Matt Frey left a career in corporate sales to open Bub’s with his wife, Rachel. Both had worked in restaurants, but had never owned one, or even managed one. Like any successful entrepreneur, Matt had the attitude that failure was not an option, and he’s built a successful business around that mentality. In fact, he said several times that he looks at Bub’s as a business, not a restaurant. Bub’s has been very successful, and was recently featured on the hit Food Channel show, “Man v. Food.” Here Matt shares his philosophies on hiring sales people for every position at Bub’s…

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You focus a lot on sales.
You bet. When I hire, it’s salespeople and not waiters. I think that’s what every restaurant owner should focus on. Anyone can go, “Hi, my name is Ashley. What do you want to eat today?” Bullshit. The first thing you do is say, “Hi, how are you?” You create a relationship, and you talk about the menu, and you talk about the promotions, or the soup of the day and carry on to close the deal.

How important is it to have the right kind of staff in your restaurant?
It’s vital, absolutely vital. They’re a complete reflection of me and my family.

It’s well known at this point what to expect when they walk in. They know that we hire young people. I’m very active in the local high school in their marketing classes and entrepreneur classes, talking about sales and how important sales is not only at Bub’s but anywhere they work. I tell them we don’t hire ice cream scoopers, bussers, dishwasher, hosts or waiters. We hire salespeople.

If we hire you to dish, if you’re content with that, you’ll last about a week here. You should be motivated enough to say, “Okay, what do I have to do here to get my feet on that floor to make that cash?” We hire 15 year olds. Those kids walk out with $100 – $150 bucks cash in their pockets after working four hours. These are the kids that gave you that goofy look when you were talking about ROI and maximizing profitability, but when they walk out with that cash, they fully understand and they take it real serious after that.

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Matt shared a lot of other valuable advice in his interview for Restaurant Owners Uncorked, which will be available soon!

The Schedulefly Crew