In today’s competitive catering landscape, are you struggling to find the right recipe for sales success? It often feels like a choice between two worlds: the efficiency of modern technology and the proven power of old-fashioned, personalized sales.
But what if you didn’t have to choose?
This dynamic workshop is designed for catering professionals who want to move beyond the “tech vs. tradition” debate and build a powerful, integrated sales strategy. We will explore how to blend the scale and intelligence of digital tools with the impact of a personal touch. Learn how to use technology not to replace relationships, but to amplify them—turning cold leads into conversations and conversations into contracts.
Join us to learn how to build a modern sales engine that’s both remarkably efficient and unforgettably personal.
Meet the Panelists
Ashley Wright
Ashley Wright has been turning ordinary gatherings into extraordinary experiences since 2000 when she got her start planning and designing weddings and corporate events as well as destination events. She then leveled up as part of the opening management team at the iconic Wynn Las Vegas. Back home in Arizona, she’s spent the last decade-plus not only planning celebrations but also building catering departments from the ground up, creating crave-worthy menus, and growing businesses along the way. With a flair for design, a passion for food, and a love for bringing people together, Ashley knows how to turn any event into a memory worth savoring.
Claudie Newman
Claudie Newman is a hospitality leader with more than 20 years of experience in food and beverage, event sales, private dining and catering. Her career has taken her from South Africa to Las Vegas, and San Francisco and Washington, DC, where she has focused on driving growth and innovation for multiple nationally recognized restaurant brands.
Claudie currently leads catering sales for New York Based Founders-Table, the company behind: Chopt Creative Salad Co. and Dos Toros Taqueria. Claudie is focused on strengthening brand reputation and sales to deliver a best-in-class catering product that continues to expand in step with her company’s growth.
Danielle Guzzetta
With over 30 years of marketing experience across the healthcare, fashion, and hospitality industries, Danielle Guzzetta has spent the last decade driving growth for top restaurant brands. She has held executive leadership roles including Chief Marketing Officer at Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza, Senior Vice President of Growth Hacking at Smokey Bones, and Head of Marketing at TooJay’s Deli & Bakery.
Danielle’s core strengths lie in developing and executing comprehensive marketing and business strategies, building brands from the ground up, and crafting messages that drive awareness and fuel revenue. She has consistently delivered transformative results, particularly in the catering and off-premise dining space.
Chris O’Connor
Chris O’Connor spent 18 years building a successful production and post company before transitioning into digital marketing and sales. Alongside his partner Justine, Chris has worked with notable companies including Hawaiian Bros, Nation’s Burgers, 4 Star Restaurant Group, Maxim Golf, GreatLIFE Golf & Fitness, and People to People International.
Chris has become a recognized expert in marketing automation, CRM design and deployment, digital marketing and advertising, SEO/SEM, and sales optimization. His current passions include loyalty program design and subscription-based marketing strategies, including Marketing as a Service.
With a background in entrepreneurship, Chris approaches projects with a hands-on, owner’s perspective. He has grown multiple businesses, hired and managed hundreds of employees, and embraces egoless leadership. Having done everything from executive roles to stocking supplies, Chris brings strategic thinking and a practical mindset to every project. He has closed millions of dollars in sales for his own companies and clients, and he continues to help brands achieve measurable growth.
References:
“CRM applications can help increase sales by up to 29%, sales productivity
by up to 34%, and sales forecast accuracy by 42%. (source: Salesforce).”
https://www.nutshell.com/blog/crm-stats?utm_source=chatgpt.com
In 2024, according to Lunchbox, 75% of catering orders are placed online
(via mobile or desktop), while phone calls still account for approximately
30% of catering orders. https://www.olo.com/blog/60-of-restaurant-sales-are-from-repeat-guests-heres-how-to-keep-them-coming-back?utm_source=chatgpt.com
“According to a 2025 report by Lunchbox, only 20 % of catering customers are repeat guests—meaning they place more than one order. That implies 80 % of catering customers do not order again, absent a targeted retention strategy. https://www.olo.com/blog/60-of-restaurant-sales-are-from-repeat-guests-heres-how-to-keep-them-coming-back?utm_source=chatgpt.com
I touch a new playbook for catering uh with cater link. I’m Chris O’ Connor. My company is Big Lucky Duck. Uh we work with different restaurant groups across the country to help them with uh off-site events, catering rewards programs, things along those lines. Uh I’m very excited to be here, very excited for this panel. I think maybe the best place to start is let’s just go around and introduce yourself and give us a little bit about your background and how you got into catering. So Danielle, you want to kick us off? Sure. I’m Danielle Gazetta. Thrilled to be here. We’ve got a lot of great stuff lined up for you today. I love the topic that we’re talking about. Uh last decade I’ve spent at the executive level for restaurants. Um chief marketing officer for Anony’s Coldfire Pizza, Smoky Bones, and a number of the Earl Brands. Most recently about 18 months ago, I started my own consulting marketing consulting company, RevGen Marketing, where I really focus on helping restaurants revenue generate revenue outside of their four walls. So, anything from food popups to catering programs. I’ve done a ton of those. Just finished one with a 600 unit restaurant chain. Um, uh, food up popups into Amazon centers. Uh, ghost kitchen virtual brand. So, really anything outside of the four four walls is where I, uh, I concentrate. So, thrilled to be here today and looking forward to answering any questions that you guys have at the end of this call. Awesome. Thanks, Danielle. Clotty, how about you? I’m Cody Newman. I represent Chopped Endos Tourists. I have two brands under my purview. Uh between us, we have about 120 locations and we’re across the East Coast. Uh my history is a little, you know, checkered like everybody else’s. I was in um hotels, private dining, catering manager at hotels, um and obviously in catering sales, uh where I’ve been the last 12 years. So excited to be here and excited to be part of this great panel. Um, everyone here is in for a fantastic time. This is the best group I’ve worked with in a long time. So very excited for you to hear us talk. Look at that high praise. I love it. Getting off to a good start. And last but not least, Ashley, you want to introduce yourself? Yeah. Hi everyone. It’s really good to be here today. Um, my name is Ashley Wright. I currently work with Hawaiian Bros. um Island Grill, which is um a very fast growing um Hawaiian chain. Um but I got my start actually in events and weddings and of course that along comes with that is catering and um I’ve started my own bis business as well as part of the opening team for win Las Vegas and then kind of just trickled only strictly into catering and it’s it’s a lot of fun and I love it and I think this is my new home. Well, I’ve been doing it for close to 10 years now. So, I better call it home, huh? Thank you. Well, glad you guys are all here. Thanks for uh taking the time to be a part of this. Uh this round table kind of came out of some conversations uh Gabe and Terry and I were having uh on the Cater Link site. Um I I I love their programming. I love their events that they put on. I attend as many as I can. And one thing that became kind of clear is it seemed like there was a I don’t know if I call it a divide, but certainly different approaches between so many of the folks that were either high-tech or hightouch. And I thought, well, man, with with the way things are changing up, there’s got to be kind of an interesting intersection of maybe the the best possible playback out there and integrating the two kinds of things. I will admit for the record, I am extremely high-tech. I do not like uh the the hight touch part. I want to not interact with people if at all possible. I want uh to keep it all digital if that would be that would be possible. That is not possible. So I I would love maybe just to go around real quick and kind of get your experience and just kind of an overview on where you land on the high-tech hightouch kind of thought and then we can get into specifics. So Danielle, you want to kick us off again? Sure. I am the complete opposite. I like I like hightouch. I like to be involved. I think catering um was really built on um relationships, building relationships, getting to know people. I think as we’ve advanced and had more technology, online ordering systems that take the order, automated voicemail, AI, chatbt. I think we’ve lost we’ve swung the pendulum a little too far to the high-tech. It really has to be a hybrid approach. There’s no doubt about it. There are tools out there. There are systems out there. There are platforms out there that you have to have in place if you want to leverage catering and win at cater catering, right? Long gone are the days where you just took your takeout menu or your delivery menu, served 10, put it in a bigger box with a sticker on it and delivered it. That is not catering. The the people that are winning at catering treat treat it as a standalone business unit. They proactively pursue business. They master operations. They promote it relentlessly. and they have a dedicated person. And that’s where I think the high touch can continue to come into play. You have to have the technology in place. There’s just no way you’re going to capture and cast a net wide enough to capture the sales that you want to without it. But I think on the other hand, you really have a have to have a dedicated person who does this 247 and really gets to know the people, what they want, what they need, and help them move through the process. I also think that is what builds orders, builds um average order because you can upsell, cross-ell just by understanding their needs. So I really do believe it it is a hybrid these days. Makes sense. Claudia, what do you think? So it definitely I agree it’s definitely a hybrid. Um but I do believe there is a world where the high touch is absolutely invaluable. But I think it’s across the board. I don’t think it’s just, you know, gaining new customers. I think it’s working with your existing customers. I think it’s keeping um it’s keeping your pool of regulars really happy. It’s checking in. I think it’s it’s changed. I think now it’s about you build these very long-term relationships, but the customers are changing. So, the planners and the EAS that I worked with 10 years ago are not the EAS I work with today. some of them are still around, but we have a a multigenerational um group of people we work with. And I think you have to tailor your approach to what works for the person on the other side. And I think that’s the key piece. Once you know who that person is, you’ve identified them, you know where they fit in, you know, if you’re going to be an emailer, if you’re going to be a texter, or if you’re going to be straight phone calls, text me if you need an order. Um I think it’s really important. But on the digital side, I think being able to work smarter, not harder is the key factor. You have to be able to set up your automatic emails, your check and collapse customers, um prospecting for new customers. There’s just so much out there. So, I think it depends on how you approach each each um what’s the word I’m looking for? Probably each like network that you’re looking at. Um and kind of going from there. Yeah, that makes sense. Actually, I think I know which way you lean, but tell tell us what you um I definitely lean on the side of touch because um that’s my background, right? So, um everything I did was very personal and so um what’s the best way to trust somebody, right? It’s to grow that relationship and um nurture nurture the relationship and and continue it on. I still have families now that call me um to do events for them and I’ve been working with them for nearly 20 years and because they get married, they have babies, they do this, they do that. And so um and that’s where um I feel like catering is such a personal thing because um a lot of people revolve the whole event around catering. they um you know this is it’s funny how the food becomes the big the big issue you know um what are we going to eat is it going to be on time is it going to be fresh is it you know there’s many things that go into that so I feel like in order to get it almost 100% perfect 100% perfect for your customer or client um you do have to get in there you do have to get you know personal with them and see what they want, you know, and there there’s going to be those people that um just want you to text like um sports teams, universities, um well, pro pro sports, I guess it’s a little bit different. Um but the universities just like I just want to send it to you and I just want you to do it. So knowing your clientele is absolutely crucial when it comes to this type of thing because the last thing you want to do is put somebody off if they’re if they want a phone call, but you’re not used to doing a phone call. So, you just want to text or email, but they really need to hear you to know that you’re because we’re working with well, think about it. We’re working with the most high-tech tech tech younger people to um older people that um will not touch a computer, will will not have a cell phone. They don’t want any of that. They would rather get a flyer on their door, right? I mean, probably not, but that’s the way they get their information. Either that or the TV. So, we’re dealing with so many different levels of generations really that what they’re used to. And the good thing about catering is it involves everybody. You can sell to anybody. There’s not one person except maybe that won’t do catering. You know what I mean? So, if you’re going to um target everyone, I mean, 18 year olds to 99 year olds, then you’ve got to be able to bounce back and forth, I think. And I think the more time goes by, then we’ll become more techy. We’ll become more this, you know, and I believe AI will probably take my job and start talking to people. They’ll take over the world. And I just want to pop in with a recent statistic because we talk about how much is tech versus touch. um recent study came out of the $72 billion catering industry, 25% of it still comes in via phone. Still% I was kind of surprised about that, but you know, we forget, you know, just answering the phone can increase your orders, right? Getting to that and when I talked earlier about having this dedicated person that picks up the phone and can accommodate you right there, that’s key because if they don’t get someone that can answer their questions, they’re moving on to your competitor. They’re not going to wait around for a phone call back or 24 hours. They’re waiting. They’re moving on. They’re not waiting. So, I think it’s still a viable avenue, you know. And to add to that, even if you have a customer that has a bad experience, that’s the time you really need to call. That’s not a that’s not just an email because that’s how you retain that customer. You picked up the phone. You took the time to listen to them. And I’m glad that you brought that up because because um choosing your um the way that you do like okay I’m just going to take easy cater for existent for example they that partnership that we have with them is so important and you got to be able to trust them because we can’t call the customer. They won’t give us the the information. So, we really have to put our trust in them with our name, with our logo, everything that they’re getting to them. They’re getting Hawaiian Bros., you know, they’re not getting Easy Cater. They just went through Easy Cater, right? So, if Easy Cater messes up, it’s still us. You know what I mean? So, I feel like that’s really hard. And I feel like if I don’t trust that part of it, how are my customers going to feel, you know? So if they if they really need that personal touch and they don’t trust technology yet or they did have a bad experience let’s say one time then then I feel like you need to be intuitive to be able to render that you know so it’s it’s really important I think what you’re saying and I’ll say the the hard part is this it’s finding the balance between yes you want to take care of people and you spend a ton of time on the phone your team will spend time on the phone but there has to it has to give somewhere so you can scale your sales and I think that’s the piece where the technology comes in right I think that’s the piece where you know being able to automate some of these activities really helps build things in the background right as you’re recovering with somebody your system is emailing another 25 people and telling them who you are right do you think that you would get uh recurring and have you don’t have a relationship. I guess you would say if if somebody just ordered online and you didn’t have a personal conversation with them or you know you didn’t visit them, you don’t even know their name. You just know that they spend $2,000 a month with you, right? Do you think that that you would be able that would be able to get that person to reorder all the time? Yes. Yes. Or is it is it is it are the chances higher if I was to talk to them oneonone? No, I don’t believe that it is. And and and I listen I this is where I do think it’s tough for relationship sellers to outshine tech. If if I went on on a on a website, it had my previous order still there with my payment information that was still stored. I could look at it, modify it if I need to, add a few, take off a few, whatever I needed to do, click go, and it’s two in the morning and I don’t have to wait for somebody else’s schedule, uh, and have them call me back and all that. This is where this is where I have no interest in talking to people. This is literally the moment where I I relationship selling to me uh, falls apart in in this arena. And I I also, Claud, to your point, I’m a very strong believer that not all sales are made equal, right? I mean, if I’m spending 30 seconds on a sale to get uh somebody versus spending 10 minutes on a sale to get somebody, uh th those are not those are not equivalent sales to me. Uh for me, like when I say tech is the key, it’s because of the volume of touch that I can do. It’s the high scale that I can accomplish that. I listen I’ve seen some of the best best caterers out there. He used to work with a guy named Lance who was amazing. He would take his dog everywhere and his dog was such a magnet. You know, people wanted to dog the dog and Lance was so great at getting sales following that. I mean, he was amazing. Uh, and Ashley, I’ve seen you make sales that you’re the same way. Even with those two things, and as great as I I truly believe that both of you guys are at doing that, uh, it was always you’re always going to be capped by the number of times you could possibly repeat that process. in a day, right? So, that to me was like if I can find a way to digitally scale, there is no cap. There is no limit. And that’s that’s where it kind of came in for me. Now, you’re right. There there are people who will just say, I don’t want to do that to me. Okay. But I don’t I again, I’m I’ both own the company and I’ve worked for a company. So, it was one thing when it was my company and I said, okay, I don’t care. It’s a whole another thing when it’s not my company. They tend to care. Daniel, Daniel, what are you standing on this? No, I agree. I I think I think there there is a happy medium there and I think really where it comes down to is you have to have the technology in place. You have to have a catering platform. You know, Monkey Media was the one that comes to mind back in 2019. That was, you know, really, if we had to say the Cadillac of the industry. You know, they’ve lost a little traction, but they’re back and and building. But you need you need to start out with this endto-end solution. Again, you cannot treat catering as an afterthought. So the technology is the first part that really does have to get into play so that you are getting a lot of these leads into the funnel. It’s not just capturing the leads into the funnel. It’s what is the process then when the lead comes in, how is it followed up on? I mean at any single point in the customer journey, you can lose a customer. There’s a lot to it. It’s not just getting the lead. It’s not just placing the order. It’s not just the delivery of it. It’s the follow-up. There’s so many touch points, especially if you want to get a repeat order. I think there’s a statistic that 80% of people who order catering do not do a repeat business unless you have some kind of automated um email system or text or SMS to remind people that you’re still top top of mind and out there as a catering. If you don’t have a proactive outreach program, you’re not going to get repeat business, right? And that’s really where the bulk of our the business comes in is repeat, right? They say if you can get three orders from someone, you have a customer for life. So I think that’s where the technology can absolutely help building the long-term business. And you but you’re right also about being able to do the online ordering platform. I mean, the amount of orders that I get in after 6 p.m. or that come in at 2 am, right? You know, everyone is busy. So, what happens is your EA is sitting there going, “Oh my god, I just finished dinner with my kids. I didn’t order lunch for the next day.” They’re going to order from who they know will deliver, who they know they can hit up last minute, who has a short lead time, and there’s your order. They don’t want to talk to you, right? They may send a side email and be like, “Hey, I know I put in a a last minute order. I just want to make sure it came through. It’s from my boss. It’s for tomorrow.” But they’re doing things at hours that we’re not at our desks, right? So, you have to have multi-pronged approach, right? Absolutely. One of the one of the ironies about Ashley that I happen to know because she and I have worked together a little bit in the past is she’s very tech adept. I mean, I love that she talks about high relationship kind of stuff. She’s one of the the better tech people I’ve ever worked with. How do you leverage it out and where do you decide that that line is drawn for you, Ashley? Oh, she’s on mute. Oh, you’re on the mute. Can’t hear you. I forgot. Sorry. Um, I want to say that it’s um a lot of it comes with experience. Honestly, I think um getting to know your clientele and who you’re working with. And I know this is going to sound really like I don’t know, weird, but I’m not stereotyping at all. If I’m if a if a a man named Ashton comes over, I’m gonna think, “Oh, okay. He’s probably younger. He probably uses I mean, this goes really quick in my mind.” And then he probably emails a lot, right? Well, if I get someone named Glattis, then she’s going to want a phone call. Am I right? So, that’s kind of how I approach it. And then I if they don’t if most people who don’t want to talk and they don’t want to be personal will not answer the phone. You’ll either have to text them. You have to try it. You don’t know if it’s a landline or if it’s a cell phone, but you can try. Or you just email them because if you call them and they don’t call you back or answer the phone, then you know this is a tech person. Okay, this is how I’m going to handle you. If you’re you’re needing that touch. Um because catering we do all kinds of different different events, right? Or meetings or this or that. Some people need their handheld. It depends on the corporation and how many people there are. But all of that the way that I handle that is by the information I’ve I’ve given. Um, now there’s no way there’s no way we could do catering in this day and age without a platform, without doing mass emails, be doing campaigns, doing that kind of thing because that’s where we’re all headed anyway. Um, the AI world and that kind of stuff. And I mean, it’s sad to say, but the generations are moving on. And so that’s what everyone needs to get used to now. No matter what you think or what you like. I like the personal touch. I love having relationships with people and I love learning about them and what they need and that to me that’s how I sell. I’m not a saleserson. I’m a relationship builder but I’m it’s made me good at sales. So, um, do I really want to go your way, Chris? I do. You know, I balance it very well, I think. But am I sad that it’s going more towards your way? Yeah, a little bit. But that might be just selfish on my part, you know, because I like that part of it. Let me just hop into when we when we talk about the technology piece. I think restaurants, companies need to make it very easy for people to access their catering information. Not a lot of companies do that. I don’t know how many times I’ll go to a website, I want to I want to not talk to anyone. I want to place an or they want your phone number. They want your email. They say someone’s going to get back to you in 24 hours. No, I’m moving on to somebody else. I don’t have the time. So, I think restaurants need to do themselves a favor. They need to have catering front and center. They don’t need to capture a lot of they shouldn’t be capturing any information. They need to have prices so that people can identify, is this in my price range? What do I need to spend? and make a lot of those assessments before they even make a phone call from a technology standpoint. And if they don’t want to make a phone call, they should be able to submit something and or have a proposal back, you know, within the same day. These companies that are saying, “Okay, someone will get back to you. We’ll have a proposal out in 48 hours.” They’re missing they’re missing the business. They’re missing the business. So, I think more and more from a technology standpoint, we need to make it easier for the customer to have access to everything that they need. serving size, delivery time, lead time, prices, anything that you can think of right there so that they can make those decisions from a digital perspective without picking up the phone if they don’t want to because that’s a hassle, too. If I have to call somebody and say, “Well, where is your pricing?” I’m going on to somebody else. I’m moving on to a competitor. So, I think that’s key, too, when it comes to the technology, right? Yeah, I I always wonder for me like I I see a lot of limitations in in tech and I I think catering is unique in that it really brings out those limitations to some degree. First off, it’s it’s hard for a lot of restaurants who want to invest in catering because it’s such a small portion of their business. Now, you could say it’s a growth engine of a business, and that’s potentially true. Uh but listen, even a good catering restaurant is what 10 to 15% of overall revenue would be a dream for a a lot of restaurant brands. That’s going to be second place versus, you know, the the DSPs or your first party, right? So, it’s tough to fight for attention within that space. Also too, most of the platforms that I see, I think there are some really good platforms for uh taking the orders and then some post orderer management, maybe a little bit of an automation workflow, etc. I don’t see a whole ton of great software out there for really the pre-order process like sales automations, sales leads, really scraping, enhancing, you know, doing that kind of stuff that would help you reach volume. I typically have to go outside of traditional catering platforms, get a CRM, leverage leverage that CRM and its capabilities uh to really get the sales leads going and then I convert them over to uh the CRM platform or whatever the catering platform is going to be. What about you guys? Have you felt something similar or where do you see some of the limitations uh in tech currently? Claudia, what about you? So, you know, when I started with um my parent company, Founders Table, we were really looking for a solution that was everything together. It doesn’t exist. So, for us, we actually went with um lunchbox as our provider for do and chopped. Um I’m very lucky for Chopped. I have an amazing tech team and they are helping me build an in-house CRM. So for me, I’m I’m using a little bit of, you know, information from everywhere. But the ideal world is if you can control your tech, you can make changes. You can do things. You can build. It’s fantastic. But you still need something that will lunchboxes. Great. I can get my orders in. I put in my lead times. Got orders that flow through. It’s it’s customer friendly. Um, which has been really good for us. Um, and it took up our sales considerably. the minute we went online. Before I started, we had a Google form and my team was quick. They used to answer the Google form, get, you know, get a quote out. But this is so much faster. But the truth is, it nothing does everything. Am I still using toast? Yes. You know, am I still relying on several different systems every day? Absolutely. You muddle through it and you make it work. And I think if there was an all-encompassing solution, I think it would change the industry completely. It just doesn’t exist right now. Are are you using Lunchbox for uh really managing pre-sale leads like with automations and that kind of thing? No. No. For when I work on leads, I’m using um I’m using, you know, a software like Zoom Info, Apollo. I’m using those and that’s where I’m looking for my leads. Right. Okay. Yeah, that that to me is always the flaw, right? I mean, that’s that is where the the not having an integrative system always breaks down is that moment. I have a whole pre-sale, you know, leads workflow and stuff that that I have to manage and then h finally you’re going to order. Now you’re in a whole different system with its own separate flow and they do not integrate well. Yeah. Danielle, have you found that as well? Yeah. Yes. Um to be honest with you, I’ve used lunchbox. I feel it’s very clunky and I I always have to add on some nuts and bolts to kind of make it work. I am a I am a Monkey Media fan. Um I I know they kind Yeah, they’re great. They’ve took a they took a little hiatus because they were bought by Easy Cater, but they have since been sold and are really starting to come back. But I found I have found in the times that I and I’ve used Olocatering, I found that Monkey has best a toz with everything that I could use. Is it perfect by any means? No. But for me, I have found that to be the most useful and streamlining my my catering orders to be honest. I think probably because they’ve been around for a long time and so they’ve worked out some of the kinks. I think, you know, when they kind of went quiet on the easy cater days, some of these other people snuck in with these catering platforms. I mean, I just heard a few months ago that Patronics came out with a catering platform. Look, they’re a loyalty pro. I’m not knocking Patronics. I’ve used them for loyalty, but a lot of people are jumping on the catering bandwagon, right? And so for me, Monkey was always about kind of catering and so I feel like they’ve carried that theme. But that’s just me per personally. Makes sense. Ashley, how about you? Um, I have I’ve used some crazy platforms before and some crazy CRM as well. Anywhere from Deli to Salesforce to um, Cateres um, and I I I think with catering if you’re not using like all the different stuff like okay, Deli, you put that in in a in a hotel and it brings everything together, right? and spits out beeos, which I thought was really cool, by the way, because everything was done by hand. Showing my age now, but when you get to just if you’re only doing catering, it should be about simplicity, right? That because if it’s if you bring it down and it’s simple and it’s very easy to use, then there’s less room for error. And we use Lunchbox right now, too. And I just I’m a firm believer of just because you can create it in a system doesn’t mean you should or that it needs to be there because if there’s extra thing like okay think about what you need. I need XYZ and I need these to come together. I need um these reports and this and it in catering it’s really not that um difficult. It’s just really simple. And so then when you add things to it, then it becomes a chore, then you get confused. And honestly, when I think about it, um, if you don’t have a catering person, a designated person to do the sales, to do the the programs to make sure everything is right, and you’re actually having your your kitchen managers or your restaurant managers do it, there’s a reason why they’re in operations, right? They’re not the most computer techsavvy people that I have come across. Some of them are, oh my gosh, they just like, where did you come from? But they’re in operations. They’re used to using their hands. They’re used to being there. So the computer isn’t their first thing. And so that’s why simplicity, I think, is is key and important um because of the air. And also when you’re talking about bringing one of those platforms on, it’s a partnership, right? It’s a partnership that you need to have trust in um that they’re going to get it right because again, like I said earlier, it’s your name, it’s your food, it’s it’s you, it’s your brand. Regardless it, you know, they might not even know that when they come to our website, they come to our website, they’re getting Hawaiian Bros. So, guess whose face that is? Guess whose name that is? You know, and so I better trust Lunchbox that they’re going to do what they what they promised to do and to nurture that relationship as well. Back and forth. Again, it’s all about relationships. I have a question. I have a question for you. So, I’ve had, you know, customer feedback that from the customer side, really easy to navigate. Customers are fine with it. I know I like I struggle on the back end um you know being in you know two different interfaces on their site between an old admin and new admin dashboard like there’s some clunky stuff on the back end and I guess my question is how do what do you do when you need to overcome like a challenge you have like there’s just something a customer needs and you cannot make it happen within the limitations of your system like do you use your POSOS do you No, I use our CRM. Which one do you use? I use our CRM. You do? Okay. Yes. And and I I believe everyone should have a backup because um depending on how far you want to go with your catering, right? Because if you if you don’t do custom orders or um you know we have we have universities here that um they have a lot of dietary issues or a dietary you know substitutions and things like that where lunchbox is not friendly to that right so I go and I create our own you know that I know that we can punch into toast and that kind of thing that that makes sense that’s the same pricing everything but I just recreated on the CRM side instead of their that side which honestly is easier and it shouldn’t be easier but it is easier for me to do that. It’s funny that that that kind of a system and I’ve seen this before CR CRM have their own limitations, right? So, you can you can absolutely recreate a sales flow, sales process. You can even do the checkout all the way through Stripe and everything where you’re going to fall apart in that scenario. And Ashley, you correct me if you think I’m wrong, but the fact that it doesn’t integrate with delivery partners and all those kinds of things now means you still have a separate step that’s going to be outside. Once again, you’re outside of a platform. So, finding that all inclusive is is pretty challenging, at least in my experience. I have two I have two AI kind of related questions. One, I would love to know how you guys are actually using AI now specifically. So, maybe Claudia, we’ll start with you and then go to Danielle and then Ashley. And then the last one just for advanced thinking too is and you can integrate the answers if you want. Has anybody tried Voice AI and is that something that you guys are open to uh for your brands or not really yet? Claudia, let’s start with you. Okay, I’ll go with your last question. I haven’t tried Voice AI. Um it’s definitely something I’m open to, but it’s not something I’m open to right now. So, I think it’s something that What would it take to get there? Um, honestly, I think for me it would be get there with with that. I think I’d need like really full trust and I’d need to really test it just because I feel like if you’re putting a voice to something, it’s different if you It just feels different to me, you know, even like if I’m on a call, I’m very careful what I say. So, for that piece, I’ve got a little hesitation. I will get there though, for sure. Um, as far as regular AI, I mean, I I’ll be blunt. like it’s the quickest thing for me to write an email that is professional, to the point, courteous, and I’m not wasting time. Especially if I’m going through and I’ve got a customer that’s got multiple questions, needs multiple explanations, I can get wordy, too. It will simplify what I need and will reduce the amount of back and forth emails for me. So, that’s where I like to use it. I also like to use it if I’m looking for ideas. So, if I’m going to say, well, how many athletic teams does, I don’t know, NYU have, you know, I want able to pull that information quickly. So, instead of me researching their website and spending hours on it, that’s where I’ll pull that information quickly and then I’ll go to my software and say, “Okay, I’m going to send a cold outreach to these 18 departments and when I’m looking at that, I’ll use the AI on like I use Apollo. I use the AI on Apollo.” to rework what I want to say and what I want to put out. I want to make it friendly for those sports teams. So, I think what I’m doing is I’m manipulating the verbiage. Um, I’m looking for key words probably more than anything when I use AI. Does Apollo allow you to use AI to personalize uh like really hyperpersonalize your outreach or does it just make it friendlier? In it makes it friendlier and gives you a lot of suggestions. So it will give you like multiple ways. Um some of them are a little bit more pointed. It’s not the way I would, you know, communicate with someone. Um some definitely and I know there’s a way to do this and I have not explored it in all honesty. Um I know there’s a way for me to link up LinkedIn with Apollo. Um, and then it would give me the, “Hey, I just saw you posted about, you know, yeah, the person having a new brand out, blah blah blah.” Like, it would give me that. I haven’t explored it yet. That’s that’s on the list project for sure. Sounds good. Danielle, how about you? Yeah, same same here. Um, but taking it a little step further, some of my clients are actually using AI really to help them pull together presentations, right? So they’ll get some information from the client, they’ll take their menu, they’ll put it into an AI program or chat or rock or whatever they’re using and are actually generating presentations. Um before you had to really sit down and have manpower to do that. Bam. Now you can do this in 15 seconds based on typing in what the client needs, what do you have to offer, pulls everything together. So they are using it to send emails. They’re using it to develop uh you know um scripts for their for training for their sales teams. are using it and then also to really one step further to take to take presentations to the next level for for potential clients. Haven’t used the voice AI as of yet. Um that that that’s a little going to take a little more testing and feeling comfortable before you jump back into that because it’s you know that those can get aggravating too if if clients can’t get to what the information that they need. So I’m kind of in the same boat as as Claudia there. Gotcha. And to be honest, I think it’s just my general like inconvenience like CVS. If I get stuck in CVS’s, you know, AI voicemail. I was just thinking that I lose my mind. I mean, I was trying to reach CVS last night and I just kept going, this is a very pleasant voice that is really annoying to me. I cannot And like the old way you used to be able to scream operator, press zero, and you’d get someone eventually. Those days are gone. So this to me and Ashley I’m dying to know what you think too but this to me highlights the difference when people are talking about voice AI and what they think voice AI is versus what it’s not. It is not old automated phone trees. It is not calling CVS. It’s actually quite a different experience than that. So uh it actually leverages the data that you give it and have available and it’s not press one for this and press two for this and yeah and I have I have you’re right Chris and that that is a good defining and I have used some of the voice AIs and they’re pretty good. I will say they’re pretty good a far cry from the CVS example which is like you’re right the phone tree but they are pretty good. Um, so I I think more and more restaurants as they get more comfortable with AI and it’s really how much time do you spend upfront educating it, right? They have the time to do that. They are pretty they are pretty decent. The ones I have I have used on the receiving end for myself. Yeah. I I mean I’m a giant AI nerd. So if this sounds uh you know semantic, I apologize. But it’s the same way that a lot of people go, “I’m using an AI agent.” I’m like, “No, you’re just doing automation.” That’s not the same thing. Like an AI agent can think autonomously on its own and make decisions as part of its decision set in its tree. An am while it might tap into chat GBT or Gemini at some point, it’s really following a pre-established kind of workflow. I right now I’m a I asked this only because I’m a giant believer in what I would call agent automations which is just all integrate Gemini typically into a workflow that I have established to make it smarter. So for example I have a client they own 18,000 golf courses they want or they’re trying to manage them. They own a bunch of golf courses. They want to manage uh more more courses. They had a list of 18,000. I took each list had AI research it make it super personal. get their Google ratings, get their average tea time rates, all these other kinds of things, put them together, craft a very hyperpersonalized workflow in an email, like make an email for it, and then send it out and follow up on it, right? Uh not not a straight automation, certainly not an AI agent, but somewhere in between, right? So, that’s the kind of thing I I think that we could leverage in catering, you know, that’s that’s an awesome spot for AI to go, listen, here’s Bob’s insurance agency. Look up Bob’s insurance agency. make this email personal and kick it back out. But Ashley, what are you doing? Um, right. No, just kidding. Right now, I hope you’re on a webinar. Yeah. Hello. Um, no, I I actually was weirded out by AI at first. I’m not even going to lie. Um, it’s taken me a minute to um to kind of come around to the thought of it. But actually, I’m really happy that I am. my um I have two brothers and they are very very techy and um it was so funny when they came in to see what I was doing in um in goh high level they actually gave me props. They usually say that I’m like call me a boomer or whatever and they say that I can’t I don’t know any of this. And then what I did was I went into chat GBT and I started just messing around with it, right? Made an account and and then I I so I I wrote a couple emails and then I had them rewrite them for me and it didn’t sound like me at all. And so it says, “You want me to make it more light, funny, whatever?” So, I said, “Yes, please.” And so, what I’m doing now, because now I’m researching it, I’m learning a little bit more about it. Um, I’m actually teaching it about me, which is scary, too. Not going to lie, but I’m telling it this is what I This is an email that I would normally write. Please learn this or whatever. So, I’m I’m I’m using it as a tool, almost like an office assistant, basically. And so if I give it something like um it knows now that I do catering for Hawaiian Bros that um it knows all of the locations of all of our uh restaurants. Um so I tell it um you know hey today I want to see um all of the doctor offices. That’s a bad example because they use easy care but whatever. But they but I’ll say I want all the doctor’s offices within a two- mile radius of our McDow location. And boom, it gives me because I don’t ask it anymore. You give me the name, the number, if it can find an email, great, and the address. It just does it for me. And then it says, “Do you want me to compile this into an Excel?” Yes, do it. That’s how I use Chat Chat GBT and AI. As far as the voice part of it, I I talk to it all the time. I give it my voice. So, um, and I like that part of it, too, because I feel like I don’t know, it feels more personal to me talking that about AI, but you know what I mean? And, and so I think like if if we So, what I was hearing Claudia and Danielle say is, are you guys are you guys worried about having AI say something that you didn’t approve of? You know what I mean? Because I’d heard Chris say that he would have AI say all this and he’s approved it and so go ahead and say this and so AI would talk. I I I I hear it both ways, right? I the process is smart. I know I should trust it for more than, you know, dressing my cat up as a duck or whatever it is, but making crazy pictures. But there’s a part for me, I think, on the voice side where I I am still hesitant until I know more. And part of that is education, right? I think that’s the the hardest part about being in catering roles is we’re not in the tech world, but we need to use tech. We really do. Like I wish somebody would stand up and talk to me about AI or say, “Hey, you know, we can teach AI for catering.” like great, sign me up. Let me see how it fits in. And I think a big piece of it is you see it doing a lot of, you know, we all watch the news, you see I AI doing these amazing crazy technical crazy things out in the world. And I think we think I think of it at least as a bigger thing than it probably is on the voice side. Um, it’s not. And I know it’s big. Yeah. I mean, again, you can ask any call center out there how big it is. I mean, the fact that they’re able to reduce their headcount and honestly handle more calls with higher ratings at at this point would indicate that it’s much larger than people think it’s going to be. Um, a couple quick things, too. We’re getting some questions in, so I’m I’m sorry I’m not going to try to zip through as many of these as we can. I’m just going to ask you to keep keep your answers as reasonably short as possible. We’re down to 10 minutes here, so let’s see how many we can get through. Um, one was specifically for Danielle. It was what’s the source of the stats that you’ve been referring to? So, it which which ones? Um, I referred to this the um the 80% of catering customers never place a second order. I I had a few different ones and I can follow up. I can put all um I think Gabe is going to send a recap if you’d like. I can take all of the stats that I’ve just referenced, put them into an email, Gabe, and then um maybe he can shoot them out to everybody rather than going through each one and where it came from. I can give the link to it as well. Great. Easier time. That sounds awesome. Here’s one. Here’s one uh actually from my buddy Lance. That’s awesome. He’s on the call. Uh he asks um how can small or mid-size caterers compete with larger operations that have bigger tech budgets? Uh who wants to grab that one? I have definitive thoughts about it, which is the the tech actually levels the playing field. It is the differentiator right now. So, uh I don’t think I I think what you’re finding with AI at the moment is that you do not need large tech people. You can vibe code your way for no cost and no coding experience into amazing solutions that you can do on your own. Hey, it’s I I do believe and I do not think it’s unreasonable or or hyperbolic to say that there will be a billion dollar solopreneur company in the next five years. I mean, that’s what what everybody’s talking about or waiting for. You’ll see it happen. So, that would be my answer. The vibe coding. You’re getting closer, but yeah, I think you’ll see somebody vibe code their way into it. Um, who else? Who wants to jump in on that one? Um, well, I can. So if you’re talking about big tech budgets, so if you don’t even if you don’t have a budget to have a computer or internet or even get to a partner like um you know lunchbox or easy kid or something like that, then I would say that’s one of your goals because I don’t think you will you will last if you don’t. So I mean it’s all about budgeting, right? So, if you have a small budget or midsize budget catering operation, then you get a small or midsize platform or that’s how much you spend on it because they have levels and you can like what Claudia was saying, you can build your own CRM. So, it I just say if if catering is one of your goals that you want to hit and then you just make goals and make that happen. Makes sense. I’ll just add to that, you know, on my end, I’ve worked for small brands and if you perform well and you operationally execute just impeccably, I firmly believe your reputation grows you very quickly to go from being a small brand to being a big player. Fair enough. Daniel, how about you? You do a lot of consulting and stuff as well. What do you tell your clients? You know, look, I one the mo look the most important thing to me I think really is having starting with the CRM tool and this is another stat I know Salesforce just released business that implements CRM systems can see their sales revenue rise by 29%. Um so they got to start somewhere. So as long as they can start with a CRM and build from there. I mean listen look again I’m I’m a high touch person but we have to have the technology. Don’t forget the the good old days of you know just guerilla marketing. dropping off samples like you know food is 30 cents on the dollar you drop off a cookie platter with your GM’s name you know that goes a long way too I know you can’t c cast a wide net but it really is a hybrid of all these little things that we’re doing to to really tip over and and you know really make you a larger player in the in the industry but you know there are some systems out there for lesser budgets as well that you can really manage there’s a lot of free systems there’s a lot of technology out there. Yeah, agree. Yeah, I would find a place to start and roll with it. I would also not forget that I think your marketing message and the way that you approach I love working with smaller brands because they’re automatically the David and you have a very easy target in a monolithic Goliath that sits out there super easy to take free and easy cheap shots at that uh and you’ll score some wins. Also too, always at the end of the day remember this is going to come down to operations and food. Exactly. you know, so how are we executing what we’re doing? Um, here’s another one. What’s one digital tool that you’ve seen deliver the biggest ROI for catering and sales? Uh, I will say just from my perspective, I use High Level quite a bit. Um, I I like HubSpot. HubSpot’s my preferred CRM. I love HubSpot and everything they do. Um, but they are an example of not being able to afford them every single time. So, I made a switch to High Level. Uh, High Level has every tool under the sun for about $100 a month. and it is ridiculously powerful. So, if I was thinking of a baby place to start, you know, getting into CRM and that kind of stuff, that’s where I would start has everything from the voice AI to the texting to the enriched enriched lead platform, full automation suite, everything you would ever want to do. That that’s the one I’ve seen do the biggest. Who else? I’m completely aligned with that. Most of my clients use HubSpots, but they’re larger clients. And when you mentioned that the other day, um, I checked it out and I I’m I’m going to learn more about it because I think that is a great alternative to smaller budgets. Yeah, it it’s good. Um, I offer this all the time. I’m happy to give anybody a free subscription to it. I have an agency account. It’s free for me. I just came out like candy. Um, just so just hit me up. Um, here’s a question that just came in uh from Chad. What do you think is the bestin-class digital solution for firstparty catering sales uh or and ops like is it monkey is it OLO is it another also what CRM tool do you like the best to use for more cold outreach funnel management etc so I think I answered the part about the CRM portion I would use high level depending on your budget HubSpot if you had an unlimited budget for me the best tool that I’ve seen so I I will answer this like this I want lunchbox to be the best tool because I so appreciate their added attitude and their philosophy. Uh I don’t always appreciate their execution to be a thousand% honest. So it really depends on what you’re going for. From from uh from my perspective, I really like Monkey quite a bit. I think they are just natively good right out of the box. Again, I think they lack some of the pre-sale capabilities that I’d like to see, but once you’re into a sale, I I I think they’re phenomenal. Anybody else? Well, I think I spoke my mind on on Monkey, but one other thing um that I I do like about it there. I think the only one I think Oloc Catering is adding this, but to best of my knowledge, they are the only one that fully fully 100% integrates with Easy Cater. Now, I I when I build a catering program for my clients, I tell them to take the hybrid approach. Always start with Easy Cater. You want to fish where the fish are. I know you’re paying the 15% plus+ plus, but it gets your name out there. Then you move to first first party. The one thing about Monkey, it allows every easy caterer order come not just into their POS, but into the whole system automatically seamlessly as if you were placing the order on Monkey Media. None of the other systems I believe Olo catering plus is in the process of adding that right now but none of the other systems flex catering cateren and those have that capability and for somebody who is using a third party like an easy caterer and first party it is a nice timesaver I will say lunchbox said they have an easy cater integration that should be live so I I think that is a a thing you’re right the easy cater integration goes a long way but I agree with that philosophy 10,000%. Yeah. Claudia, Ashley, what about you guys? I think I just want to add in um I know part of the question was for cold reachout and I think yeah Zoom info Apollo I think those are the best and to me those are the best ones I’ve used. I think Clay is phenomenal as well. If you haven’t used Clay AI it’s it’s great. Um again and it has a lot of integrations and CRM already. So I appreciate that. Ashley, how about you? Um, I think with um with uh GoH High Level, I I really like that one because of the workflows and it it lets you customize those workflows very simply like and um you they can be short, they can be long, they can have all different kinds of webs, legs, whatever you want to call them. And so I think that’s actually pretty good. Again, I’m I’m about the personal touch, but as soon as they get that email, they get right in front of you and it’s like that’s how you hit the masses because then you do campaigns and then it does the work for you. It lets you know what it did. It let and then if they opened it, oh, great. Then all like three hours later, they get another or maybe right away another email. But it’s it’s doing that for everybody I did that that I put I triggered on that tag. So, it’s really nice because it’s literally doing the work for me in large amasses. Nowhere anywhere close can I get to that many people that fast. Gotcha. Chad had one more question and I know we’re running out of time so we’ll probably have to go fairly quickly through this one. What tools do you guys use to get emails for cold outreach? Uh there’s a wide variety of tools that I could use. A lot of the ones that Claudia mentioned, again, I’m a big Clay AI fan. I also just create my own workflows. I’m a big uh uh automation programmer. So, I’ll use make.com or NAN. So, I’ll uh go out there, I’ll find companies that I want in a specific industry. I’ll scrape their scrape their domain and then start doing searches for their email address and trying to trying to find as many people as I can at that place. I’ll have an automation that dumps it back into my CRM and then I’ll work work out of that. So, that’s that’s one thing that I do. Uh professional professional industry uh lists go a long way. book a list from the business journal. those kinds of things or at least a great starting spot and then just honestly elbow grease you know I mean it’s just a lot of work yeah that’s good too yeah it’s always another fee but it’s that one’s worth it I think so anything else a really funny one is I’ve gotten a lot of information off of Facebook because in Facebook you have to put if you have a business page you have to have a phone number and you have to have an email So, what email do they give you? Info blah blah blah. Well, that’s a shoe in, right? So, then you can when you have time or if you wanted to um you know research that even more, you can. But another way is to actually get into those groups, right? Those Facebook groups that actually are part of your clientele. I do a lot of LinkedIn. Um and I do a lot of Oh, she froze. Oh, she froze. Claudia, how about you? and then we’ll we’ll wrap it all up because we’re out of time here. Honestly, I would say LinkedIn is an awesome place, but I think to be honest, I think some of your best leads come from restaurants. You got you got to figure out who who are your neighbors, who’s in the area, are you part of a better chamber. Yeah. All the information. Good point. Good point. Well, you guys really thank you so much for your time. Thanks to everybody who attended and all the great questions. really appreciate this and I believe that there will be a copy of this uh on Caterlink website later but thanks to everybody for being here. Yes. And I will make sure I get those stats um to include with with the link. So thank you everybody. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Thank you. Happy Labor Day. Bye bye. Thank you everyone. Bye bye. Get out there. I’m doing the same thing, Ashley.
Dining and Cooking