Transcript: Episode 221:

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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is Top Floor episode 221. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/221.

[00:00:14] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry. 

[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. Brady Lowe is a connector, educator and experience maker who has spent the last two decades helping chefs, farmers, hotels, and brands create first-time moments that people never forget. He launched Taste Network in 2002, built the National Heritage Breed movement through chef competitions, butcher demos, and large-scale events, and later founded the nonprofit Piggy Bank to give farmers free business plans. After exiting his flagship events business, Brady rebuilt Taste Network into a full-service agency and events platform, working with luxury F&B and hospitality groups from Aspen One to One Hotels. He's currently rolling out Next 10, a coaching and accelerator hub that gives hospitality pros, practical playbooks, templates, and a fresh approach to guest engagement before anyone ever walks in the door. Today we are doing a special in-person recording of top floor because Brady and I figured out that we live down the street from each other. Our host is Kasey Scott at the Pub at EAV, which stands for East Atlanta Village, who has generously allowed us to commandeer a table in the restaurant, and we are going to talk about Taste Network's evolution, the Next 10 coaching platform, and rethinking hospitality engagement. But before we jump in, we need to answer the call button. 

Call button rings…

The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals who have burning questions. If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text me at (850) 404-9630. Today, we are lucky to have a live in person hospitality professional, Kasey Scott, who is going to ask Brady her question. 

[00:02:39] Kasey Scott: Hey there, Brady. Thank you so much for being here. I'm delighted to be sitting across from someone so accomplished. The number one question that I have for you, this restaurant, formerly The Elder Tree, was widely known for its soccer and for its sports. Since we have rebranded as a community pub where everybody is welcome, our biggest challenge is getting to those audiences to realize that if they are for the Premier League, we will open up early for them, 'cause those games are at noon GMT, 7:00 AM Eastern. What would you recommend we need to do, or what can we do to get better information in front of those sports enthusiasts so they understand that we are here for them as a community?

[00:03:20] Brady Lowe: Great question. Is the sports enthusiast community living within a proximity to the pub here in EAV? 

[00:03:28] Kasey Scott: I believe the audiences, anybody that follows professional leagues, the professional soccer, football, you name it, we've got 10 TVs. It doesn't matter what's on, we will put it all on. 

[00:03:40] Brady Lowe: So I think a good place to start I think Facebook groups. I mean, Facebook groups, there's audiences there that are specifically looking for their teams, right? There's club play, there's World Cup now coming, so there's conversations out there. So I think that's a low-hanging fruit to join the groups and post and comment. I think commenting is a really big way to get them to follow along and kind of be aware of where you are. I think a lot of hospitality providers they go straight for the kill, right? And I think we need to understand that there's between 11 and 35 interactions that happen before somebody actually decides to give you their hard-earned cash. So when you do find people on Facebook groups or on Instagram, you have to realize that you have to build a relationship with them, right? And these micro interactions can really help set them in goals. So you're like, “Hey, where do you usually watch your games? What's your favorite team? What's your favorite coach? Or what do you like to eat? If you were to watch the game, what would you eat?” Like, not come buy my stuff. It's treating people like they want to be seen and those will start to create those relationships and you're like, “Hey, if you ever need anything, just let me know. I'm here, I'm the owner.” And you throw that olive branch out and I think people really like via Instagram DMs really pay attention to that right now, 'cause they want connection and they wanna know that they have somebody at the bar who knows their name and cares that they're coming. I mean, think about the show, Cheers. 

[00:05:12] Kasey Scott: Well, that's what we've tried to create here, and that is actually one of the main reasons why we have been so successful in our first year. As the first year's always the hardest, right? But now what I'm hearing is to transform how we communicate using social media and make it as personal as it is when they walk in the door. That's what we have to articulate. 

[00:05:30] Brady Lowe: Absolutely. Extend your digital concierge to the space in which you've invested your website, your Instagram, and give people a reason to like just connect and follow. And if they're not banging on the door and following you and like. Just go to all the people that follow you already and just rebuild those relationships. Just go out and say, “Hey, how are you? It looks like you have a great family. Oh my gosh. That trip to so-and-so. Looks like you had the greatest dinner last night. Oh my.” And you just throw compliments. Well, it's kind of on like part of my DNA right now, so I'm very much about this. But I don't get enough compliments from people after I spend, you know, 20, 30 seconds, 50 seconds, 2 minutes lurking around their site or their website or Instagram. Just give me a little bit of love too, like look at what I'm doing and it's a great way to connect with, if you have a hundred followers or 10,000. 10,000, there's a lot more engagement there. 

[00:06:25] Kasey Scott: But a lot more engagement. Absolutely. Well, that is wonderful advice. Thank you very much. 

[00:06:29] Brady Lowe: Absolutely.

[00:06:30] Susan Barry: Awesome, Kasey, thank you so much for having us. 

[00:06:32] Brady Lowe: Thanks for hosting us. 

[00:06:34] Susan Barry: So Brady, you have said that you slapped your hand on the table and decided to spend your life giving people first-time experiences. What happened that day and how did it shape, taste network?

[00:06:49] Brady Lowe: This is a great question. Because this was 20-some years ago and I remember it very clearly. I'm sitting at a place called Barrel Man, which was part of Eno Restaurant Group here in Atlanta and we were in Midtown. And I was just left my restaurant job and I wanted to find a place where I could work nine to five o'clock at night, 'cause I wanna start my new career during the day. And there was a guest and he was sitting there and he basically came in and I was like, here's this wine and here's this cheese pairing. And I put it in his hand and I put a little butter on it and I really kind of like dressed it up and it was like this perfect wine pairing with this perfect cheese pairing. That's literally what it was. He ate it, his eyes rolled the back of his head and he had a transformational moment. And it was enough for me to feel like I had done something wrong. Maybe that was too much.

[00:07:48] Susan Barry: Did he start crying or what happened? 

[00:07:52] Brady Lowe: It was one of those moments. And I realized that I slapped my hand on the counter and I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to put experiences and pairings in front of people to give them something that they've never had before. So it was always like, you have to have two things to make a pairing. And I wanted to be the guy who did that. I didn't wanna sell anything to anybody, so I wanted to be a storyteller 'cause that's what I like, grew up kind of like being known for telling a lot of stories. So if I could do it around wine and cheese and make people connect with the producers and those creators, then that was my mission and that's where Taste Network was born.

[00:08:30] Susan Barry: We both live in East Atlanta Village. If we did a mini field report on sort of where dining is back after the pandemic, what in town Atlanta spots would make the cut for you? 

[00:08:46] Brady Lowe: The one that always hits on date night. There's with my lovely wife is Banshee. It's a local and they do a great job supporting local food. And I think that's important that I feel that the money that I'm spending is going into some type of local community deposit. All right, so date night is banshee night. Now, next on from there, I love the adventures of Beaufort Highway, like it still is unbeatable for Korean barbecue.

[00:09:09] Susan Barry: Excellent choice. Where else do you like? So explain that for people who don't live in Atlanta and don't know what Beaufort Highway is. 

[00:09:25] Brady Lowe: I think it's like the biggest and most amazing mashup of cultures. Like you have everything from like the best Mexican to like crazy Korean to insane Japanese food, and you can just like jump from spot to spot and have no idea what you're getting. So you just literally have to go that with a hundred bucks and just see what happens. 

[00:09:46] Susan Barry: It's totally true. I had Indonesian food on Beaufort Highway that was truly, like you talked about, a transformative experience was some of the most delicious food I had ever tasted in my life. Was I craving Indonesian food? No, I was not. 

[00:10:02] Brady Lowe: What about Maman? Have you been there? So, Maman, it's amazing, best short rib dish anywhere, but that's a Beaufort Highway, like go for Lyla Lila, of course. Craig Richards does a great job. I've been following him since he was over at Optimist, which is always on my list as well for sopping shrimp at the bar with a martini. And so I love Lyla Lila, and he has a new place called Elise, which I haven't checked out yet, but that's on the short list. 

[00:10:30] Susan Barry: I've heard so much about Lyla Lila. Have you been to AVS on the west side? 

[00:10:35] Brady Lowe: Yes. 

[00:10:36] Susan Barry: That is my absolute favorite in Atlanta right now. Besides some of the ones you mentioned and also Gaja in our neighborhood, I love, and of course, we went to the Argosy for steak night last night, which was fantastic.

[00:10:49] Brady Lowe: It was. Interesting. I wanted to check that out. 

[00:10:52] Susan Barry: It's really good. It's surprisingly good. 

[00:10:56] Brady Lowe: And then Gaja, I mean, I love Korean food, so I've always had a good vibe in there, and I don't know why I keep missing that on my brain, just kind of like always looks over it. But I do love Avize for that little egg, custard with a caviar on top. Like that's a game-winner always. And Chef does a great job there and I'm really happy that they open their patio and they have a side room now.

[00:10:59] Susan Barry: Oh, my Gaja is so good. I haven't been to that. 

[00:11:20] Brady Lowe: It's really fun. Okay, cool. Great vibe. You know, Miller Union, always consistent on excellence. And my last go-to always is Chops for lunch. 

[00:11:30] Susan Barry: I've never been to Chops. 

[00:11:32] Brady Lowe: Burger and a martini past in town.

[00:11:34] Susan Barry: You have a martini for lunch? How very dare you? 

[00:11:37] Brady Lowe: Three. 

[00:11:39] Susan Barry: Okay. So if you are sober enough to do it, give us the quick tour of Next 10. Who is it for? What is it? What does it include? 

[00:11:50] Brady Lowe: Next 10 is what I want to call like a transformational tool for founders, solopreneurs, creative operators, people who like building events, selling sponsorships, they have ideas, they need to get support and funding and find resources to make these dreams come about. That's what I've done for the last 25 years. So that's what I want to give away for all the playbooks, and it basically is a mastermind. And I feel like within the hospitality space, especially within events and sponsorships, I don't see much mastermind-level stuff because I would've paid to be in 'em. And I think it's just a mix right now of like being able to help people in hospitality find access to tons of Whitney documents have made me millions of dollars. I just wanna give them to 'em. I don't wanna hold them anymore. It's like dying with everything in your wallet that nobody gets to ever see you. 

[00:12:46] Susan Barry: He can't take it with you. So when you talk about fundraising and sponsorship, do you mean sort of like brand partners for an event, or do you mean investors for a concept? 

[00:12:58] Brady Lowe: Everything leans together in a place where you have to have a USP, and when I'm talking about USP, you need to have a unique selling proposition. That establishes what your problem is, what you're solving for your core avatar. If you are not solving a problem, then there's probably not much of a value, and that value is not going to be existing for an event, a restaurant or somebody who wants to build something and find an investor. So right now, I think it's really important that you find what the value and the problem you solve and make it super niche and very unique. So I think that's the type of folks that can benefit from working and talking with me. 

[00:13:41] Susan Barry: Excellent. You touched on this when you were answering Kasey's question earlier, but I know that you are pretty adamant about the fact that engagement starts before the guest arrives in a restaurant. What do you think a great pre-visit engagement sequence looks like for a restaurant, for a hotel? Like what's sort of this step-by-step of how you actually execute against that goal.

[00:14:06] Brady Lowe: So I think with what I believe to be the perfect experience or engagement series for like pre-restaurant, pre-hospitality, and I say just about anything that's more like over a gas station, right? If you have a website and an Instagram page and you rely on some type of conversation to get people to your restaurant and you create some kind of traffic. So it starts with like an easy hello. If I go to somebody's Instagram page and I go to this restaurant, it's cool. I go to this brewery, it sounds great. I heard about it from somewhere. Somehow I'm on their page. I either decide to like, comment, or follow. That depends on my level of engagement with them. I'm gonna make a commitment. I give 'em a heart. If I don't feel like following them, I'll give 'em a comment if I don't feel like following them. And I wanna make be known, but the thing is, if I don't get any type of response, it creates a constant feeling of dismissive. And what I say by it being dismissed is that if I go out to 15 different restaurants and I want to go have a dinner experience with my wife or my cousin there, and I basically say, “Hey, I love your guys' place. I want to come eat. And I get crickets.” Then I get ghosted at all these different places. Like, if I do that three times to all of them and then I go to their bar. And we've all been there cash in hand stand at the bar. It's busy, but they're not crushed. It's not three deep. And I used to work bar, so I know three deep versus there's just, everyone's sitting at the bar, there's three open seats and I'm like, “Hey, I'm just trying to get a drink from my wife and I while we're waiting to take a seat.” And that bartender just acts like they don't see you. And you've been there and you're like, what the hell is going on? So what happens is those three interactions where I got dismissed and that point at that bar, I'm like, what the hell is going on here? And you become a critic of their establishment. Now go backwards. I got a hello and a thank you and a compliment, and somebody was actually acknowledging me on social media. And then I come to the bar with the same cash in, I have a completely different approach, so I can be like, oh, hey, they're busy.

[00:16:25] Susan Barry: You're much more willing to put up with it. It's just like the way that food tastes better when service is good. There's this idea of the emotional bank account between people, right? That if you make enough deposits, if you have to take a withdrawal by like being grouchy one day, you're not gonna overdraw the account. It's the same thing completely. 

[00:16:48] Brady Lowe: Well, what we were having an amazing conversation the other night on was talking about this concept of relationship equity, right? It draws upon the same bank account, but what happens when it is the time of year when a pandemic happens, when the economy completely tanks, what's going to suspend your brand? And I think building that new currency and I think brand equity, relationship equity has, I don't know, it sounds like work. Equity. What'd you get for it? I got equity. You wanna be business partner? I get like four points equity. But when you talk about currency. Now, currency is a different word for hospitality. Now you've got culture, community, creative, culinary. You have all these different currencies that build your brand up. And the one that I think is the most important right now is engagement currency. 

[00:17:25] Susan Barry: It's a transaction, not a relationship. Interesting. 

[00:17:44] Brady Lowe: And really to make sure that your people that are taking time outta their day to follow you or watch you grow, need to be engaged with. So, that's what we came up with a fun different ways to do that, but it's, I think it's really important for the hospitality industry. 

[00:18:01] Susan Barry: So I guess your answer to my next question is gonna be that they aren't engaging, but what do you think brands are doing wrong right now when it comes to social and managing their relationship with customers? Like, is it that they're not engaging or is there more to it? 

[00:18:19] Brady Lowe: That's a great one. I think this is a hard throw under the bus, but I think number one, that nobody's trained. I don't think anybody, when it comes to social media, actually has the training that needs to happen right now. And those who are trained are called creators and influencers. Because they know what it is to build a brand and you can create vanity, you can create a visual billboard for brands on Instagram, on your website, but it's only one level deep, right? So I think the number one mistake is their posting, but not connecting with people. I think one, you have to give someone something of value, right? If I had a website and I had a bar, or I had a restaurant or a tequila brand, and I talk about these with clients all the time. That give me something of value. If I go to your website, give me something really freaking cool like, all right, this is my mom's favorite recipe. That has been my life's work, and this is what the restaurant is built on, this canelloni recipe. All you have to do is just DM me the word X and I will send it to you. Then once they DM you, then you basically, what's your email? Can I send it to your email? Now you've got them on DM, on Instagram, you put 'em into a email sequence. Now you can nurture them, but the thing is, we're not giving enough people high value from a restaurant. This is my three favorite Margarita recipes. Would you like them? This is how we entertain at my house. This is like our favorite recipe. Those are just basics for restaurants of like, what do you have that the guest values that they would ask you to give for free? What does a chef get asked by friends all the time for? Give it away for free.

[00:18:55] Susan Barry: So what's the fix for that? Okay. So what's your solution then for the people who are listening who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds great. I don't have time for that. 

[00:20:13] Brady Lowe: That's a very. I mean, close your doors. I mean it's gonna be a rocky road because we have to figure out a way to suspend hospitality brands. So that they have the currency and the relationship equity when times get tough. And times are tough when you talk about peaks and valleys. A valley is not a great day on a Tuesday when you don't have people coming in the restaurant. So you have to start somewhere. And I think about traffic, right? Traffic's pretty simple. You've got a river next door to your business and it's that riverside, there is an Instagram and a website, and there's people that just go right on by. 6,000 for one of our clients right now a month. We get two to three emails from them. That's not pulling people outta the water. You have to figure out what that number is, but you pay all this money and then you say, I don't want to do it. But I'll tell you in hospitality, if we have 10,000 people walking by our front door every day and nobody's coming inside, what do we do? Fire alarm, build a grill, build some signage, put out the monkeys, like whatever, like put out the flipping signs.

[00:21:25] Susan Barry: Put out the monkeys. You know, I think there's a point here, which is that maybe the idea of underwriting or pro forma-ing businesses and hospitality. You don't have a business. Your business model is broken if it doesn't allow for you to do this kind of engagement. If you don't have a line item for taking care of the potential audience that's out there in the world, then your deal doesn't pencil and you need to go back to the drawing board.

[00:21:58] Brady Lowe: And it's great point because like I was talking to an amazing, exited entrepreneur, founder of a couple companies today, and we just both relied on the same thing that like, you need some kind of tool that turns engagement into cash. And I was like, CRM tool. He goes, yep, yep, yep. Like we get it. That's how we build our business. And we sold it. And I think it's just that people don't know what all the tools are. I was talking to somebody the other day, I was like, Hey, so if you hired a kid to come into the kitchen and be a cook, and he came in and he's like, “Hey, do you guys have knives?” And you are like, dude, I thought you were supposed to have knives. And he doesn't even know how to cut stuff. He just showed on paper that he knows how to cut stuff. You'd be like, he doesn't have the tools, man. Like he's gotta go. Same with the bartender showing up with no toolkit. Like he just shows up and says like, I'll just wing it. 

[00:22:51] Susan Barry: Somebody tell me how to make a martini. 

[00:22:53] Brady Lowe: Yeah. I think we just expect people to show up in their craft. And I think the game is changing and the hospitality industry, you can look at like what's going on with other businesses and other industries to mimic and copy to win.

[00:23:06] Susan Barry: I think this ties back to something I talk about a lot on this show, which is the idea that hospitality is an apprenticeship business. And so we don't trust outsiders, right? Especially in the hotel business, I think restaurants, there's a little bit of both. You can start at the dish pit with no experience, but it's an apprenticeship business in that you can't go get a degree and start as a general manager. You have to have like waited at a table before or cleaned a room or check somebody in at the front desk. The beauty of that, of course, is that you have a culture and you're passing traditions on, but the danger to your point is that. If I never had social media when I was coming up in the hotel business, I don't expect you to know anything about it, and I'm not gonna teach you anything about it. And it's sort of like this perpetuating cycle. Does that make sense? 

[00:24:01] Brady Lowe: Systemic? Because it's gonna come in from any different direction, and I think that's the part where we're missing the training, right? Because this is literally, how do you cut an onion? How do you engage with my guest? Here's a script. I don't need you to come up with a script. I need you just to say what this brand tone is to the T, and I need you to say and talk to people and make them feel good. I love this. There's two different audits that I like always consider audit number one is if you took all of your engagements from your social media account, pulled 'em all, all your conversations, and of course, it's just gonna be like, follow me, like, thank you, comment thanks, thanks comment. And you just use that vernacular and that's the only thing your staff has to work with for a whole week at your restaurant. 

[00:24:42] Susan Barry: Oh, wow. 

[00:24:43] Brady Lowe: Could you imagine? How shall it? 

[00:24:44] Susan Barry: That's crazy. I love that comparison. 

[00:24:47] Brady Lowe: I mean, it should be as connected as what you expect to be tableside. Oh my gosh, so thank you for liking that, and thanks for the comment. That does look delicious. But did you know that grain came from our farmer who did this? And this thing came from our bartender who made this sauce out of this like, get me before. 

[00:25:07] Susan Barry: Can you imagine if servers came up to the side of the table with just like cards that had like a heart emoji? They're like, “Oh, this dinner is delicious.” Heart emoji. Heart emoji. Like it would be insane. That's so funny. I love it. 

[00:25:19] Brady Lowe: Yeah. And then like you go to the front desk and you're like, “Hey, I'm here from a reservation. Follow me!” 

[00:25:24] Susan Barry: Smiley face. 

[00:25:26] Brady Lowe: No, like, Hey, thanks for coming. How’s the day? How was traffic?

[00:25:29] Susan Barry: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:25:30] Brady Lowe: Like this is simple, easy to win engagement, and we forget how basic it can be to like connect with someone. 

[00:25:36] Susan Barry: Well, something that is not basic is the 2026 World Cup. It's coming soon. I know that it will stress test cities and venues and maybe everyone's sanity. What do you hope and expect to see in terms of experience innovation?

[00:25:55] Brady Lowe: When you put this much money on the table, I think you're gonna see a lot of like individuals are gonna come grabbing and want to create stuff, right? There's going to be a big wide sweep of like quality, and then there's going to be not quality, and then there's going to be like ultra premium. And this is a really ultra premium audience because of the ticket prices are kind of like starting at like 3,500 to go into experiences and the only way in. So you've gotta play either I've got the funds to go, but once you go, once you're committed to going, then it's about what does the entire experience look like, right? So people have got a new mindset that if I'm spending $5,000 to go to Super Bowl, I need to spend $25,000 when I'm there all weekend or they're just trying to stick to their like ticket and some bars and just get out as quick as possible.

[00:26:46] Susan Barry: Bring their cooler. 

[00:26:48] Brady Lowe: That's not our audience, sadly. Our audiences, we want to go to amazing dinners, we want immersive experiences, we want can't buy moments, we want to talk to talent, we want fireside chats, we want these things, right? So how do you put that all together and do it in a way that's very unique but memorable? So that's like what we're working on for World Cup. We have an app and it's really exciting, you know? But I think what we're going to see is that there's a lot of people who want to participate. And there's going to be a lot of city-wide when you take something like World Cup and they explain to us that it's going to be seven times the size of Super Bowl because that's what it is.

[00:27:33] Susan Barry: Holy mackerel. Seriously? 

[00:27:35] Brady Lowe: Yeah. Each city's gonna get impacted seven times what a Super Bowl does. 

[00:27:38] Susan Barry: Wow. That is unbelievable. So, Airbnb inventory is about to explode for weekends at a time. 

[00:27:47] Brady Lowe: Everybody wants to book now. They want to figure out their experiences 'cause they know those in the know, it's going to be a challenge later.

[00:27:54] Susan Barry: We like to make sure that our listeners come away from every single episode of Top Floor with a couple of really practical, tangible tips to try either in their businesses or in their personal lives. Brady, your specialty is building irresistible first-time moments. What are your non-negotiables for designing a food and beverage experience that guests will rave about for months?

[00:28:21] Brady Lowe: All right, so great question. For me, what it boils down to having non-negotiables. Number one, the element of surprise. I think everybody still keeps this concept of surprise and delight. The S&D factor pretty high. And I think there's gotta be a couple different things here. One, it's gotta create like a shortcut to the guest experience at home. So you have to create something that's replicable but impactful. And I think that's a surprise and delight moment. Number two is the sequencing, you have to orchestrate something that's very emotional and like when you do a competition, you have to welcome a man, create a vibe, build the vibe, hold them suspense, announce a winner, give them a reward. And that reward was a double payoff. We'll go through an after-party too, right? So we always built that sequence for people to understand that we want you to feel something. And music was one of our vessels. And the last one is human connection. You can't automate hospitality. It has to be like in your team. Their team has to be able to, if you need something, they care if they see someone, like the whole idea of you gotta walk the guest to the bathroom. You have the ability with human connection to make them your moment. And the biggest one, I think that walked away was just, there was no surprises. Like when our talent, our sponsors, our partners showed up, that there was no surprises. You came, you saw you got what you were promised. Nothing more, nothing less is the best compliment that I could ever get was, Thanks, Brady. Great event. No surprises. What you said was here, was here. And then there was a little extra.

[00:30:24] Susan Barry: For a food and beverage leader listening today, say they've only got a handful of hours to improve their engagement with guests. Exactly, how should they spend those hours? Like, I've got 10 hours a week, I can, 10 hours a month I can put into this. What should I do? 

[00:30:42] Brady Lowe: First, I would call up your social media person and I would say, “What are you doing right now that's driving revenue into my bank account?” And I want hard, true numbers. I wanna know if I'm paying you 2000, how much money am I making based on your services? That's a very hard first one. This is called a digital first impression. This allows you to like talk to that social media person. Then I would download your entire Instagram profile. And then that's gonna come in as a JSON file. Then I would upload that into ChatGPT, and I would say, “Tell me about my digital platform. What's working? What's not working? Who are my people? When are they coming in?” And then I would start there with my first hour. 

[00:31:21] Susan Barry: What a good idea. I have never done that, and I will be doing it as soon as we're finished with this conversation. 

[00:31:28] Brady Lowe: Be careful of what you look for. 

[00:31:30] Susan Barry: Have you found any weird surprises or like brilliant insight that you weren't expecting?

[00:31:35] Brady Lowe: Yeah, I mean, it tells you who your audience is. What kind of stuff do they essentially respond to? Gives you an engagement rating, like you can ask it, like, what can I be doing better? Be real honest, like be critical. Like, I'm not making money at this. Why? How can I do better? Why? What can I tell my social media people to do? Why? How do I know if they're the right people? Why? You know what I mean? Be real. 

[00:32:02] Susan Barry: Just keep pushing and pushing and pushing. Well, we have reached the fortune telling portion of our show, so you have to predict the future and then we will come back and see if you got it right. And since I basically know where you live, you will not be escaping this fortune telling question. So, what is a prediction you have about the future of hospitality engagement and pre-visit guest experience? 

[00:32:30] Brady Lowe: I want the world to be better at engagement. And I want a payoff as a user of Instagram. When I go and play and spend my time looking at other people's stuff, I want to feel seen, and I feel that the engagement will increase in hospitality if it's because of me or if not, it will happen, right? But is my mission to make sure that every restaurant owner that I know or come in contact with, we'll see the opportunity. Because it's so important for your guests to feel that interaction before they show up, and it has to be continuous from entry of digital experience, which is your new storefront, not the threshold of your restaurant or your business.

[00:33:14] Susan Barry: If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about how hotels and restaurants build community and loyalty, aside from pinning their information to the top of their account, what would it be? 

[00:33:28] Brady Lowe: I wish I could like hit the hospitality bubble with an understanding that the community currency is their most important asset right now, and it's the one that's going to suspend them through bad days, peaks and valleys, and give them and their team, the culture because they're going to design a new culture that builds their community. And if I could take what I know in my brain and smack it on one the bubble and everyone gets like a glimpse of it. And just becomes curious, then that would be the wish that everyone just becomes curious of like, how can I use what I've built with all my heart and soul and my team to build a community around this, that suspends it? When I'm not here and builds a legacy. I mean, that's really what it's all about. 

[00:34:19] Susan Barry: Okay, folks, before we tell Brady goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.

Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”

[00:34:31] Susan Barry: Brady, what is a story you would only tell me on the loading dock? 

[00:34:35] Brady Lowe: So I'm at Chops and I'm in line to be the beverage buyer, which is like a $2 million slot job. I thought it was gonna be cool 'cause I was like, “Oh, I got a bunch of leverage and be able to meet all these great wine makers that I already knew.” 

[00:34:49] Susan Barry: Go on trips, do all the things. 

[00:34:50] Brady Lowe: And I was a hell of a wine guy, like I sold wine. I bought wine. I was teaching wine. I loved it. And I was basically like, all right, I'm gonna get this job. And then he gave it to a friend who was working there too, which I thought he had a really good palate, but whatever. And I basically was like, “Screw this.” So one day I waited till the managers were coming by and they were walking from manager to meeting to manager meeting. Shift walk, and they always walk by the lobster bar every same, same day, same time. 3:15. My shift didn't start till four o'clock and so I came in, did my pre-work early, and I'm sitting at the bar and I have like the won ads out. This is when the won ads existed. I'm that old and I have a big black Sharpie and I have the won ads. And I'm like just circling big black circles around whatever.

[00:35:42] Susan Barry: To make it very subtle. 

[00:35:45] Brady Lowe: Very subtle that I was done and they all come walking by and one of the managers, GMs was like a buddy of mine and he just stopped. He was like, “Are you serious? Are you really? Is this really happening right now?” And the other managers, all that other one just got completely red-faced and he just got mad right off the bat. Like disrespectful guy. I was like, whatever, bro, you suck. Anyhow, it was a very quick moment that I stood up for myself. And I knew at that moment I was not going to work in the hospitality industry as that rate anymore and I wanted to step out. So that's when I started Taste Network. I started building out like where I wanted to be, how I wanted to get there. And that helped push me out the door. So, I guess my story there is it's okay to step out and be you and take a chance. You get one of them. Just make it count. 

[00:36:41] Susan Barry: Brady Lowe, thank you so much for being here. I loved learning, especially about how to analyze my Instagram account on ChatGPT and I really appreciate you riding with us to the top floor here at the pub at EAV. 

[00:36:58] Brady Lowe: Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. 

[00:37:01] Susan Barry: Thank you for listening. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/221. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all-around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.

[00:37:37] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 850-404-9630 to be featured in a future episode.