Business | Dave & Tricia Share About the 8X Growth of Pappagallos.com & MorningGloryEatery.com | Dave and Tricia Share How Clay Clark Has Helped Them to Increase Their Revenue By 8X (Over the Past 6 Years)

All right, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, I want to give you an encouraging word. These are actual real people, real clients we’ve worked with, they’re not holograms, and they’ve had real success. And I know we’re living in a challenging economy and a challenging world, but I’ve worked with these guys for years, and they really are diligent doers, and I just wanted to celebrate their success and let you see that it is possible to achieve massive success in this crazy world. Dave and Tricia of Pappagallo’s and Morning Glory, welcome on to the ThriveTime Show. How are you guys?

Hey, good. How are you?

Doing well.

I’m fired up. So Dave, I’m going to start with you. How long ago was it when you first heard about us? How many years ago or what year was that, sir?

2017.

2017. A customer actually mentioned you guys, and we looked into it. I remember our first call, I had to hide in the storeroom to get a half an hour to talk to you guys.

So you first heard about us six years ago. We’ve been working with you since that time. Tricia, I know that you look at the numbers and so does Dave. When you think about the growth of Pappagallo’s from that first call to now, and then you started Morning Glory since that time, what kind of growth have you guys seen?

Oh God, the Pappagallo’s side, it’s probably four times what it was when we met you guys.

And then Morning Glory was an idea, so it’s kind of hard to think about the percentage of growth because it wasn’t a thing yet. But that business is doing well too, right, Morning Glory?

Yeah, surprisingly good. Sometimes it upsets me how well it’s doing so fast. But a lot of the things we’re doing, we didn’t do with Pappagallo’s because we didn’t know. And we got to implement some of the things we learned from you guys with the new place, and it’s taken off a lot faster.

Now, your business has a lot of variables, and I’m going to kind of march through them and I’m going to see if you can teach our listeners about this here. The first thing with Pappagallo’s, the food has always been great. Morning Glory, the food has always been great. If people are in the Satellite Beach area, they need to check out the food. Most restaurants I work with, I have to work with them on food quality. I’ve never had to work with you at all on food quality.

However, the one area, you guys were not getting reviews from your happy customers. People love the food, but we weren’t getting objective reviews, and people read those reviews. Can you talk to us, Dave, about the importance of… I know I harassed you about it every week, but can you talk to the listeners out there about the importance of gathering those objective Google reviews and oftentimes video reviews as well?

Absolutely. I didn’t think it would be that huge when we started it down that road, but every week, we get people that come in and go, “We drove 40 miles because we read the reviews about the place.” And to be honest, if we go out of town, the first thing we do is look at the reviews as well. So I mean, you don’t think it’s going to make that big a deal, but it’s a game changer for sure.

Now, Tricia, on the websites, we’ve worked to create the websites for both Morning Glory and Pappagallo’s, and I find a lot of business owners can get stuck infinitely doing small little minutia changes to their websites instead of building a website that ranks in Google. We’ve worked with you guys on building both websites, and we do have to update the menu pricing from time to time and do some things, but how much of a game changer has it been having websites that actually come up top on Google?

Well, I mean, coming up on top on Google is huge because everybody’s using their phones these days to ask where they should go. So for that to just pop up up top is… You can’t put a number on that for what it does for your income. The people look and search your website. I mean, Dave was writing blogs and stuff that helps with the SEO and coming up high on that, and we got a catering just from her reading one of the blogs. I mean, how do you put a-

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s just been… That part of it’s been a big eye-opener for me because I just didn’t put that much weight on it until we started. We always kind of start with a we’ll try anything until it doesn’t work. So we went in with that just full blast, and it just blew my mind how well that worked.

Now, tracking results is a big thing, and I love working with you guys because you’re diligent people that show up to work every day. And I don’t care how good of a boss you are in the restaurant business, I really don’t. No matter how great of a boss you are, you’re going to have turnover in the restaurant business because young people who are waiters and waitresses, they decide to move, they get pregnant, they get another job, there’s a lot of variables. So you’re never stopping recruiting.

Dave, I can’t tell you how many restaurants I’ve worked with over the years, and I tell them, “Listen, recruiting is a never-ending process as a restaurant owner. It’s like a garden. You have to pull the weeds every week.” Can you talk to the listeners out there about the importance of you never stopping recruiting? Because again, I could give you all the advice in the world, but if you would not have implemented it, it wouldn’t help. Can you talk to the listeners out there about the importance of never stopping recruiting?

Well, it’s just from week to week, like you said, you never know. One day, you don’t have enough shifts, and then the next day, you come in and four people disappear in the night, you don’t even know what happened to them. By having people lined up to come right in, it smooths over the transition. It’s a never-ending process. And it seems like lately, the new younger groups that come in, the younger kids, they just change jobs every four or five months just because. When I grew up, you’d gotten a job, you liked it, you stayed, but it’s not that way anymore. People change just for the sake of changing. So keeping the recruiting going keeps staff.

Now, this is a big thing. The experience itself is a wow. I know we worked with you guys on making sure we had an intentional wow moment in terms of the decor, the atmosphere, the music, everything. And again, you guys have great food, but I’d love to get Tricia’s thoughts on this. When people go to Morning Glory for the first time, or they walk in to Pappagallo’s, and I’ve had friends of mine, the Johnsons, Jared and Jennifer Johnson actually came to your restaurant and their comment was, “Wow, that’s awesome.” Can you talk about the importance of being intentional to make an experience that wows there, Tricia?

Well, I mean, people look with their eyes first, so they don’t even see the food yet. So if they’re looking at your seating or your walls and they don’t get that kind of wow from it, they’re not going to get the wow from the food either, because that comes later. So it’s very important. Especially ladies with bathrooms and stuff is huge. If you’ve got a really poorly put together bathroom and the ladies got to go in there and they just don’t like it, they’re not coming back. Even if your food is amazing, if your bathroom isn’t there, it’s just a game-changer for them.

Now, checklists and processes. You guys have done a great job making checklists for everything. I’m going to pull up these websites here. Again, if you’re in Florida, it’s worth the drive. Pappagallo’s.com, morninggloryeatery.com, it’s worth the drive. You’ve got to check it out there, folks.

Checklists and processes for everything. Dave, you’ve got to make a menu, you’ve got to have recipes, you’ve got to have checklists. You can go out there and make a great menu, but you have to deliver on it, and you guys do such a great job of that. You have a menu, but you’ve got to deliver on it. So you’ve got the recipes and the checklist. Can you talk to the listeners out there about the importance of taking the time over these past six years, and even before that, of building checklists for everything?

Well, especially in the kitchen area, the cooks. Even though you tell them certain things, if it’s not written down and make them measure, everybody wants to put a little more of this or a little more of that, and then that messes with your consistency. So having that recipe and being able to see somebody putting something together like the dough recipe and see them measuring out how much goes into it versus just eyeballing it is a big deal. And if there’s a checklist and you can just see, “Okay, it’s out or it’s not,” and I’m constantly in the kitchen saying, “Are you measuring?” And use a checklist because everybody wants to put their little spin on stuff, and you just can’t have that.

Now, one thing I really enjoy about working with you, Tricia and Dave, is you’re really, really wonderful people, and you guys aren’t petty people. You’re not. Petty means focusing on small things. You’re not ignoramuses. You’re not jerks. You’re kind people. So it’s fun to help amplify your business and to see it grow. But growing a business, again, is like growing a garden. You have to pull weeds every week. So every week, I hop on the phone call with you at least once a week, sometimes twice a week, three times a week. Or the website will go down or there’s a pricing increase or something will change. Or when the COVID lockdowns happened, it was getting PPP funding. There’s just so many of these urgent things.

I’d love to get your thoughts, Tricia, on what it’s like to have our team available to help you in your times of need on a weekly basis. Because a lot of people view growing a business as an event where really, it’s a weekly process. Can you talk to listeners out there about the value of having a weekly support team that you can trust?

Yeah, I mean, with our menu and stuff, especially after COVID, you never know when we’re going to have to change something because we can’t get a product anymore or like exactly today, we’ve just found out that one of our wines is discontinued and no longer available, so that’s just going to put a new change on the menu or onto the website as well. The website’s gone down and all of a sudden we get a notice from a customer that it’s down. And now we even have the beach cam on it, which is huge, which you guys helped us with. So that’s got to be up and running 24/7 as well.

I think with COVID, when we were going through COVID, you were ahead of the game as far as everybody else. We still are getting stuff for ERC credits, which we have already done, thanks to you guys being able to tell us, “Hey, you need to look into this.” So I think your help in all those areas, like you said, on a weekly basis, has kept us ahead of every little thing that’s come our way, especially through COVID.

Now, Dave, I have a printer guy that I probably haven’t talked enough about my printer guy, but my other guy, if you’re out there listening and you’re in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area, I will give you my printer guy’s number, Bud. But I have printers everywhere in my office. Printers, flat screen TVs, and I’ve worked with the guy, I think, for 10 years. And every time a printer goes out or a TV goes out, I call him, he comes by and fixes it. And I can’t tell you how rare that is to have a vendor that I actually am not fighting with every week, every month. I mean, this guy is on it.

Can you talk, Dave, about that? Because we work together every week, and the relationship that you and I have, I think, is very responsive. Or if you have something, we knock it out and it’s sort of that win-win relationship. Can you talk, Dave, about the importance of having a team that you can trust to work with you? Because there’s a lot of squirrely vendors out there.

Well, the biggest help with that is it’s like we get an objective opinion on something. You kind of know what you’d want to do on any given circumstances, but being able to pick up the phone and have access to your experience and your expertise and say, “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” or, “No, stay away from that because this is why you don’t want to do it,” and it’s objective. So it’s not somebody who’s actually got a vested interest in what’s going on, but we get an opinion really quick. And a lot of times we agree with it and it just reaffirms that this is something you should do or shouldn’t.

Now, Tricia, one of the things I did when I was growing my first company, djconnection.com, is I had a company I hired for graphic design. And somehow, no matter what we talked about, it was always $4,000. And then I had a web guy and every time I’d call my web guy, I don’t know how, but it was always $400. Every time I talked to them, $400, 4,000 graphic design. Video guy. I don’t know why it was, but it was always $3,000. And then they wouldn’t ever talk to each other. So my video guy, my web guy, my graphic design, and there was all these vendors and I could never get any of them to communicate, and I always had these massive bills. How helpful is it for you doing the budgeting? I know you work together doing this, but how helpful is it for you, knowing that it’s going to be a flat rate every month, that’s what it’s going to cost?

Well, I think we’ve had those conversations before with the web and the printing, which we do a lot for at the restaurant, stuff like that. Just to have one person, one place, have all of our information already, one-stop shop, instant response. We’re constantly… I think since COVID, we’ve been talking about this a lot lately. Nobody really does their job anymore and follows up on what they’re supposed to do. So we turn into being babysitters and making sure that people do their job. But we don’t have that with everything that you guys do for us. We just know that we reach out to you whenever it needs to be done. Don’t even worry about price, it’s already set in place, and make it happening and actually get it done and not have to babysit you.

Now, a final-

It’s hue. I mean, I don’t spend on that.

My final two questions I have for you is why should anybody out there who’s in the Satellite Beach area, why should they come by Pappagallo’s and Morning Glory? Why should they do it, Dave? Why should everybody come by at least once? I would argue people might want to plan a vacation just around the idea of coming to Morning Glory and Pappagallo’s. Why should people check it out?

I think the biggest thing is we’re local. Pappagallo’s has been around for 33 years, Morning Glory going on four. So we’re part of the community. If you want to get an idea of what the community’s like, some of the kids have grown up in our place, working. So it’s just a local place. It’s a local taste of Florida, really. Beach is right out back. You can look at the ocean and have a drink or have a pizza or a eggs benedict and look at the ocean. It’s just a nice Florida experience.

And a lot of the comments we get with our staff is a lot of the people go to restaurants and such, but when they come to our restaurant, the staff is always happy and are there to-

Very friendly.

Yes, friendly and are there to serve you, not just, “You’re another customer, you’re another table,” kind of do a shoddy little job and move on. They really do care. I think that comes from Dave caring about the food as much. It’s gone on to the staff as well, and it shows through the customers’ responses.

And I’m not asking for the number on the show, I’m not asking for a specific number, but since we’ve started working with you, I believe Pappagallo’s is four times larger, and I believe Morning Glory is about the same size as Pappagallo’s. Is that accurate?

Yeah. And like I said, sometimes it just drives me crazy because it took 33 years to get Pappagallo’s to that level, and Morning Glory sometimes beats it and it just drives me bananas. But I mean, like I said, when we started with Morning Glory, we started with both feet in the right place and knew where we were going, where we spent a lot of years at Pappagallo’s trying to figure stuff out. And having you in our corner to just bounce ideas off of is a huge comfort and help.

Well, Dave, I really do appreciate you guys. And listen, my final question for you there, Tricia, for people out there that are thinking about coming to one of our workshops or thinking about hiring us for consulting, we only take on 160 clients, so I don’t want to waste anybody’s time out there who wouldn’t be a good fit, and I want to respect everybody’s time, but who would be a good fit in your mind for what we do?

I mean, pretty much anybody. I mean, you’re not a niche, one type of a restaurant type of person to go to. You do it with all the businesses. So anybody that has a business that wants to grow their business or even make it better and set up the systems and stuff like that, definitely don’t even hesitate, just give them a call.

Well, I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for carving out time. And folks, if you’re watching today, I want to encourage you. We’ve had the craziest last, what, four years, three years possible. It’s never been more difficult to hire people. And Dave and Tricia have done it. They’re very normal people. They’re not holograms, but they’re very abnormally diligent. So if you’re out there today and you’re a diligent person, I want to encourage you that you too can have massive success. Thank you, guys, for carving out time, and we’ll talk to you soon, okay?

Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Morrow. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year-over-year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40% to 42% increase month-over-month, year-over-year.

The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers.

Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth to mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proven turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you are looking for.

I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. I established my practice here in Tulsa.

The ThriveTime Show. Today, interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet.

You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zoellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies where we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. Now, we’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days, you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered.

The reason why I’ve built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wished that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, “But we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop.” And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tax, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business.

I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 Auto Auction. I want you to Google Elephant in the Room. Look at Robert Zoellner & Associates. Look them up and say, “Are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system?” When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever. And we’ll even give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see you.