00:00.41

vigorbranding

Everyone today I am joined by my new friend Carl Orsburn it’s oars burn or born say with me everyone um, all joking aside Carl. Thanks for taking time out of your day and your week hang out with me while you say hello and for those that don’t know you give a little bit of backstory.

00:17.53

Carl Orsbourn

Thanks! Thanks! Jo really good to be here and glad we get to spend a few few minutes together today. Um yes, I’m Carl Osborne I’m the co co-founder at juicer a dynamic pricing company for restaurants. But so. A lot of people know me from my first book that I wrote with Meredith Sandland delivering the digital restaurant that book became a bit of a bests selller and really um, cemented I think my kind of presence in the industry and been out to talk about restaurant digitization before that I was over at kitchen united helping. Ghost kitchen world gets settled helped build out their operating model and before even that I was in the seas storell world I used to run ah a thousand unit um franchise business by the name of ampm a billion dollars worth of revenue about 400000000 of it was food but in a very different and somewhat more stagnated industry and so. But I moved over to the startup space I was really excited into talking about more innovative type themes and everything that we’re probably going to get into today.

01:19.20

vigorbranding

That’s brilliant. So ah, admittedly I didn’t know about your C-s store stint ah probably more than a stint but I will wax about that for a second I grew up with ampms and ah I thought.

01:29.58

Carl Orsbourn

How well.

01:35.68

vigorbranding

That apm was what you called convenience source like because I grew up with it so growing up it was go to the apm because where we just said ap like dropped off the m too much too many letters. Um, and so I think I was maybe like 18 or 19 before I realized that.

01:42.12

Carl Orsbourn

Yep yep.

01:52.62

vigorbranding

Oh no, that’s actually a brand name. That’s not what you call C stores that’s or like convenience stores. So for me, it was synonymous like band-aid instead of ahesive strip. It was the same thing. Um, so that’s kind of wonderful and I think there’s a whole world that we could talk about with C stores. Maybe not. We’ll see if we get to it. But.

01:55.66

Carl Orsbourn

Wow, That’s interesting.

02:10.81

vigorbranding

You know there is a discussion to be had around sea store’s encroachment into the ah fast food and in quick service space and some of them are are doing a fantastic job of it. But what I really want to dig into first and foremost is dynamic ricing because you of course are a proselytizer you you have an entire company talking about it.

02:18.87

Carl Orsbourn

Dot com.

02:30.13

vigorbranding

And I I Want to say I’m a naysayer I’m just highly skeptical and I think I really want to dig into. Let’s talk about the good side of it. Um, so before we you know butt heads against why don’t you for the listeners try to clearly define What is dynamic pricing in the restaurant industry. Clear up the misconceptions.

02:51.27

Carl Orsbourn

Yeah, look. It’s it’s a really interesting subject and I think you’re right? It is quite divisive. Um, it’s quite divisive just as ah as a theme and so before I give you my version of a definition. Let me tell you what I think our vision is surprising because we we see enormous opportunity to. To bring pricing science to restaurants and that’s that’s way before anything we get into around price dynamism right? So pricing. Let we know is tremendously complex. It’s ah, a discipline it requires expertise in data science. It requires access to lots of market data the ability to quantify how changes in price affect demand. And these are not disciplines I think it’s fair to say that have historically been part of the restaurant industry I think it’s fair to say that most restaurants price using a blunt instrument and if you on where they want to be perhaps positioned against relative to the competition and a desired you know gp so you know with with due to what we’re excited to bring. Our experience on working on these problems and my co-founders are these clairvoyance Joseph because they herald from the travel and hotel industry where they’ve seen all this stuff play out and not a week goes by without them saying yes but we’ve seen this happen before let me tell you how this is going to play out and it’s always funks. We we riff on it a bit so so restaurants now have this kind of opportunity to use these tools. Um because the industry is undergoing to see a change. You know how it interacts with diners or everything I’ve talked about in my books um and and restaurants are for intents and purposes now an e-commerce category. Um.

04:22.20

Carl Orsbourn

Fact that menus are presented as pixels on a screen not printed pages gives us far more flexibility than in the past and so I think that insight that restaurants can capitalize on this change in consumer interaction is giving us a more sophisticated idea about how they can price and that’s very much at the heart of our vision Producer. So. How does dynamic pricing fit into this framework. Well for me, it’s It’s just a fancy way to say we measure Consumer demand and use algorithms to match prices to demand at that point in time.

04:54.92

vigorbranding

So I think so that makes sense so there’s a prerequisite though right? like you said you’re going to have to know what those outside influences are so you can affect the pricing in real-time and of course you need. Digital menu boards that are more than just a I’m going to make a joke but a fire stickk stuck in the back of a Tv screen. Um, which you know for the the do it yourself as I’ve seen that happen many times but essentially what ends up manifesting though is pricing that changes.

05:13.51

Carl Orsbourn

A.

05:28.14

vigorbranding

I wouldn’t say in real time right? I mean it happens in real time, but it’s not like it’s not like a stock ticker like as I’m in line I’m watching the price fluctuate from $2 for a cheap hamburger to $25 because of the outside influences. Um what what rate? or um.

05:33.87

Carl Orsbourn

All right.

05:45.23

vigorbranding

But kind of fluctuation have you seen or do you anticipate with it like what are the updates. What are the refreshes is it daily is it hourly when we’re talking about the fluctuations and in dynamic rising.

05:55.27

Carl Orsbourn

Yeah, couple couple of things in answer to that because the first thing I’d say is we are focused on off-premise transactions first so you talk about this idea of standard in line and digital menu boards I think that is to come. But I think the industry has to move a little further down the line before we start to see that becoming a major area of focus when it comes to dynamic pricing probably for all the reasons as to why you you might be a bit of a skeptic on the subject right? because for me the opportunity exists today and off-premise because consumers today are already experiencing dynamic pricing. On da dash and uber breeds right? The delivery fees will change. You. You are empowering the customer to say if you want to pay an extra $3 I can get it to you within 20 minutes as opposed to the advertise 40 minutes the challenge is restaurants aren’t getting any of the upside of that dynamism today. That’s all going into the marketplaces and so. Something here about really just trying to recognize that. How do you actually find the best way to introduce something like this into a part of the industry that is already experiencing it. But you know for me consumers are ah more sophisticated than they often get credit for you know dynamic or demand-based pricing is. Built on the the well-understood intuition that products are more expensive when there’s a high demand for a product right? Um, restaurants have been doing this for ages Joseph. You know if we at happy hour em menus right? There’s any diner need clarification when a drink or appetizer is less expensive before six zero Pm of course not

07:13.10

vigorbranding

Um, sure.

07:21.19

vigorbranding

Ah, right.

07:23.19

Carl Orsbourn

Know that the restaurant’s less busy and they’re going to try and drum up more demand for it. So I think it’s trying to work alongside those forces and try to help restaurants actually support. What is their lowest Margin channel.

07:35.84

vigorbranding

Yeah I mean so that’s a great analogy or or a great example I should say um and you’re right? The prices do fluctuate then I think the most restaurants are banking on can I keep them here past the happy Hour Marker. So I can start to realize my margin. And and I Also agree I think Dynamic dynamic pricing um could be really fantastic from the monetary spreadsheet level of restaurant brands I think where I start where my yellow flags I Only call them red flags because I’m super interested or else I would have I don’t want to talk about it right? like I’m like I’m already set I’m ah pretty malleable on it.

08:06.70

Carl Orsbourn

7

08:11.29

vigorbranding

But I think the challenges that we have to overcome is um, the the brand experience that’s not me being a carpenter and only seeing nails. Um, and what I’m getting at is if we take other industries that have adopted dynamic pricing that everyone’s familiar with like otas. Ah. You know, um in in the travel industry so online travel agents I think is what that stands for which is kind of silly. But um, you know so like Expedia and the aggregators and things like that and anyone that has tried to book a flight and is trying to look for different options and you realize oh my original flight just went up in price.

08:34.34

Carl Orsbourn

Yeah.

08:50.16

Carl Orsbourn

And.

08:50.66

vigorbranding

Which is really funny and not cool at all. Um, that becomes a frustration point for me as a consumer the other layer not to pile it on but I’m going to is if if we use hotels. Let’s say as the model.

09:08.32

vigorbranding

The hotel still gets the benefit of managing the brand experience when the person walks through the door. We don’t have that with delivery as restaurants. So yes, we do want to realize more money but I think one of the issues outside of the the fees and all the other gripes that we hear.

09:12.64

Carl Orsbourn

And.

09:26.57

vigorbranding

1 of the issues with that third -party delivery mechanism is we have no control over how good or bad. The service is We’re just a machine you gave us money I made your burger. That’s all I can do. So we’re actually losing the things that add value incrementally. To pricing. So for instance, mcdonald’s hamburger versus ah shakeshack versus choose your gourmet burger brand whatever you know? Um, yeah, there’s quality ingredients and things like that. But part of it is the touch right? It’s the the way it’s presented the way it’s delivered. The.

09:53.16

Carl Orsbourn

It.

10:04.86

vigorbranding

The the smile or lack thereof hotels get that opportunity. You know. So if you decide that you’re going to spend a little bit more money for a hotel and you walk in you get the greeting. You get the high. You know the white glove even though they’re physically not there anymore but like the white Glove Bell hoppy experience for more money. But if you took all of that away. It really does become a commodity I Think that’s my worry is commoditization of restaurant brands meaning brands don’t really matter any longer. It’s just quality of products and that’s it I was a lot sorry.

10:33.72

Carl Orsbourn

Ah, really one ah lot a lot in that a couple of things. Um, first of all, you mentioned like airlines and the number of price changes what we’re finding right now is is at most 2 or 3 changes a day so just to give you an idea that we’re not talking about. And I don’t think it will ever get there quite honestly where you see that mid-transaction and that change of price because.

10:56.38

vigorbranding

So so so hold on hold on and I’m sorry what I’m getting I just so we’re clear like literally if I’m on delta.com sorry Delta I love you. But I hate you too. Um I search for flight from Atlanta to to Phoenix because we’re talking about our rlc right now. Um. Boom. Okay, hey it’s ah, $1200 a first class because you know how I roll um, but then I well maybe maybe I want to go at 11 a m instead of 8 am m okay I look at the price. No not so much I come back to my 8 a m boom. It’s gone up.

11:29.29

Carl Orsbourn

He’s gone. Yeah yeah, and look I’ll give you one even worse right? Um, what about when Katrina happened right? and everyone didn’t have a home and they had to go into these hotels and the hotels at 40500% price increases right.

11:31.13

vigorbranding

That’s what I’m like yeah that’s the the reference.

11:44.31

vigorbranding

Oh yep, Yeah yeah, yep.

11:46.87

Carl Orsbourn

That’s where I mean Taylor Swift ticket master right? right? if we want to go to an even more recent example that that’s where the challenge of dynamic pricing as a term becomes somewhat you know, divisive and and I think it’s an understandably so there’s another term that. Someone closer to our industry started to create and that’s uber and they came up with the term search pricing right? which is kind of in in this whole space it what we’re doing at juicer is completely avoiding anything to do with search pricing. The pizza will never be 400 % and what we do with our approach is that we. We asked the restaurant. What is the range that you would like to operate within and it might be minus ten to plus 15 but that means the price only ever moves in between those zones. So what we’re talking about here are relatively small movements in price. Don’t create that level of negative reaction and as I say in terms of the amount of price changes. Not not a huge plentiful amount so you don’t get to that delta example that you’re mentioning before so in many ways the customer doesn’t really even notice a lot of these changes. In fact, when we start putting our pricing in place. We do a few things.

12:44.54

vigorbranding

Um, is.

12:59.86

Carl Orsbourn

Because guest sentiment is absolutely central to the way in which we approach this and so before we do any pricing. We do a scan of every single reference to the customer voice in that particular restaurant unit looking for words like expensive or too pricey and anything affiliated to value. And then we look at ratings and then we monitor that all the way through any pricing activity so that we can see if there has been a reaction in terms of the customer voice now you could say well that’s fine for those that leave a review but many will just vote with their feet so we also of course monitor volumes and we do diff on diff analysis. And we have test locations and control locations to accommodate any macro changes in the environment to really try and give a clear identification of the uplift we’re able to demonstrate and what we’ve been had to do so far. Joseph is. We’ve been out to see a lift of somewhere between five and seven percent of off-premise margins without any detrimental effect on traffic and without any detrimental effect on gas sentiment and I think the reason for that is twofold 1 is because of the micro changes. We discussed. You know it’s not huge levels of changes. It’s just trying to optimize in a certain small area at different times of day and then secondly. I think a lot of this is actually to do with what I mentioned at the start and that is just getting the base price in right helping restaurants really understand what is the willingness to pay for a certain item for a customer and the last thing I’ll mention on this is I write for for nations restaurant news with Meredith um every month or two and.

14:22.30

vigorbranding

Here here.

14:31.69

Carl Orsbourn

We had an article last summer that came out around throttling and I think this is one of the the hidden diseases in off-premise right now because throttling is something where you’re you know, closing your virtual doors to your customers because your kitchen can’t cope with the amount of demand that they’re facing. It’s almost like.

14:44.57

vigorbranding

Um, right? um.

14:48.27

Carl Orsbourn

Ah, good problem to have right? and you’ve got so many orders coming in but you can’t cope with them so you’re going to focus on your higher margin channels and that’s the logic of why a lot of technology companies have built throttle it but that is perhaps the first time a new guest is discovering your restaurant same as like having ah an abusive price by the way you know if they see a bad price on a menu.

15:01.70

vigorbranding

Right.

15:07.91

Carl Orsbourn

Like you go wow that place is expensive I’m not going to go there for date night on Saturday even if they’re just thinking about a launch third -party experience on this particular occasion. So so for me here. The the point is is how do you create a situation where everyone is free. Having a benefit of dynamic pricing. How do you actually empower the guest so they feel that they have a choice you know if they really want to eat from your restaurant on a friday night at seven p m when your restaurant is at its busiest and they have to pay an extra fifty sixty cents for that item. As opposed to it being completely shut down and not available at all. What would you rather do and similarly if we can get to a world and I think we will get to this type of world where you then can incentivize and almost train the guest to be able to say well if you order a head or if you order up six zero p m on that friday night you can actually get it for a slightly cheaper price.

15:44.27

vigorbranding

A.

16:01.14

Carl Orsbourn

Isn’t that actually empowering the guest isn’t actually empowering the restaurant to keep their guest happier by letting them have their control. That’s where I think we’re going to have a better experience. Overall.

16:12.44

vigorbranding

Yeah, yeah I don’t I don’t fully disagree at all like I again I think there’s there’s still impediments. Obviously we’re not in a perfect world and and idealism is rarely ah realized um but you actually just did spark something in my head with with the ah the throttling and all that.

16:30.50

vigorbranding

While we’re thinking embarking on this dynamic pricing opportunity. We’ve already experienced dynamic timing as a good and bad thing. Ah by by the very nature of time and how busy a kitchen gets right? so. Um, what I mean by that is you use Friday night at seven P M bro try to get a pizza delivered. You know I mean like it’s going to take you anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes sometimes depending on where you are and what city you’re in and that’s just happening by the very nature of traffic. So it’s it’s it’s dynamic timing right? So I know if I want to get a good pizza for Friday night I probably should get that order in at five P M so that actually tracks and makes a lot of sense now I’ll maybe contradict myself here because um, I’ll contradict myself but I do see it from the restaurant’s perspective fully. And I’ve seen it because you know being being ah on the marketing side I’ve always tried to include operations as a part of the conversation and have a voice at the table. It’s important. Um, what I think people consumers I hate that word but I’ll use it. Consumers don’t realize is how much.

17:30.33

Carl Orsbourn

And.

17:41.31

vigorbranding

Money has been taken on the chin by restaurant brands like it takes a lot for them to decide to move their price. You know so they’ll they’ll absorb a lot of costs. They’ll eat into their own profit margins to prevent even a fifteen cent increment so when you start talking about the percentages of like the 10 to 15% plus minus that makes a lot more sense than maybe ah, a pure dynamic pricing in real-time jump allah miss swift.

18:07.74

Carl Orsbourn

So yeah, yeah, absolutely and look. There’s there’s only a certain amount of seats on a plane or in a a theater right? or in ah, an arena so it becomes um, a little bit of an easier science I suggest in that regard if that’s something that you want to do but also. There’s only one Taylor Swift on a marketplace. There are hundreds of other pizza placess that you can go to and so that’s the challenge today and look you you mentioned something earlier on I’ll put my author hat back on for a second if I may and and that is.

18:41.20

vigorbranding

Um, yeah.

18:43.72

Carl Orsbourn

You know the whole idea of delivering the digital restaurant and at some point I’ll tell you about the new book. But the the whole idea of it is to help restaurants understand that they have to optimize their Off-premise Channel It’s It’s far more than just turning yourself on on door dash or uber eats and just let them let that kind of channel run itself and off you go.

19:00.32

vigorbranding

Right.

19:03.85

Carl Orsbourn

Don’t think guests have said anything particularly good about the off-premise experience in recent times. In fact, I’d go as fast to say that the guest experience for off-premise today has never been worse because guests aren’t getting their food in the time that it was promised the quality of the food isn’t.

19:14.13

vigorbranding

Right.

19:22.88

Carl Orsbourn

As good as they perhaps would expect in an on-premise occasion and ultimately the biggest issue that’s happening with off-premise today is the accuracy of whether the order was indeed fulfilled correctly is it the right items is it. You know as per the spec that they request it. So.

19:36.68

vigorbranding

Um, right.

19:39.93

Carl Orsbourn

You know there’s this thing here to be able to say well most restaurants today are putting on a threshold increase onto their third -party prices and even the door dashes of this world are sending notes out to restaurants that are going beyond a certain threshold to say look if you keep doing this. We’re going to reduce your presence on the platforms and reduce your appearance if you will. Which is ah another entire subject. We should. We can talk about but the point is is if that’s happening then the guest is saying well I’m paying this much more and I’m given an inferior product as a result and I think all that’s going to lead to is customers. They’ve become even more switched on.

20:11.63

vigorbranding

Um.

20:17.92

Carl Orsbourn

To be allowed to know which restaurants can they rely upon which ones are able to do this consistently which ones are actually changing their operating system to be able to make sure they do get a better experience and so price is a function of value but the experience all those table touches and things you were mentioned in your earlier question. Are very much still central to it and you know in in delivering the digital restaurant. We talked about how gig workers are for intents and purposes your new server. Do you remember that chap sir Joseph you know that that that one was all about when I was going out as a door dash driver myself and feeling terribly treated by the restaurants that I went into.

20:46.79

vigorbranding

Um, yep, yep.

20:56.18

Carl Orsbourn

You know? and maybe so maybe understandably so because I was taking tips away from their staff and things like that. But but but um, the point is is that if you embrace those drivers if you give them samples of your new items on the menu if you give them a free cup of coffee or allow them to use your restrooms. They are going to to more likely more likely. Not definitely but more likely.

20:58.22

vigorbranding

Sure yeah.

21:16.13

Carl Orsbourn

Be, a better proponent of your brand and give the guests that they’re servicing on on your behalf a better experience and so there are little bits and pieces that need to happen in that regard to try and bring more elements of digital hospitality into off-premise. But ultimately. It’s the operation. The operation needs to get Better. We been now to do things to a better quality on time and more accurately and all of that’s going to play into whether customers see they get value from this or not.

21:43.82

vigorbranding

Yeah, what? what was the brand I want to say it was chipotle but I don’t want to ah missattribute this where they they created a whole delivery driver experience for them to wait and hang out. It’s kind of was kind of a lounge I think it was in New York um

21:55.95

Carl Orsbourn

Ah, Buka Depeo Buca Depeo had a bit of reference to this in in the news a few months ago. But I think there were a few that are starting to do it so it wouldn’t surprise me that partly I doing it as well.

22:05.80

vigorbranding

Yeah, yeah, it makes sense I’m surprised inspire brands hasn’t done it either I mean they’ve invested so much in this innovation center here in Atlanta on the west side. Um there’s definitely the space for it. Um I think that’s something it makes a lot of sense. You have to start treating them as such but then I think that starts to. Makes some folks in the c-suite a little cringy considering the back and forth pendulum swing that we see with labor ownership and things like that like you you treat them too. Nice are you starting to blur the lines right? and you know we know how that goes. Um.

22:31.92

Carl Orsbourn

Yeah, well But then you’ve got these first party logistics software platforms. You know like cartwheel that are out there that are allowing you now to try and figure out how you wish to service different diners. You know, perhaps your most loyal diners with your better drivers from your own fleet. So there are. There are ways and means by which you know technology is enabling you to give the best service to your most valuable customers.

22:51.10

vigorbranding

Um.

22:56.96

vigorbranding

Yeah I believe ah Romo is on the forefront of that as well. We had Alan Hickey on the show a little while ago. Um, proud Scotsman he’s gonna hate me for that. No, he’s he’s definitely proud. He’s the proudest scotsman there ever was.

23:02.68

Carl Orsbourn

Um, yeah Irish my Irishman ah he’ll hate that you.

23:11.23

vigorbranding

I do this every every so often. Some of the episodes just see if Allen’s listening um and you know when I’m when I’m in person and I do run into him I’ll say it again. It’s it’s an ongoing joke. But yes, he is an irishman and he is wonderful. Gracious guest but they’re doing great things. So um.

23:23.55

Carl Orsbourn

So.

23:28.36

vigorbranding

Thanks for digging in so much into this I feel like there’s so much to still unpack and and I am really excited about where you’re going with Juicer which is the company that you founded to essentially tackle this thing head on. Can you tell me a little bit about juicer before we shift gears and talk about the the new book and even the original book.

23:45.60

Carl Orsbourn

So yeah, so so Juicer has been around for a year and a half my my co-founders as I mentioned earlier have come from the travel hospitality space. In fact, our technical co-founder Marco he he builds a company called Duetto which is one of the 2 remaining platforms that help hotels dynamically price. But the difference the difference I think between hotels and restaurants beyond what we’ve already discussed is that hotels have revenue managers as part of the team as part of the property team restaurants don’t so what juice is trying to do is become a full service solution and so we take twelve months worth of data transactional data. Put that through our algorithm come up with recommended prices based on the different times of day as we’ve discussed and then our team will implement those price changes so we we get given that range we talked about maybe the minus ten to the plus 15% and that’s it the restaurant hands us the keys and then we report back to them the revenue up if we’ve been out to generate. Yeah, sentiment analysis. The volume analysis and a way we go from there. It’s as simple as that now it sounds simple but there’s a lot of complexity behind the actual algorithm as you can imagine. But also there’s this piece that um is a complexity that affects many restaurant technology companies and that is integrations. Very early on into my tenure I said to the team look if we have to wait to build integrations with every pos out there. This is going to be a very difficult thing to be able to implement and what we’re trying to do is to try and help brashchnault see the upside of our approach so that their voice can go to their technology partners to help.

25:19.37

Carl Orsbourn

Build the necessary integrations because we have teams in India in Mexico and in Brazil that are actually making these price changes manually today and that’s that’s like wow what what does that? you sure that’s the right way of doing it. Well it is because that way we’ve got more assuredness that it’s going to happen and b it demonstrates the uplift. And then also the restaurants are going to have the louder voice in helping the tech companies see why they need this as part of their technology platforms. It’s also adopting I don’t know whether you’ve heard this term before but headless commerce um salesforce I think introduced it. But for those of you are your listeners that haven’t heard of that. It’s it’s all for instance, all intents and purposes. It’s a bit like ah a Chrome plugin right? as opposed to being Chrome or another piece of technology to add into the tech stack. Um, it’s actually said no we want to be almost like a white label solution that sits on top of your current technology providers that supports you when you are ready for dynamic pricing.

25:58.80

vigorbranding

Um.

26:12.10

Carl Orsbourn

And I think that’s really really important for many technology leaders out there to consider because the problem today is that restaurants have got so many technology solutions to choose from. They’ve got some folks that are out there saying oh we do it all. We do all, we’re an all in one solution which isn’t true and the other are those that are very specialist in other regards and so it’s very difficult for The average restaurant owner-erator who let’s face it remember that they didn’t get into this industry because they love technology. They love food. They love hospital hospitality. They love seeing the smiles in their guest faces. Those are the reasons they got into it and so technology is a necessary efor if you will to to support the the business and where it is today. And so therefore we’re trying to make things easier I think by building the company in this regard it it also then means the procurement practice is also a little easier as well and been able to find the necessary clients. So we we we certainly go direct out to restaurants. But also we’re building partnerships with the lights of oracle with it a checkmate and others. To try and have that automated nature so we don’t actually have to have manual teams implemented it but the best thing about it. Is it just it helps restaurants have this pricing capability without affecting anyone on the ground and because it’s just off-premise focus. It doesn’t really create any distraction for them.

27:25.63

vigorbranding

That’s great. Yeah I mean I think the the future obviously would be um, some sort of on-prem Maybe maybe with less real-time you know, maybe it happens on the weekly or things like that. But it needs it needs to happen for the restaurants in order for restaurants to thrive. Um.

27:35.48

Carl Orsbourn

Yeah.

27:42.54

vigorbranding

I’m always going to be the ultimate defender of the people or at least the brand experience. You know So How do you make sure that it’s delivered in a way that isn’t going to negatively affect the Brand’s experience but like like you have said and I’ve even attitudes like the brand experience is already under threat and there are a lot of negative experiences happening. Um. This probably isn’t going to.. It’s it’s pales in comparison like if everything was perfect and you’re dropping a dynamic pricing model. Um outside of the even the 15 or 10 then maybe there’s a conversation but I’m actually more more interested on the technology side like what’s going to be done with packaging and how how can. Our delivery vehicles be ah, fitted with cold and hot areas to to keep food as good as possible. Um packaging that holds in the heat without sweat things like that like it makes French fries Such a bummer man.

28:29.70

Carl Orsbourn

Um.

28:36.27

Carl Orsbourn

Um, well look in our first book. Um, one of the chaps is was called why pizza works and it was when there was a bunch of references in to think about the amount of science and innovation that’s happened to the pizza box right? So from the 4 little vents around the edge.

28:41.67

vigorbranding

Um, yeah.

28:48.55

vigorbranding

Absolutely.

28:52.48

Carl Orsbourn

That little thing you’ll probably tell me Joseph if whatever the little thing is in the middle and then the little trade that it sits on you know all of those little components are to ensure that when a pizza arrives at your front door. It’s in the best condition possible and so you’re absolutely right. Packaging is very much. It’s vital with your marketing hat on.

29:03.79

vigorbranding

Um, that’s right.

29:09.15

Carl Orsbourn

There’s a great third party. The first party conversion angle on the packaging but there’s also a quality angle to it as well.

29:14.88

vigorbranding

yeah yeah I think there’s there’s so much room for growth and this is one of those permanent pivots. So one of the other things that happened. Um so I’ve mentioned this so many times on the show and I apologize to listeners. But. Back in 2019 I had the opportunity to speak at the fed summit ah held by restaurant design development design magazine great group of people over there at Zumba group. Um, and I predicted a lot of things that are happening now not because I’m a genius but because I know how to read and what I didn’t predict was the acceleration that would be brought on by. Pandemic. Um, what’s great is a lot of the things that we’re talking about now and a lot of things that you covered in the first book that you and Meredith Pennd haven’t had a chance to read the second one? sorry um, have come to fruition and and we are. It’s no longer this sluggish. Dip the toe. Maybe the second toe into the water we are full plunge into digital transformation and that is essentially the topic of your you and Meredith’s work in general from all your thought leadership. So can you give maybe like a quick hit on the first book.

30:09.13

Carl Orsbourn

And.

30:20.40

Carl Orsbourn

Yep.

30:24.20

vigorbranding

Why why? it’s interesting. Why people should grab it and then I want to make sure you have enough time to talk about this second book because I didn’t give meritdiff any time to talk about it and I still feel bad about it.

30:29.28

Carl Orsbourn

Yeah, and absolutely well it is a sequel to delivering the digital restaurant your roadmap to the future of food that was the name of the first book and and that was written in the early days of the pandemic. You know we were into the outline. Think we spoke to a big publisher and they said yeah, we’ll get this out but it’ll be 2022 and we went ah this this is happening right now restaurants need this so we had to go through our hybrid publishing path. Um and we wrote it to help restaurants see the why behind digitization but being you know off-premise and.

30:53.21

vigorbranding

Are.

31:03.45

Carl Orsbourn

But consumers are hungry for better ways to engage with restaurants and then it wasn’t the evil tech companies or vcs forcing the change to happen but it was the consumer that was driving this to happen and of course timing couldn’t have been better for us in in writing and given that book out of that time. The book came ah international bestseller. It’s. Just got the romanian restaurant association would you believe agreed to translate it into romanian so I wasn’t thinking the first foreign language translation would be romanian. But thank you Romania but you know the the fact that at this time in 21 every restaurant became a ghost kitchen overnight. They were forced to embrace digitization to survive and.

31:25.43

vigorbranding

Um, that’s amazing. Yeah.

31:38.94

Carl Orsbourn

It really was a spray and prayy type approach just to keep in business but the second book you know now we’re in a different phase restaurants are spending somewhere between two and four percent of revenue on technology I’d hasten to guess that they’re spend in about across 15 to 20 different pieces of technology. And those different pieces of technology are probably just not being used to their optimal capability and they’re certainly not talking to each other these different technologies in a way that restaurants really want them to so so our new book is called delivering the digital restaurant the path to digital maturity.

32:03.20

vigorbranding

Right.

32:13.64

Carl Orsbourn

And it’s with the pandemic in the rearview mirror. We we believe that restaurants are now in a place where they’re trying to consolidate their focus. You know where they want to deploy their resources where they want to deploy concentrated efforts to build the the right foundations that support a digital transformation because we’re still in it right? We’re still in the trenches on transforming this industry digitally.

32:22.51

vigorbranding

Um.

32:33.59

Carl Orsbourn

And restaurants are I think are are now largely moving on from begrudgingly accepting off-premise channels where they were did now see them as a vital part of the restaurant growth agenda. But many restaurants have that kind of scattergun focus as I mentioned and so I think many now have ah. Got solutions technology solutions because there are so many of them scattered across the entire restaurant ecosystem and they’re not really using them to their best potential and so the new book helps restaurants see this path. It explains in a linear fashion where rest structure focus and when and I hope it’s going to help them find their place on this path and. And from that give them more confidence on where to focus. You know it’s it’s a different type of book to the first you’ll remember the first it was quite. You know one hundred or so interviews with executives that we spoke to it was ah a little academic if you will very businessy this one’s more of a playbook. It’s got tips. It’s got worksheets at the back of each chapter. So. The the reader can self-ass assess reflect consider the lessons in the context of their own restaurant and through it. Hopefully they can chart their path towards you know, greater maturity and it asks them to consider some serious questions of themselves and you know it leads towards um, a new restaurant category that we believe is emerging. Um, a category that we think is going to represent some of the highest levels of growth available in the industry but the the title of that chapter when we discuss that is called disrupt yourself and it’s saying consider how consider how you need to optimize if you had a blank sheet of paper if you were starting your business fresh right now. What would you do and we we introduce this term of the.

34:04.45

Carl Orsbourn

Digital native restaurant and the digital native brands and how that is a channel that is going to move more of the costs into food out of labor out of ah out of rent and that everything will be focused on digital and fully focused and off-premise occasions and we think that category. Much like fast casual before it will actually be very very exciting and then we also talk to the technologists much like we’ve been touching on today. You know anyone in restaurant tech will want to to read the book because if we’re really going to help restaurants for each digital maturity. We have to find faster better ways to enable tech tech solutions to talk to each other. In a symbiotic way and or just build our technology operating systems differently. You know a bit like the app store if you go for a restaurant. Could you imagine that? um you know I’d ah um, I’d love to see a world Joseph where where 1 input affects a restaurant.

34:51.40

vigorbranding

Um, yeah.

34:58.16

Carl Orsbourn

And a symbiotic fashion affecting other functions. You know an interdependability of functionality that that drives better decision-making and and a smoother implementation of change that that today the the average restaurant Gm has to navigate these factors. You know, can you imagine? For example, where if a supplier cost increase comes through there that 1 simple data input change can then have an autonomous effect on recipes inventory management menu build menu optimization pricing training documentation and on and on you know, the example I was using on a podcast. The other day was I imagine you’re in a restaurant and two li cooks call out tonight. The Gm has to deal with that today.

35:24.58

vigorbranding

Um.

35:35.45

vigorbranding

Um, yep.

35:36.80

Carl Orsbourn

Like there’s no piece of technology that’s saying how do I sold for that. So imagine if that technology could then talk to opentable to restrict the amount of table reservations or talk to juicer and increase the off-prem prices a little bit more as opposed to just talking to 7 shifts and payroll systems. You know that’s the way in which technology needs to evolve.

35:49.38

vigorbranding

Right.

35:55.15

Carl Orsbourn

So that we can help restaurants really optimize the experience not just for off-premise but for on-premise as well, right? So the book is quite practical in that regard I think seventy to eighty percent of restaurants are probably in the first 2 chapters where we talk about third -party optimization and converting them to first. But. As I’ve touched on you know it goes into a bit more of the futurist stuff as we get towards the end.

36:15.90

vigorbranding

Yeah, that’s pretty awesome. Ah, the first book was great read. Ah it is I definitely turn the pages yellow with my highlighter. Um I’m one of those I still read the physical book and still highlight things. Um, so I can only imagine the second one is going to be even better I wrote an article about.

36:22.37

Carl Orsbourn

So.

36:33.89

vigorbranding

Removing the word pivot I’d like to commend you for not using that word. Um, mainly because pivoting keeps you anchored with one foot and I think that’s what you’re talking about with disrupting yourself I think ah what ends up happening especially the larger you get is making those cataclysmic um shifts.

36:38.85

Carl Orsbourn

Move.

36:51.35

vigorbranding

Requires you to lift the foot. It can’t be a pivot. Um, it has to be movement forward. It has to be a change of direction or a narrowing of focus or or a mix of both and so many leaders are just crippled by the fear of what that means of unsementing one of your feet in order to go because if you keep your foot planted. You really can only go so far before you’ve stretched too too thin and then you have a young more agile company that will easily surpass you or or at least have ah have a competitive edge in their agility to do so um and so I think it’s such a fantastic time to be a part of this industry with everything that’s happening. Um I will say that. You have nudged me closer to an advocate of ah at least? Yeah yeah, it’s a few steps closer I would say it’s equivalent to the number of steps closer that Meredith got me on the topic of gas ranges versus ah induction heat.

37:31.60

Carl Orsbourn

Yeah I’ll take you I’ll take that for today. Ah.

37:47.91

vigorbranding

Ranges that are digital. Um I will still fight to to the death over my gas range at home. But I really appreciate the insights and I know there’s so much more I mean man I had so many things that I wanted to ask you but I also like to keep these around the 30 minute Mark so

37:48.13

Carl Orsbourn

Ah.

37:54.51

Carl Orsbourn

Yeah, yeah.

38:04.92

vigorbranding

Ah, like I said to meredith. Maybe maybe we should just do the first ever 3 person podcast we have you and her on it. We can just really start to dig into some of these topicics together because I don’t think this conversation stops today.

38:12.67

Carl Orsbourn

And I’d love that now. I’d love that I mean we we set out to do this to help the industry and so hopefully our our 2 books do that and I think podcasts like your angels are very much part of that journey as well. So we’re all in it together and I think the more we. We talk about these things the more we’re going to help the industry move forward to.

38:31.87

vigorbranding

Absolutely so I have 1 final question. It’s the hardest 1 ever and then I’ll get you to drop some plugs on where to buy the book and and where to find juicer. So first the the most difficult question in the world if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat.

38:47.51

Carl Orsbourn

Um.

38:48.69

vigorbranding

Ah, where would you eat it and why.

38:50.48

Carl Orsbourn

Well this one kind of comes back to one of my favorite dining experiences of my life so far and in many ways. It’s not so much about the food. The food was freshly caught fish but this was about I’d say half a mile three quarters of a mile. By a dragon boat off the shores of pouquette Thailand and I went out in this dragon boat and there’s this floating pontoon which they’ve built and there are some tables on top of this flob at this pontoon and in the middle. There’s a a hole where they give you a net and they say choose your dinner and you you put the net in you choose the fish.

39:26.55

vigorbranding

Um, oh well.

39:29.83

Carl Orsbourn

And then they cooked the fish and I remember sitting there with my wife and overlooking the the kind of Hills of pouette. The sun was setting. It was beautiful and um I think that goes to show about just how occasions and moments like that are just as important as the quality of the food as well. So I’d probably go with something like that.

39:47.82

vigorbranding

Yeah I would not blame you that it that sounds amazing. Um, great answer, great answer. Um, where is the preferred place to pick up the books.

39:56.77

Carl Orsbourn

Well you see this comes back to third party first party if you like third parties and the and the flexibility that comes with them Amazon of course has a Kindle version a hardback a paperback the the audio book is read by me. It’s going to be out a month or so from now. So Amazon of course is the place to go to for that. Ah, but if you want to support first party then you can head to ww.thetheboommis side again wwdot delivering the digitalrest dot com and there you’ll be able to get a copy of a book or if you’d like to get a case of books for your team or for clients then that’s the place to get discounted copies in bulk as well. So. Deliveringthe digitalrest.com for first party and we also have our own podcast there that we put out every couple of weeks called the digital restaurant where we we just have ten fifteen minutes between Meredith and myself talking about 5 of the top articles affecting off-premise technology and restaurants and so that’s another place where. Your podcast listeners to heads if they’re interested. Okay.

40:51.32

vigorbranding

I that’s great guys. Go first party I know Amazon’s convenient it’s awesome but look it puts more money in alls pocket pockets when you go first party I should know I prefer people to go to my website to get my book. But yeah I understand conveniences oftentimes the winner. Um, and then juicer how can we connect with juicer.

41:09.78

Carl Orsbourn

So great. Well with juicy you can obviously reach out to me on Linkedin but our website isjuicerpriccing.com and there you’d be able to fill out an inquiry I would love to chat to you with particularly focus right now on restaurant groups of 20 units or more. Um, but if you’ve got an off-premise business that’s sizable I think we can help you so I’d love to hear from you.

41:30.39

vigorbranding

Brilliant. Thanks so much for your insights again. Ah thirty forty minutes is just not enough time and we’ll have to do this again very soon.

41:36.51

Carl Orsbourn

Looking forward to Joseph. Thank you so much.