By Matt Plapp
Over the past month, I’ve sat across the table from 17 restaurant owners just like you. And every conversation started the same way—with a series of three questions:
- What are your annual sales right now?
- What’s the maximum your restaurant could do without raising overhead?
- Awesome. Now…what’s your plan to get there?
And in 90% of those meetings, what I got next was a whole lot of crickets.
Owners couldn’t answer. Not confidently. Not clearly. In fact, most looked at me like it was the first time they’d ever even considered the question.
No vision. No roadmap. Just vague ideas like:
- “We’ve got great reviews.”
- “We’re active on Facebook.”
- “Word-of-mouth is strong.”
But no plan. No acquisition strategy. No data. Just a hope that “doing more of what we’re already doing” will get them where they want to go.
Spoiler: It won’t.
The Difference Between Guessing and Growing
Then I met Aldo. You’ve probably heard me talk about him before. Aldo runs Aldo & Manny Pizza & Pasta in Philadelphia. When I asked Aldo those same three questions, the energy changed.
Matt: “What’s the difference between your sales now and what they could be?”
Aldo: “$7,000.”
Matt: “So there’s $7,000 in sales potential—how many customers is that?”
Aldo: “If we added 20 more customers per day, we’d hit our goal.”
No hesitation. No guesswork. No fuzzy math. It was refreshing—not because he had all the answers, but because he had clearly thought them through. That’s what made him different from the 17 other conversations I had that month.
But even Aldo didn’t have the full plan yet. And that’s the second big lesson. Even for the owners who know their numbers, very few have a clear path to get there.
Because here’s the truth that most aren’t willing to admit: You can’t reach new revenue goals with your current habits. You need a strategy. You need systems. You need a machine that turns marketing into money. Most restaurants don’t have that. They don’t have:
- A customer acquisition program that turns $3 into $30
- A plan to re-engage lost customers
- A framework to upsell existing guests
- A strategy to build and use a customer database
- A mapped-out content calendar with email, text and social campaigns
- Limited-time offers assigned to team members with real accountability
They have “a post on Facebook.” And hope. And prayers. But hope isn’t a plan.
The One Lever You’re Missing
The biggest gap I see in nine out of 10 restaurants is this: None has a system that predictably finds, tracks and brings in new customers every week. What if you had a machine that turned $3 in marketing spend into three new customer contacts and one guest walking in to spend $30 every single week?
That’s what customer acquisition programs do. And that’s what separates owners who talk about growth from owners who create it.
Do This One-Hour Exercise This Week
You want your “aha” moment? Here it is: Block one hour this week to sit down and map out your potential.
Here’s how:
- Calculate your max capacity. Ask yourself:
“If every seat was full, every hour, every day, what’s our weekly revenue?”
“What if takeout orders tripled?”
“What if we added just 20 customers per day?” - Ask a crazy question. “Why couldn’t we double sales with our current staff and space?”
Stretch your brain. Use ChatGPT, employing the CRIT Method to have a conversation that elicits how to make this happen. (If you’re unfamiliar, CRIT stands for Context, Role, Interview, Task. Google it, or ask ChatGPT to break it down for you!) - Accept that hitting even 25% of your big vision is still a win. Let’s say you build a plan to double sales and you grow by “only” 25%. That’s massive progress.
In my next article, I’ll walk you through exactly how to build that plan.
Final Thought
If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you get there? And if you do know, what’s stopping you from building a real plan?
Numbers matter. But execution matters more. It’s not enough to dream big. You need a playbook to match the goal. Start there.
My name is Matt Plapp. I’m the CEO (chief energy officer) of America’s Best Restaurants. I’ve worked with thousands of restaurants since 2008 when I started this company, and over the next 12 months, we will help 2,500-plus restaurants with their marketing. This is the latest article in an ongoing series of columns for PMQ Pizza to help restaurant owners understand the gold mine we have to market in 2025—and beyond.
Ready to build your customer acquisition machine? Email me at [email protected]—no forms, no funnels, just a real conversation. Let’s grow your sales the right way.
