Our Fundraising Effort & Why - Restaurant Marketing Secrets - Episode 354

Massive Attention & Excitement   It's what independent restaurants need to grow. It's what independent restaurants need to prosper. It's what independent restaurants NEED! It's what independent restaurants DO NOT HAVE...YET!   This is why we are doing our 1st round of fundraising to raise $500,000 with friends and family. We know America's Best Restaurants is the missing link for independent restaurants to finally OUT SMART the big brands and win.   ABR not only creates MASSIVE ATTENTION & EXCITEMENT for our restaurant partners, but we get it ourselves.   The picture below is from my inbox this morning and it repeats itself EVERY DAY! GOOGLE ALERTS about traditional media outlets shouting from the rooftops about ABR visiting a restaurant in their area.   Our biggest fans are...TRADITIONAL MEDIA   YES TV, Radio Stations and Newspapers show up while we're filming at restaurants EVERY WEEK!   They publish ABR EVERY DAY!!!   Up until June of 2023 we focused our efforts on 12 states in the Midwest & East Coast. On June 26th we expanded to 22 states.   On January 2nd, 2024 WE GO NATIONWIDE   WHY are we raising money? What do we plan to use the $500,000 for? What will this round of fundraising allow for?   First, what we're doing with the ABR Roadshow, our marketing firm and soon to be software division, is CRAZY expensive.   Let's focus on just the roadshow.   We've all taken a vacation, packed up the car and driven somewhere, right?   Travel expenses like gas, snacks, food, hotel...they add up. Now imagine doing that with professional TV hosts and videographers 50 weeks per year. OH and add in THOUSANDS of dollars in equipment and airfare every few weeks since it doesn't make sense to drive the vans back to HQ every trip. OHHH and now you have to edit that footage for 100+ pieces of content and create a 20-30 minute show about that restaurant.   This fundraising will allow us the opportunity to scale nationwide, and the most exciting part is it allows us to scale PROFITABLY! You see, we've already built the infrastructure to go nationwide. We currently have in place the entire executive, sales and marketing team needed to make this happen. The same people that helped us launch 12 states can run all 50 states come January 2nd   SO what' the money going to be used for and allow us to do?   We're expanding and improving our production team! In fact, if you watched The History Channel's Food That Built America Episode that I was on in February, WE HIRED THE GUY WHO RAN THE SHOW! Yes, we hired Joel away from NYC and brought him down to Kentucky. He's our Creative Director and tasked with getting the show to NEW LEVELS by 4th Quarter in preparation for our national launch.   These changes in the production of our show will take our quality to a WHOLE NEW level. This will not only help us help these restaurants and grow our audience, but it will open up doors for conversations with national brands that consumers see in restaurants every day. These 7 figure deals will be HUGE additions to the company.   1 BILLION views and social media engagements. YEP, BILLION! By expanding nationwide we'll be able to film at 2,000+ restaurants annually and this will put the ABR brand in front of half of US viewers within 24 months and have us front and center where they spend most of their time, SOCIAL MEDIA! In fact, we studied the restaurants we visited and their marketing. We found that our marketing campaigns and episodes can bring upwards of 84X more engagements and views than what they get on their own...84X. (fun fact, consumers check their phones 11 times an hour and most often it's to watch video on social media).   This national expansion will create THOUSANDS of conversations and relationships with our ABR Marketing division. We are without a doubt, THE VERY BEST restaurant marketing firm, and meeting more restaurants will only help us help more restaurants through our online training program ABR University, Acquisition Engine Marketing Program, R.M.T.W Coaching Division and soon to launch ABR Rewards software. (R.M.T.W stands for Restaurant Marketing That Works, it's our highest level coaching program we have for restaurant owners...it ROCKS!) Of course there's a LOT MORE, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.   And to give you a feeling for what we've accomplished in recent years, below is what that's looked like since 2017 when we changed our companies focus from local Cincinnati area businesses to restaurants nationwide. 2017 to 2018 = 146% 2018 to 2019 = 116% 2019 TO 2020 = 102% 2020 TO 2021 = 111% (yes we doubled during Covid, while other firms CLOSED) 2021 TO 2022 =83% 2021 TO 2022 =173% 2022 TO 2023 = 246% PACING   The future is bright and I want some of you to be a part of that.