00:00.00
vigorbranding
Everyone today I’m joined by my friend Ellis Win stanley he has a number of companies from axialhift to el arroyo to texas ranch experience we’re going to cover all of those or at least try to in a and normal amount of time. Ah, but before that ellis say hello and give a little bit of backstory.

00:19.24
Ellis Winstanley
Everyone happy to be here. Thanks so appreciate it? Um, yeah, so we’re we’re based in Austin Texas and and we’re colocated to Santa Theresa Costa Rica we’ve got starting the restaurant business years years ago and then ended up in multiple industries along the way including real estate development and. And restaurant software.

00:40.37
vigorbranding
That’s awesome. Yeah I mean there’s just so much to unpack in this episode I forgot to mention that you recently became a board member at the Texas restaurant association as well. So maybe the None big question is how do you have the time to do all of this.

00:54.25
Ellis Winstanley
Um, well we yeah yeah, we’ve got we’ve got a lot of very longterm folks on our team that that are yeah we we run our company very entrepreneurly the people that that run certain elements have a lot of room to move and and a lot of freedom to grow their.

00:56.26
vigorbranding
Effectively.

01:13.10
Ellis Winstanley
They are areas of of responsibility and and people really like that. So we’re able to be able to assemble great people and keep them working with us for a long time and and I’m able to work on creating creating opportunities connecting the dots the stuff that I that I enjoy the most.

01:27.17
vigorbranding
Awesome! Let’s all right? So I was originally going to start with axial shift. But I think maybe a better place to start is el Arroo because that was kind of the epicenter right? That’s that’s the the beginning of everything.

01:38.81
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah, no, actually so el arroyo we we acquired in 2012 started in 2001 with a little 24 hour punk rock diner called star seeds cafe on the east side of ah on the east side of ut campus so bought that.

01:42.54
vigorbranding
Look at.

01:53.60
vigorbranding
Um, that’s amazing.

01:56.67
Ellis Winstanley
Summer to between my sophomore and Junior year at Ut it was this really really distressed but super cool business needed a lot of a lot operational level a lot of cleanup.

02:06.76
vigorbranding
Well and that one stands out a lot I mean so the ut thing makes a lot of sense. But um, if I can be so bold like the identity for el a Royalo is not one that designers would exalt as like best in class I mean it’s using I think paintprush script. Um, for all intents and purposes. It’s low fi but then you also employed. Ah, what would probably seem silly. Ah you know before this moment but it’s actually quite brilliant. Is you have this old score clapboard board sign. Um I believe that’s what it’s called write a clapboard sign where you have like the little letters that you place in there.

02:41.68
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah, yeah, Marquees yeah.

02:44.33
vigorbranding
And this has become iconic. Um absolutely iconic and probably one of the things that really makes L Ooo unique and on those signs you put really fun 1 ne-liners One of my favorites is my my idea of essential oils is what comes out of a taco. Um, and I think it’s you know it’s fun. It’s brilliant and. How has this seemingly Baseline marketing stunt helped fuel The Brand forward.

03:09.48
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah, so it’s super connective right? So it’s I think it’s what’s interesting about it is a lot of focus goes to like the physical delivery mechanism. Ah, but really, what makes it work is the voice and so when we bought it in 2012 the sign had been out there since 1987

03:22.14
vigorbranding
Um, and.

03:29.27
Ellis Winstanley
But it had a very different and I’d say somewhat inconsistent voice I was always funny a lot of times. It’d be funny at the expense of other people or it’d be funny in kind of a gross way or you know it had ah it had a very different um a very different attitude about it and and when we got involved.

03:33.00
vigorbranding
Um.

03:48.10
Ellis Winstanley
We we decided that we wanted to build a voice that was connective and really authentic and it would resonate with what people were dealing with in their day-to-day lives and they would also you know employ current events which they they did a great job of employing focus on current events before as well. Um, and so yeah, we set to work building a voice.

03:56.77
vigorbranding
Oh.

04:07.55
Ellis Winstanley
Some voice guidelines and then we went from you know, essentially None facebook followers to to what it is so it just close to a none between the the primary channels. Um and it and it really just gave us an opportunity to connect with people on a daily basis and and make them feel better and the coolest I think the coolest part about it. For me is when we get an email that says hey I was going through a really rough time in my life and I just wanted you to know that reading the sign every morning made me you know, put me in a good mood made me made me at least be able to forget about for a minute what I was going through. So.

04:41.70
vigorbranding
That’s awesome. That’s an amazing one and that sign I mean what I say it’s iconic. Ah I mean it is a part of the community I mean that’s probably None of the many reasons why I recall. As an example of how iconic this thing is for for those listening I recall an anecdote that we had over dinner. Um, ah gosh it was a couple of years ago at this point if you believe that um about an April fool’s day prank. Do you do you remember? what? you told me could you could you share with listeners.

05:03.99
Ellis Winstanley
Oh yeah, sure. Yeah, so we so. Our team came up with they wanted to do el aroyo yeti tumblers and so and so that that product idea had kind of been swquiirling around for a while. And then somebody on our team had the idea to steal the sign for April fools and so we we put together this elaborate prank with yeti and and we decided to combine the None efforts to announce the the yeti Tumblr launch and so essentially we went in the middle of the night and we used a drone. To position it around the building as like security cameras we overlaid security camera letters on it. Yeah, and and then we we had a guy bring a grinder we we took the sign apart and we ground on some of the metal so it throw sparks and it looked like a real a real big thought you know heist and anyway we took it and. 4 in the morning we drove it to the yeti store and then we hit it there and then the next day everybody you know people started asking where it was and we you know we when we wouldn’t tell we said we don’t know where it is. You know it’s gone and anyway local news stories were writing articles about it and and and then we got the governor’s office to do like a fake announcement that the yeah. Dps was being deployed to fo to find it and eventually we announced that it was that it was at the yeti store and that’s where we announced the the yeti tumblr giveaways. So we gave away none of those with margarita tokens and then ultimately they became a very high moving product for us as well as super.

06:32.38
vigorbranding
Um I Love it.

06:34.12
Ellis Winstanley
Ah, super fun. It was a super great product launch and that was awesome. Thanks.

06:36.97
vigorbranding
Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s very much along the lines of um I don’t know if you’re familiar with Ryan holiday. He wrote the book a semi-autobiographical book called um, trust me I’m lying where he talks about his purposefully scan um, fabricated scandals for instance, the scandal. Scandals around American Apparel and how those scandals like those those were all fabricated at least at least originally I think they actually became real later on. But for all intents and purposes. It was purposeful scandal to generate outrage because that outrage actually became a driver of business. In this case, it’s sort of similar but ah. Not not maybe as perverse as as that particular use case. It’s a great book by the way if anyone is interested. It’s Ryan holiday and it’s called trust me I’m lying, but it’s very much the same idea. It’s like you fabricated this scandal somebody stole the beloved sign and. It’s great that you were able to foster some people from the local government to get behind it as well. All all in good fun of course. Um, so I think you know things like that mixed with so solid operations have really helped el la royal grow a lot. Um, and I think those solid operations if. If I’m not mistaken actually spawned the idea of axial shift is is that correct.

07:54.37
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah, so so we had exactly so we we you know in search of like a lot of operators are we were in search of of better simpler ways to do things we realized we we kind of looked up in 2014 and realized that data was everywhere at this point we had like None pieces of software. We spent a lot of time trying to train our operators to use the software sometimes as much time as we did training them to run service which which felt pretty conflicted. Um and and so we we decided that if we could take that data when at the same time we realized. Our operators and our employees had really no visibility into what was going on and what their contributions were and as people started to yearn for more purpose and more experience in their day-to-day work. We just couldn’t give it to them. We weren’ in a position I mean so we we started doing some automations with spreadsheets and then I thought well let’s just get the data. We.

08:39.66
vigorbranding
Um, nothing.

08:48.37
Ellis Winstanley
Do have off the point of sales system and let’s share it and see what happens and it worked. It was just a tremendous amount of effort. So so we had ah a young manager who was really interested in computers and and at least in in spreadsheets and systems and we worked with him to develop. Some of these things and and he was kind of on the ground implementing as I was building these spreadsheets and and ah and it and it worked. We got great results. The problem was it just was so much effort it was he was having to work an unreasonable number of hours and and the more we simplified it the more it lost some of its potency and and we really were having trouble getting it implemented across multiple brands. We just it was just too much, but the the idea of showing people where they ranked relative to their peers all the time and opportunities other people were having a lot of success selling None

09:25.99
vigorbranding
Um.

09:37.39
Ellis Winstanley
None thing or a group of items that if they could model that they could have the same level of success and sales or tips. It worked. We were able to really move the needle and so we decided that we wanted to see it implemented in software. We’d been in enterprise software since so five I bought a branded products company. And of bankruptcy it was actually my t-shirt company I went to pick up the t-shirts one day and the guy said it’s doing great just buy it turned out. It had a lot of issues and but it led us into the software business so we had a software background. We knew it was possible. We really wanted somebody else to build it and so we offered ourself as the.

10:00.45
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.

10:14.69
Ellis Winstanley
Testing the sacrificial testing lamb you know for somebody else if they would just take our ideas and implement it. They could test it on us or whatever and no no to no avail and so we ended up building it ourself and and really it’s it’s it’s just incredible like if you just share data with people in like. Ah, form that they don’t think it’s not data per say it’s just it’s feedback loop and it’s and it’s opportunities and it was. It was really a pretty fun exercise as as we as we built out the product to see the change. It could affect on people.

10:46.30
vigorbranding
Yeah I Love that So I mean let’s let’s dig into it a little bit more. Um I think I think what makes a great leader for restaurant Tech is the experience that you had in operations and ownership. So. It’s great that you were able to apply that and bring in the learnings from the folks that you’ve hired and how strong they are. Um, when you implemented axial Shift. What are some of the key features. You think that are truly helping restaurant leaders change the nature of their business because that’s really what it’s all about is um I believe when you first introduced it to me. It was all about getting the manager out of that. Cubby hole of an office that is usually in the back of every restaurant. So What are some of the major things that you think axial shift is tackling as far as challenges to those leaders.

11:31.76
Ellis Winstanley
Sure so that the there is some fundamental shift that happens in not only perspective but in in time allocation. The ones it’s it’s implemented. So the things we do tactically are yes, get the managers out of the office really by putting just a lot of the basic functions that they do whether it’s you know. Employee and vendor phone directories to shift notes to to looking at their team sheet to approving punch requests and time off course all that stuff is in a None app right on their phone for the employees. It’s feeding them back sales performance data you know here’s where they rank relative to their peers in in. Total sales sales per hour credit card tip percentage check average you know, key metrics and it in it. It positions the data so they can see their own personal growth relative to the team and one of the really interesting things. We learned along the way is. It’s not whether the data is delivered or not. It’s it’s a lot of times how it’s delivered and so delivering it so that it works for multiple learning types and that it’s approachable and that it it drives people to want to perform at a higher level is really kind of some of the the magic. Um. Along the way that we learn through through just none and none of iterating for the managers as well. You know there’s a huge opportunity to really invest in these people’s knowledge and that just gets overlooked a lot of time because restaurant organizations are really flat now you’ve got like.

12:59.19
vigorbranding
Um.

13:03.20
Ellis Winstanley
Ah, 20 to None ratio a lot of times for employees to managers and then in then ah even above the store. The organizations are normally pretty flat so there’s not a lot of time that that the people have to really develop the people under him so sharing information like. Their sales their loss sales their labor and their purchases are really the 4 key areas a manager can affect and once we realize that just distilling it down to those 4 key things and sharing that information at really high frequency inside of a month or 2 the managers are far far more capable. Then when they started just simply from being exposed to the feedback. So.

13:42.49
vigorbranding
I Love that? Yeah and and so this is ah for for those listening who aren’t familiar and the system runs it connects to the Pos system. Um I’m ah ah presuming you’ve integrated with some but not not all Pos systems I think that’s part of your development roadmap right? ah.

13:59.90
Ellis Winstanley
You right? right? There’s 10 or there’s about 10 or 12 now.

14:03.90
vigorbranding
Great and then um, this goes on to handheld so phones. So is this something that you have employees install on their phone. Do all employees have it or are they more connected via a tablet that is owned by the restaurant.

14:18.31
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah, so everybody can install the mobile app. It’s we don’t charge for it. The apps free The store would subscribe the service and then the employees can use the mobile app. Um, and again we don’t charge them for the app. But yes, that’s that’s the main source of feedback We do have if they want to use our time in attendance.

14:36.35
vigorbranding
A.

14:36.36
Ellis Winstanley
We we built a scheduler into it. Not not because we thought the restaurant world needed another scheduler There’s there’s a lot of them but because it gave us more points of contact with the employees and every point of contact was an opportunity to to reduce turnover and to drive sales. so now and so again if they do use our time in attendance we do have an Android punch clock they can use if they choose to do that that gives a lot of extra features that. For instance, if the employees didn’t clock in when they got there say a server walks in and to the kitchen at None and says on a Saturday and says hey I forgot to clock in and the managers. And they’re taking care of something he’s he or she is probably not going to remember to edit that punch and then that paycheck may or may not come out incorrect and that employee is going to feel if it comes out incorrect like I told the manager they don’t care about me. It creates it creates points of friction that are very avoidable, right? so.

15:18.29
vigorbranding
A.

15:30.15
vigorbranding
Yeah.

15:34.37
Ellis Winstanley
None of the things we did was create the scheduling module because that gave us more points of contact to feedback information that we created our own punch clock because it allowed us to have the employees send punch requests directly to the managers and then the managers can just approve or deny them. You know when they get that push notification or or later and and that. Little thing reduced turnover and now each each of those elements reduce turnover right? Just it’s every point of friction you can eliminate as some another reason that somebody’s not going to leave the organization. So.

16:04.15
vigorbranding
So how does that stack up against like 1 of the market leaders which is 7 shifts. Obviously there’s a lot of other features to axial shift. But like that that scheduler is there could could restaurants use it in conjunction with or yeah.

16:18.10
Ellis Winstanley
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, so so sorry enrip you. But yeah axials that you don’t have to replace anything. It can run alongside everything what we find over time is is people will end up. Yes, there’s a couple levels of it. The None level is like a simple install pulls. All the data start sharing it.

16:21.89
vigorbranding
Gray.

16:37.64
Ellis Winstanley
You don’t have to change anything operationally and and our goal as we so our I’m sorry well’ll give it the none the none step is more you want implement the schedule or do you want and implement the punch clock. But even if they do use the scheduler. They don’t have to use the punch clock. It’s super flexible and so we suggested people is install it let it start contributing. And then as you’re ready just fold more and more stuff into it. Um, our none install took three days and I said I’m like never going to do that again and so about a None iterations later. We got into about a 5 minute install where the operators way don’t need to do anything it self sets up it finds the files automatically pulls them in.

17:03.68
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.

17:09.16
vigorbranding
Um, oh wow, that’s pretty fantastic. Um, and so what’s great about axial shift is it seems like there’s so many benefits for the the team member. Um.

17:17.90
Ellis Winstanley
Sets itself up and then just starts sharing. So.

17:28.26
vigorbranding
Results in higher retention and you know you’ve been working on this for a little while little I think little did you know that we would have such a problem with um human resources for lack of ah, a better term like you know team management and everything. Um, but that seems to be sort of like None thing that you are very focused on even even down to. Embarking on this Costa Rica outpost um can just explain the whole scenario. The idea behind it and and you know what kind of um effects you think that’s going to have on the businesses.

17:58.45
Ellis Winstanley
Sure. Yeah, so so we are were and we’re entirely focused on the employee experience. We think that’s everything you know along the kind of inspiration points would be like the southwest Airlines focus on your employees. They’ll focus on your customers or the or the.

18:16.24
vigorbranding
Um, a.

18:16.83
Ellis Winstanley
Ah, virgin strategy of train your employees well enough they can leave treat them well enough they don’t want to or in the case of more specific like a Patagonia approach of let my people go surfing and so that there’s always been kind of inspiration points and and I think we’ve had a lot of success building our teams because people have.

18:26.20
vigorbranding
Are.

18:34.50
Ellis Winstanley
A lot of freedom to to live while they’re where they’re alive and they’ve got yeah a lot of ah lot of insight for how they’re contributing um Costa Rica was really we we like the idea of the of the latin american culture and the the approach of. Relationships are really important. We think that’s a good influence and so we we decided for cultural reasons to look for a none location start hiring some folks in Latin America and I think Costa Rica is a natural choice. it’s it’s safe It it is the most expensive in Latin America but it’s safe. They’ve got good medical. Systems I’ve got. It’s politically stable and and people are very. They’re just very, they’re very open and and welcoming and and and it’s a good It’s just a good culture overall. So anyway, we decided to start hiring down there. Um.

19:13.13
vigorbranding
Ah.

19:30.32
Ellis Winstanley
Part of our strategy was to open up a beachfront office where our employees could go work remotely if they want. It’s our Costa Rican employees work remotely a lot of our us employees work remotely but they can all work together at the beachfront office and so we selected Sanit Teresa Costa Rica and essentially we’re colocating the companies between. Between Austin Texas and Santa Teresa

19:49.44
vigorbranding
I Love that um you probably didn’t think about this but there there may be a high rate of sand in the Keyboards of the computers. So you’re going to have to have a budget for hardware replacement. Um, but yeah, it definitely sounds. Ah.

19:56.44
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah.

20:02.55
Ellis Winstanley
And for sure we hope So that means we’re getting our value out of it.

20:08.95
vigorbranding
That’s right, yeah, people are actually getting work done there which is great. Um I love that thinking and so let’s let’s ah shift over to something that um I was really still am really excited about and it it really doesn’t have to do with elo royalo or axial shift in the restaurant sense. But. This Texas Ranch experience um I think once again, you’re putting humanity above and beyond or at least at the epicenter of the business strategy which I’m just absolutely love and so this one is amazed me I’m really intrigued by it. Could you explain what? the Texas Ranch experience is all. Ah.

20:46.89
Ellis Winstanley
Sure so um, it’s so it’s we’re basically essentially we’re developing Texas ranches but with ah with a focus on restoring natural habitat and resurfacing live water that’s gone underground um and and the team.

20:47.22
vigorbranding
About.

21:05.14
Ellis Winstanley
For that. So we have I have a ah a brother in law that when we were 28 decided he was going to stop working and lobbying and go be a green brat and he did that for the 1012 years and is in his now you know had had the idea of of ranch development. We we also really like that idea and so we’re basically doing with a focus towards helping guys guys like him learn that business learn that developing ranches and and um, employ that and it’s got a very family focus as as well. So we’re trying to find find and really educate people find ranches that. Suit themselves this and really educate people as to how those kind of connections can be made out on the land and all the activities there are to do and and kind of recenter around around relationships again. So we we think we kind of see a ah push and I think what you saw in covid was really with with the great resignation and and people. Having you know, having real lot of pushback to going back in the office I think a lot of that is just there’s we’ve got this drive tried a more transactional There’s a lot of transactional type influences right? and versus relationship driven. Um, and that’s clearly not everybody but I just think there’s a lot of pressure on people for things over relationships.

22:10.13
vigorbranding
Um.

22:20.69
Ellis Winstanley
And so we’re we’re focused on driving the relationship side of that We think that’s that that’s ah ultimately very impactful life experience for people and just excited to share that we think there’s a lot there that can be done so.

22:33.30
vigorbranding
So So the the tre I’m just going to use that because it sounds cooler. It sounds like a more in the no so with tire I mean there. There’s a sort of like rehabilitation element to it or is it strictly just hey you’re now post-deployment. Um, you know you’ve done your tour of duty. And you’re looking for something new and we want to educate you on on this in particular thing or is it. Both.

22:56.80
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah, yeah I mean I think it’s I think ah I’m assuming to be some rehabilitative elements just from being in a in an a natural place where there’s a a clear opportunity to make a big contribution I think for a lot of the guys getting out. The service. It’s really hard to figure out where they’re going to fit um in in Civilian life and there’s there’s a a real clear opportunity here to make a significant contribution.

23:25.13
vigorbranding
I love that that’s amazing. Um, so heading back to El Royal we’re we’re we’re driving all over the place here. Um, what is what? what’s your current footprint. How many units is that right now.

23:32.55
Ellis Winstanley
Sure.

23:37.79
Ellis Winstanley
So there’s ah, there’s corporate stores will licensee and then there’s another one under development in new bronold. So elleoo was kind of interesting project. We bought it with a mind to it. It had some challenges when we bought it was going to going rehabilitate it and then go start growing it and then pretty quickly. We started to see particularly in Austin which is where we would start growing or around Austin you know, ah multiples of like None to None times net new restaurants to the population growth. So the the restaurants were number of restaurants on the ground per capita was growing. And a much faster rate than the population growth even though the city was growing fast and that was causing a lot of a lot of change in the real estate market at the same time we realized an opportunity for the digital strategy to be developed so we just said yeah we’re gonna just we’re gonna wait on opening more restaurants and focus on growing.

24:31.64
vigorbranding
Yeah.

24:32.37
Ellis Winstanley
The brand and then in 2 seventeen we launched the first el aroyo book which is a book of the signs and that turned out to be successful is actually nobody would publish it believe it or not we had publisher after publisher turn us down and so.

24:45.44
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.

24:47.94
Ellis Winstanley
We also realized that no printer would print it for reasonable cost if you didn’t have a publisher and so we ended up forming a publishing company to publish the book right? So we called a Cosmo publishing company. We went and and found a printer to print it and they sold out twice over the first Christmas um, and.

25:04.00
vigorbranding
That’s awesome.

25:05.26
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah, and so the last we took the remaining books and my wife took the remaining books and put them in the Trump of her trunk of her car and drove around Houston Dallas and San Antonio and just kind of hawked them to whoever whatever retailer she thought she could get them to sell them said look whatever deal. She had to make like sell them if you don’t sell them I’ll come back and get them pay me later.

25:15.84
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.

25:23.49
Ellis Winstanley
And then I was actually going to New York to see an axial software customer and she said I found out who the Barnes and noble buyer is but he won’t respond to us. So can you try to try to see if you can get him this book and so I put on Jim Shorts and a t-shirt and a backpack and I went over to the Barnes and noble offices. And I I said I’ve got a delivery for Mr Eric Berger and I didn’t tell him I was a courier but I didn’t tell him I wasn’t a courier I just showed up wearing gym clothes and they said okay well he’s on this floor. Whatever inside I you I went up and and left the book and got a call about 30 minutes later said I don’t know how you got this. And my office but we’re sending you a purchase order or in a new vendor paperwork so that was pretty fun. Fun startup type experience. You know.

26:02.64
vigorbranding
I Love that.

26:10.65
vigorbranding
Hell? Yeah yeah, man you got you? You really got to go where no one else is is boldly enough the bold enough to go right? Border of mine Star Trek but um, you know and you you hear stories of this too like I think the latest one I heard is a a designer or creative who. Basically put his resume inside of a box of donuts and delivered it to the office of the agency he wanted to work with and um, it’s it’s that kind of thinking I think that’s what a lot brands need that they need people who aren’t going to just toe the line with what they have been told to do. But instead actually think and like come up with new ideas on how to get there. Um, and and I think those who do that I mean it The rewards are usually there like it usually is highly rewarding as a result. Um, so there. With axial Shift. You’re you’re currently in growth Mode. You’re currently, you’re currently, um, adding more features and you’re looking to make a really strong push. Um, what’s next for that for that software and and the service as a whole.. What’s on the horizon.

27:08.64
Ellis Winstanley
Yes, we’ve added. We’ve added a couple teammates recently the 2 the co-founders of hot schedules came over to to join the team and and that’s been great to have those guys. We’ve been adding folks in Costa Rica and adding folks in the us as far as the product goes really, we’re focused about on gamification.

27:25.83
vigorbranding
In it.

27:28.90
Ellis Winstanley
So sales so sales challenges and then a messaging platform that’s similar to a slack which is you know, obviously a lot of corporate restaurant groups use that in the corporate office but it never makes it way its way down to the in the units because it’s just too hard to maintain with with people moving roles and coming in out of the Organization. So. And essentially dynamically sets up groups where you automatically yeah, you can just message like every Gm in the whole system or all the servers at this store and automatically add and remove people based on you know, based on what role they’re in at the time The gamification’s really cool so you can say Yeah, we’re going to run a margarita contest.

27:51.60
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.

28:07.37
Ellis Winstanley
See whos whoever sells the most gets you know a $50 micro bonus put on their paycheck. So it’s kind of coupled with the micro bonusing. Um, we can also do personalized stuff. So what we’re working on now is you know hey hey elli.

28:14.21
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.

28:22.23
Ellis Winstanley
When Joe Works he’s getting Caso on 42% of his tables when you work are getting it on 19% offer caser to every table this week if you sell 12 cases a day we’re gonna micro bonus you fifty. We’re gonna bonus you fifty bucks at the end of the week or twenty bucks or whatever it’s going to be so there’s all these kind of.

28:26.53
vigorbranding
A.

28:39.88
Ellis Winstanley
Personalized incentives to help people grow and a lot of it is just relative to other people. They’re working with and so part of it’s kind of is this possible I know it’s possible because he’s doing it. Okay now what kind of what behaviors can I model. Okay, here’s the model. Then? what’s the incentive. And then and then a big part with the gamification too is a lot of times sales contests fail because administering them manually is really challenging so it gets done in a limited way. What what happens when you only show the top None or 3 people is after about two weeks everybody stops trying.

29:10.20
vigorbranding
Right.

29:12.26
Ellis Winstanley
And then that’s not in the top 2 or 3 people and then if you show everybody publicly. The people at the bottom lose you know lose motivation real quick. They’re just embarrassed and they want to stop or they don’t want to work there anymore and then if you if you don’t do it super consistently right on the same rhythm where people can come to expect that people stop paying attention to it. So there’s.

29:19.70
vigorbranding
Right.

29:31.36
Ellis Winstanley
Sales contests really work. But only when they’re executed in ah in a tight way and when the information’s presented where everybody sees an opportunity to grow and so that’s that’s what we do with with axial and then we present data. You know we present benchmarks we present it graphically we present Raw Data views so we hit the major learning types.

29:34.50
vigorbranding
Um, here.

29:51.19
Ellis Winstanley
So so everybody can process the data and then execute on it. So that’s really, we’re super excited about we see like a really big opportunity to give people more purpose and and help them participate more in the value they’re creating and so yeah, that’s next step.

29:55.83
vigorbranding
Yeah.

30:07.51
vigorbranding
That’s pretty brilliant I love it man. Well I’m excited to see that grow I’m excited to see el royal continue. It’s a cult like dominance as well. A lot of things to be excited about so final question may be the hardest 1 if you had 1 final meal on this earth.

30:09.37
Ellis Winstanley
Thanks.

30:23.12
vigorbranding
Ah, where would you eat? What would you eat and why.

30:25.89
Ellis Winstanley
If I had 1 final meal on this earth I would eat the same I would eat the thing that I eat all the time which is a can cuon avocado at El Aroyo and I know that’s just and I’m not not like.

30:35.30
vigorbranding
I Love it.

30:40.19
Ellis Winstanley
Self I Just that’s what that’s my go to right I eat there all the time and that’s what I like to eat.

30:43.80
vigorbranding
I love it man. That’s awesome. Well, where can people connect with you Ellis and and the multitude of brands. Um, you know, social websites all that stuff.

30:51.64
Ellis Winstanley
Yeah I mean link for me personally Linkedin’s the best spot love to connect and there’s only 2 Ellis when Stanley’s running around that I know of 1 is ah as a twelve year old got kid and in England so ah and I’m in Austin so not him not him.

31:02.22
vigorbranding
Um, not him.

31:10.24
Ellis Winstanley
And then we’ve got ah you know then we got social pages for all the brands. So yeah, follow follow us on Instagram and Linkedin for for text ranch experience and and axial of course axial shift and yeah, love to connect. Thank you for having me as well.

31:21.20
vigorbranding
Awesome! We’ll have all. Yeah absolutely man. Yeah, we’ll have all those links in the show notes I do encourage people to definitely follow, especially eled oil if not for any other reason, but the the signs are just so much fun and they really do brighten your day. They they get a smile. So. Big high fives to that ellis. Thanks so much for your time. Thanks for sharing all the things that you’re doing. It’s a lot to be excited about absolutely.

31:43.42
Ellis Winstanley
Thanks I Appreciate it.