Ever wondered how the pros juggle a busy summer and still churn out delicious pizza? Join me, Tyrell Reed, as I share my whirlwind summer adventures and the ups and downs of keeping the Pizza King Podcast running smoothly. Discover my personal trials and triumphs in making pizza at home without professional kitchen tools. You'll hear about my experimentation with dough recipes and fermentation times, giving a shoutout to all home pizza makers and small-scale operators who shared their invaluable tips and recipes. This episode is a heartfelt invitation for you to join the journey and share your own pizza stories with us.
Customer service is crucial, but what happens when things go awry? Listen in as I recount a real-life experience where a mishandled order tested my patience and professionalism. Learn from my mistakes as I emphasize the importance of empathy and valuing long-term customer loyalty over short-term frustrations. Plus, don't miss out on a fantastic pre-order offer packed with resources designed to supercharge your business. From a 90-day marketing plan to leadership courses, these tools can save you hours and boost your growth. Tune in for these insights and more, and let's keep the pizza passion alive!
Ever wondered how the pros juggle a busy summer and still churn out delicious pizza? Join me, Tyrell Reed, as I share my whirlwind summer adventures and the ups and downs of keeping the Pizza King Podcast running smoothly. Discover my personal trials and triumphs in making pizza at home without professional kitchen tools. You'll hear about my experimentation with dough recipes and fermentation times, giving a shoutout to all home pizza makers and small-scale operators who shared their invaluable tips and recipes. This episode is a heartfelt invitation for you to join the journey and share your own pizza stories with us.
Customer service is crucial, but what happens when things go awry? Listen in as I recount a real-life experience where a mishandled order tested my patience and professionalism. Learn from my mistakes as I emphasize the importance of empathy and valuing long-term customer loyalty over short-term frustrations. Plus, don't miss out on a fantastic pre-order offer packed with resources designed to supercharge your business. From a 90-day marketing plan to leadership courses, these tools can save you hours and boost your growth. Tune in for these insights and more, and let's keep the pizza passion alive!
Welcome back Pizza King Podcast family. I'm your host, tyrell Reed, and always excited to be back here in the studio, slash office, slash storage room of my house to talk pizza, pizza, business, pizza game with you with all you folks. So appreciate you joining me. We'll, we'll get right into it. This week we had, um, you know it's been, it's been fun. Summer has kicked off fully here, so schedules are busy. Um, you know the kids are. The kids are active, they want to, they want to do a bunch of stuff. So it has left little time for creating content, recording podcasts. So you know, just really want to take advantage of these opportunities when we get them in. You know, make sure we still bring and deliver that value that you guys are coming back here for. So you know we still got we still got a lot of good guests coming up, a lot of a couple of folks that have booked for recording dates later in June. And you know I get it. The summer schedule is is busy for everybody. So we're starting to book some book sometimes further out to give people a little bit more time to plan and and just let the schedules open up a little bit. Look, and if you want to be a guest on the podcast. If you want to come on the show, you want to talk about your journey, your story or even your goals in the pizza game, just reach out to me info at tyrellreedcom or you can send me a direct message on Instagram at tyrellreedsenior or pizzakingpodcast. I'll get those and we will get you scheduled. So, yeah, come on the show, let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:
Pizza of the week this week Look, pizza of the week is for anyone who is making pizza at home. So I I've been trying for the look. I've been trying for the last couple of days. Uh, made a few batches. I kind of put it out there on IG, send me some recipes. I wanted to try to start making a few pizzas here in the oven at home. I got a stone. I don't have a pizza oven here. I don't have a Gosney or Uni or anything like that here. I just have my regular, my regular oven with a stone in it.
Speaker 1:
So you know, as I, as I get to that point and maybe we'll, we'll probably find a way to get something and put it on, put it on a patio, so that we can, we can do, we can execute a little bit better, but I have a whole new respect for anyone who's making pizza at home. If you're doing and you're doing everything like if you're making, you're making dough, you're, you're fermenting and you're, you know you're setting your kitchen up to do this I got respect for you, shout out to you, and you're doing it at the level that you're running a business. I got mad respect for you because it shit is hard. And it's hard in a sense that in the restaurant, like we're set up for all of these processes right, like our space is optimized, we got a prep room, I got a 60 quart mixer and you know it's not. It's not so hard to execute all these things here. It was tough. You know I got my little kitchen aid and you know we're not. It's not so hard to execute all these things here.
Speaker 1:
It was tough. You know I got my little kitchen aid and you know we're trying to make dough. We're trying to make, you know, trying to get a poolish going and I'm looking for containers and Tupperware and trying. I just wasn't as prepared as I, as I needed to be, for doing that and it was. It made it very difficult. There's, you know, flour and you know, stuff all over the kitchen and you're trying to cook in the same place that you're trying to prep. It's not like that in a restaurant Like I'm. I got kitchen, I got prep room, I got storage room, I got walk-in coolers, we got, you know, space to do all of the things that we need to do Dough trays like some of the things that you take for granted uh, stainless steel scrubbers and scrapers and and all of those, all those things that make it so much easier to execute. So you know anyone who's who's doing it at home, even. You know, even in a, in a small environment like a, like a food truck or a trailer man shout out to you because you are killing the game. You are killing the game. However, it was fun. We did have a good time. We have made some some good, some good pizza.
Speaker 1:
Shout out to anyone, everyone, anyone and everyone who sent me recipes. I know Trippie Pie sent me, sent me a link, michelle Pizza School sent me, sent me a great recipe to try and you know, just don't watch watching stuff pizza, piece of art. So we are. You know we're trying all these different, different recipes and dough combinations and you know 24, 48, 72 hour fermentations and and trying to, you know, really just become not become, but just experiment with the pizza and have a little and have a little more fun with it here at the house, with the, with the family and, you know, maybe even make a few pies for the neighbors, if we, if we can get good at it.
Speaker 1:
Um, I'm just so used to doing pizza in my environment, in the store environment, that it becomes like I'm like a fish out of water trying to do it anywhere else and that that challenge in itself was was enough to make me want to just jump in and do it. So, yeah, pizza of the week is anyone you know, the home pizza, the homemade pizza. You're doing it. Shout out to you because I've been trying it and I and I make pizza and it is not. It's not that easy, so but it is fun, it is, it is a good time. So I encourage you, try it, find some recipes I'll send you you know what's been sent to me If you, if you want to reach out to me because it is a lot of fun, you know, and it's it. It kind of brings the art of it back, because you get so systemized in the restaurant, like JR and I were talking.
Speaker 1:
Like man, I I've only ever made dough my way, like, and I bake here at the house. It's not like I don't cook at home. I just never make pizza here at home. I do, you know, like to bake. I've, I'm all about doing, you know, cookies, cakes, um, I tried a few different, uh. So I've dabbled in the baking side of the kitchen but hadn't really turned that into any pizza.
Speaker 1:
You know what I want to try? Cashew Crazy. I'm going to send you a message. Cashew Crazy on Instagram has some really good looking cashew products like cashew flour. So I'm going to. I'm going to try and see if we can make a piece out of like a cashew flour. So I'm going to. I'm going to try and see if we can make a pizza out of like a cashew flour. I know I, I uh, we texted back and forth once and he said that he would. He would kind of work up a formulation to see if he could do a pizza dough. So I'm going to check back in on that. So would you try cashew, cashew, cashew flour? My son is don't want to listen to me, he just slammed his door. Would you try a cashew cashew based pizza, cashew flour based pizza dough. Have you tried anything like an almond almond flour or you know one of these different options? Hit me up, let me know.
Speaker 1:
The topic this week is really just comes out of a moment that I have with working in a restaurant and and I wanted to bring it here and talk about it because it's important and, honestly, it wasn't, it really wasn't one of my best moments. I had an issue with with a customer the other day I don't know, must have been Friday or Saturday last week and you know, the cashier comes, comes back and she's like hey, I got got this lady on the phone and, uh, she needs to talk to, uh, talk to a manager. So I go up there and I'm like hey, you know, you know, tyrell, how can I help you? She was like we just need need to and she like starts going in on me as soon as, as soon as I pick up the phone and in the moment, you know, I'm always, it's always the same reaction with me. I'm sorry, you know, sorry about that. You know how can we make it right? Um, she didn't. She didn't like her calzone. She said it was, there was nothing inside of it and it was undercooked, which happens. You know it is what it is, not going to argue over it. Just you know I'll replace it for you. You want to come back? She had just picked it up and she called within like five minutes of picking it up Like I'm sorry about that, we'll throw another one in the oven. Come on back. Come on back and get it.
Speaker 1:
Now she and she walks into the store a couple of minutes later and I I'm in the back we got, I'm working the oven. So I'm in the back of her, her stuff still cooking, and I tell you know, tell the girl, tell her it's going to be a couple more minutes. But I could see, like you know, bailey, our cashier was like visibly, I could see that she was, you know, getting like she was getting chewed up by this lady. And I go up there and the lady's got the cows on flap flopped open over on the counter. She's got it all opened up. She and you know I got customers in the lobby and she's like this is what this is, this is what you sent out and this and that.
Speaker 1:
And I can't believe you sent me home with this. I got 10. I got 10 hungry kids at home and you know you wasting my time and I was, she's just like going off. I'm like ma'am, I'm, I'm so sorry about that. We got another one in the oven for you and you know, just, you know, just give us a couple of minutes and we'll, we'll have you, we'll have you back on your way.
Speaker 1:
Well, that ain't good enough. And she's just going off on me and I just, you know, I take she was like I don't know, I had this moment and I was walking back to the kitchen and she said something else and I just stopped. And this is where I should have kept going and just got her food, but I didn't. I stopped and we make mistakes. I don't understand what. What you're trying to gain from coming in here and you're yelling at this girl, you're yelling at me. She goes you ain't seen yelling yet. And I'm like, listen, I can't, I can't do anything. That she's like going off. I got 10 hungry kids. I'm like I can't do nothing. That's not my problem. This calzone ain't going to do shit for those 10 kids anyways.
Speaker 1:
And I'm starting to get pissed off now because she's just like causing this scene over it. And I'm like she's like you argument because it's all. Just it's just subjected to to the view of the person, right To the point of view of the person. Who's who's having, who's speaking. She's like it took over an hour. And I'm like, ma'am, you ordered online and it was ready when you came to pick it up, right, she was like, well, this is what, if this is what was ready, then it wasn't ready. And she just go on like I don't. You know, honestly, I don't think we can resolve this. Maybe I need to just give you your money back. And I told the dudes in the back take that calzone out, I ain't giving it to her. And I gave her her money, her full order, even for the food she didn't bring back. And she was just like, maybe that's right, I'll just take my money somewhere else. And she was pissed and I was pissed.
Speaker 1:
But the mistake I made was I didn't. I didn't solve it. I tried to, I didn't, I didn't properly solve it and I didn't set a good example for the team, because it became a scene in the restaurant where she and I'm not blaming Actually I'm actually apologetic because I should have handled that better. I should have just taken care of her, I should have gave her extra food and try to help her feed the kids and calm the situation down. But because I took it personal and I got defensive, I'm 99.9% sure she's not coming back because of the way I handled that.
Speaker 1:
So you know, I came here to say, look, there's no win or lose and we've had, you know, customer service episodes before but there's no win or lose when you're going back and forth with a customer or a guest about food, because the only the only time we win is when they come back and spend money with us. Right, you know, arguing over a pizza, that costs. You know, whatever, whatever it costs, is not worth losing the long-term value of of having that guest, having a loyal guest, a loyal guest and and I try to teach and always try to practice let's look at the history. Let's let's determine before we choose our course of reaction. Excuse me, look, I'm not going. I'm not going to sit here and act like there aren't some people who we're fine if you don't come back, but then there are people that you really want to make sure that you saw before and you shouldn't. You can say what you want to say, but maybe it shouldn't be that way, but it is that way. So I'm going to look at your customer history and I'm going to look at what kind of orders you place and the frequency, and I'm going to make a decision in a moment that says, look, let me take care of you, or it is what it is. And in reality, we should always look at the long term value of solving a problem and keeping somebody loyal and and getting it in. You know, getting that, those repeat orders in that, that future business, um, I think we talked about it before that, uh, the annual value of a regular customer was somewhere like $850 or something like that $800. And look, that's that's the way you should look at it before you decide. You know you want to win that. You want to win this argument over that pizza. Decide if it's worth you giving up $800 this year. Is that argument worth that money? And oftentimes it's not, because, look, it's just a pizza, it's just a calzone, it's just a sandwich, it's just one order out of many. Don't let your ego get in the way, which I did. And and it's going to cost us. You know what I mean. Like it's going to cost us long term Hell.
Speaker 1:
One of the other customers that heard me interact could, could Not like the way that I handled it and think about if they had a situation in the future and maybe they won't come back. So like there's and there's some residual there, and you know the team got to see that. So we had to have a powwow after like, look, that was not the right way to handle it. Obviously, you know I want to protect us and I want to. You know, you know, look out for our crew and our staff and not let people attack us. But at the end of the day, we want to make sure it's not. We need our customers, we need our, we need our guests. So let's not, let's not be so quick to to throw them out over a little stuff like that. It's not she, she. We could have made her day If we could. If we handled that the right, we could have fixed her day. If she was having a bad day which in my opinion, she obviously was we could have fixed her, her situation, by handling that order the right way. So I had to own that because I was the one that led that I mean everyone, and that was so out of character because everyone was looking at me like I'm usually just like, but that that one time it just didn't, it didn't, it wasn't happening, it was not happening and I apologize for that.
Speaker 1:
Tips are, you know, in my advice and my tip for for handling those situations, especially customer complaints, and apologize, solve and thank. But when I was with Fuzzy's they introduced the B in last, so we turned last into blast, not we. It would happen before, long before I was there. But this is the system that was encouraged and taught in that organization, which was let's start with B and believe them. The B is for believe. Let's believe that they have that issue. Let's always give them the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1:
Then we listen to what, listen to what their problem is. We apologize for the situation. We solve it to whatever degree they need to solve, solve that shit and then we thank them. We thank them for the opportunity to solve it because a lot of times people will have a bad experience and just not come back. The average person doesn't complain, they just don't go back, they just take it for what it is and they they treat you as if that's exactly how the situation, the experience is going to be in the future and they just and they decide to spend their money somewhere else. So if someone comes back and they they have an issue or they call you, you got to. You have to really thank them for that opportunity, because opportunity because it gives you a chance to get better and to and to improve and I needed that. So I needed to step back and say, look, t, you got to handle that better, bro. Like this, there ain't. There's no reason for you to like and did I? Did I walk away like a winner? No, I walked away almost embarrassed because I was out of character. My team seen me out of character, some of my guests see me out of character and it didn't have to be that way. And I'll end. And ultimately we lost, we lost the guests. I hope she comes back, but I understand if she doesn't. And, um, you know, just got it, we just got to be better in those situations.
Speaker 1:
Also, and this is my team building tip before we wrap up, my team building tip is to empower. Empower your people. Everyone on your team should be able to solve a customer's problem up to a certain point, up to a degree. Like, if it's oh, no, let's, we'll get that replaced. Like whoever answers the phone should be able to solve that, solve that problem. I mean, there's times where things need to be escalated, you know, to a manager or to an owner, but oftentimes we're just talking about the food. Like, if, if you trust this, this person, to ring in orders or deliver food or make orders, you should be able to trust them to solve a customer's issue too. Like, don't give the customer to run around. Like, let them, let your team go ahead and solve it. Empower your folks. Give them, give them guidelines to say, hey, look, if it's you can give a credit up to this amount. Or you can, you know, you can enter in comp food for someone that calls up to up to this amount. And if it goes beyond that, then we need to override.
Speaker 1:
Pos systems are are highly advanced these days. You can, you can set your system up to give security clearance to do certain things. Do that. A is going to take a lot. It's going to take one more thing off of your plate as a leader so that you don't have to stop, stop the flow, jump off the line or whatever, whatever function you're in in the moment, to go to go handle, you know, all these one-off situations. Empower whoever picks up that call, whoever interacts with that customer to solve the problem. Empower your people. Um and that and that's it. Yo, always as always, I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1:
Look, we got a new book. We got a new book dropping. It's called from idea to open a step-by-step guide to opening your first pizzeria. Uh, that thing is jam packed with bonuses. We got team building guys. We got, uh, management training. We got ops training. We got marketing guys. We have literally my entire toolbox, like all of the tools, templates, guys that I've created over the years, everything that I've deployed in into, you know, growing on the franchise side, as a franchise executive, as a franchise business coach, as a field support consultant, regional ops director, all these positions that I've held, it's come with supporting large scale business and giving them the tools to, to really grow effectively, to manage their businesses, to, to to run profitable, successful restaurants. All of these tools, all these things are are are packed into this program that I put together.
Speaker 1:
Pre-order, you know, pre-order. Now we got launch on. When is the? When is their release date? Hold on, I'll tell you right now. Release date is hold up, hold up 6, 21, june 21st, friday, the 21st.
Speaker 1:
So please, uh, you know, go check it out. There'll be, there'll be links. You can find links on my social. You can go to my site. You can get your hands on that If it's still, if you're still in a pre-order window.
Speaker 1:
So, from June 7th to June 21st, if you're still in a pre-order window, take advantage of that offer. If you're outside a pre-order window, you could you're still going to get great value. Just, you just missed out on on a deep discount. But either way it goes, whatever, whatever price you're getting it at, we're talking about saving yourself hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of hours in creating tools and systems and and guidelines for opening your first piece of work. Look, even if you're open, even if you're already open, there's there's a lot of value in here. When we're talking about 90 day marketing plan, we're talking about the leadership development courses, we're talking about the team member handbook template Like these are things that that will save you time and save you money. So check it out, let me know what you think and, uh, if you got any questions, you know, just holler at me info at Tyrell Reedcom, reach out to me on Instagram pizza king podcast or Tyrell Reed Senior and without without Excuse me if there's nothing else, I'll catch you all next week. Peace, thank you.
