Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, Welcome back to Elevate with Elsner. I'm your host, Blake Elsner, and we are digging into real stories behind entrepreneurship, the pivots, the breakthroughs, and the lessons that help us all level up. My guest today has built movements, scaled tours, launched restaurants, and now coaches leaders on how to do the same. He's proof that reinvention isn't just possible, it's necessary. Today, I'm sitting down with Brady Lowe, founder of Taste Network, creator of Legendary Tours, and a community builder whose work has touched chefs, winemakers, and entrepreneurs across the country. Brady's story is truly incredible. In 2002, he launched Taste Network in Atlanta. By 2008, he had created a huge event, 20-City National Tour. 2016, he sold part of the franchise and by 2019, fully exited. After this tour, he invested in a restaurant. He'll tell you all about this stuff. Full service agency representing 450 wineries and producing events across major wine regions, hitting 2 million in revenue within just 12 months. And today, he stepped into coaching, helping entrepreneurs level up by sharing the lessons he's learned over two decades Absolutely. Absolutely. So take us back to the beginning and kind of what inspired you as we talked off camera about what got you into, I guess you would say the whole community and culinary Great question. It goes back to, you know, probably growing up in the household, you know, and looking back at what we had access to for like reading, what was inspiring. And, you know, I read cookbooks growing up. I didn't really get into the normal cookbook vibes. I was like, there's these things called choose your own adventure books that were, you know, you'd kind of like pop ahead and choose where you're gonna die and what, you know, part of the book where you're gonna like survive and not survive. So it was kind of a choose your own destiny kind of mentality all the way to, you know, college, and then I got into entrepreneurship. And I just knew I wanted to be in marketing and advertising and building things. I wrote my first business plan in college and was hot and heavy to open that thing in Iowa, where I grew up. And my friends came to me and said, we can't wait till your restaurant opens. And I go, why is that? They're like, we're going to get so much free shit. I'm like, all right, I'm moving to Atlanta. Abandoned plans. So that was my move to Atlanta in 1999, 2000. And I spent a year in hospitality, and I realized that I was not going to do it from a beverage buyer position at a fine dining restaurant. And I wanted to get into what I was hoping to do. And I had a moment of clarity. working at a wine and cheese shop at night while I was writing another business plan. And it just happened that this one person had an experience right in front of me. I gave him a piece of wine or a glass of wine and a piece of cheese and literally out of body experience slapped my hand on the counter. The person was blown away. And I realized at that point, I wanted to give people first-time experiences with really high-end products, with purpose and passion behind it and a lot of education. So that was the churning moment. And Taste Network was born in 2001-ish. And As they say, you hunt what you eat, what you hunt, right? Yeah. No pun intended on that. Well, no, that's pretty it's pretty neat. But like so what inspired besides obviously what you've just kind of talked about, like you read cookbooks, which is I mean, that's that's interesting. That's almost like, you know, a meteorologist. grows up and was reading all about weather and watching local on the eights, you know, stuff like that. So, you know, just have somebody pick up like a cookbook like that's pretty, that's pretty interesting. I mean, you really had to have a passion for, Yeah, I mean, it was for me, it was. I was learning to make pretty much anything. I watched like Yonkun Cook on TV with Lee Bailey. And I was just like, I want to do it. And I would just go try to mess shit up. And it would happen. I would get in the kitchen, make a huge mess, and figure out what worked and what didn't work. And the curse of that is 20 years later, when you're out at dinner at a restaurant, and you're like, I can make that better. I can make that better. Why am I wasting my money on this time and this shitty service? So there's a good and a bad. Also, the people who've been in the hospitality industry, and shout out to all of them, once you learn those 100 points of service, eating in a restaurant is never the same. Because when you need service, I wish I could go back to the days where I didn't know what real service was. That is funny you say that guy, you know, not to distract from the point, but my father owned a restaurant at 18 and he Joe, you know, every time I go out to dinner with him, it's like, you know, he wants things a certain way. Uh, you know, he orders things his way, you know, whether it's, you know, custom or, you know, his order just usually takes a little bit longer. And I think being in the restaurant industry like yourself, like you probably, you know, your expectations are a lot higher when you go out, like you're saying, and you know, if somebody brings you a bowl of lobster bisque and you go, darn, I could, you know, I'm paying 20 bucks for this bowl of lobster bisque and I can know I can make it, you know, 20 times better. That Yeah. Or if you're like sitting there and you're eating dinner with, you know, with your revs and you watch their behavior and what they're doing and like all their years of experience, And you just learn these little tricks of like how to get exactly what you want. You know what I mean? Like that's entertainment to me, you know, watching somebody razz a server because the server is just like avoiding like doing the right thing. The old timer comes in and starts to razz. Like there's no better dinner tables Oh, right. I guess, yeah, he would get a kick out of hearing some. Yeah, some of these dinners that I go to and like orders the chicken, but wants to substitute steak in it. You know, you're like, wait, come on, you know. But no, I really it is like it's an art, obviously. So part of that, as I was telling you, like off off camera, I was saying like, hey, a restaurant in St. Louis open, it's a big brand. And I was kind of asking you like, hey, look at their Instagram and and how they run things and they're just opening literally today. How would you, knowing what you know now, if you took a restaurant like that under your wing, what are your steps and your process to order the best experience for customers that come in the door? I opened a restaurant and after I opened that restaurant and it failed and was consumed by COVID, Um, there's a lot of things that I would have done different and there's a lot of things knowing what I know now. So I love this question because it's practical, right? There's a lot of people who are going to be opening restaurants. These guys are breaking down, you know, new barriers. They need to get their staff in there. They've got to create a culture. They've got to create the food. They're going to hope that that first plate goes out, goes out as friction free as possible. You know, but when you look back at like. what we're doing from a digital perspective. You've got step one, which is build a foundation, right? You need a brick and mortar. So you need a restaurant. You need to bring up the food. You're going to have the servers. You're going to have the staff. Then you're going to have someone that greets you when you walk in the door. Then someone's going to come to the table. They're going to get to know what's going on at the experience. Some of the bartenders are going to tell you exactly what was in each drink, how each drink was made. Everybody wants to be completely completely transparent about every single ingredient down to the chicken's first name. We love that type of style of service, right? And it's expected in a way, you know, and I, you know, so I look at the vulnerability of our digital platform. That's one that I would look at, right? So let's say that you have a host at your restaurant, concierge, a host, a maitre d', whatever that person who greets everybody and welcomes them. They have to say, hey, welcome to our restaurant. Have you been here before? Are you excited? We have a table. Follow me. Sounds like Instagram, right? Do you like me? Do you wanna follow me? Come to your table. Now I'll show you some photos. How long will you stay? Can I have your money? You know what I mean? Now with that point being said, we do that at the restaurant and we expect every single person to know every single thing about the alfalfa to the barley from our appetizer to our cocktail, right? And then we get a speedy expedite and the next table comes in. On Instagram or on social media channels, we do not even come close to that level of engagement. That is where I speak vulnerability on a digital forefront, right? Your host at the restaurant should be the same person who is running all of your social media. And I'm not talking about putting the pretty pictures up, the graphic designer's job, the video editor's job, all of that, all the content creation. I'm talking about who is actually engaging with the guests who take moments out of their day. Like you told me about this restaurant today. We looked at their website. I looked at their Instagram. I immediately formed an opinion. And I say, I follow. Will I get any response? Out of those 5,000 followers, will I get a response? Now, if I do that to a friend, I mean, I ghost him. He's like, dude, thanks for the text. Good talk, later. In a restaurant or in a boutique setting or anything I say more important than a gas station who has a social media and a website, anyone you expect to give you something in return, an engagement, I think we really need to focus there. And the way that we do it is we give compliments. Hey man, thank you for stopping by. It looks like you've got a great podcast and a great business and a good family. Appreciate you keep shining. It takes 10 seconds. If we don't have 10 seconds for a new follower and we expect them to come to our restaurant, it creates kind of a dismissive culture before you even get to the front door. And I think this might be one of the gaps in hospitality right now that needs a really hard look. And I think it's really important. So, you know, you talk about CRM tools, right? You have go high level, click funnels, sales loft, HubSpot, Salesforce, everything from, you know, two to $10,000 a year that basically captures all of your conversations in Instagram, email, creates campaigns, drip campaigns, nurturing sequences, but that doesn't exist in the hospitality. So I would say from a hospitality perspective, the moment you turn on your Instagram and your website, you need to have a CRM. Otherwise it's a bucket with a hole in the bottom and you're never going to be able to take a bath in it. So you just have to plug the hole in the bathtub so you can enjoy the bath. and turn the water onto a drip versus a continually waste of cash every month. And I see a lot of restaurants pour a lot of cash into social media, average two to three grand a month. PR, average two to 5K a month. Website people, 500 to two grand a month. And guess what the bottom of the bathtub is? A big hole, you know? And all it is is a CRM tool just to capture all that energy. So that's my, you know, thing. And just, you know, make people feel good. If they take a moment to follow you, acknowledge them, Yeah, that really kind of opened up a hole like my brain was like, whoa, like that. You don't really think about that. Now, when you say that, I'm like, wow, yeah, you're right. If they just reached out and said what you just said about I would 100 percent run over to the restaurant, you know. way sooner than if they didn't, right? The compliment and it's, it's interesting to think about all that excitement, like the website, like you're saying, it's mostly just like an overpriced digital menu, right? If, if it's not capturing anything, I mean, right, people are going to look at maybe where it's at and what's on the menu, right? Yeah. If there's not capturing any energy through that, that's laying into an empty bucket. That's very, I mean, that's solid, solid information that I think in this industry, you're, definitely fill in a gap that is Yeah. I mean, think of it like this. If you came into the restaurant and treated somebody with the same or even your own business or your house and you treated someone the same and just kind of like, well, follow me table. I mean, You just think about the level of dismissiveness that happens and that it wouldn't be allowed in a restaurant, right? But here's the point, is if you got all excited, like I got all excited because I love restaurants with Mexican food that change the game and they look at like really kind of up elevating the experience, right? And that's the best way to go into business is to make something better, to give people an experience. But if I got all excited, I wanna be like, hey, can I get a table for four for my buddies? We're gonna kill a tomahawk and a bunch of marks on Friday. No response. One, I went to that experience excited. I was hoping somebody was gonna respond to me. I get no DM response. What's my next move? One, I feel dismissed. Two, I can either hang on and feel like, would I give these guys a chance? Or three, am I gonna become a critic? And you open your door to changing a positive into a negative. And that's the power of engagement. So it's, you know, with handbags, with people, when you get emotional about something, all logic is out the door. When you love a product, like I'll tell you like one example of ghosting somebody. I reached out to Tesla. I just ended up getting a car because of the tax write-offs and everything. I was like, let's just simplify life for a minute. If I can just get 10% of my time back driving and I can get some emails done, let's go. That's an investment versus a loss. I DM them. I'm like, I just bought a car with you. I just want to say thanks again. We're really cool. Ghosted. Now that starts to level up in how I feel about their customer service. Next thing you know, my charger goes out. I have no one to talk to. I can't get anybody on the phone. Now everything's starting to land. Now imagine if I went to the restaurant. and I have a poor experience. If I looked at that first engagement of like, dude, my bros and I are one in tomahawks. Oh my God, it looks like you have a crazy podcast. Thanks so much, man. Thanks, we'll see you on Friday. Just book on the normal website thing. We'll mark it down as your buddy's birthday. Sweet, we're going guys. Service sucks. There's gonna be one person in that table who still feels that there's a little bit of like relationship value there still. And then you could go back to that and say, hey, I had a bad experience on Friday. I just wanted you guys to know, I know it's brand new, but they're like, no problem, man. Like, we'll get you back next time. Sorry about that. Learning curves. Hope you understand. You know what I mean? Like three buddies think the place sucks. One's like, I'm going to give another chance. They're at least nice to me on social media. It's That is true. And let me ask you this question about soft openings, because obviously this particular restaurant had a couple soft openings. Now, when I hear all these soft openings, it's a lot of family, friends. It's not a lot of people that, in my opinion, are going to give you good like critic or critique the restaurant a certain way. It seems like everyone's just going to be positive, positive, positive, right? So are you a fan of like soft openings or would you just do like a soft opening to the public? Like how So soft openings have a sole purpose, right? Invite friends and family. Typically, you give them a free experience. You use them as guinea pigs. You work out some of the issues with service. You push the kitchen, you fill the room, you pace the room so you can feel what it's going to feel like at a seven o'clock or a six o'clock. So, you know, just fill the room at six o'clock and say, hey guys, eat shit. You know, you're like, let's put in half a room at six o'clock. Let's fill the room at seven 30 next night. Let's pace it back. Give it a, you know, so you kind of use it as a capacity. Uh, warning, what to fix, what's broken, you know, versus waiting for your first days to open and then learning on a guest time. So yeah, I mean, soft openings are great because typically people will give you feedback. They understand that if they're inviting their friends and family, that they are going, you're like, You're like, Hey, man, how was the experience? It was honestly not bad. Here's what I would fix. Here's what I noticed. They're looking for feedback. That's the exchange instead of putting money down. And I think a lot of people think that going to friends and family, it's like a big freebie meal. They're like, Ooh, I'm buddies with the chef. And they just. they don't give any feedback. And I think, and sometimes chefs and operators want feedback on their business opening. And sometimes they don't, you know, so I think it's just, you know, I think that's a necessity, but it is an expense for the restaurant and how they Man, it's a great question. How they manage that investment is, you know, what's going to show them through their honeymoon, which is the next stage, right? So friends and family soft opening, then you shut down, fix shit, and then open up in the honeymoon phase. Yeah. Okay. So that's pretty much today is there, uh, like the restaurant I was telling you, the Mexican St. Louis, they're opening today at, um, three o'clock and, So I say like, you know, they went through those soft openings and everything, and you looked at their social media. And that's interesting because, you know, I'm sure they don't reach back out to everybody that follows them on Instagram or, you know, all the comments and whatnot. And to be honest, like, I don't even think about that. Like, but that is a very well thought out, like, process that you've obviously created. And that's why you're the Well, it's expert by default. I don't know if I'm an expert. It's like finding an error by design or by default. I can't really tell. I've been on all these coaching platforms or coaching programs, and everybody wants you to do the content. You live in a content space. You've got to create content. got to create the flywheel, bring people to the conversation, build some trust. Do you want to come eat with me? Do you want to buy my handbag? Do you want to buy my car? What's the product? How much homework am I gonna do before I purchase? It's building trust to a buy, right? That's how our consumer behaviors work. And what I've learned out of this whole thing is that when you, miss this part of engagement, you can put all the people at your front door, but if you don't treat them well, they're only going, you just, you're going to like have that churn, right? And that churn is just going to be like, be a loss of people that are coming in and out. And that was, that's the hard part that I didn't see in all these coaching platforms. It's like, you know, where does engagement go? Like who teaches who how to do it? And it's not an expensive position. I mean, these are $15 an hour positions and guess what? I'm going with Blake's voice. I'm going with Brady's voice. I'm going with the Mexican voice. I'm going with the brand's tone. Because I'm not paid to put my cuteness in this thing. I'm here to talk brass tacks, what we do, what we offer, how I create value in your life, why you want to come here, why I want to make you feel good. I just want to show you compliments. I want to show that you're being seen versus we're just looking to get you for another check. I think that's the big part that's missing right now, especially if you want to get mine next level. It's this whole conversation about this AI tsunami that's just sitting off the coast for people. And how are we going to handle as all this AI stuff just starts crushing us with content? I mean, it's about just to go nuts, right? So what's going to be the differentiator? What are you doing as a business to stand out? Yeah, and that's really smart about filling that bucket. Like you keep saying, I'll go back to that where the hole's in the bucket for a lot of these hospitality businesses. They need a solution to put all the balls that are falling through the bucket into something to where it can actually benefit their business, like you say. And obviously doing it through AI, you do have so many ways of scheduling out posts or automatic replies or reply on your Google business profile reviews. Or just like you're saying on Instagram DMs, it really doesn't take a lot. Like you're saying, 10 minutes. There's not that many people that you can't keep up with. So that is, it is interesting about the engagement part and then putting somebody like you're saying a voice at the front. I never thought about that. That's a very interesting thing. They always just throw like the, you know, the, the least, you know, efficient person that Right. But like for like the, for me, the least efficient person is a social media manager. Who's not doing engagement. and doesn't ask for a tonality playbook or a brand playbook of what they should be saying and talking about to the guests. What's the monthly specials? What are we picked up on? What are we teaching them? Like, what's my value to everybody who follows us? I mean, think about this. Those guys got 5,000 followers and they haven't even opened the door yet. That's huge, right? They've got six posts on their grid, but Regardless, they did a friends and family and soft opening already. All of that content that they created, that they missed creation, should be plastered all over their walls right now. Filling that thing up, showing the food, showing the experience, whatever, that's not a big deal, right? Like they got 5,000 followers, they got a nice little push. What is different is when I look at it from my business perspective, or you look at it from your business perspective, When somebody comes to follow us, if we could have gone back from day one and using Go High Level, every time that somebody had followed us, we got in the habit of being like, thanks so much, man. Looks like you're doing cool shit. Look at your profile. Look at the first six photos. Come up with a fast compliment. Love it. Thanks, dude. Peace. Cheap shot. Rock on, right? If you did that for every single person, they would DM you back, right? The moment they DM you back, guess what happens? They go into go high level as a contact. Then a simple question, watching them over the years, what content do they like? What dishes do they hard on? What things do they comment on? You build profiles for people. Now 5,000 guests later, a $15 an hour position with 5,000 guests, they would have so much data. It would be nuts. And they'd have all those people in a database. And they could message them, tonight is our grand opening, free margaritas for the first 200 that show up. Boom, instant business. Do they have that in place? That's the part that I've just seen so many businesses lose sight of, that they don't understand that there's that kind of You know, yeah, you could implement what you're doing. I mean, I'm sure you could go around the corner, every other corner and implement where you're doing it, every single hospitality, you know, restaurant or whatnot. So it's truly like, I think there is a lot of people that fall behind on that. I think, you know, you're probably the guy that's filling the gap right now. And I seems like it's obviously already taken off and you're, you're, you're doing successful in terms of pairing, you know, marketing and the engagement and all that stuff that, you know, I think businesses, as they start to understand restaurants and their brands, they start to figure that out a little bit more going to be like, okay, yeah, this guy, this guy knows what the hell he's talking about. We need, we need, Well, that's the fun thing. And I do have a free engagement playbook. So if people want to get a free playbook, I mean, this thing is a $30,000 check back in your pocket over the next year. I shit you not. If you read and learn everything in this playbook, it's long, but it has like questions of like, how do you do the compliment, double compliment engagement feature? How do you like do all your comments and likes? What's your posting schedules? Like what basics on that, right? How to train your social media manager that you're paying $2,000 a month. You give them this, they can't do it, fire them basically. And then on the backside of it, there's some bonus quizzes like, here's the top 10 questions to ask your web person before you fire them. Here's the top 10 questions to ask your PR person before you fire them, which is great because you use those same 10 questions to hire someone, right? They're entry and exit questions. So this thing can really help people reline. So if they want that, all they have to do is just DM me the word Rev, and I'll kick that over Yeah, absolutely. We'll put that in the show notes as well. So that way people have access to that to go there. Because that obviously, anytime you can give somebody information like that, and you say, when you go, it's kind of long, well, that just means it's, you know, it's full of actual facts and from the heart and stuff that's obviously going to help somebody that's in this industry. So something's free, why would you not go get it? We'll definitely put that in the in the show notes. So appreciate you Yeah, absolutely. I just, I want people to to build their business. Hospitality has been good to me and I want to take my next 10 years to do as much as I can to help people in hospitality or service-driven brand space to reach their customers and make them feel good. Take what that experience is when you come in to buy a $200 handbag for your wife on her birthday put a little bit, like you get so much done on Instagram just with a little message, you know? And then you'll start to like categorize those conversations of people that you care about and brands you care about and those who just ghost you, you know? And if I can help make that word a fork in the road to make brands feel guilty about ghosting people and they change their behavior, I feel like I, and you know, what's interesting going back to the beginning of this episode, when you talked about when you started, you know, you're like, Hey, I'm going to open a restaurant in Iowa, right where you grew up and you go, well, everyone wants free food. I think that's part of what has always held. Maybe I'm wrong. You know, better than me, but. some of maybe the engagement back that like, hey, if they engage with, you know, customers, they're immediately, hey, can I get something free? Can I get something free? I feel like that is a big, because margins are so slim already in the restaurant industry. Like, I think one of the biggest things is the free thing. Like, maybe people don't engage with their customers as much as they should, because they're afraid of having to give free things away. But the word of free shouldn't be confused with things of value. Right? Right now, I just said, hey, here's a playbook. It can help you with grow your business, help you save some money. What does the restaurant community have that we don't have? They got a bunch of really cool recipes. They got interviews with the chef. They've got maybe a free dinner every two months. Now you put on a thing like, hey, thanks again for the follow. Compliment, compliment, compliment. You're like, you just don't want to say it back. So they're like, all right, Brady's a loser, he's not gonna respond to us. But when a conversation goes past six interactions, guess what we do? We say, yo, hey, if you wanna enter into our six, every six weeks we do a free dinner for two. If you wanna bring your SO over, enter this contest here. Boom, now we have your email address, right? And we've Elevated you to a customer that wants to engage with us. You're on your way to SuperFan. The value part can be a recipe, chef's favorite Christmas recipe, chef's favorite tomahawk recipe, bartender's killer margarita recipe. If you're not with us, we'll give you the shit to do at home for free. You know, nothing's really free. You still gotta go buy all the booze, but you're doing their work at home. And then the next time they come in, they sit at the bar, they're like, oh my gosh, that margarita recipe. I tried it with tamarind. Have you guys ever done that? like, yeah, we do that. You're like, oh, you can do that for me tonight. Like, yeah, we so that people mod things at their homes, right? There's bourbon clubs, there's margarita classes, there's guacamole things, there's up sales, like$10 come in on a on a dead time on Tuesday. And we have margarita class for 10 people, you sit at the bar, and you make two margaritas and bartender for an hour, and then you What are you, you're hungry? Shucks. Now I got customers again. You know what I mean? Like perceived value and high impact value dollar or offers are just, you So, you know, again, I guess don't mix up that free part with, with value. Like you're saying, cause yeah, it's not Yeah. It's, it's, what do you have in your, like, You give me enough of it, I'm going to buy something from you, you know, because I'm going to feel guilty that I feel all this great love and I haven't given Right. That is a good point. I can't disagree with you. And I think you're on to something that obviously is working and will continue to work. I think, like you're saying, as experiences keep growing and this industry gets a little more savvy, I think you're going to be filling the gap quite nicely. And like you say, I think that engagement part is one of the biggest things. It almost sounds so easy, yet it's not. You really do have to focus down on that and use the proper software, like you're saying, like an agency with tools And it's not easy. It's a commitment, right? But so is having a hostess at your restaurant. If there were no hostess or host or concierge or maitre d's, then all of a sudden, one day we were like, oh, you got to have a maitre d, that's the new future. Oh, I don't need that. I'll figure it out until they can't figure it out. And then they have to do it. It's just a muscle that hasn't been... But the thing is, we're already investing so much money into social media. and making our boards look pretty. I mean, think about it like a dating app, right? Imagine if you had a PR person, you had a social media manager, and you had a website, and then you got your Tinder account. Imagine you put all that money into one thing, and then when people go and they like you, No response. Ghosted. I'm too cool. I mean, it is literally a classic example of just investment gone wrong. It's the dating app curse. It's like, quit treating your business like That is true. I, you know, I, I never really thought like you brought up really valid, you know, similarities that like, you don't really think about it. And, you know, like I said, I think you're filling a gap that, you know, people aren't really familiar with. And in that industry, like you're saying, they, they got a, as you know, hospitality and restaurant, you got so many other things on your plate. So I think bringing you in is like, would be smart for restaurants because, uh, not only just downloading the playbook one, um, but then from there, obviously I know I'm sure you can, you know, take on restaurants and show them the way after that as well. You, I'm Yeah. And I think that's a great, you know, segue into, you know, to bring me on, since we're a full service agency to bring us on it, like we're expensive, right? I mean, we're, we're doing some unique things in the hospitality industry and luxury. Um, But that's on one side why we have like the CRM tool and system called Accelerator because we want to give people that tool, right? The engagement, everything, but go high level. But to really get like the one-on-one time, that's why I built a coaching platform because it allows me to work one-on-one with a certain amount of people at a much reduced rate and give them the access to All of our documents, what I'm learning, what I'm going through, what I've gone through. People want to learn how to scale up events, partnerships, marketing, sponsorships. brand market integration, like full service marketing campaigns, PD, like how to answer RFPs for over a million dollars. Like those types of things we're good at, but to hire me one-on-one is just like nuts. So that's why we started Next10 because we wanted people to have access to all of the stuff that I've learned over the last 20 some years. and just help them get to their next stage. I got stuck. So knowing the right person and knowing what you, knowing what is it? You only know what you don't know. It's that kind of feel. And I don't know, I think it's interesting to me because I never thought reading and coaching were things that I needed in my life until a couple of years ago. And it's absolutely changed my life. And the first thing that changed my life was having a North star back when I turned 35, which is about 15 years ago. And that gave me my team, my life, my ability to find my partner in life, all very clear direction. And you have to update it every, you know, 10 years. And some people do it for 50 years and some people do it for a hundred. When you're building a North star for a hundred years, you're building a legacy. And that's the underbelly of what the coaching platform is all about. It's like, let us help you find your North Star. So your cash comes as part of your mission. Yeah, and I always say if you're cheap, then I don't like to do business with that because then I'm not going to expect results and you don't have to deliver results. I always say the cheaper they are, the more red flags there are. So somebody that's obviously knows their value is going to be priced appropriately and you work with some big names. It's pretty simple to see that on your Facebook, your website, your Instagram, all the outlets. So you deal with a lot of prominent brands in this hospitality industry. So that is pretty cool that you're like, hey, let's try to make this a little bit more affordable for the smaller mom and pop restaurants that, hey, we could coach, like you're saying, in groups of 10. And that's pretty neat how you do that. Thanks, man. It's the way into that world. I was just curious to say that. I don't know many people that I've worked with a thousand different top culinary brands in the country or 10,000 chefs in the country and had personal intimate conversations about where they're going and what they're doing. And, you know, over the last 15 years and to watch the industry struggle and thrive at the same time, you know, it's, it's interesting. It's, you know, it's a very lucky place to be because we get to reap the benefits of deliciousness and Yeah, that's right. No, I really... It gets a bit more expensive. Oh, yeah. Gosh. That's not the truth right there, but no, I, I really, uh, obviously I'll put all this stuff in our, in our show notes. And so that way everybody can, uh, either one download that playbook or listen to this. I know just. In general, I know a lot of restaurant owners, uh, that listened to this, uh, that can take just notes from just listening to you talk and then go get the playbook and, you know, go from there. So I really appreciate you coming on here and kind of sharing your journey and. what it's all about, you know, staying in it. So Absolutely. I'll give you one quick little, you know, testimony question. So my buddy hits me up the other day, you know, and he's like, Hey, I just took over this job as the national director for a winery, big winery, like well-known, you know, I drink their juice. I got some of my cellar and he's like, I want to go from, let's say 5 million to 10 million in the next three years. How would you do that? This is a lunchtime question over martinis. He's like, how do you use AI to get shit like this done? I'm like, all right, I'll show you. He's like, now? And I'm like, yeah. He's like, well, you don't have to do it now. I'm like, dude, this will take three minutes. So I literally open up one of my other driving playbook, which is the vision. It's the North Star Vision Creator. And I go, let's go to page four. Page four is USP. Do you know what USP is? He goes, no. I'm like, all right, it's your unique selling proposition. First, let's develop that. So speak into this chat GPT thing on my hand. And I built this agent. I'm like, speak into it. He goes, what? I'm like, all right, I'm sitting with my buddy here who wants to fucking talk about his business. Just talk like this. And I could shove it in his mouth. And he's like, All right, so I'm doing this. Here's my challenge. Here's my goal. I want to go from five to $10 million. Here's who we are. And it starts asking him a couple of questions, right? And he has this worksheet. So I was like, all right, it's a five-minute chat. Hits 10, scribe, goes through. And it's full-on giving him budget, trajectory, what to do, how to do it. And he's like, this thing is spot on. So understanding what a USP is, is what is your unique offer? Like, what is your service? What problem are you solving? What makes you unique to the audiences? And the last part after that is once you have that, then it's like, where do you want to end up in three to five years? If you have those two pieces of information, then this GPT tool and this playbook can change your life. And if I had this thing 20 years ago, It would have blown my mind, but that's today's technology. This is where we are, but I would not You would have been able to put it for the COVID years and If I invented chat GPT 20 years ago, that'd be old game. Yeah. So that's another one. If somebody wants that, that's the word vision. All they have to do is DM that and I'm happy to shoot over that playbook. Um, on our website, you can watch a free training video about finding your North star. So everything is kind of like out in the marketplace and system for people to like pick up on, but, you know, being able to kind of share it with you and, you know, any resource that Absolutely. I appreciate it. We'll definitely put all those links in there. Anytime you can learn and take stuff like that from, from an individual like yourself, that is a priceless. So I, you know, I always say, uh, for you to come on here and just share your wisdom is, it means a lot. So I appreciate you Absolutely. And this stuff works across industries. This is not just a hospitality. This is, you know, having a North stars. just about life, you Yeah. No, that that's a whole nother. I think in terms of podcasts, we might have to do a whole nother podcast about that. Right. It could be itself. And you're starting a podcast. That's another thing. I don't want to forget that. Hey, since you're you're you're starting to talk about what I love that. See, that's going to be cool. I can't wait to listen to it myself. I think that'll be neat to listen to. I appreciate it, man. I, uh, well, we're going to get you on the show. We'll Yeah, that's right. Good old Sebastian Rusk, right? Yeah, that's right. Well, Brady, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing your journey. So, um, for those of you listening, I promise you, I will put all the links, show notes, links to his website, his Instagram, all that good stuff. Um, so you can connect with him and taste network and, and, all the good stuff he's done because this guy obviously has shaken hands with a lot of people in the culinary world, a lot of experts. And on top of that, it's not just like he says, the culinary world, it's just experience in life in general, that this guy can Elevate your life. So as always, thank you for tuning in to Elevate with Elsner. If this conversation resonated at all, share with someone who needs encouragement. someone who needs a little pick-me-up, and go ahead, leave us a review, and keep elevating your own journey. Until next time, keep building, keep elevating, and keep growing. One love. Thanks, Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. 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