Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth

58: How to Maximize Business Growth in Restaurants with Laura Wilber

• Christin Marvin

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This is how you boost guest acquisition and retention without any upfront costs.

Laura Wilber from DeNova joins us to unlock the secrets of how to maximize your business growth for restaurants. Her strategies in guest acquisition and retention promise to increase restaurant traffic without any upfront costs, a game-changer for independent restaurants navigating tough economic landscapes. As we chat, we reveal the invaluable insights from my upcoming memoir, "Hospitality Leader's Roadmap," and discuss the unique solutions DeNova offers to elevate your business.

Chapters:
00:00:08 - Elevate Your Hospitality Leadership Skills

00:11:37 - Podcast Promotion and Business Travel Dining

00:27:59 - Building Business Partnerships With Restaurants

00:32:22 - Enhancing Hospitality Leadership Success

00:45:42 - Restaurant Partnership Outreach Strategy


Transitioning from traditional radio advertising to performance-based models, we share lessons on targeting audiences and understanding ROI. Laura and I explore how the digital shift in radio parallels the evolution of marketing strategies, emphasizing the need to engage younger audiences. Our journey takes us to DeNova Corporate Dining, where we focus on targeting less price-sensitive business travelers, offering sustainable marketing approaches that ensure long-term success.

In building successful partnerships, DeNova acts as a vital extension of restaurant sales teams. We discuss how DeNova supports restaurants by connecting them with corporate and government clients, enhancing their exposure and growth potential. Laura details the process of assessing potential partners, handling negative experiences, and the benefits of being part of DeNova's network. Plus, hear success stories of how DeNova has helped restaurants attract and retain high-value business guests, making meaningful impacts on their growth and sustainability.

Resources:
Laura Wilber
Dinova
The Hospitality Leader's Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary
CHOW
El Charro

More from Christin:

Curious about one-on-one coaching or leadership workshops? Click this link to schedule a 15 minute strategy session.

Podcast Production: https://www.lconnorvoice.com/

Christin Marvin:

Something extraordinary is coming. My memoir, the Hospitality Leader's Roadmap Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary, launches on October 15th on Amazon. This book shares my journey from a 15-year-old line cook to seasoned leader in the hospitality industry, packed with insights on leadership, resilience and transformation. Whether you're an aspiring leader or a seasoned professional, you'll find practical wisdom and inspiration to elevate your career. Mark your calendars and remember 10% of sales from October 15th until the end of 2024 will benefit. Chow Grab your copy on amazon. com on Tuesday, October 15th. If you are a restaurant owner looking to increase top line sales by driving more traffic during the week, increasing your catering sales or booking more private events, I've got a great resource for you today that can help. Laura Wilber is a guest acquisition and retention expert with Dinova. Dinova currently connects over 550 companies and government agencies with over 23,000 restaurants in the US and Canada serving 18 million plus business diners and equals about $13 billion spent by diners in their program. Laura is a long time business traveler who spent the last three decades helping businesses grow. Today, Laura helps restaurants to gain more expense account diners and keep the ones they have, with no upfront costs, no discounting to consumers, no work for staff or guests and no risks. Today, Laura and I are going to talk about how her company is helping drive more traffic to restaurants from very low price perspectives but bringing in very high quality diners. She's also going to talk about why Dinova is different than some of the other programs out there and her commitment to driving value to customers and delivering an amazing guest experience, not just for the clients, but for consumers and for restaurants alike. Stick around the information that Laura is going to share with us about what guests are really looking for from a restaurant experience is absolutely incredible, and I can't wait for you to hear this episode.

Christin Marvin:

Welcome to the No Hesitations Podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I'm your host, Christin Marvin, with Solutions by Christin. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses without wasting time and energy, so they can achieve work-life balance and make more money. You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about, leadership lessons you want to learn and any feedback that you have. Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I'll give you a shout out on a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting.

Christin Marvin:

Laura. Hi, thanks for being here. Hi, Christin, thanks so much for having me. You bet I'm very excited about this conversation today we were talking about it before, but really excited to share what you're doing with Dinova and I said that right, right, pronounce that right. Yes, Dinova, okay, and I feel like you're the queen of entertainment here. I know you specialize in guest retention and acquisition and your background in working with airlines and hotels and radio and broadcasting and now restaurants. I mean I feel like you really know. You're like the Oracle right now, like you know what the guests want, what the guests are looking for in an experience and super excited to share all your knowledge today with, uh, with my target audience.

Laura Wilber:

So thank you, yeah, thank you so much, yeah, and, and you know, to that, oh sorry not to interrupt, but to that end, kristen, if you can share with me what you think your audience would love to hear about today, what's kind of top of mind for your customers?

Christin Marvin:

Absolutely so. I partner with restaurant owners and operators in the independent space that typically have one to two locations plus, that are looking to grow. And so when you and I first, you know, when I first learned about your company, I thought, oh my gosh, people are really looking, you know, to figure out how to be innovative with their business and how to drive traffic right. It's a huge, it's a huge goal of theirs.

Christin Marvin:

And you know, sometimes there's marketing is such a big, there's such a, it's such a big umbrella and it's so robust and a lot of the, a lot of the clients that I work with maybe have a social media person or maybe they're doing it on their own and so really trying to understand, you know, for, especially for some of those higher end clients, you know, whether it's a Michelin, um, michelin group, uh, that I work with or, uh, someone you know in the food hall space what can DeNova really offer them that's going to help them put something sustainable in place and really help them make the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to this spend. And I want to talk more about this too. But I've had some conversations with some clients and like, oh, I've heard of programs like this before. We've tried this before and it hasn't worked, so I'm really excited to understand today what makes you guys different and how you can help the independent restaurant space.

Laura Wilber:

Oh, thank you so much. I have a huge heart for independent restaurants. We have some friends that have, you know, a single location restaurant and every dollar really matters, right. It's just I know from years of experience margins have never been huge for restaurants and now, with the escalating prices labor, you know everything. Food costs, prices, labor, everything, food costs Every dollar matters. So what you're doing to support these independent restaurants is so valuable.

Laura Wilber:

And to have a coach, have a person to walk alongside you and kind of hold your hand through some of the scary things that aren't as much fun, right, and marketing can be one of those things that isn't as much fun for a lot of businesses, and that's something that I've had the opportunity to help with for my clients throughout my entire career.

Laura Wilber:

I've been trying to help businesses grow right Since I first started in selling radio advertising in Monterey, salinas at a tiny little restaurant or a radio station called K hip radio. We had no quantifiable audience and we so the station did not subscribe to the Arbitron ratings because we just couldn't prove that anyone was listening right to um working as national sales manager for the largest radio group in Los Angeles and working with some really big accounts right, Mostly media buyers in New York and all over the country. But my heart has always been how can I provide the best value for the lowest cost for these incredible business owners that have taken on such risk? They have such creative genius in most cases, and so can I be a part of their toolkit that's going to save them time and use my expertise to really help them so that they can focus on what they love, which is, you know, the food and the hospitality in the restaurant.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah.

Laura Wilber:

So so that's, that's how I got to where I am today, and so I don't want to, I don't want to keep like talk too much, but yeah.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, totally no. I'm, I'm, I'm so curious about this. First, this first restaurant or this first radio gig that you took where there was no quantifiable audience. What made you make the decision to jump into that industry and what did you learn from that?

Laura Wilber:

Oh my gosh, it was so by accident, right? So my first job was selling custom ski boots at a specialty ski shop in the San Francisco East Bay area it was called Any Mountain. And I figured out that I loved people, I love talking to people, I loved helping people. And when I got my first paycheck I said, oh my gosh, I get paid to make friends and learn about people and help them have their ski boots fit right and be comfortable when they're skiing. And then that was high school and then going to college.

Laura Wilber:

My degree was in broadcast journalism. I thought I wanted to be a reporter. I love to write and, again, I love to learn about people and share stories. But when I came out of college looking for jobs, I figured out that there really weren't any and they weren't paying enough to survive. But they had this job called account executive, which I had no idea that they paid people to sell advertising on the radio, Right. So I showed up and I said I got hired. And I asked my boss, Ed Monroe. He said go set some appointments. You need to go get some meetings. And I'm like, why would anyone meet with me? I wouldn't meet with me.

Laura Wilber:

I have no idea what I'm doing.

Christin Marvin:

What am I selling?

Laura Wilber:

Yeah, he said they have to buy advertising from someone. They have to tell people about their business. They have to tell people about their business. They have to, you know, help people find their business, why not you? Right, you care about them and you know. So that was enough to start me on my path of becoming an expert in my business, in my customer's business and in my competition and my market at large. And then that's kind of set me on my way to figure out how can I really be of value to the customers. Then I moved to a station that actually did have ratings and audience and then just moved to bigger and bigger audiences so that more people could hear the story of my customer.

Christin Marvin:

I love it. Hey there, podcast friends, I hope you're enjoying these impactful conversations and leadership insights I'm bringing you each week. Before we dive back into today's episode, I want to take a moment and reach out and ask a small favor. That would go a long way in supporting the show. If you've been loving the content I'm providing, please take a moment to leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thank you, exciting guests to join me on the mic. So if you want to be part of my show's growth journey, hit that review button and let me know what you think. Thanks a million for being awesome listeners.

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Christin Marvin:

When you set those first meetings, did you go to people that you already knew, or what were your? What were some of your first leads?

Laura Wilber:

No, no, oh my gosh, my first, my first meeting ever. I wish I could remember the guy's name, but it was a muffler shop in Santa Cruz, california, and the guy was so nice and he signed up Right. And then, yeah, my husband would say I would be completely stressed out and I would like sit up straight in bed one and say, oh no, I have to write five commercials, like you know, because I had to write my own commercials and that's where the journalism and the broadcasting helped a little bit, got it, but yeah, it was really a DIY situation.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, I love it. So take us from your radio career. What happened after that?

Laura Wilber:

Yeah, so. So then, you know, throughout my radio career and working in national sales in Los Angeles, all the way through, though, working with independents, they would say hey, laura, this sounds great, can you guarantee me results? If it doesn't work, can I get my money back? Yeah, the answer was hey, there are no guarantees in advertising. You have a great product or service, we have a large loyal audience, we have enough frequency. It really should work right. But neither of us will ever know. There are no guarantees in advertising.

Laura Wilber:

And then, in 2007 and 2008, Living Social and Groupon were invented, which were the first true pay for performance advertising vehicles, which was you know, you don't pay a thing until or unless a customer walks into your restaurant, spends money and then at that point there is an expense right. But that was my answer of there are no guarantees and advertising was no longer true. So at that point I said I need to go to work for a pay for performance model where I don't ask for anything upfront and until or unless I provide value, there's no cost at all.

Christin Marvin:

I love that. I have a client in Tucson, or had a client in Tucson, and we were working on opening a new location for them and we were talking about their marketing plan and community and all that. And I said let's talk about some strategy here. What do you want to do? And he said I've already signed up to advertise on the radio and people in Tucson still listen to the radio right, this isn't a big city. And I immediately just said what's your ROI on that? Because he said I'm doing the newspaper and I'm doing, you know, radio, so excited. I said how much you know? And he was spending a good chunk of money and he's like I and he, you know. And he just looked at me like I had two heads. So you know like what? What do you mean? What's the ROI? So I just I was like what? So it's? Yeah, it's funny. I don't know if things have changed or not.

Laura Wilber:

I think things have changed a lot in the radio biz. I have a lot of friends that are still in it and it's really gone digital. So so much of their assets are digital right, as opposed to just the traditional advertising on the radio commercials that we grew up listening to. But yeah, there's absolutely value, you know, in all marketing it's just a matter of trying to make it the most cost effective vehicle that you can find and as many different channels as you can find for the lowest cost.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, and, and I'm sure, right Making sure that it's reaching your target audience. You know this. This business in particular was one where it's a it's a beverage concept and so very young clientele. So I don't think they're listening to the radio and reading newspapers Probably not. That's another part of the conversation, good thing they have, you Kristen. Well, they don't mindset shift to making sure that you're working for, you know, a company that's performance based and value based. What happened then? How did that change your career?

Laura Wilber:

I just started having so much more fun at work, right, I just really. I just started seeing results for customers. I felt really good about the value I was providing and kind of vowed to always, you know, be working towards providing more and more value, finding a better and better audience to deliver to my customers, which is what brought me to DeNova Corporate Dining. So you can imagine back in those daily deals days, it was fraught with problems. Right, you had to discount 50% off and then share that remaining 50% with Living, social or Groupon, so the restaurant only retained 25 cents on the dollar. They definitely got a lot of new people trying the restaurant, but what they told me over time was hey, we don't want to do this again because we feel this is a deal seeking guest. This is a guest that is only coming when you give them a deal and they'll wait around for the next deal, right? Plus, you know that you don't want to get into that discounting trap. You want to really target somebody that is happy to pay full price, and so, thankfully, that's how I found my way to DeNova.

Laura Wilber:

So the business traveler is just not price sensitive. They have a bona fide need to eat when they're traveling for business at least three times a day. They don't have the luxury of cooking at home. They don't know what your prices used to be pre-pandemic if you raised them, and they don't care. They're entertaining their customers, they're celebrating with their colleagues, they're ordering catering to bring in for a lunch and learn to their customers, and some of them might have parameters around the, certainly with the dine-in it's really it's just a much, much higher average check so and it's filling a need when the restaurants aren't typically at capacity because the business traveler is dining early and midweek, they want to be home for dinner with their family by Friday night if they can.

Christin Marvin:

Got it. What's the average spend of a business traveler compared to a repeat guest?

Laura Wilber:

Oh, my goodness, yeah. So we know from our data and there's a spending boom happening right now in business travel overall. So this year it's projected to reach $245 billion in spend just on dining, and the average business traveler also goes out of pocket another 700 bucks on their trip. So if you can get this business traveler to discover your restaurant, they're going to go for their bona fide business meal and if they love you, they might come back and pay with their own money when they're traveling another time for their family, with their family. But yeah to your question as far as how much they spend more, they spend 50 to 200% more than a guest sitting at the next table who's paying with their own money.

Christin Marvin:

Significant. So they're spending 50% to 200% more. They're coming in midweek and they're coming in on those off times because they're eating a little bit earlier.

Laura Wilber:

Sometimes, yeah, it's all hours, right. So it's think about when you're traveling for business, right it's. I mean, I do find that a lot of times my clients, if we're going to go to dinner, it's sometimes as early as five, sometimes, you know, 530. I have a business dinner next week and the client asked for 630 time. So so much of it revolves around like, is your customer coming from the office or where you know what, what works for them and their family? But usually it's it's all hours, it's late night, Sometimes it's entertainment, it's teams looking for, looking for fun things to do. You know it's been on my my mind lately about how to not be boring in your business, right, and just have more fun. So for any restaurant, you know what kind of fun, fun things can you do for your customers and for your teams to just kind of keep it light and different and interesting.

Laura Wilber:

You know with the menu with a special promotion.

Christin Marvin:

Totally. I was reading something the other day that what do you call it? Eatertainment? Is that what you called it earlier? That that is really, really attractive to guests right now. They want some sort of experience beyond just and of course you know, depending on how much money they're spending and what segment of the guests we're talking about here, but that experiential dining is very much in demand right now and I'm I'm I'm curious what? What are you seeing the business traveler really looking for? Do you feel like they're they're wanting a chain experience where they're comfortable and they know exactly what they're going to get? Do they want that independent experience?

Laura Wilber:

It's so interesting, just like you and me, and every person has their own level of comfortability, and there are people who really want to experience brand new things. I love to. I love to dine at a place that I can only dine at when I'm traveling to that city, right? So I know Tucson has some some fun, is it? Is it El Chorro?

Christin Marvin:

or something. There's a Mexican, El Charro, our 100 year old family owned restaurant group, and I'm not sure how many concepts they have, but it's a lot yeah.

Laura Wilber:

I love that and you and I both know how hard it is to get to 100 years at a restaurant.

Christin Marvin:

Family owned, yeah, yeah.

Laura Wilber:

Yeah, I mean, that is commitment, that is ours, that is sacrifice, that is being super authentic. So that alone is an experience for a guest to sort of know the history. Imagine going back in time to when you know the grandparents opened the history. Imagine going back in time to when the grandparents opened the restaurant and to see the second and third generation coming up. That's really special and it's really rare. So I think business travelers and people at large are really excited to experience something that successful and that rare. But also again, at DeNova, we need coverage in every small city all over the United States and Canada and we are so thankful that we have national chains to send our corporate travelers to when they're going to cities everywhere.

Laura Wilber:

So we need solutions from morning coffee to last call at the bar to a quick drive through if that's all they have time for, to a Michelin starred restaurant, okay, and everything in between. But yeah, it's all up to the. The business, travelers taste, and, and you know what their customer is excited about too and what their customer is excited about, too Awesome.

Christin Marvin:

How does DeNova impact or bring value to caterings and private dining for restaurants?

Laura Wilber:

So that's kind of exciting too. Dinova has something I'll start with private dining. We have something called Dine Assist. So to save our meeting planners, executive admins, time, that we have something where we help them with a form to share with us how many people you know, what do you need, private or semi-private? How many miles from your office or your starting point can this restaurant be? And then we help them source their partner restaurants, so the restaurants in the network for these events. And it also saves our private event managers time because we've already kind of gotten the original parameters down. So that's something that DeNova does to help there.

Laura Wilber:

And then, as far as catering goes, it's really, you know, a lot of the restaurants have have they used to maybe have food service available when their teams were working in the office full time, but now that they're working halftime in the office hybrid, they are reliant on restaurants to order in food, order from those restaurants to bring it into the office on the days their teams are there and they're trying to make it a celebration and to keep the company culture elevated and fun and not boring.

Laura Wilber:

So they're trying to try new cuisine types and new restaurant partners. There's such a need for that right now. So they just look through their list and their app to discover who are their partners in the surrounding area that they can order in from, and then the vendors coming in from out of area in many cases are paying for those meals. So if there's something that a vendor if there's a lunch and learn, or something a vendor is sponsoring an event, a travel expo, or something that a corporate client's doing the vendors that are the companies that hire DeNova to find the restaurants. That's the same thing they're looking for from us is who are my partners that are close to this office that I'm bringing catering into Because they're not familiar with the restaurants in the in the local area?

Christin Marvin:

Sure Um. What is it? Who's an ideal client from a corporate perspective for you guys?

Laura Wilber:

Uh, so our corporate clients are typically fortune 1000. We have about we have 560 corporate clients that have hired DeNova to find these great restaurants for their teams traveling for business. So and it's that and it's government agencies, so just large organizations that have a ton of dining spend. And again, with $245 billion being spent on business dining annually, that total addressable market is absolutely huge and so DeNova is delivering about half of the Fortune 1000 companies to our restaurant partners as partners.

Christin Marvin:

Awesome, and then talk a little bit more about how this program works. What's the process look like for an independent operator? Take us through the steps there.

Laura Wilber:

Yeah. So thank you for asking. If you have a client that's interested in considering joining the network, I would say, go to the website, which is denovacom, click on for restaurants. It's very straightforward, it's all laid out right there in a really clean way. Thank you to our marketing department for that. And you can also search who are our existing partners that we are currently sending our corporate and government clients to when they're traveling for business.

Laura Wilber:

But we would just need to vet the restaurant and we have to do that usually with the website. So we are a small but mighty team here at Dinova and so a lot of my research is looking at their website, getting a sense of do they have some space, semi-private or private dining? If that, if my clients are going to need that do they offer catering? Do they have capacity in the dining room? And you know that goes both ways right? So if there's a restaurant that doesn't have capacity early in midweek to accommodate a few more guests weekly, then they probably don't need our service at Dinova. But most restaurants in my experience could handle a little bit more business early and midweek.

Christin Marvin:

So, laura, how are you determining that? Are you trying to make a reservation and kind of seeing what's available to them or what's available?

Laura Wilber:

for you. No, it's a conversation, right. So that's the next thing is just a conversation to figure out what do they offer, what do they need and is it a fit for them to partner with our corporate and government clients? And if it isn't today, maybe it is in the future. But really, Dinova is just an extension of their sales team. If you could have a team of people that is telling your story to the who's who in business travel, and it's incredibly low cost. You don't have to pay them a salary, you don't have to pay them upfront. Only if they deliver business to you, you pay them a small loyalty rebate. The corporation receives a loyalty rebate as a percentage of what they spent, as a thank you and an incentive to keep coming back. Got it? So that's the model.

Christin Marvin:

So does a restaurant have to sign up for allowing you guys to bring diners in midweek and do a catering and do a semi-private, or can they just partner with you guys on one of those arms?

Laura Wilber:

It's whatever they offer, right. So the partnership with our corporate client is for every dining occasion that the corporation has that the restaurant will welcome them as a partner. So even if it's a lonely you know, will welcome them as a partner. So even if it's a lonely you know engineer traveling on assignment for three weeks and they're eating three meals a day and they're, you know, maybe doing, carry out or whatever it's that, all the way to a buyout. So it's any dining occasion. That's what the partnership is set up for.

Christin Marvin:

Got it. And then what else are you guys doing to vet clients?

Laura Wilber:

A lot of our business is referral, so our happy customers will say, hey, you know, my friend works over here. They could benefit from some more midweek business. So that's part of it. A lot of our clients are larger right so they've been around a long time and have had a reliable track record. But again, it is looking at reviews. It's having the conversation with the business operator and getting a sense of do you want to make a partnership with these business diners? Because they may not be coming to Tucson in our example, with where you live, kristen for the next six months and they just want to know that you'll be there when they arrive. So it is something that you're signing up for going into a partnership with these companies.

Christin Marvin:

Got it. I hear your puppy in the background saying hello, that's Joey Joey girl, I love it. What happens when a client has a negative experience at a restaurant?

Laura Wilber:

It's a lot the same. As you know, if they have a negative experience and they're, they're going on their own dime, right? So it's really dependent on what the restaurant has in place to um to handle any negative experiences. And I I believe, kristen, that's probably part of your expertise to coach your customers on what to do if there's a negative review or a negative experience. Yeah, so what do you? What do you recommend to your restaurants?

Christin Marvin:

Well it's.

Christin Marvin:

It's really understanding and establishing a foundation of steps of service, making sure that their, their front of house team is positioned to check in on the customers and the guests and make sure that they are.

Christin Marvin:

They've got open communication about whether or not the dining experiences is going great, right?

Christin Marvin:

It's verbal and nonverbal. You can tell if somebody doesn't finish their meal, right, inquiring about that, reading people's body language to make sure that they are really enjoying themselves and having a great time. And then again, if somebody says, oh, this is you know, when you, when a server asks how is everything and somebody says, oh, it was fine or it was good, like pushing into that, that that's not good enough, right? So just having that really high expectation and great level of training around what, what an extraordinary guest experience really looks like and then how to measure that, so that they, when a customer says you know, or a guest says it wasn't great, that server knows exactly what to do and they are empowered to do whatever they need to do in order to make sure that that guest leaves happy. Yes, yeah. And then following up on the reviews afterwards, right, like responding to every positive review and every negative review. It's an opportunity to offer hospitality. So extending that experience to just outside of the four walls of the restaurant is really important.

Laura Wilber:

Yep, yeah.

Christin Marvin:

So what happens if a customer comes to you and says a restaurant comes to you and says you know, we've been working together for six months, or it's been a year and we've had a little bit of traffic, but we want more? What do we do?

Laura Wilber:

So that's really interesting too, because we do have restaurants that say, okay, I want to get positioned higher, can I pay more to show up? Show up higher on the list, if you will. And that's one of the things I love about Dinova is that it really is a geo search model, meaning there's nothing you can do to get more exposure than your neighbor other than have more locations, right? So it is an advantage if you have a lot of locations, because they're going to be seeing your logo and your restaurant in every city they travel to or in every area of a city that you're traveling to. So for your independents, when they're traveling to that specific city, it's just going to be based on how geographically close they are to either the office that the vendor is traveling to go see, or to their hotel or to their Airbnb. So there's you know.

Laura Wilber:

And then again, we attend travel expos for all of our corporate clients. Our job is to do nothing but help them find the great restaurants in the cities that they're traveling to, and Dinoba is the only invited restaurant representative at all of these government and corporate expos. So it's really hard for a restaurant to get on campus at these global companies. The security is incredibly tight, same thing with the large government agencies. So we feel very blessed to be there as the representative for these restaurants. But again, it's very much it's based on the geographic proximity to where the business traveler is going.

Christin Marvin:

Okay, got it. So if I'm a business traveler and I'm coming to Tucson and I type in Google steakhouse closest to me, Fleming's is probably going to pop up first, right? Because if they're, yeah, and they're in town and they're great, right, and I would assume El Charo would hopefully pop up too, and so then at that point it's up to the customer to go. I want something that I'm familiar with, or I'm going to go independent at that point management tools to find you know who's the partner hotel.

Laura Wilber:

They'll do this as they're planning the trip. They know who their partner airline is, they know who their partner rental car company is, and they do have to go to their app to figure out who are their partner restaurants in Tucson. So then, of that list of partner restaurants, fleming's is one for a great steakhouse experience, and it's a lot about. You know the cuisine type that they're in the mood for, or, time of day and again, proximity. So what are my options? Close to where I need to be, Got it, I love it.

Christin Marvin:

And then I'm glad you mentioned the app, because we didn't talk about that yet. So, after a diner goes and has a meal, let's say at El Charro who invented the chimichanga, by the way, which is an awesome claim to fame.

Laura Wilber:

I need to call them. I need to call them. I've never had a meeting with them.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, come down and then is the guest able to go into back into the DeNova app and leave a review about their experience there.

Laura Wilber:

So they're not. We do have something called my Dinova rewards, which is a chance for them to um. So, for the business traveler, not only does the corporation receive a loyalty rebate, the individual traveler also receives points when they dine at DeNova restaurants, and at that point they're able to give it a star rating based on their experience, so that their fellow employees will understand how their experience was.

Christin Marvin:

Got it. And then what do they do with those points?

Laura Wilber:

They can redeem them for gift cards. We have a little marketplace for them where they can pick what they want. So we do have some restaurant gift cards in there, including Fleming's, as you mentioned but they can also redeem it for Target gift cards or Amazon or retail if they want to.

Christin Marvin:

Got it. Do you have any success stories that you could share around the impact that this has made on an independent restaurant from a growth perspective or driving traffic or anything like that?

Laura Wilber:

Yeah, I mean, that's what's beautiful about this model is we still have the first restaurant that ever joined the network, 16 years ago.

Laura Wilber:

And before I joined I did ask some partner restaurants hey, what do you like about DeNova, why do you stay? And they told me the same thing that I've come to understand, which is they believe it's the lowest cost way to attract and retain the highest value guest at the restaurant, which is a business diner right, the highest value guest at the restaurant, which is a business diner. But yeah, there are a ton of great independents that when they start, when any restaurant starts, whatever revenue we send them, we typically see a growth of 3X by month 12 and 5X by month 24. And even the restaurants that have been on for more than a decade are still seeing growth as they go. So, yeah, there's there are you know that that longevity is really the best testimonial have been kind enough to share with us, including Jersey Mike's, which started much smaller with us and just continues to grow and see really impressive catering sales numbers. And we have about 24,000 restaurants in the network across the US and Canada and it's pretty consistent that growth across all cuisine types.

Christin Marvin:

I love it. What's next for Dinova?

Laura Wilber:

Just continue adding more and more great restaurants. We have the corporations right. We have the business diners. We have 18 million corporate cardholders looking for great restaurants. Our job is to give them really high quality options so that they are making the choice to dine in network, so it's easy for them to follow company policy. So we have all of those options in every city and that's what I'm working on every day.

Christin Marvin:

I love it. Will you speak a little bit to the cost you were saying earlier, low cost or high value?

Laura Wilber:

Exactly, yeah, so it's really just a percentage of what the company has spent when they're traveling, you know, when they're dining with that restaurant and, um, it's a lot less than what they're paying for third-party delivery or other catering, uh, catering solutions out there. Okay, so they'll, they'll be real, they'll be very pleased when they, when we talk and I'm able to quote them something right, there is, there is a volume discount if you have a lot more.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, location Got it.

Laura Wilber:

Yeah, or you know just a really high value, high volume, independent, but it's still pencils out for a really small coffee shop, right.

Christin Marvin:

Okay, awesome, I love it. Laura, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story and just giving us a look behind the curtain at Dinova. It sounds like it's just Congratulations on all the success too. I mean I love. I was on your website this morning looking at all the numbers that you guys put up and some of your partners, and I was a little bummed that I couldn't join.

Laura Wilber:

You need to spend some more money on business travel Kristen. Okay, let's get this entire ramped up to the Fortune 1000.

Christin Marvin:

I'll work on that. I don't even know how to get there, but I'll have to figure it out.

Laura Wilber:

And before we go, I want to hear about your book. You have a book coming out in October, right?

Christin Marvin:

I do. Tuesday, october 15th, it drops on Amazon. So, yeah, it's called the Hospitality Leaders Roadmap Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary and it's my memoir. It is my journey from starting as a line cook at 15 years old, working up to managing partner by 30, and the leadership lessons that I've learned along the way the good, the bad and the ugly. Lessons that I've learned along the way the good, the bad and the ugly and some incredible experiences, like recording with Anthony Bourdain at one of our restaurants hosting Jacques pepin's 60th birthday party. And then it kind of goes into some dark side of burnout and a lot of self-discovery, self-awareness and reinvention and finding the path to mental fitness and starting this coaching business, which has just been the best thing I've ever done. So it's a wild ride.

Laura Wilber:

I can't wait to read it. And it's great that you were sharing the hard stuff too, because we know that the restaurant business is not for the faint of heart off too, because we know that the restaurant business is not for the faint of heart, um, which is why I only lasted two weeks when I had my one and only restaurant job as a hostess. Um, that was so stressful. I don't know if you've heard that story, Christin about. No, I didn't, but okay. So it was at this restaurant called Charlie Brown's and it was in Concord, california. Um, and I was a hostess, which I thought would be so fun just to greet the guests and walk them to their table and manage the different areas. If that was all there was to it, I think I would have loved it and I may have stayed in the restaurant business.

Laura Wilber:

But I also had to pay these servers out their tips cash at the end of the night every night. So I had to calculate how much each server was supposed to get. Wow, and they all would get off at the same time and descend on my little hostess stand. Yeah, they wanted their money, hurry up. I got to get out of here. What's taking so long? And I was like ah, it was so rough it was so bad.

Christin Marvin:

That sounds stressful for an entry level, what is typically an entry level position. I could see if you were a shift lead or a manager or something like that, but yeah, that sounds very stressful I had no crowd control for these servers.

Laura Wilber:

I should have said go wait over there one at a time server. So I was like I should have said go wait over there one at a time. Yeah, you know.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah.

Laura Wilber:

But yeah, that was not very much fun. But when? When was that? That was also in high school, before the custom ski boot. It was in the same shopping center as the custom ski boot job, which of course, I loved it after that experience.

Christin Marvin:

Oh, that just sounds vicious. It just sounds like so many things wrong with that model. Oh my gosh, it was so painful.

Laura Wilber:

Who knows how they came up with the idea of empowering the hostess with that job.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, get it to a lead server or somebody. What the heck? Yeah, I know.

Laura Wilber:

Oh, that's great.

Christin Marvin:

I love it.

Laura Wilber:

Thanks for sharing that. That was not good.

Christin Marvin:

Well, you mentioned how people can get a hold of you too. I love it. Thanks for sharing that so well. Um, you mentioned, uh mentioned how people can get ahold of you too. I know you mentioned the website earlier, but, yeah, let's, let's let people know how to get ahold of you.

Laura Wilber:

Okay, excellent. Um, so I'm pretty active on LinkedIn and it's just Laura Wilber, and so there's a, there's a button on my LinkedIn page that says book an appointment and it's a 15 minute conversation just so I can learn about your restaurant and see if it might be a fit for you to become a partner. So that's a really easy way. If you're not on LinkedIn, you can just email me at lwilber at denovacom.

Christin Marvin:

Awesome. All right, laura, thanks again. Really appreciate your time today. Awesome. All right, laura, thanks again. Really appreciate your time today and that's going to do it for us this week. Please share the show with anybody that you know in the restaurant industry that could benefit and again, look for my book on Amazon. October 15th the Hospitality Leader's Roadmap Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you, kristen.

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