3 Signs It's Time to Outsource Your Small Business's Marketing (Marketing Consultation with Restaurant Owners Noe & David Garcia)

Running a small business involves wearing multiple hats and juggling various responsibilities.

As the owners of La Fiesta Burrito, David and Noe Garcia understand the challenges of managing their restaurant while also trying to handle marketing tasks. 

Their experience serves as a valuable case study for fellow small business owners who are contemplating whether to outsource or hire marketing professionals. 

By recognizing the critical signs that indicate when it's the right time to consider outsourcing, entrepreneurs can optimize their marketing efforts, lighten their workload, and focus their energy on effectively managing and growing their businesses.

Join us as we delve into the insights and advice shared during our marketing consultation. Discover how their experiences can help you navigate this crucial decision and propel your business towards sustainable growth and success.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

• When to outsource or hire someone for marketing
• The influence of online ratings on customer decision-making
• Importance of strategy for effective communication and marketing

Other Mentioned Links & Resources

Learn more about La Fiesta Burrito:
https://lafiestaburrito.net

Episode 90: Marketing Consultation with Author Crista Tharp: How to Identify & Reach Your Ideal Clients
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2113427/12295859

Learn more about Treefrog services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com

Learn how to write your Marketing Guiding Statements:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/marketingguidingstatements

Save $20 on your first order from InstaCart
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/instacart-coupon-code

Enjoy 35% off one year of HoneyBook
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/honeybook-coupon-code

Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426

Follow Treefrog on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers

Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn

Transcript

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Kelly Rice [00:00:00]:

Marketing is a significant and critical business investment, but if you hire the wrong person or you have a bad partnership, it not only wastes your time and money, but it can also damage the brand if the business hands over their reins to the wrong person. And as a small business owner myself, I totally understand that. Hey there. You're listening to the Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain and pursue both of their personal and their business priorities so that they can build lives and businesses they love. I'm your host, Kelly Rice, and today I'm really excited to have David and Noe Garcia with La Fiesta Burrito on the show for another round of our small business marketing consultations. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. I am so happy that you reached out and I am thrilled to get to chat with you about how do you know when it's the right time to outsource or hire someone to handle your marketing? But before we dive in, would you two mind just introducing yourselves and telling our listeners a little bit about your business?

Noe Garcia [00:01:03]:

Hi, I'm Noah Garcia. And I Poem Lafayette. So, Rita, with my brother David Garcia, we started the business back in 2018. Just kind of wanting to look for something different, something that we're passionate about, following our family's footsteps. We've always been in business, something that always has to do with food. I was a great cook and my brother was a great server, so we decided we'd make a great team.

David Garcia [00:01:25]:

Yeah, that kind of something that was done by her dad, but it ended up being working out pretty good. What our experiences were from previous jobs and what we had done in the we made a perfect game.

Kelly Rice [00:01:46]:

Because you two grew up working with your dad, correct?

David Garcia [00:01:49]:

Yeah, for the most part in the family.

Kelly Rice [00:01:54]:

Well, I know that my team and I enjoy your made from scratch authentic Mexican food and the amazingly friendly atmosphere. I know when I walk in, it just kind of feels like family. Or if I date myself, the norm in Cheers, because you walk in and everybody's like, hey, Kelly, how are you? So any of our local listeners, just in case you were looking for an amazing place to eat, LaFiesta and Lafayette, Indiana, has the best fresh guacamole you've ever tasted. And noe is right. He is a tremendous I would call him a chef. He calls himself a cook. So I would highly recommend you all stopping in to see them. So, David and Noe, today we're going to answer your question of how do you know when it's the right time for a small business to outsource or hire someone to handle their marketing? And this is actually one of the most challenging business decisions a grown company faces. And I'm really glad that you brought it up. Many scenarios actually prompt this question of when do you hire a marketer but it's oftentimes when a business either reaches a critical growth point or the owners, kind of like yourselves, are wearing too many hats to be effective. And it just makes sense to have someone else focus on marketing. And as you know, marketing is a significant and critical business investment. And a bad hire or a partnership not only wastes precious time and money, but it can also damage the brand if the business hands over the reins to the wrong person. And we'll also talk a little bit about that later on too. But the good thing for you guys is that there are three key areas that you can assess that will help you gauge if your business is ready to outsource or hire a marketing professional. The first one is time. The second one is effectiveness, and the third is financial stability. So if you guys are ready, we can just jump in, you good to go?

David Garcia [00:03:54]:

Sounds good.

Kelly Rice [00:03:56]:

Okay, so the first area is to evaluate is time. So small business leaders should consider partnering with a marketing agency or hiring a marketing professional when they need to put hours back in their day. This is because many don't have enough time to spend on marketing, nor the time to become marketing experts themselves. And I think you two kind of can relate to that always. Yeah, as a business owner, you're pulled in multiple directions and you're responsible for everything, including growing your business. But when things get busy or you have to tend to like the on fire things of like covering shifts or somebody doesn't show up, all of those types of things. Marketing quickly gets put on the back burner because it's the easiest thing to drop. And have you guys noticed that in your business as well?

Noe Garcia [00:04:43]:

Yeah, I feel like it lacks a lot, actually, because it's not right there. You don't have to do it's not a task that you must do. It's not like covering a ship, like you mentioned.

David Garcia [00:04:51]:

It's not like changing the menu, like getting advice. It's something that gets put on the back burner.

Noe Garcia [00:04:56]:

And then when you finally get all those things together, I feel like, oh.

David Garcia [00:04:58]:

Well, now I need to mark at this.

Noe Garcia [00:05:00]:

Now I need to sell it, now I need to get it out there.

David Garcia [00:05:02]:

For people to know about it.

Kelly Rice [00:05:03]:

Right. Or when sales are down or you're not as busy, you try to make time, like you said, to jump back in and try to market your business. But probably what happens, and it happens for a lot of small businesses, that it really leads to not knowing what to do. Inconsistent branding, potentially confusing messaging, because you said something some way this last time, but not the same way this time, or creating only sales based content. And if you guys remember from previous podcast messages or our listeners, no one likes to feel like they're being sold to all of the time and then when it gets to be too much. Many small business owners, they start to look for somebody within their organization that can take over marketing, even if they don't even know what they're doing. All they know is that marketing needs to come off of their plates. So now that I know that you two are extremely busy, especially you, David, as you run two different businesses, how does this relate to you? Where are you two kind of sitting right now? Are you trying to manage everything yourselves?

David Garcia [00:06:01]:

Kind of, at least for the restaurant. I don't think we've done a whole lot as far as marketing goes, not as much as we should. It's just the restaurant is a little bit different because there's a lot more budgeting that we need. So, like you say, it's one of the things that we keep putting off just because it's something we don't need to keep the restaurant going. We need it to help us grow, but not necessarily to stay open. So it's something that we always talk about and I think we do the very least. So hopefully it's starting to look better for us and we can look into more of the marketing side. Nowadays, marketing is really, besides word of mouth, marketing is really the biggest thing to get business to people. It would definitely help us to get solid marketing strategy.

Kelly Rice [00:07:08]:

Yeah. So we try to tell people that are in your shoes, if you're thinking about hiring somebody out because you're too busy, you've ran out of time, you're wearing too many hats to be effective, it's probably time to discuss a more solid marketing plan than just potentially using your neighbor's teenager daughter to help you do social media. Right? Because in reality, that's where a lot of small business owners go that are just wearing so many hats. They're like, oh, you know how to do social media? Well, you just go ahead and do that for me. But the problem is that if it's not strategic and effective, again, you're just wasting somebody else's time and your money to be able to do that, even though it's coming off of your plate. So time is a really big thing to look at in terms of when to know if you're ready to hire somebody or if you're ready to maybe push something off off of your plate so you can actually spend time doing it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. The second thing to consider is effectiveness. So businesses should consider partnering with a marketing agency or hiring a marketing professional when they want to develop a marketing strategy that drives consistent growth. So this is because some small businesses may be able to find time to manage their own marketing, but they aren't getting the results that they want. They might be working with an internal person who is responsible for some marketing or a segmented freelancers. But their marketing efforts just kind of feel disjointed and unproductive. And this is usually because they don't have a strategic marketing plan and they continue to try like one tactic after another or one trend after another. Or they jump on TikTok because that's where they told that they should do or they just do a bunch of reels but they do it kind of maybe inconsistently and they're really not seeing the results for their efforts. And this prevents consistent business growth. It makes marketing way more complicated than it needs to be and again, it just simply wastes time and money. So the second way to know if hiring a marketing professional or partnering with an agency is right for your small business is if you're actually thinking, you know what, this should be way easier than it is. It should be easier to attract customers and grow my business. And I'm getting a little bit frustrated. So if those thoughts are kind of popping around your head and you're feeling a little bit frustrated, it might be time to explore a conversation about hiring a true marketing professional or partnering with an agency that specializes in business marketing. So how effective do you guys feel that your marketing so far has been? Because as a patron myself, I know that the restaurant is usually fairly busy. So how do you use marketing or what have you used that you think that has worked for you?

David Garcia [00:09:51]:

Well, really, if we do any or anything like that, it's just basically black. We'll take some pictures of maybe a new item, the Pristalling or something, and then we'll post it. Something we pay to post our post. I don't think it really pays off that much, maybe because we don't know all those strategies that would know as far as getting the ad to the right person. So we're just kind of throwing it out there. Somebody who likes Mexicans will see it and I don't know, I think we focused more on the word of mouth and the people that are coming in search a good experience and more like people referring us to family and friends and I don't think we have experienced marketing and I don't know.

Kelly Rice [00:10:51]:

You have a lot of connections in the community as well and you guys recently partnered with another business to do food for their Latino night and have you seen an increase in business because of the partnerships that you've potentially made?

Noe Garcia [00:11:07]:

I think we did. We definitely have a lot of customers that merge from one place to the other. If anything, it just helped us realize how much more known we were in the community. I didn't realize that a lot of people did know about us and a lot of people did know that we had good food. It was surprising to realize that they knew the brand identity, location. It was surprising to know that they had heard about us from word of mouth more than they had seen an ad, because we don't usually do ads. So a lot of people that would come up to us at the Go I mean, the bar that we would be at, people get to talk to and they get to know each other, and they're like, yeah, we heard about that place, and we heard about that place because so and so told me. And so and so told me. But it's not like they know where it's at. It's not a brand that they recognize the brand because the name clicks because they've heard it multiple times from other people. But it's not something they're like, oh yeah, it's over there by veterans. You know where? It's over there by this place. It feels nice to hear that from customers, but at the same time it gets frustrating because like, okay, so you do know about me, you do know about this restaurant, you do know that the food is good, but you don't.

David Garcia [00:12:19]:

Know where it's at.

Noe Garcia [00:12:20]:

So therefore you don't care enough to.

David Garcia [00:12:22]:

Go look it up because it's not.

Noe Garcia [00:12:24]:

Right there in front of you.

Kelly Rice [00:12:25]:

Right. And I don't know if it's necessarily they don't care to think to look it up. It's the out of mind, out of site and that's where marketing helps aspects of it. So can you two talk just a little bit about maybe what your future goals are of how you would want to grow or what the idea is? I don't know if it's expansion or just to have more people know about you. Can you kind of talk about what you would like to accomplish?

David Garcia [00:12:47]:

Yeah. As far as the location that we're currently in, it's not a huge place, it's really small, but it's perfect. So it's like our baby. Everything that we're learning from Business House is we're learning it from there. From five years into the business, we're very getting the hang of how things work. And we had no idea how it worked, how inventory and how all of that and hiring and all that. So we're learning everything as we go. So we have talked about, I don't know if it'd be expanding that business, maybe open different business with the knowledge that we have. We have some ideas in mind about.

David Garcia [00:13:45]:

Different businesses that we would like to.

David Garcia [00:13:48]:

See in town that are not currently available. Once we have a good strategy as far as the business goes, I think we'll be ready for another one.

Kelly Rice [00:14:04]:

Yeah. And that kind of goes back to what Noe was saying, is that you have a good brand and people know about you. The issue that it sounds like you're having is driving that constant traffic for people to keep that top of mind aspect in there. So having that constant traffic then with that brand would help you allow to expand or do something different as well.

Noe Garcia [00:14:24]:

I think expanding is definitely in the works. I don't know if it's within the like David was saying, that's like our baby. So we might not touch it, we.

David Garcia [00:14:33]:

Might not expand it, but there is definitely a lot more that we have learned that we are eager to show the community.

Noe Garcia [00:14:42]:

There's a lot of dishes that are.

David Garcia [00:14:43]:

Just based off the location and the size of the place that we can't exactly justify putting them in there.

Noe Garcia [00:14:51]:

But in the future we would.

David Garcia [00:14:54]:

I think it's in the plans to have a bigger, more formal restaurant. And one of the steps that we both realized that has to be taken.

Noe Garcia [00:15:03]:

Before we do that is definitely our marketing. Just making sure that that baby is.

David Garcia [00:15:07]:

Taken care of on its own before we move on to the next big thing. And as far as growing that way.

Noe Garcia [00:15:14]:

But I feel like we've done a good job about growing with the catering and with the partnering up with other.

David Garcia [00:15:18]:

Businesses and stuff like that definitely has.

Noe Garcia [00:15:20]:

Helped us get to know other business.

David Garcia [00:15:22]:

Owners a lot more.

Noe Garcia [00:15:23]:

We're very social with a bunch of.

David Garcia [00:15:26]:

Small business owners in town. We like to make sure that if.

Noe Garcia [00:15:31]:

We can help out, if they can.

David Garcia [00:15:32]:

Help us out, whatever it is we can put together. However, we've quickly realized we can't solely rely on that.

Noe Garcia [00:15:41]:

We have to make sure that it's taken care of.

David Garcia [00:15:44]:

We have to make sure that the.

Noe Garcia [00:15:46]:

Marketing is getting taken care of way more than just a Facebook post every.

David Garcia [00:15:51]:

Now and then or whenever.

Noe Garcia [00:15:52]:

Like you said, whenever we have that extra time to sit down on a.

David Garcia [00:15:56]:

Computer and use something to create posts or to let people know that we have a new item and menu or something like that.

Noe Garcia [00:16:05]:

That's kind of where the question came from.

David Garcia [00:16:07]:

When is it the right time?

Noe Garcia [00:16:09]:

How do I know when is the.

David Garcia [00:16:10]:

Right time to go ahead and hire.

Noe Garcia [00:16:12]:

A marketing or partner up with a.

David Garcia [00:16:14]:

Marketing company or something like that?

Noe Garcia [00:16:16]:

Don't want to take the step too early, don't want to get ahead of myself. But at the same time, I don't want to lose an opportunity if it's right there.

Kelly Rice [00:16:22]:

Right. And we've talked about a great time is when you've ran out of time and you're just not effective anymore, right? Those two things are really important. But really this third thing, this is a great segment into the third area to consider is financial stability because you may be out of time and that you may be not being as effective as you want to, but you actually have to be financially stable in order to be able to support this type of position. So every small business owner like we've talked about need more time. They want to be more strategic and effective when it comes to marketing. However, marketing is an investment and a company needs to be able to financially support a marketing hire or partnership plus be able to provide the resources and budgets needed to be successful. And it sounds like you guys have kind of thought about these things and you're trying to figure out when is the best time when it's not. And I totally understand that knowing when to hire and who to hire can be a very difficult decision because most times it feels like a really big risk or a really big leap of faith to take. And in fact, a lot of people will tell you that you should hire a recent grad, someone's fresh out of college, because they aren't very expensive and they should be able to handle all of your marketing needs. However, what they don't realize is that most new grads don't have the knowledge or expertise to oversee audience strategy, marketing strategy writing, content writing, design, web development, search engine optimization, social media management and all of the other things. In fact, no one person can actually be an expert in all of these areas. But on the other hand, other people will tell you that you need to hire an experienced marketer, which may or may not be a better solution than a new grad. This is because, again, a single person can be great at a few things but shouldn't be responsible for everything. So for example, you could hire a marketing manager who thoroughly understands strategy and social media, but they might not have experience in web design simply because there are only so many things an individual can be good at. So as a result, your marketing manager eventually will need support from other marketing staff or agency partnerships to be successful. And your third option, in my experience, is to partner with a small business agency, which could be a great solution for some small businesses, especially if you have someone in your organization that can act as a marketing liaison, such as your marketing manager, between your company and the agency. Because if you partner with the right agency, you'll benefit from a multitude of skill sets such as, again, strategy copywriting, website design, social media, search engine optimization and more. But you only pay for the expertise you need. So essentially, for the cost of just one full time employee or a few, depending on your marketing needs, you can get access to all of the marketing skill sets you need to implement a successful marketing strategy. And again, most agencies offer service tiers or levels that help small businesses. Start by building a strong foundation, which should include understanding your ideal audience, building a lead generating website, and then letting Google know that you exist through search engine optimization. So at the beginning of the episode I mentioned that marketing is a significant and critical business investment. But if you hire the wrong person or you have a bad partnership, it not only wastes your time and money, but it can also damage the brand if the business hands over the reins to the wrong person. And as a small business owner myself, I totally understand that. Are they going to do it right? Are they going to say the message right? Are they going to present it right? Are they going to take the pictures right? Are they going to follow up? Are they going to do all of the things right? So I'd like to offer some advice that would help you avoid hiring the wrong person or setting the wrong expectations of your marketing hire. Are you guys kind of open to that?

Natalie Franke [00:20:27]:

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Victoria Rayburn [00:21:16]:

As a small business owner, you probably have a seemingly endless to do list, but I can almost promise that there are things on your list that can be outsourced, like grocery shopping. I mean, as a wedding photographer, the last thing I wanted to do after shooting a wedding on a Saturday was to spend my Sunday in a grocery store. So I am forever thankful that a friend told me about Instacart. Instacart is a grocery delivery service. Basically, you use the Instacart app to make your shopping list. Then a personal shopper goes to your preferred store, selects your groceries for you, and delivers them to you, typically all within just a few hours. You can also schedule your delivery time, which is wonderful. Personally, I will sing Instacart's praises forever because, one, it has saved me from countless hours, and two, Instacart employs local personal shoppers. Meaning with every Instacart purchase, you're putting money back directly into your local economy. While Instacart does charge delivery fees, when you upgrade to Instacart Plus for just $99 a year, you'll receive free unlimited deliveries for all orders over $35. Considering the time and frustration you'll save, that's $99 well invested. If you'd like to avoid going to the grocery store and save $20 on your first order from Instacart of $35 or more, visit treefrogmarketing.com instacart. Again, if you'd like $20 off your first Instacart order of $35 or more, visit treefrogmarketing.com instacart.

Kelly Rice [00:22:47]:

Okay, so when you're ready to hire someone or partner with an agency, start out with someone who can manage a few main areas. This will begin to free up your time and build a stronger foundation. But you must understand that you'll need to be very strategic with what you're asking them to do, for them to oversee and to achieve. And you'll have to provide them with the tools and resources needed to succeed, such as strategy, developing a lead generating website, potentially some kind of software for tracking leads, lead generation, those types of things. And then also budgets if you're going to do any type of advertising, printing, social media, marketing, those types of things. And in previous episodes, we've given you information on how to create a strategic marketing plan that will build a strong foundation. So in episode 83, we talked about the power of clarifying your messaging and developing your marketing guiding statements. And you guys are a little bit ahead of the game because you've already done that and the effectiveness of using a flywheel marketing method. And I believe that was in episode 90. So knowing David, I'll send you guys links to those episodes if you want to review those. And then for everyone else, I'll link those episodes in the show notes. So I know that we've talked a lot about a lot of things today. Do you guys have any questions about the three things that you should be aware of when you're considering hiring somebody internally or even partnering with someone to help with your marketing? Any questions?

Noe Garcia [00:24:22]:

I do have a question. What do you usually recommend staying local? We're huge with working locally. As far as small businesses, something that we could have almost like a personal relationship with. Business is always going to be separate. But just that sense of, hey, I know this person, I know that they're doing good work, or would you recommend going somewhere online to look for somebody? Where do you usually start? Obviously you had already mentioned what you're looking for in a person, depending on what it is that your budget is what you're trying to get done. But where should you start to look for? Do you go local? Do you go online and start searching for things?

David Garcia [00:25:10]:

What's the good place to start looking for somebody?

Kelly Rice [00:25:13]:

So what's going to feel like a political answer is it depends, what do you want to do? What are you trying to solve? If you're looking for somebody to do your organic social media? Absolutely. Those people need to be local because they need to be in the restaurant, they need to be taking pictures, they need to know the environment, they need to know the people, they need to know the strategy to be able to do that. Because no one that is going to be external is going to be able to handle the organic growth of your social media. Now, on the flip side of that, yes, you can absolutely work with anywhere, with anyone, anywhere, as long as they meet the needs that you have for things like strategy and website development and overseeing promotional things like Google Ads and social media ads. That person doesn't necessarily have to be local. I would just make sure that whoever you partner with, if it's going to be like an agency or a freelancer, is that they understand the strategy and your goals and they understand the idea of clarifying your message is going to be extremely important. So even working with somebody that understands story brand, even that's a segmented part of what you're doing, that would be important because you have to clarify your message and then utilize that flywheel marketing method. So again, if somebody's doing something from an organic social media perspective or you're asking them to start building networks or connections in the community, obviously that person needs to be local. But some of the things that you may need for marketing, they don't necessarily have to be local, they just need to be a relationship based that you trust them and they know what they're doing. Does that make sense when you say.

David Garcia [00:26:55]:

That, is it possible to do two.

Noe Garcia [00:26:58]:

Different people or would it be more.

David Garcia [00:27:01]:

Preferred to do all in one? Right. If I'm getting it correctly, when you.

Noe Garcia [00:27:06]:

Say organic media, like what you said, somebody being in the restaurant, somebody being.

David Garcia [00:27:11]:

Within the community and stuff like that.

Noe Garcia [00:27:13]:

That doesn't necessarily mean that you need that same person for somebody that would handle like Google or something like that.

David Garcia [00:27:19]:

Is that what you mean or am I understanding that?

Kelly Rice [00:27:22]:

Yeah, that's what I mean. Could it be the same person? It absolutely could because more than likely if you worked with somebody that is skilled, they're going to have multiple levels of expertise, they're just not going to be able to do everything for you, right? So as business owners, you need to decide what are the most important things that you want to do first based on your marketing strategy and where you want to grow and then hire from there. Because you may be able to hire a local person that can absolutely do some networking. They can do your organic social media while you guys focus on maybe more of like your customer experience and things like that and that will elevate where you are as an organization and start building that foundation, but it's not going to kind of take you to that next level. So I think you're going to have to potentially work with either an agency or hire a second person that is more strategy focused, that understands how to implement that full strategy and work with either freelance members or freelance people that they then can kind of oversee to ensure that everything that you're doing from a strategic perspective is being met. Or you could work with an agency that could do pretty much everything for you excluding the organic social media aspect of it. Does that make sense? So it could potentially be multiple people and it could potentially be multiple in house people, it could be one in house person, it could be external people, there can be a mix there. But really what it comes down to is strategy and what are the things that you want to start out with to grow. Because I agree that most. Small businesses just can't jump in and they just can't say, hey, we're going to do everything you need to start building that foundation. So clarifying your message, creating a lead generating website, and then being able to figure out what you want to do from there. Because once you have your message clarified and you have a great website, you may be able to generate enough business from organic social media within the community to grow that two or 3% that you're looking for. But then if you're wanting to grow that 1015 20%, you may need to think about how you're going to do that differently. Does that answer your question?

Noe Garcia [00:29:37]:

Yeah, I think it answers that. Now it opens up a little bit more questions, if you don't mind.

Kelly Rice [00:29:44]:

Sure.

Noe Garcia [00:29:45]:

When you say you have to create.

David Garcia [00:29:46]:

A foundation, you have to create something, the base you want to start off with. What do you usually recommend for somebody?

Noe Garcia [00:29:52]:

Like, for instance, for us, for the.

David Garcia [00:29:54]:

Restaurant, where what do we do next? We have a really good relationship with the community. We have a really good relationship with.

Noe Garcia [00:30:04]:

Our customers as far as, like in person.

David Garcia [00:30:06]:

David and I try to be in.

Noe Garcia [00:30:09]:

Person at all times with the restaurant.

David Garcia [00:30:11]:

Get to know people by name, get to know customers at the place where we're at now.

Noe Garcia [00:30:20]:

The restaurant stays pretty busy. Do we want to focus on an organic advertisement like you had mentioned with Facebook, with the community? Or do we maybe want to take.

David Garcia [00:30:29]:

The step to start getting maybe new.

Noe Garcia [00:30:32]:

Customers from other regions to pop up on Google? If they search Mexican restaurant, they're just driving by lot. We already have the local community, but we also don't want to neglect that.

Kelly Rice [00:30:45]:

Absolutely.

Noe Garcia [00:30:45]:

So where should we start? Where would you think the restaurant our size and the situation where we're at right now? What would be a good place to start?

Kelly Rice [00:30:54]:

So I know that you guys have a clear message and you have a newly built website that is performing well for you. What you don't have are things driving people to your website or to like if somebody search restaurants near me or Mexican restaurants near me, you don't have a lot of that search option search engine optimization going. So that's kind of where I would start. I would make sure that you're in all of your online directories. Your name, address and phone number are in all of those. I can send you some information on that. And I believe that we have either a podcast upcoming or we have one that is already out there that I can link in the show notes as well for that. But the things that you need to do for search engine optimization are those types of things. Making sure that your name, address and phone number in all the online directories, because Google likes that. Need to make sure that your Google my business is optimized. It's verified and optimized because again, Google likes that and it'll start showing your website or your map listing a little bit higher as well. So those are two big things. And then the third big thing are reviews. And I know, David, you're constantly looking at those, but developing a way that maybe your servers could ask for people to review your business right there as the check is coming or during whatever time it might be. Because I know that there's ways, there are business cards that somebody could hand out that I would have a QR code on it, that somebody could just quickly scan it and then be able to give you a quick google Review, start collecting email addresses, and build a loyalty or rewards program, which I think you guys do in clover, but I don't know if you do anything with that. Being able to give access to specific specials or the ability to earn if you come in X amount of times, you get an appetizer free or something like that. I think that you guys can start building some better awareness and continually talk to the people that already know, like and trust you to get them to come in a little bit more in terms of the rewards program. And then if you get their emails, being able to email them on a regular basis to remind them to come in right, like, hey, don't want to cook tonight? Great. We have all of these great authentic, made from scratch type of deals, you know, that you want our guac, kind of like statements like that. But then trying to reach new people that may not have seen you before is where that search engine optimization comes in. Because when people search for things, you need to have a lot of reviews and you need to be up there a little bit higher because people may look at your restaurant and they'll be like, oh great, there's 14 other Mexican restaurants in the area. But if you have 305 star reviews, they're going to probably seek you out a little bit more because that and they've also heard your brand before. So does that kind of make sense of a starting point?

David Garcia [00:33:52]:

Yes, it does. And it clarifies like the drive to.

Noe Garcia [00:33:58]:

The reviews and all that other stuff, because you're right, we all do it. We all look for burgers near me or a bar near me. And well, this one has five stars.

David Garcia [00:34:05]:

Oh, this one only has three starts. We like to rely a lot on the web.

Noe Garcia [00:34:12]:

We rely a lot on what other people have to say about that business. So, yes, that is definitely something that we have thought about, but not giving.

David Garcia [00:34:20]:

The importance that it should have. Like you had said, not only with.

Noe Garcia [00:34:25]:

Local, but other out of town people. Because like I said, there's a lot.

David Garcia [00:34:29]:

Of people that know about us, but.

Noe Garcia [00:34:31]:

It'S just their information is not right.

David Garcia [00:34:33]:

There like you said it's out of.

Noe Garcia [00:34:34]:

Sight, out of mind.

David Garcia [00:34:35]:

So being able to put that information.

Noe Garcia [00:34:37]:

Right in front of them and having.

David Garcia [00:34:38]:

Those reviews when they do visit, that will give them more of incentive to.

Noe Garcia [00:34:43]:

Be able to walk into the restaurant and give us a shot. And I'm pretty sure we're pretty confident in our service and we're pretty confident.

David Garcia [00:34:51]:

In our food to the point where.

Noe Garcia [00:34:52]:

We know that once you walk in, you're going to come.

Kelly Rice [00:34:55]:

Right.

Noe Garcia [00:34:55]:

So it's just a matter of getting the people to go into the restaurant, right.

Kelly Rice [00:34:59]:

And then also reminding those that have already been patrons or have already been in to keep coming back, right? Because I know that you guys have your select regulars that come in and you know their families and you know all of this, and there's quite a few of them, but there's also those people that maybe only show up once every three months, and if you can remind them to come in, they'll be like, oh, yeah, I want something different. I'm tired of this or that, or I forgot about this. This sounds really good. That can start generating some new business as well.

Noe Garcia [00:35:27]:

Now, we have done something in the.

David Garcia [00:35:31]:

Past couple of weeks where I will.

Noe Garcia [00:35:33]:

Work on a different dish.

David Garcia [00:35:35]:

And I have found it that it's very hard for some reason to get a dish out there and to get people to see it within a timely manner.

Noe Garcia [00:35:46]:

Because usually if I post something, or usually, like I said, we focus a lot on Facebook right now because that's.

David Garcia [00:35:52]:

What a lot of the community that.

Noe Garcia [00:35:55]:

Go to our restaurant that we have realized.

David Garcia [00:35:57]:

They're very active on our Facebook page, so we'll post it.

Noe Garcia [00:36:01]:

But I realized that I'll get a.

David Garcia [00:36:03]:

Like or a comment on it two.

Noe Garcia [00:36:05]:

Or three days after I post it, sometimes a week after I post it. And that makes it kind of rough for me to be able to change dishes every week to offer something different.

David Garcia [00:36:13]:

Something that we normally don't have, per se, something that's not on the menu. Maybe it's a home cooked meal that we haven't done in a long time.

Noe Garcia [00:36:24]:

That reminds somebody of back home.

David Garcia [00:36:26]:

I've been trying to do that and.

Noe Garcia [00:36:29]:

We'Ve been successful with our regulars.

David Garcia [00:36:30]:

But how do I get that information?

Noe Garcia [00:36:32]:

What's the fastest way to get that information, per se? I'm going to type something up. This is going to be the special for tomorrow. What do you recommend?

David Garcia [00:36:39]:

Where do you go as far as.

Noe Garcia [00:36:40]:

Marketing goes, where do you go?

David Garcia [00:36:42]:

Do you post it on Facebook? Do you make an announcement somewhere else? I mean, what do you recommend doing.

Noe Garcia [00:36:48]:

As far as that goes?

Kelly Rice [00:36:49]:

So, first and foremost, we always talk about having a strategic plan of action. So if you are coming up with something and you expect it to be launched the next day, you're not giving yourself time to be able to be strategic to get that message out there and allow people to connect with you. So you can't expect just posting something to Facebook is going to drive new business. Because organic social media is used as a long type of strategy. Because you have to get people to one like your page or follow you, and then you also have to wait for them to get on the app to scroll through it, to see it. And it might be two or three days later that they're seeing this. So if you're presenting something on Tuesday that's only available on Tuesday and Wednesday and they're looking at it Thursday, they already missed it. So the idea is you have to get out there and you have to have a strategy that is going to pre plan these things and then how are you going to communicate it? Because only I think it's like a half a percent of the people that actually even follow you are going to see your organic postings. So that's why organic social media has a completely different strategy and usage than you would for promoting something utilizing ad dollars in social media to be able to reach people much quicker and in a bigger way. And again, that goes back to being able to collect email addresses because a week before you might say, hey, next week's special is going to be this. And you're giving people a week notice to remember to come in there. And then if you're sending a weekly email, you're saying, hey, remember, this is what this is and it's on special and it's all of these types of things. So again, it all goes back to strategy and then it all goes back to as business owners, do you have time to create that strategy? Is it time to work with somebody that can help you create that strategy and then implement these things as opposed to you guys working in the business as opposed to on it? So it's another hurdle that you two have to decide which way that you're going to solve it. Because again, looking back at time effectiveness and financial stability, is it the right time to hire somebody to do some of these things for you? Or do you simply need to sit back and try to figure out how you're going to fit this type of strategy and implementation into your daily routine? Does that make sense?

Noe Garcia [00:39:07]:

Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. Like you said, it's just a matter of we're used to doing what we do best, which is cooking and trying to put it out there. And it sounds simple now that you say it when it comes from somebody else, somebody like you, that you know exactly your line of work. Like I said, it gets frustrating for me because for me it's as simple as like, I just created this, it's really good, I want to get it out there. Why are people not coming why is it not selling? Then you're like when I hear you say, well, they don't know about it, you have to give them a week. Unfortunately, it's something that I'm not used to, but it's something that I will definitely have to get used to if marketing strategy is going to work with me building that platform. Like you said, it makes a lot of sense that next week is going to be this is going to be on special next week, letting people know because multiple times you see that over and over again, especially with big franchises now it's clicking to me. Like, for instance, don't forget that. For instance, the first thing that comes to mind is like summer shandy. It's only available, specific beer is only available during this time. And you already know I can't wait to Summertime because we're going to get that specific beer that comes out. So maybe not as drastic as that. Like once a year or a few months, a year, but a week before would be better to plan ahead for next week and sending those reminders via email or posting it or whatever it is. The marketing that we decide, whether it's organic marketing or something a little bit bigger than that, I think it goes right?

Kelly Rice [00:40:36]:

And also utilizing, also utilizing your website, pop ups, information, those types of things. Because people go to your website to order online, so that type of information would be there. Especially when it's like tamale season, right? Like if you're going to offer tamales because you guys don't offer them all the time, it's just within a specific season. So pre thinking some of these things and either doing it yourself and carving out that time to really spend the time to do it, or looking to see is it the right time to hire someone to help us do some of these things. I think that's the next decision on YouTube.

Noe Garcia [00:41:12]:

I think that's a decision that has.

David Garcia [00:41:14]:

Been coming for a long time.

Noe Garcia [00:41:16]:

We just haven't had the chance to.

David Garcia [00:41:17]:

Actually sit down and make that decision. However, the more we think about it.

Noe Garcia [00:41:23]:

David and I, the very few moments.

David Garcia [00:41:25]:

That we have to actually sit down.

Noe Garcia [00:41:26]:

And talk about this instead of just.

David Garcia [00:41:27]:

Being hands on at work, the more.

Noe Garcia [00:41:30]:

We realize we really need to really take care of this because we just.

David Garcia [00:41:33]:

Can'T cook and do this at the same time. We can't take care of our customers and actually let them know what's going on.

Noe Garcia [00:41:41]:

It's not until they walk into the door that they realize, oh, this is what's on special today.

David Garcia [00:41:44]:

Because it's not as simple as just putting it up on the chalkboard. It'd be a lot better and easier if I could plan ahead.

Noe Garcia [00:41:52]:

It's definitely something that's going to take.

David Garcia [00:41:54]:

Me personally, a lot of work to.

Noe Garcia [00:41:56]:

Be able to be like, next week, this is what I'm going to do. Because sometimes I don't even know what.

David Garcia [00:41:59]:

I'm going to do that day, but.

Noe Garcia [00:42:00]:

It'S something that I must do in.

David Garcia [00:42:02]:

Order to plan ahead in the future.

Noe Garcia [00:42:04]:

And my customers know what exactly is going to be on special next week.

Kelly Rice [00:42:08]:

Absolutely. So I know that we have talked about a lot of things today and given you a lot to think about. Hopefully the information will help you kind of figure out what stage that you're in and maybe what your next moves will be. However, I know that you can feel confident in whatever choice that you make, whether you choose to hire somebody internally, do it yourself, or even outsource to an agency. As long as you're looking at your business in those three areas that we discussed, do you have enough time? Are you being effective? And do you have the financial stability needed in order to outsource this or hire someone? So thanks for tuning in to another episode of Priority Podcast and as always, please know that we are rooting for you, your small business and your priorities. We can't wait to chat with you again next week.