Making Dough Show | Restaurant Show

Let's talk about the importance of creating Strategic Partnerships as restaurant owners and managers. 

In this episode you will learn:

// 7 to 10 businesses we have partnered with throughout years that you can also take advantage of in your community! 

// How strategic partnerships can grow your sales and create steady stream of new customers for our restaurant.

// How strategic partnerships can benefit your team. 

// How strategic partnerships build your reputation.

// How to create mutually beneficial and long term relationships

// Download the Ultimate Restaurant Marketing Guide  and all our FREE Resources at https://www.makingdoughshow.com/resources

// WHO:

Hengam and Matthew Stanfield are owners of two restaurants in San Antonio. Their background is in engineering.   They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience.

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

Let’s chat. Email us at: [email protected]

// LET'S CONNECT:

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at

 // Download the Ultimate Restaurant Marketing Guide  and all our FREE Resources at https://www.makingdoughshow.com/resources

// WHO:

Hengam Stanfield is the co-owner of two restaurants in San Antonio alongside his husband Matt. Their background is in engineering.   They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience.

They believe every restaurateur deserves owning a restaurant that does not own them. 

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

Let’s chat. Email us at: [email protected]

// LET'S CONNECT:

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at

// TODAY’S EPISODE:

 Let's start talking about the 3 tips on how you can more likely to have 5 stars reviews  

You got to exceed the expectation!

HOW TO EXCEED CUSTOMERS EXPECTATION: 

 1. IMPROVE YOUR SPEED OF SERVICE

2. OVERLY FRIENDLY SERVICE

Greeting and farewelling in an OVERLY friendly service way is something you can train your servers. Have got to train your people on this and daily emphasize how important it is!  

3. CLEANLINESS

Cleanliness doesn't mean fancy stuff or beautiful decor. This isn’t about fancy decor! People notice cleanliness! Have cleaning checklists and hold your team accountable. 

Now, 3 ways to get MORE reviews! 

1. Ask for it!  

You can ask indirect the customers like use stickers or something you can post on your 4 sides of Wall saying something like “it would mean the world if you’d take 5 minutes and leave us a review”. You can use your Website or write something under your receipt saying the same thing.n And on the other side: Yelp and etc logos and says “Would you please leave us a review?” “It would help us out?!” 

 2. INCENTIVE THE CUSTOMERS 

 This might not give you a 5 stars reviews but you will get more reviews and this is how we do it.  Where I make sure I can hit the different points I want to say in my response to our customers.   For a positive review make communication of saying thank you to them. Email them like you want something to send them to thank you certificate of a little thank you gifts. And for a negative side, it is also the same as we want to make things right we would like to send you a gift certificate and hopes you give us another opportunity please email us.  

3. INCENTIVE THE TEAM

One of the things we do is to have a nameplate for our team. A lot of times even good or bad reviews the customers will remember the name of the server. So you will know who was it, who did it and what was it.

How to Market Healthy Dishes on your menu successfully | Restaurant Marketing Tip

// Download our 10 Steps to any Restaurant Promotion: https://bit.ly/2TA5NQT

This is the step by step checklist we use in house to promote any dish or any event at our restaurants. 

// In this episode you will learn: 

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

Let’s chat. Email us at: [email protected]

// WHO:

Hengam Stanfield is the co-owner of two restaurants in San Antonio alongside his husband Matt. Their background is in engineering.   They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience.

They believe every restaurateur deserves owning a restaurant that does not own them. 

// LET'S CONNECT:

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at

Download for FREE: Restaurant Business Plan | Free PDF

https://mds.mykajabi.com/RestaurantBusinessPlan

WATCH: AVOID these 3 common mistakes when Opening a Restaurant

https://youtu.be/ffVyRNhF6cE

// WHO: Hengam Stanfield is the co-owner of two restaurants in San Antonio alongside his husband Matt. Their background is in engineering.   They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience. They believe every restaurateur deserves owning a restaurant that does not own them. 

// LET'S CONNECT:

SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@makingdoughshow

SUBSCRIBE to our Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/makingdoughshow

CONNECT on Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hengamstanfield/

 // TODAY'S EPISODE:

Planning to open up a restaurant? 

“Hello Hengam a great video! I would definitely be interested in more of your videos and advice. My wife and I also live in Texas and we are in a very beginning stages of owning our own restaurant. I'd love to hear more on the beginning of how you got started leading up to opening day and what you would recommend for us looking to put the dream into actions and what steps to take to properly execute? Thank you!” -Lawrence 

You have got to get obsessed with your numbers 

You got a study to the numbers. You're purchasing an existing restaurant You need to review the numbers. You need that they're going to give you a P&L. Because what you're paying for unless it's an asset purchase. 

NEGOTIATE EVERYTHING!

You feel like you're not entitled to negotiate because you're just starting. You need to view that exactly the opposite because you're starting out ask for grace say hey how about I you know pay this you know like hypothetically even if it's AT&T. 

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING! 

Overall just document everything you know what I'm saying it's just the fact it is because there's gonna be so many moving parts you're going to forget now when it comes to document obviously you can use a classic pen and paper or something or a notebook you have or you can use a logbook feature that many software's do offer. 

Expect that you're gonna make mistakes. 

It is going to take a village an enormous amount of work to make a business successful and I'm just being honest with you so expect the unexpected so it would be less stressful for you. 

BE OBSESSED WITH GROWING YOUR SALES

And you're gonna continue to be obsessed with sales when sales is good because the way it works in the restaurant is whatever you do whatever you do today to grow yourself whatever activity you do to market your restaurant is not going to surface up you won't see the results in four to six weeks so we go through this season where sells is really good.

And the last tip I have for you which my husband and I failed to do is to go work at another restaurant maybe you have had years of restaurant experience or not our case we had zero.  And just learn as much as you can from another of restaurant owner.

// Download our FREE Guide: 52 Ways to GROW your Restaurant sales on our website: https://bit.ly/2InYI1d

// WHO:

Hengam Stanfield is the co-owner of two restaurants in San Antonio alongside his husband Matt. Their background is in engineering.   They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience.

They believe every restaurateur deserves owning a restaurant that does not own them. 

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

Let’s chat. Email us at: [email protected]

// LET'S CONNECT:

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at

// Download the Ultimate Restaurant Marketing Guide  and all our FREE Resources at https://www.makingdoughshow.com/resources

// WHO:

Hengam Stanfield is the co-owner of two restaurants in San Antonio alongside his husband Matt. Their background is in engineering.   They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience.

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

Let’s chat. Email us at: [email protected]

// LET'S CONNECT:

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at

// TODAY’S EPISODE:

We are talking about Facebook and how we must continue to post REGULARLY on it 2019 despite the low reach! 

These 3 reasons may surprise you! 

// Leave us a review if you enjoyed the show. 

Thank you

 // Download the Ultimate Restaurant Marketing Guide  and all our FREE Resources at https://www.makingdoughshow.com/resources

// WHO:

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

// LET'S CONNECT:

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at

 // Today's Episode

Valentine's Day is rapidly approaching. Make it more memorable for you and for all of your costumers.

Here are some V-day promotions and marketing ideas that helps your sales growth and make your costumers fell in love with your restaurants too. 

// Download the Ultimate Restaurant Marketing Guide  and all our FREE Resources at https://www.makingdoughshow.com/resources

// LET'S CONNECT:

// WHO:

Hengam Stanfield is the co-owner of two restaurants in San Antonio alongside his husband Matt. Their background is in engineering.   They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience.

They are passionate about helping other restaurant owners grow their sales, grow their team and live the American dream!

Motto : Own a restaurant that does not own you!

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

Let’s chat. Email us at: [email protected]

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at

// TODAY’S EPISODE:

Making DOUGH Action plan: 

#facebookgroups #Facebookgroupmarketing

// Download our FREE Guide: 52 Ways to GROW your Restaurant sales on our website: https://www.makingdoughshow.com/52-restaurant-marketing-ideas

// WHO:

Hengam Stanfield is the co-owner of two restaurants in San Antonio alongside his husband Matt. Their background is in engineering.   They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience.

They are passionate about helping other restaurant owners grow their sales, grow their team and live the American dream!

Motto : Own a restaurant that does not own you!

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

Let’s chat. Email us at: [email protected]

// LET'S CONNECT:

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at

//  Today's Episode:

Today two of our staff members placed her two weeks notice because there are going to work for Chick fil a and I’ll strip mall starting at $12 an hour.

We’re not able to pay our people that much. At least not a regular team members.

That is the rate that Chick fil a advertises for their full-time staff. And yes they have the signage everywhere for everyone to see. 

How do we compete with that? 

Here’s the thing we cannot play at that game and expect to win! We got a play a different game! 

We cannot afford to pay people starting at $12 an hour. But we can do some other things! 

We have got to turn our disadvantages into our advantages. That’s the only choice we have. 

So if the disadvantage is the fact that we’re a mom and pop, we got to turn that into our advantage. 

Because we don’t have 70 or 80 staff like Chick-fil-A, we can make the time to get to know our people on a deeper level. 

Why does this matter? 

Because we can find out what makes them tick! And deliver on that. 

There is a sector of the workforce that cares about money, and there is the other half who are not motivated by money!  

We need to figure out what motivates them and play that game! 

I’m not saying that we’ve mastered this. As I started I mentioned we just had two team members put their two weeks in! 

But here are a few things that I’ve learned from this experience that I want to share with you. 

Download the Ultimate Restaurant Marketing Guide  and all our FREE Resources at https://www.makingdoughshow.com/resources

// TODAY'S EPISODE:

Today were going to talk about how you can run a swot analysis of your restaurant. 

Learn how you can do SWOT analysis for your restaurant business. Identify the Strengths (S), Weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O), and the Threats (T) of your restaurant that you can use to plan your business strategies and make your food venture a successful one.

// LET'S CONNECT:

// WHO:

Hengam Stanfield is mom of 3, and the proud co-owner of two restaurants in San Antonio alongside his husband Matt. Their background is in engineering.   

They tripled their restaurant sales in less than 5 years with 0 prior restaurant experience.

They are passionate about helping other restaurant owners grow their sales, grow their team and live the American dream!

Motto : Own a restaurant that does not own you!

// Need help with your restaurants marketing strategy?

Let’s just chat. Email us at: [email protected]

// Got questions? Submit your questions for a future Q&A episode at