 And it puts you as their first choice for an event or a sponsorship. That creates a following like no other. How's my hair? Your hair is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much for hopping on. And I know that a lot of our audience would be able to learn a lot of things from you because you manage the marketing side of a really big brewery. And also you do all the digital marketing and really was able to grow across like the nation for them. Tell me a little bit more about that background. What it was which company was like numbers you're doing. So then that way we can actually showcase that people like what a young stud like you are doing. Yeah, yeah, of course. I'm happy to chat about this. So I four years ago started as the social media manager for a restaurant group here in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake Brewing Company, which owns Squatters and Wasatch Breweries. They also own the beer side as well. So when I started with them, I started social media and I just picked at every opportunity I could. We need to update our website. We need to start email marketing. We need to update our reviews. We need to make changes to our online reviews so that we appear better outward. That was the biggest thing I did when I started and I loved it. And fast forward a little bit. I'm the senior marketing manager for Squatters and Wasatch. And then recently I left to do my own marketing agency, Big Mouth Marketing, which does promotion and supports restaurants, bars and culinary businesses. I took Squatters and Wasatch with me as my client, which is so great. That's so cool. Tell me more about like what were the numbers that you guys are doing? You guys are like, so basically you're doing digital marketing for a brewery. Yes, which is very interesting. There's there's laws per state that that change it up and make it difficult. And in the state of Utah, it's a little challenging. It's a, you know, you have to in the state of Utah to sell beer out of the restaurant. You have to brew the beer there. So it's called a brew pub. And so you have to be able to have a brewery, a mini brewery next to the restaurant. So you can brew out of there and sell beer out of there. It's a weird concept, but we have nine locations and we actually opened three locations during COVID. We were so grateful that we had support from people and we opened two airport locations and then a sandwich shop that I helped with all of the setup, all the marketing setup for all those. And then we also distribute in 24 states, which is a lot. That's insane. Like what's the numbers that you guys are hitting so far? Numbers for the restaurant side. We are doing really, we're doing well again, especially because we're at the Salt Lake City Air Force. We get a lot of traffic. We hit a daily gross of about 17,000, the airports. And then out of a regular restaurant here in the Valley, here in Salt Lake or here in Park City, it's about half that, but it is growing. COVID wasn't like it used to be. It used to just be numbers really down, but numbers are really growing. And I think with vaccine coming and I think with spring coming, we're feeling the push already. It's excited. That's 17,000 a day. That's a lot of, that's really high volume right there. Really high volume. We get a lot of people and that's COVID now. We've hit much higher days pre-COVID and we're hoping for more post-COVID as well. Multi-million dollar company and you're handling with all the digital marketing. Oh, I sure am. Okay, so you started off as doing all the anything that you can do to help them establish more of a digital space. And definitely as we were chatting a little bit earlier is that you see a lot of restaurants. They're getting kind of behind with the adaptation to online. And I totally feel the same thing is that this industry because the margins are so slim is very difficult for us to be able to jump on to the digital marketing space when the ROI isn't necessarily there to begin with, especially when you're investing in like social media. Pictures, reviews, like all those good stuff. So for you, what is the main thing that really drive or move the needle for when you're helping grow that brewery? Yeah, of course, and I can very much relate to that. You have to with digital marketing and with restaurants having that low margin, you really have to prove like the value is here and it absolutely is worth it. An example I have just pop the top of my head is social media marketing has been very, very powerful for us as far as Mossatch because we have new beers. It's kind of our mini PR, you know, it's where we can reach people immediately and create that cult following. And once you get that audience that really is eating up for a better term, everything you're doing, everything you post is exciting. People get into it and then people are at your location. Like I heard this beer is on tap right now or I heard you switched up your menu for St. Patrick's Day. It really that has been very, very powerful. It almost it and I would tie that in with there's that digital marketing piece and there's also this grassroots piece. We do a lot of billboards. We do a lot of community outreach and community engagement with companies and with other companies and it almost puts you as their first choice for an event or a sponsorship or something like that. And that combo creates a following like no other from my experience here. That's really, really insightful because that's exactly what I preach as well. When it comes down to build a community is really to be able to make sure that the value is aligned first. Make sure that you wear your sleeve on the heart or heart on the sleeve. There you go. Your sleeve on your heart. So then it's that's when you're able to actually reach the people and when you connect with them on that level basis, that's where you're able to grow that loyal following. And for you guys to invest in your community is huge. I would agree. And yeah, it's exactly that. You know, restaurants are feeding the community. You are the community. You are where the community gets together to to dine and I think restaurants can get so operations and so in their head that they almost miss the like yumminess of the community, you know, the heart of the community and what they're doing and the memories of. I mean, I'm sure you have many memories of going to a restaurant and friends, family and just a great experience. You always remember that restaurant with that memory. Well, I know for a fact that you have a budget to work with, which is the reason why you can reach so many people. Now, for the restaurant owners who are just starting out and they're just building their own restaurant, how would you propose? What is the one thing that they can do right now? That would make a difference automatically make them a thousand bucks. Hundred bucks. Let me tell you how to make a thousand bucks real quick. Yeah, it would be perfect for a click bait. It's like Maxwell teaching us how to make a thousand dollars in a day. Exactly. No, I don't know. I think where restaurants can do a little better for this is you do not need your staff doing digital marketing. You also don't need to hire a full time person. Usually do digital marketing. There are freelancers who can do it for less money and do it better who have the experience to take it further. I just think a restaurant might think, OK, I need to hire a whole marketing team to make this happen. When really you can hire someone to manage all of it and take care of it. And to me, that will save you money and get you more reach and reach more people. Also, join every community board you're on. Join them. It makes a big difference. That's like free right there. If you can, you know, if you if there's the Salt Lake Area Restaurant Association or the Vancouver, whatever, join it, participate. And then when an opportunity happens, you're there, you know about it. Wow. OK, so just to recap, don't do marketing on your own hire someone to do it. That's number one. And you think that's like the best way for you to be able to get your bang for your buck. And the second thing is to join community boards to make sure that you are tough of mind within your community. And I think that's really, really on point as well, because I truly believe to be in your community. It's not about like asking for stuff. It's about giving and being able to to to be there with them as well and be in the trenches. So definitely very, very good point on that. I do wonder, though, like, and I agree with you to a certain extent when it comes to the biggest effect when it comes to social media or like marketing is to hire someone that knows what they're doing to do the work. But then on the other hand, I feel like a lot of our listeners and an audience, they don't have that budget to hire people, even for even though it's like a contractor. Let's say a thousand. Let's say, for example, on average, a thousand fifteen hundred two thousand dollars. Do you think that's an average rate for a social media person? I think so. Right now, that that's that's pretty good. And if you're spending less than that, you might not be getting the bang for your buck. There you go. So I think like that itself to to afford for a thousand two thousand dollars might not be everyone's kind of jam. Let's say that. So for those people who cannot afford a contractor that knows what they're doing, what would you recommend them to do? I would I would recommend doing that's a that's a great question, because, you know, I'm chatting with those restaurants too, and I'm like, I know you need the support. How can how can you do this without spending this? You know, my recommendation is to start, yeah, to start taking photos for your social media and start engaging yourself and become your own mascot. Become your own face to your restaurant. And I'm sure some restaurant owners right now are like, no, like absolutely not. But but if you if you can sell someone to come to your restaurant, you can sell someone virtually to come to your restaurant. You know, you're you're you own a restaurant. You're telling people how much you love cooking and you love the operations of your restaurant. You love the type of food you have. Put it on camera, put it out there and it will make a difference. It truly will. It just takes time and it just takes the the energy. And I know that's challenging because no one's busier than a restaurant owner. Like they are the busiest, busiest people, but it's worth five minutes a day to log into Instagram, go live and say we're eating and drinking this today. Come join us. I love that. That is a very, very actionable step that a lot of restaurant owners can do and they have no excuse not to do and the power of personal branding, especially if it's something that you truly believe in love is near to none. That's exactly the reason why I'm doing these videos all the time. You see me uploading all the time and that's how we're able to grow that community. And for viewers and audience that are watching and they want to be able to learn things and take away from this is that, hey, you're the best mascot for your own company because no one loves your brand as much as you do. No one is as invested as you do. So if you're not even willing to put yourself out there, then why would you expect any result whatsoever? So I think it's definitely brilliant points that you brought up and I think like this is exactly what is needed is to have that faith in your own company. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that social media tip. It's like at the end of the day, it's not just about the food. It's about the people behind the food, the mission, the value and it always comes back down to that. Preach exactly. Yeah. And it's it's totally worth it. And you believe in it. Tell people you believe in it. What is one story that is like a big scary story or like the biggest mistake that you made that you're like, oh, damn, I want to get fired. Did you just turn on a campaign and it's like it ran for $30,000 and you didn't know about it and it just went down the drain. Never. No, that's terrifying. Like, yeah, let's let's get on camera and talk mistakes. Talk talk problems. Yeah, I I've got an example. Um, we did a one of my restaurants has been around for 30 years. And so we threw it was the first it was the first blue pub in Utah and it's fabulous. I really love it. And I myself and my marketing team, we did a large scale event in our city and it was it was so much work. I mean, there's so much that goes into it, you know, and I, you know, I kind of waited on promotion too long. I said, like people will come people will be there and people were we ended up with a great audience. But it was this last 30 days that just terrified me are the people going to show up are enough people going to sell show up tickets say this, but I need them to say this. So my only, you know, I kind of like to say like, I went to college for that meaning I learned. I learned to this experience off this mistake and my only advice to anyone is if you're doing an event, promote it early as soon as you as soon as you know what you're going to do and the date, tell people about it, get it online, start promoting it, uh, even boosting it for engagement, $10 is worth it. You will see people engaging with it. So let's say how long of a duration actually, you know, for that story, how many people ended up showing up? We had 11,000 people show up for this event. It was huge. Uh, we were hoping for 15,000. So it was close. We were happy about it. It was there. But we knew about this event for about eight, nine months before the event date and we didn't start heavy promotion until about three months before and, uh, I think it's just, you know, uh, operations and marketing are busy and I was busy and I, I knew it was coming, but I didn't know today was the day I need a start, you know, and I'm sure you can relate. Yeah. Wow. That's insane. Well, at least people showed up. I think that's, that's really is the essence. And I guess like to bring it down a notch to, to people. We, we probably don't want 11,000 people to show up at someone's restaurant. No, no, and this is for a large restaurant group. We are a restaurant and a brew pub. So it was beer fest style. Uh, and we, we, we, we, we had the, we had the capacity to do this. Uh, you are a small restaurant and you can get 10 people there. That's a success and 10 people will go tell other people about how great it was. That's insane. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing all these big tips. Now that we know the trick, let's say if people do want 11,000 people to show up for their restaurant, who should they find? How they should they follow you? How like you taught me some handles. I, oh, I, well, I've got, I got a tip on how to get 11,000 people at your event. What we did, what we did is we invited, we did beer. We sold beer. We made beer for this event. And then we partnered with, uh, we partnered with 10 other breweries and the, and it's that community engagement, right? We partnered with 10 other breweries and we said, let's brew a beer together and promote it at this event. And so they, their audiences told other people about this event and that their beer is going to be there. I think a great way to kind of look at that is, uh, food trucks and small restaurant, uh, ex events, uh, you're, you're a collective. And when you get that community engagement, you're also saying, Hey, we're doing this with this many people, uh, they will promote you as well. So that's another part of digital marketing is in that community engagement is. Shout out other restaurants that are doing it. Well, shout out the restaurants you like and say, we love what these guys are doing. And, you know, that friendship can turn into something where they're doing the same back. I love that. That's exactly how we always do a promotion and like cross pollinating collaborations. And I always just coin it in those terms to generalize it, but, but in, in essence, that's exactly what you guys are doing. So great job on that. And for people to actually follow you and along your journey with big mouth, do you have a handle that they can follow? Yes, follow me. Give me a follow. Let's chat. Let's talk. So you can follow me at, uh, Maxwell at big mouth dot agency. You can check out my website, uh, big mouth dot agency. And, uh, you can also check me out personally, uh, Maxwell Christians, H-R-S-T-E-N. Uh, I'm here to work with restaurants. I love what I do. I love supporting restaurants bars and, uh, catering, culinary businesses, food trucks. Uh, I just teamed up with a, a, a food truck, San Diablo Churro truck. They're a churro company and they go and just do churros and it's a lot of fun. I, I love what I do. So, uh, that's my handle. Hit me up. Awesome stuff. Thank you, Maxwell. Thank you.