurant owner will say, oh, it didn't work. And I say, well, what do you base that on? And they don't have any data to base anything on. Right. So I would rather be able to come to the table and say, well, we did this. I checked the pmix. I checked this in the POS system. And I can tell you for a fact that it worked. So we need to do more things like this or it didn't work. So let's shift our strategy and try something else.

[Podcast Host Eric]

A B, test it.

[Kim Beechner]

Right. When I don't have that information, it's hard to make educated decisions. So for the other platforms that we were doing text messaging, text messaging is a little bit more frequent than email marketing. Email marketing, we're only using once per month, sometimes twice per month, depending on what's going on. For text message marketing, we were using once per month or only based on occasion because I feel like your phone number is such like a sacred piece of information. And restaurant owners need to respect text messaging. So in doing that, what I was trying to measure was like, let's say it's super bowl, right? Super bowl is coming up. We would say get super bowl to go package, pick it up at the restaurant for game day and send that through a text message and then measure how many super bowl packages were ordered because I don't know how else to measure it. And then asking the restaurateur, like, like, how did that work for you? What did you see? Did you see that it was new people? What are your observances? And that's the only way I know what's going on.

[Podcast Host Eric]

But there's no better platform for open rates than sms, correct?

[Kim Beechner]

I don't know. I don't know. I'm seeing really good open rates with email marketing too. Yeah. Which is most people I feel like, say email marketing's dead, but like we're getting like, like 50, 60 open rate, which for a restaurant is pretty damn good.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. That's like three times higher than what's averaged. If you're doing 20, you're doing good. I will say that I have personally noticed that people are abusing the out of email with the advent of social or AI.

[Kim Beechner]

Oh.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And it's just, it's like, that's the

[Kim Beechner]

other thing about those all in one platforms that I hate is that because there's no human monitoring the system, what it does, it'll pump you out like it's National Tortilla chip day. Send an email, it's national whatever day. Send a text. I'm like, nobody gives a shit about that. That strategy doesn't work. That is spamming. Well.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. And I think because it's so easy to develop noise that everyone is just blasting out noise because it's like a shotgun approach.

[Kim Beechner]

So I feel that those want all in one platforms is almost a Disservice to the restaurant owner because the restaurant owner doesn't know better. And they're going into this thinking that they're going to have someone who's helping them to grow their business. And doing it that way doesn't help grow their business.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

Like it's a disservice. Is it cheaper? Yes. But in the easier, maybe, Maybe because they have to just press a button, but they.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Anything that costs less and is easier is usually not the best option. It's like, is it easier to feed everybody on corn?

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. Is it cheaper?

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. Does everybody have diabetes? Yeah. So, like, should we, like, you know.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

It's just like, it's like we. We what we sacrifice for convenience and quote, unquote value, Perceived value. It's like, gotta look a little deeper.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And guess what? Sometimes doing hard is what we have to do.

[Kim Beechner]

And it means everything in life is hard.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

Everything in life, business, relationships, love, everything is hard. If you don't get in this industry, if you're not ready to work your ass off.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

So the only other thing we haven't touched on before we get into social media, I know that's gonna be a big part of the conversation. What about platforms like these, like review like, like Ovation, for example, or Sunday App?

[Kim Beechner]

That is such a good point. We forgot to talk about. Reputation management is another one because that's a huge piece for us. So one, I think restaurant owners should always respond to the reviews both negative and positive. And I know that's a big, like, they don't want to, but it's an SEO thing. What most people don't know is LLMs and search engines. Traditional search engines like Google read consumer written content, especially consumer written content that is more than 150 words, which is majority Yelp reviews. So they are pulling keywords and ranking you based on someone saying, like, I had the best chicken cacciatore, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever, hey, you know, and the service was really good and whatever that is. Right. So now, like it's ranking for the best cacciatore and it's in San Antonio. So now it's going to rank like that because it's reading those keywords. So what's more important now than ever is responding to those reviews both negative and positive. And when it feels organically. Right. Embedding some of those keywords in there yourself to also help you to rank organically. But more importantly, outside of the SEO piece is the humanization piece. The younger generation, like everybody that the majority of People that work for our company are much younger than I am, and they look up every restaurant before they go. They look them up on Google. They look up, up on Y. They look them up on Instagram. When I ask them, what are you looking at? They're looking at the pictures because they want to see what it is. Because they may not understand what they're eating and they want to see what it looks like. And then they're reading the reviews to see what's going on there. They want peer to peer feedback. And so when somebody leaves you a negative review about your restaurant, you don't respond to it. You're admitting guilt. Like, they're right. And when you respond with anger, then you're a dick.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

So you need to find a balance of defending yourself, but also being genuine and kind and authentic to that person. Person. So that the next person who reads it thinks that, like, hey, man, maybe this guy was being a little unreasonable. Like his skate steak was a little overcooked. But he never asked the manager, like, hey, man, my. My steak's a little overcooked.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Do you have a formula or a template like a. To reply to a bad comment?

[Kim Beechner]

Like, yes.

[Podcast Host Eric]

What's. What is that?

[Kim Beechner]

Never say you're sorry. Because I have found that people who leave negative reviews, sometimes it's not genuine. They're not. They're just complaining to complain. They're keyboard. What do they call them? Keyboard trolls? Trolls. Like, they're just mean. They're mean. And I feel like, I'm like, you have obviously never worked in the restaurant industry because you would not be bitching about that if you understood.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. I think another word that we can use is ignorant. And I don't think that ignorant is a negative word.

[Kim Beechner]

It just means people are uneducated on how, on how it works.

[Podcast Host Eric]

How come this burger costs $16? That's actually cheap for a burger.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes, yes. And so we don't apologize, we educate.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

So exactly that we offer high quality wagyu beef that comes in our burger. And, you know, this is how we, we explain those things and tell them what the value is that they're complaining about. Or sometimes they are 100% right. We made a mistake. But instead of saying sorry, sometimes it's like, hey, you know, the human thing to do would be to say something at the restaurant and say, excuse me, you know, there's an issue here. This isn't cooked to my liking or whatever. Because most restaurants want to make you happy. They're in the service industry. But you didn't give them the opportunity to do that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

You just ditch and were mad and then hated them online, which ultimately impacts these small businesses in ways that they don't even understand.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. And that's, I think, one of the cool things about early tools, like talk to the manager when it came out, but now like Ovation, where if you get prompted to leave a review and if it's anything, you can set triggers that, if it's below a 3 or 4, that that instantly goes to the manager and you can capture that person before it goes online. And if it's a 4 or above, then it will ask, hey, do you want us to also push this to Google? So, like, you're incentivizing in rewarding those 4.55 star reviews to, like, you see people that have like 1200, you know, online reviews, like, that's not organic. That's in being incentivized.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes. So. So I have a, like a mixed bag of feelings about that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Oh, yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

Primarily because it's against Yelp and Google's terms of service for you to solicit reviews.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And so you know what I want to say?

[Kim Beechner]

What?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Fuck Google.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I'm not making it fair for you.

[Kim Beechner]

Like, oh, I know you got to

[Podcast Host Eric]

be a dick to play with dick sometimes.

[Kim Beechner]

You're not.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And like, that's the only option.

[Kim Beechner]

It is, it is. And so part of me is like, let's. From a marketing agency perspective, okay. I don't want to tell a restaurant, hey, you should do this methodology to get reviews because what if you do get caught and they take down your Google page and then you come to me and you're like, kim, where is that? And I can't do to get it back. So I get it and I'll condone, but I give it with the fair warning of, of I. You cannot hold me responsible if something happens.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

But if you want to do it, go ahead and do I have clients that do it? Absolutely. And we, I've done it both ways. Okay. We've have some clients that utilize tools, right. That do the filtering system. What I have noticed about those particular clients in the reviews, people, other people who are looking at the business notice all the reviews and they notice the frequency and how fast they're coming in. And sometimes they'll say, like, this company must be doing something to get reviews because there's no way someone reviewed them like five times in a day or whatever. So I think, well, they do incentivize,

[Podcast Host Eric]

like get a Free burger or like a free cookie when you.

[Kim Beechner]

Right. Or something like that. Which is also against terms of service. This client in particular actually doesn't offer anything for leaving a review and gets massive amounts of reviews.

[Podcast Host Eric]

But here's the thing. We already said you have no choice but to be on these platforms.

[Kim Beechner]

Right.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And then you have no choice but to play to their rules. And if you're not on these platforms, if it's a death sentence. Sentence, Kim, that if Google removes me from their platform, that's not scary.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes it is.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Like it's not scary that Google has that much oh power.

[Kim Beechner]

Sure.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And we can't do anything to influence the outcome. And I don't know, like I mean

[Kim Beechner]

you can do a report, you can do, you know, you can run a report and try and litigate with them. Right, right. I mean we do the same thing with meta and, and right. You're right. All of these companies meta, Google, Yelp, they, they all. Even when you go, okay, like from a search engine perception perspective, you're searching up a restaurant, right. And you think you're going to find a Mexican food restaurant. When you search for Mexican food. No, what comes up is TripAdvisor, Yelp, all these other listicle platforms before you even start to get to the websites that are actually the company.

[Podcast Host Eric]

It's not organic because it's playing to the game, you know. And like those platforms you just listed are pay to play platform. So it's like the, one of the biggest reasons why I'm so, I'm not anti marketing. I just think that we are being played and that people are small business owners are wholly ignorant. Again, not a bad word. That is don't have the bandwidth to actually keep up with the rate of how the game's changing changing and how you have to play it. And it's, it's whoever has the most money wins. At the end of the day we are set up in a system the game the secret to marketing is have the most money because if you have the most money you can play, you can influence.

[Kim Beechner]

Is that not everything in life?

[Podcast Host Eric]

It is and I think that is, that is a direct result of society consumerism and consumers think about people say cap capitalism. Like I think capitalism is a beautiful thing. I think consumer, consumeristic, capitalistic. I don't know if I'm using the technical terms correctly. Consumer capitalistic society is not good because the name of the game is more and more and more and you know, like it's about returning state like share like increasing the shareholders profit profit yeah, yeah. So I don't think, I think there's more things or things that are more important than maximizing profit, like maximizing purpose, maximizing healthy impact, making an impact. Right. And that's a cultural thing. We're getting a little ahead of ourselves right now, but I do want to make sure we talk about social media before we kind of talk about you. You've listed all these things that are so important and I have my, my list of notes that for the fun conversation about to come. Let's, let's talk about social media first.

[Kim Beechner]

Okay. What do you want to know?

[Podcast Host Eric]

What are, I mean, what, what are you coaching your, your clients to do? What is, what is a best practice relative to social media?

[Kim Beechner]

Video content is king. Video content, short form video content is king. It performs the best organically. And behind paid ads you get, they're rewarding you with cheaper cost per click when you utilize video. Unfortunately, when it comes to running ads on meta, I, I think that what most restaurateurs do is they just go to Instagram and they click boost, post, boost, post, boost, post, boost, post. And I've learned that that's not the best strategy to do. And they're boosting content that doesn't represent them in a good way. So I think it's.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Oh, is there a tornado about the

[Kim Beechner]

drop right now or like once a month on Wednesday? Sorry. This is like the alarm that they sound to.

[Podcast Host Eric]

It's like, is there a nuclear plant?

[Kim Beechner]

It's a test. No, it's the. Because we live in a flood zone. So it's the flood alarm. They test it once in a while month on Wednesday. So. Sorry.

[Podcast Host Eric]

No, you're fine. There's a horn going in the background. If you can hear that, it's kind of funny. Back to. Okay, so social media don't do the push marketing with ads.

[Kim Beechner]

So the boost, the boost we're trying not to boost, basically my approach to social is this. It's all about posting quality over quantity. I think people think they need to post every single day. And I'm like, don't do that. You just post the best of the best of what you're trying to say. It needs to be purposeful. It needs to tell your story. Maybe it's informational because you're having a Super bowl party. Maybe it's authentic and educational because you're telling them about this 60 year old restaurant, how your great grandma started it, now you're running it and then the other piece of it is entertainment. Unfortunately, in today's world of Social media, the content that gets shares the most is entertaining content. And we see this a lot with like trend videos. Restaurants are funny, remaking those funny things because they're relatable. And so how do you make your brand relatable to your guests? And that's hard for some people to do because some people are in this industry as business owners, some people are in this industry as creatives, some people are. I want to be back a house, but I don't want to be on camera. And now we're being forced into this society where like, if you're not on camera, you're getting left behind. Like content with people faces performs better than just food by itself because they're, you're humanizing the brand. They want to spend money with a brand that they feel connected to. And human, human makes that connection, not just human food. So in social, when I'm thinking about this, I try to think about those three categories, entertainment, informational, and promotional. And tell the client, you do not want to be 100% promotional then because people just are going to cut you out. They're going to ignore you. Just it's ads, ads, ads, ads. So let's dig deeper. Who are you? Let's tell that story and connect with them in a deeper, more meaningful way so that then when they come in, they, they're having this like, experience that they saw on social that's authentic. So for example, when we're making videos, I'll ask the restaurant, like, do you have a Spotify list? Can I have it so that I can pick for the videos? So that when they come in even auditorially, they're like, oh yeah, like, that's the kind of music I heard on the reel. And then they're hearing it inside to have that sensorial effect.

[Podcast Host Eric]

What is short form defined as like less than three minutes,

[Kim Beechner]

less than 30 seconds?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

The human eye needs three seconds to process an image. And typically we're finding that nobody watches our restaurant reels longer than 6 to 10 seconds for content that is like food focus, atmospheric focus, but the content that's storytelling will get watched for a minute or more. But it needs to be genuine and authentic. And not every restaurant has that ability to convey that. Yeah, and that's hard.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Who do you follow? Like, who is your go to, like guru for all things marketing, like podcasts in the marketing space, or like, this person shares the best stuff.

[Kim Beechner]

So I, I'm spacing on his name right now, but he's an engineer and developer at Instagram. I follow him On Instagram, he's always talking about what's coming next and what the app is prioritizing as far as content so that we understand what we need to prioritize this content to help the algorithm push our customers, clients. So I follow him a lot. I also really love. And he's kind of old school Gary Vander Tru. He's more on an entrepreneurial level and just like the Hustle. And I feel like I have that hustler mentality. Restaurants have that hustler mentality. And he is constantly, I think, looking at things ahead, like AI. He's been talking about it way longer than the general public has been talking about it. You know, like getting ahead of the curb.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. That's what appeals to me lately is what's happening on the edge, what's on, what's emerging. But it's not. So we can take what's emerging with Instagram Meta, you know, Google, it's like, okay, how do we take our industry back? Like, how can we get way ahead of it so the next time that there's a next thing, we're not just sucking from the same tit that we've been sucking from for the past 20 years. And there's only three tits, babe, you know that we can like choose to like, exist.

[Kim Beechner]

Just wait, chat, GBT is going to come out with advertising capabilities. And then, and then there you go, there's the next.

[Podcast Host Eric]

But yeah, well, here's the thing. And then that's the next make, that's the next Google, that's the next Meadow. It's not a solution.

[Kim Beechner]

I think it's just another part of the game we're all gonna have to play.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I think so. You mean, you said some things today that I think really great advice. I mean, anything else relative to social media that you want to drop on us in terms of what's working?

[Kim Beechner]

Like, I go, the only thing I want to say in regards to social, which I think a lot of restaurants don't do, is that they don't protect their brand. You need to claim your brand name or your handle on every single social media platform. Sometimes they're like, well, I don't want to do TikTok or what? I don't care. I don't want to do X. I hate X. I don't care. Claim all those profiles to protect your brand so that nobody else can claim them and then misrepresent your brand if, let's say you expand or you get more units or whatever. And that's a common mistake. That I see. Additionally, I see a big mistake which ends up really hurting the business is they allow bartenders and servers to access their social media to manage it for them because they don't want to pay a marketing company and that's fine. But then you as the owner need to understand permissions for those networks because you are freely handing over your brand on a major platform. And if that bartender, and I've seen this happen, gets pissed off and leaves, they won't give it back to them. And that's your intellectual property.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

So my thing is just claim your property. Consumers want to find your brand on the platform that they feel most comfortable. So if they feel most comfortable on Tick Tock, you should be on Tick Tock.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. So my, that's all great stuff. And I want to say I, I agree or don't dis necessarily disagree with everything that you said today, but I think that to your point, we're in survival mode and we're not doing these things because we're like, oh, like I love marketing. I love creating content. I love. It's like if we don't, then we're like in trouble.

[Kim Beechner]

It's like, yeah, I love doing that, but my restaurants may not love doing it.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I would say most restaurant owners don't

love doing that kind of stuff. I mean, you mentioned third parties, you mentioned toast, you mentioned. Like reputation management. Like, you have to reply to all these things.

[Kim Beechner]

I mean, you don't have to, but you should.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Well, if you want to have a chance.

Right.

So I just worry when I look around and I see what's happening and it's like third party. I think we're living a world where consumers used to be loyal to restaurants. You know, it was about the relationship between the restaurant and the patron. And there was, People would talk, it's word of mouth. We live in a world now where we're not isolated to our, our community.

[Kim Beechner]

Right. We can travel further.

[Podcast Host Eric]

We can travel further. We can travel incidentally, like overnight we can, or instantly we can be on the other side of the country through a window of social media and we're no longer getting our local newspaper and going to the bar to get our news and to have conversations about what's happening. We, we get it from. So everything is like centralized. And we live in this world that is so unoptimized for human, like people, like people. Like, it's not optimized for people.

[Kim Beechner]

It's optimized for, in person, in person connection.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

And I think that we've gotten to this point where consumers are more loyal to third parties than they are to the restaurants themselves. And we live in an ecosystem where if we don't change the way we do things, I don't think restaurant independent restaurants are going to be around much longer. It's getting harder and harder for good restaurants to make a living. And I think that it's in large part due to the fact that consumers have no loyalty to restaurants anymore. It's become so transactional. And we don't like restaurants today aren't what they were when like they were being established. Like literally revolutions took place in bars. You know, like it was like they

[Kim Beechner]

were like it was your communal meeting space that wasn't church.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. So it's like, I mean I think the idea that Toast is by far the most recommended POS on, on the show.

[Kim Beechner]

Right? Really?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Oh, by far.

[Kim Beechner]

Wow.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

I'm surprised because most restaurateurs about their credit card fees.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Well, that's one of the reasons why I try to keep a good arms distance away from these tech platforms. I used to have a lot of tech platforms as sponsors but I also know that if Toast is paying my bills, I can't, I can't let that restaurant tour talk about what they don't like about Toast. And it's very.

[Kim Beechner]

Thank you for doing that because today I shared some pros and cons. But I think if you don't share the pros and cons of those tech platforms as we're all experiencing them, then the other restaurateurs or bar owners or whatever don't know what they're getting into.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

And we have to be transparent because we're, we all need to learn from each other.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Let's just play devil's advocate for a second. If we're all going to Toast and Toast becomes a one stop shop for email marketing, SMS marketing, reservations, that's not good for the restaurant industry. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And where we, the restaurant industry, we are creating a scenario of we're letting these companies, I wouldn't say just restaurant owners, but like society is like the rich is getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. We know this is happening and we're letting it happen. And we want to point our finger to the government and say we shouldn't. Where are you putting your money? What are you investing in? What are you letting happen? Because you're choosing to be ignorant because you're too busy trying to survive maybe is the case, you know, like we are all in survival mode and we're just going through the motions doing what marketers are telling us to do. No direct offense to you, but where are the marketers going to get their information from? The people who work at Instagram, work at Google, work at Meta, and they're dripping the information down to the marketers because these influencer marketers just want to be the guy or gal who knows the next secret to have an edge. And we're all, it's, it's all controlled, it's all intentional. And we are, we are to play like the, the consumer, the, the end user is to blame because they're just looking for a path of least resistance or they're just doing it out of fear that if I don't do this, I'm screwed. But we have to look beyond that. And I think AI is exciting because it's a, it's an opportunity to disrupt those big players, but those big players are also playing that game. So if Gemini comes out on top and Google, you know, or Meta, their agent comes out on top, you have chat GPT, which is now to your point, before we hit record, just like beginning to rival Google for the first

[Kim Beechner]

time in over 20 years, which is absolutely insane. Absolutely. We are living through a very interesting new technology shift that's about to happen.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Here's my prayer, is that this shift, if, if, if singularity, and when I use that term singularity, I mean collective consciousness, is able to happen before that shift happens. We can then collectively say what's best for us and where do we choose to allow, to allow the next players to win?

And that has to be through conscious capitalism.

Who do we choose to give our memberships to? Who do we choose to support? Is it the company that wants to. Or do we need to intentionally fragment these companies so there isn't one player that's all almighty, all powerful?

[Kim Beechner]

I think that comes down to like, our government needs to. There is no regulations happening with how quickly our technology is changing because we

[Podcast Host Eric]

don't want to happen. So we let it get bogged down in America. China is going to.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah, so like we need to, there needs to be systems and protections put in place. I mean, like, even when email marketing and text message marketing started coming around, for the longest time it wasn't regulated. And then it was like, okay, now we have laws. You have to opt in. You can't just get a list of people's emails and just send them. You know, you have to opt in. That is a legal thing in the United States. But we don't have stuff like that for AI yet. And AI is moving so rapidly. Our systems, our. Our government system, our ecosystem isn't keeping up with that change, unfortunately. Do I think you're right? Do we have to play the Google, the Yelp, the metagame? Yes. And yes, those people are making the changes. It is trickling down to me, and I'm trying to share that knowledge with our clients because in order for them to stay competitive, they do have to do that. And maybe it is just a survival thing because we. We want. We want to survive. And there's. I don't see a site. I'm not. I'm not that powerful to make that change. You know what I mean? Yeah, I, Like, I wish I was, but I'm not. And I don't know what the right answer is. But what I do know is that when I look at marketing as a whole, I can see how manipulative it can be. I can see how people can misuse it. And part of that used to make me feel, like, sick to my stomach that I work in an industry that can be used like that. But in my specific case, how I balance that and how we run Embark Marketing with our crew is that, like, are we making a positive impact on the people that we're working with? Are we helping them? And do we feel good about that? And do we feel ethical about what we're telling them to do? And are we able to prove value?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

And if the answer is yes, then I have to say, okay, like, it's. It's okay for us to do it.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Well, you know how, like, the Internet originally, like, I'm a historian. I'm probably gonna get some facts wrong here, but, like, when the Internet was first, like, developed, it was, like, a free resource.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

You had to pay for.

[Kim Beechner]

It's open source.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Open source.

[Kim Beechner]

Right. And so is ChatGPT. Right now, it's like, open source. And that's funny you said that, because I was just thinking that a second ago about how, like, at the. At a time, Internet was open source,

[Podcast Host Eric]

so they paid to be able to access the Internet. Like, you know, telephone or Internet.

[Kim Beechner]

Yes, because it was open source, because they were gathering data, but nobody owned that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Like, who owns nobody.

[Kim Beechner]

Oh, That is interesting. I don't know.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Maybe there's somebody that they don't want us to know actually owns the Internet, but I think that's how we should use AI. And the thing that gets me really excited is what's happening with Vibe coding right now. And the cool thing about AI is that anyone can become a developer. It's not no longer. Who has the most money can, can, can purchase the developers that you can.

[Kim Beechner]

Tell it what code you want and it'll write it for you. So freaking incredible.

[Podcast Host Eric]

If it's open source or if it's decentralized, that's the answer. And I think that if we can decentralize the technology and we don't let any one entity own it, which is why I think it's imperative that the United States government or some form of democracy is the winner in this game, because that's our best chance of decentralizing it. And if vibe coding is on the rise, I'm seeing some really cool things right now where restaurant owners are not going to thirst third party or, you know, outsourcing to technology solutions. So, like these companies, like, no offense, their own app, no offense, OAS in the past. Sponsor Zach is great. I think his, his solution is great, but I think that anybody will be able to build that in the next year and make it just as good. So I think that it's about talking to other restaurateurs who are hardcore nerds when it comes to this stuff and intentionally spreading out your money. Don't give your money to the number one in the number one, you know, customer feedback platform. The number one, like POS company, the number one. And there can't be number ones for the entire world. That is how the rich get rich and the poor get poor. Give it to the person who's the best at it closest to you, and that competitive market will make it easier, move even faster and better because we'll be forced to compete against each other. And we are. There is a short window, Kim, and

it's closing fast, that if we don't

intentionally put our time and energy and resources into making sure this is decentralized, like, we can make something really cool where we can bring back the middle class. But, like, we have to collectively stop letting these companies.

I don't think the restaurant owner is

any longer the beneficiary of their restaurant. They're making every adjacent leech, like, parasite on the industry rich, including developers, including property owners. Like, we need to like, take our, our industry back.

[Kim Beechner]

How do we do that?

[Podcast Host Eric]

Second largest industry in the world. I know we have so much influence

[Kim Beechner]

even, Even when I think, like going back to pandemic, like we were the majority sufferer.

[Podcast Host Eric]

How do we do that? I think talk. I think we talk.

[Kim Beechner]

So.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So we don't look at each other as competition. We look at each other as colleagues, as community.

[Kim Beechner]

Okay, so you know what? Yes. You're right. That takes me back to, like, kind of what we were talking about before this, like, or before we started recording. I think a lot of people want change in our industry, but in order to have change, you have to get your ass up and you have to do something about it.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Don't point your finger.

[Kim Beechner]

Don't. If it's meant to be, if you're not going to join the fight, don't bitch.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

[Kim Beechner]

What I do love and what most restaurant and bar owners don't know, and I'll admit only I have gotten more educated in this spectrum in the last year and a half is like, the policy issues, politics, like how policies and state and federal changes impact our industry. I've only in the last two years, started to look more into that and advocate on behalf of the industry because they're not looking out for us. You know, a good example here, this was last year, Don Larios, who runs the Texas Restaurant association for the San Antonio area Southwest region. I think she had put together a meeting with Texas, TxDOT, the Texas Department of Transportation, and the restaurant owners, because we were having a bunch of construction to talk about how we can open up the highways for Mother's Day weekend, because that is a huge revenue driver for us. And when they close the highways and people can't get to us and aren't accessible, they're not spending money with us. So those are things that, like, two years ago, I wasn't even thinking about, and now I'm like, oh, oh, we need to be on top of like, that and not. That's just a very small example in all these different things that are happening. So, like I would say restaurant bar owners, like, if you want to make change, then you have to get involved, unfortunately, on more of a political level, I think, to make your voice heard. And perhaps not everyone is comfortable doing that, but if you are comfortable doing that and you have time to dedicate to advocacy, we need more restaurant tours to do that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. And if restaurant tours rise up, if restaurant tours start sharing, if restaurant tours come back or go back to what they were 200, 300 years ago, community leaders and we can educate consumers. But right now, we're just. Right now, it's the tails wagging the dog. The consumer, you know, is being influenced by the tech companies because, you know, consumerism, like, is about, like, give the customer what the customer wants, but the customer is being convinced of what they want is more for less, but they don't know what the ramifications of more for less is. Yeah, and what people need is safety, security, autonomy, a sense of, like, being able to grow intentionally, being seen, being loved, being valued and having your purpose. But when we live in a world where it's getting harder to have autonomy because it's being harder to make it, that we have no choice but to be dependent on market in the companies that run the world, like, we're not aware of what we want. You know, we have to educate.

[Kim Beechner]

Playing the game.

[Podcast Host Eric]

We have to educate people on what they need to be happy and it's attainable. But we have to do the hard work, right? And I don't want to. I mean, I feel like I'm going to. If I'm harping too much about this, I'm going to lose people. And it's just I could be like every other platform out there, just teaching, like taking the drip from the companies at top, like in echoing best practices for marketing. But somebody has to have the conversation about what happens if we're all doing this over five or 10 years. Like, what's the end game of this? Who's winning? Is it the restaurant or the companies that control how the game's played?

[Kim Beechner]

I think you have a fair point. But restaurant and bar owners that are playing this game, right, the ones that I see that are authentic, they are still humans. And inside their restaurant, they are creating community. They are creating community with their regulars. There are so many restaurateurs here in this city that I see that are getting outside of their restaurant and participating in things like visit San Antonio, the San Antonio Food bank, getting involved in these other aspects of hospitality around our city to create community, to drive traffic to their stores without using those other big pieces. I'm not saying that they're. Yes, they are still required elements and marketing tactics in a technological world, right? But I don't think that restaurants and bars that do that aren't also creating community and connection with the people that they serve.

[Podcast Host Eric]

And let's do more of that. You know, let's get back to that. Because everything we have to do in addition to that takes away from that.

[Kim Beechner]

Bottom line, though, that's not a marketing thing. That's a restaurateur owner thing.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right?

[Kim Beechner]

Some restaurateurs are into making restaurants because they want to scale them, grow them. Them. They're fiscally. Yes, they're fiscally interested in them. What you're talking about, unfortunately, is a mass majority, or not a mass majority anymore, of the mom and pop or the people who really genuinely care. But even in franchises, it astonishes me People think that franchises are the devil, and. Yeah, sometimes they are, but a lot of franchisee owners are independent restaurant owners. So, like. Yes. Do they have the support of a franchise? Of course. But they are independent restaurant owners.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. I think franchising can be incredible practice model to. To create opportunity for other people. I think where you start playing with Dancing with the devil is scale. How big does that have to be? Like, how many McDonald's do we need?

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

How many Subways do we need? And at what point is that about community and. Or about having. Yeah, I feel you, you know, like, so, like, they. If you want to scale the 30 locations and you want to use the franchise model as a system to roll out and create opportunity for others, you're not going to, like, 30 locations. You can still do really good. Like, you will have security and you can create opportunity for other. But do you need a thousand locations?

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Like, is your life really going to be better? Are you going to be happier if you have a thousand locations? Like, are the quality of the life of the people that go to work for those franchises across the country really going to have the best jobs? Likely not, I don't think.

[Kim Beechner]

I think that's changing, though. Like, if you look at, like, say, the Canes model.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

Raising canes very operationally, systematically condensed menu, very easy to run. Each unit gives back to the schools that are in its immediate radius. They have very ethical, nice practices that do create community for each unit and their franchise.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

It's very rare to see franchise do that, but I love. To me, that was the. When I saw the Canes model, I was like, wow, what a happy medium of being a franchise. But then still feeling locally connected to community.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right.

I wonder, I mean, I wonder when the whole world is working for a franchise or a corporation, how much room is there for creative freedom?

[Kim Beechner]

That's true.

[Podcast Host Eric]

So we can't forget that people need to create. And I think that.

That.

I think Pareto's principle comes in here. I think 80% of people just want to follow rules and, like, do their thing. But then that 20% of people, that's us. The. The chaos.

[Kim Beechner]

The chaos, you know, that I don't want to follow the rules rules. I want to forge my own rank.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. Like, I think we need to figure out. I think Pareto's principle probably applies here in some form that there could be a better balance.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah, there could.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I don't have the answers, but I don't either, Ben.

[Kim Beechner]

I wish I freaking did.

[Podcast Host Eric]

This has been a lot of fun

[Kim Beechner]

I'm just, like, trying to find the most ethical way that I feel good about doing what I'm doing and trying to work with people that I believe are doing the right thing in their space.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

There has definitely been times where we've been contacted for work, and I'm like, we're not a right fit for you. I just know it's not gonna work.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Well, you were a right fit for this podcast.

[Kim Beechner]

Thank you. I appreciate it.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I had a lot of fun.

[Kim Beechner]

You're so cool, man. I'm so glad that you didn't think I was such a creeper.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Well, I'm just happy I didn't disappoint you when you met me in person.

[Kim Beechner]

Dude, you're super chill.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Thank you very much. So anything we have not discussed today that you were hoping would come out of today's conversation?

[Kim Beechner]

No, I feel like we did good. We covered a lot of ground. Hopefully people got some insight.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Kept it under two hours.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah. And I mean, I think the only thing here that we could end on is, like, like, what's next? The future. And. And I do think that that's going to be a lot of more LLM and AI integration. So my best advice for restaurateurs and bar owners is evaluate the tech deck that you do have and talk to those people and ask them, what are you guys doing in AI?

[Podcast Host Eric]

I'm about to get somebody on the show who is using vibe coding to develop, like, their own labor management tools and customer feedback. So I'm like, okay, this could be something cool. And, like, don't hoard that shit when you create it.

[Kim Beechner]

Like, give it open source. Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Like, share it with people. And that's what I hope. And hopefully we can start something here, because I think that, like, developing solutions, technology is going to be a universal skill if you want to be able to do it. And I think that that could be something that really throws a wrench in the system, but it has to be thought about that. Yeah. I think it's exciting. So. Yeah.

[Kim Beechner]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. Thank you so much. A couple questions before we say goodbye.

[Kim Beechner]

Okay, let's do it.

[Podcast Host Eric]

What is one thing about your business? A value of process, A system that makes you truly unstoppable?

[Kim Beechner]

I think that we, because the majority of us at Embark Marketing are ex service industry workers. We get it. And that makes us unstoppable because we think differently.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I like that. The mission statement is to inspire, empower, and transform the world through transforming the industry. And we're going to do that by transforming one person at a time. How have you personally transformed. How are you a better woman today than the woman you were when you got started with your marketing company? Cancer free.

[Kim Beechner]

Cancer free. I think I am incredibly observant and grateful for the little wins. And as a restaurant bar owner or any kind of entrepreneur, you are constantly bombarded by so many things and so many worries and fears because this is scary. Cherish those little tiny wins. Every little win, every little goal accomplished when adds up together is a giant fucking leap.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Yeah. Awesome. And this is the last question. If you've got the news, you'd be leaving this world tomorrow.

[Kim Beechner]

Been there, done that.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Kind of close your work, your. Your. Your business that everything about you and your work and your business would be lost with your departure with the exception of three pieces of wisdom that you could leave behind for the good of humanity and your legacy. What were those three pieces of wisdom be?

[Kim Beechner]

Does it have to be related to business?

[Podcast Host Eric]

No, just. I think it's all. It's all connected. It's life.

[Kim Beechner]

Life is business, I think. Cherish the little moments. Every little moment that makes you joyful. You need to just like take a second to stop and absorb that because that's what makes life worth living, is those little moments of joy that bring you happiness and comfort and complete bliss and satisfaction. Cherish and drink that up when it occurs because it's few and far between.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Cherish the joy.

[Kim Beechner]

Cherish the joy.

[Podcast Host Eric]

1.

[Kim Beechner]

Never be afraid to ask for help. I feel like that's a really hard lesson to learn. Everybody needs help. There's always someone smarter than you. There's always someone else that can help you, make you better. Don't be afraid to ask for help and. And take that wisdom.

[Podcast Host Eric]

2.

[Kim Beechner]

And I think third, the people who lift you up make you better and bring you happiness and motivate you to keep going. Don't you ever let them go. You hold them real tight because those are the people who are going to see you through the thick and thin, the hardships, the closures, the opens, the everything you need community. You need people in your life to be there with you on the journey. Don't let them go if they have proved themselves worthy of being on that journey with you.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Kim, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story, to share your knowledge and perspective and to let me sound like a crazy person.

[Kim Beechner]

Dude, I. I'm all about the conspiracy things. I'm down to. I'm down to pick at it all day long.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I want to go I want to learn more. And I think what. What really appeals to me lately. I've been 13 years of talking about how to make it work in within the four Walls. But, like, I think what really interests me is, is doing that next level, looking beyond what people are really focusing on that matters, like trying to find the answers, trying to figure out how do we. How do we expose the things that aren't the right direction and make that stuff aware. And I think it's an exciting time. But how. How can we connect with you if we really enjoyed today's conversation and we want to maybe learn from you, hire you, work with you? What's the best way to connect?

[Kim Beechner]

You can visit us online at www.embark-marketing.com. and as I mentioned earlier, you should claim all your brands on everything the same so you can find us anywhere and everywhere at Embark Marketing.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Beautiful. And who do you respect and admire in the industry? Somebody that you think is doing it right, making an impact and making money while they do it.

[Kim Beechner]

There's so many. There's so many. I'm a part of the Le Domes d'. Escoffier, and, like, there's a hundred women that are all doing that. That's so hard. Okay, I'm gonna just pick one in. This is, like, random, but she's coming to mind. And her name is Allison Belfor. She's just so incredibly amazing. She owns Southerly, and she's about to be in the airport, and she's working with TRA and advocating on a larger level in the state of Texas to help really make positive impact and change for the restaurant bar industry. And I just think, what a badass.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Allison Belmore.

[Kim Beechner]

Belfor.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Belfort from Belfort. Look how I'm coming after you.

[Kim Beechner]

She's awesome. She's a badass.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Anybody else?

[Kim Beechner]

Another person that I super admire in this street is John Russ. He's from a little neighborhood restaurant called Clementine. What I love about him is that I think when we're talking about, like, restaurants making ethical decisions, John Russ is doing that not just from an operational perspective. Like, he gives a about his employees. He does, like, special gives his employees two weeks off of year to, like, decompress. And that's so important in the service industry. There's so many mental health issues and drug addictions and all these things.

[Podcast Host Eric]

I wish it could be more than two weeks, though.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah, I know. But that's such an incredible two more weeks than most people that any restaurant ever does. You know, I think the other thing that's super special about him is his relationship with farmers, the way that he cares and loves for the people who produce the food that we're consuming. That's something that I don't know that a lot of bigger companies care about. They're going to Benicky and Cisco and not say anything bad about them. But it's just not the same as supporting your local farmer and then being thoughtful about what we put into our bodies. Especially for someone who's just beat cancer twice. I'm very thoughtful about what I put in my body. And what I love about him is when he creates his food. He has some staple menu items, but he constantly changes his menu from week to week based on seasonality. But everything is made from scratch, no preservatives. Everything is healthy to put in your body and isn't going to cause cancer.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Right. This has been a lot of fun. Allison, John, I'm coming after you. I'd love to get you on the show and I'm going to try to get you live in the network. About a month after this episode goes live, I'd love if you would join us for coffee with Eric. So stick around for the closing thoughts. We'll have a date for you.

[Kim Beechner]

Awesome.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Now is when I say thank you so much for taking the time to share your story, your knowledge, your mentorship. There is no questioning Kim. You are unstoppable.

[Kim Beechner]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host Eric]

Cheers.

There's another episode wrapped up here at Restaurant Unstoppable. Kim Beechner, thank you so much for

coming on the show, going deep into

the world of marketing and honestly, I

gotta start paying attention to the people who reach out to me who listen

to the show because I've got some badass folks listening to the show. So Kim subscribes to her email.

She saw that I was coming to Texas. She reached out to me. We linked up. I found out that she was a badass and that she had a lot of good stuff to share. So we got her on the show and I'm so happy I did. And if you want to connect with Kim, be sure to head over to restaurantunstoppable.com CWE she will be live on March 30th at 11am Eastern for coffee with Eric.

Restaurant Unstoppable Network is all about helping

good people connect with good people because we go further together and we're not

designed to do it alone.

You don't have to do it alone. Choose to lean on a community. And I will.

I'm doing everything I can to get

all my guests into this community and to find leaders from across the industry coming together, lifting each other up, up. It's a ton of fun. Would love to have you be a part of it. You can be a part of this and all future conversations if you just join the community. Restaurantstoppable.com live we'll see you there.