- So, what you're about to see
is a really interesting interaction.
A lovely lady that I kind of spoke on the stage
after my talk, and then, came up and got a book.
Then, she came back and kudos to her
to ask some questions about her business.
As you guys know, normally I'm giving one or two
quick answers 'cause I don't have time unfortunately,
in settings like this, but something caught my attention,
and I dig into the details
and get into some of the kind of questions I would ask
if I were with you and kind of the questions
that I would hope that you're asking yourself
as you're trying to figure out why something's not working.
- I'm going to tell you my story, if I can take over?
I'm running a food truck.
I'm not the market here.
I'm startup.
The reason why I'm here is you.
I'd never know what this market is for.
I learned a lot today.
My story is I had one truck one year ago, American barbecue.
Nobody knows about the barbecue.
- Here?
- I'm talking about 100 kilometers out.
It runs really good, really good.
And then, think big, take the market.
I bought another one and another one.
Then ...
- Got stretched.
- My revenue ...
- You moved too fast.
- I moved too fast.
Now, I'm at the bottom
and I don't know what was wrong.
- You're not sure why it happened?
- No, actually not.
Is it the market?
Was my message not clear enough?
My product is good.
- So let me help you.
- My product is good.
- Let me help you a little bit.
Let me help you.
- Please.
- The first thing I would do to ...
First of all, I love you for being honest.
To say, "I don't know what went wrong,"
is very important, very powerful.
If you go backwards, the first thing I would do,
like if I was buying 50% of your company.
Now, we're partners.
I would say, okay, first meeting, 9 a.m., 7 a.m.,
you know, first meeting, "Tell me everything."
Tell me what you did, everything you did
when you were running one truck.
Then, tell me what you did, you, you when you had three.
My belief is that when you had one
all the energy was going in one places
which means you were going further down the line, deeper
and somewhere in there was the most important thing
that you had to not be able to do
when you became the manager of three.
That's it.
I'm telling you, what's very exciting for me to be--
- So what is now the advice?
To go back to one?
- Probably, probably.
- To focus or to go to diversity?
- Or.
- Say, "Okay, I'm selling Italian pizza?"
- No, no, no, definitely not that.
Definitely not that.
- Italian pizza is good.
- Respect, respect.
- Yeah, but I'm a barbecue person.
- Definitely, definitely not diversity.
Definitely not.
- Okay.
- If it worked at one, it would work at 100.
You stopped doing something
at three that you used to do at one
that became the vulnerability.
So did you used to be the front of the truck?
- Yeah, a lot more of course.
- Great.
Now, you're not.
You can't be in three trucks.
- No.
- So the next question becomes are the two people
that are the front of the truck not the kind of people
that people want to buy barbecue from?
Maybe, maybe not.
I don't know.
- It might be one of the problem.
- Next, you can take a step back.
I believe you the quality of the food,
but everything I would ask: was the food consistent?
Did you have the same exact ingredients?
Do you have like all that?
Probably yes 'cause that's not that hard.
- Yeah, sure.
- But maybe not.
Maybe you had a little less this.
Maybe you had a spread.
I don't know what your allocation.
- We did some adjustments to the recipes
and to the portions and so on, but it's normal.
We were stocked up, we did mistakes, we corrected.
- I get it, but--
- But the market punished me with no revenue
and now I'm there and I don't know.
Do I sell?
Do I keep going?
I am working, working, working and it's not going better.
- Understood.
So, let's go back.
The number one truck, did it stay in a certain area?
- Yeah.
- Does it still stay in that certain area?
- Yes.
- Is it still doing the same revenue or down?
- The one truck is doing good revenue.
The other two, they are not meeting expectation.
- Understood.
Your overhead is greater than what you're getting?
- My assumption was one truck is doing revenue X,
three trucks is going to do--
- Three X.
- Three Xs.
That was wrong.
- Let me ask you a question.
- Why is it wrong?
- I got an idea.
Can you type in the address
where you park the cars?
- Yeah.
- Go ahead, type it in.
Yeah, I mean, it goes so detailed.
That's how you win.
It's in the trenches.
- Yeah, that's the right one.
- Okay, I'm gonna show you something.
- Yeah?
- Everyday what time do the trucks start operating?
- 11:30 to two o'clock
and then on the weekend you know when we are out.
- Good.
I'm gonna show you something that I want you to do.
I want you to click this everyday.
Everyday.
You have Instagram, right?
- Mmm hmm.
- Okay, so this is that town that you're in, right?
- [Lady] Right here.
- I want you to click the photo of the person.
So you'll get the person, right?
I want you to send a message.
Do you know how to do that?
- [Lady] Of course.
- [Gary] You sure?
I want to make sure you get this.
When you go on somebody's profile, the button's up here.
- [Lady] Okay, send message.
- [Gary] And then send message.
- [Lady] Okay.
(clicking)
- [Gary] Saw your profile.
Come by my truck today from 11:00 to two o'clock
and I'll give you a free barbecue.
I want you to do that ten times
to 20 times every single day.
- [Lady] Okay.
- It's my belief that ...
Now, pay attention to what I showed you.
I'm gonna go a little slower.
When you go to a town and when you get to your phone
maybe you can even say the street
so it could be even closer.
When you go there, what it shows you on Instagram
is the nine posts that are the most popular
and then in order the people that did it the most recent.
- [Lady] I don't see your influencer.
- See, she did this 13 minutes ago.
So either it's people that are right there right now
or it's people with bigger influence who are there.
I could tag myself here, but then I'm gone.
But if you look, she has 3000 followers.
Maybe she lives there.
If you message her and say, "I like your Instagram profile.
"I like Instagram.
"My food truck is here.
"Come by and I'll give you free lunch today."
I believe one in every 10 will come everyday
and I believe that.
- 10% catching rate is a real dream for me.
- But you're giving it for free.
Hear me out.
One in every 10 will come and then one in every 10 of those,
'cause you're not gonna ask,
is gonna post and say, "Delicious."
I believe that that is worth 30 minutes
of your time everyday.
Here's why.
My numbers could be totally wrong.
Four out of every 10 could come
and three out of every 10 of those could post,
but here's what's more important.
One post.
You get the right girlfriend of a soccer player,
you get the right influencer,
one post can change your business overnight.
- Thank you.
- That's one little tactic that I want you to do.
It will work.
- Okay, but I'll keep my three trucks.
I'm not going back to one.
- So I know I'm going macro.
On the micro, you know, for me, me.
If you sold one of your trucks and went to two,
I would look at the math of what that would look like.
Intuitively, I'm not ready to make a call.
I'd have to look at your business more carefully.
Intuitively, two feels right.
- Yeah, but then I have to go back to the base.
Then, I have to do all the work
because I don't have enough money to pay somebody to do.
- And three does that for you?
- Yeah, would be if they would get the revenue.
- But they don't.
- They don't.
- So how close are you to the revenue?
- I don't know, 30%.
- To 30 of the 100%?
- Yes.
- What are you doing to market?
Anything?
- I have Facebook, we have 5000 plus
or almost 6000 followers.
- What about Instagram?
- No.
- Instagram.
- Instagram is the key?
- You have to understand why.
Facebook, when you post something
1% of the audience sees it organically.
Instagram is 40% organic.
- But Instagram is taking pictures,
taking photos and posting.
- Or video.
- I have to go out and take pictures.
I have to go out and do the photos.
- No you don't.
- Or do I have to pay somebody to do it for me?
- Nope.
You're sitting in the truck and you take a picture
or take a picture of the meal
or take a picture of the line
or take a picture of one person
or take a picture of the flowers
that are across the street from your truck.
Build a micro-local presence
'cause you have a micro-local business.
- Yeah.
- Interview people maybe.
This might not come natural to you,
but maybe at first, slow.
- Am I too old for this?
(laughs)
- 100% not.
- I don't know.
- 100% not.
- A lot of people are saying to me, "Oh, you are annoying me
"with lot of posts on Facebook and so on and so on."
- Instagram.
- Okay, Instagram and then influencers.
I'll let you know.
- Let me know.
(laughs)
- I'll let you know. - Good luck.
- Thank you very much. - So good to see you.
(light music)