Shane Murphy (00:01.846)

Welcome back everybody today. We are here with Tony Nash. He is the owner of AZ branding solutions Tony and I actually got introduced because one of our Boosleys customers an independent pizza shop works with Tony and raved about their experience with him Tony has decades of experience helping small businesses with their branding and their social media presence So Tony, I am so pumped to have you on with us today. Thank you for joining and sharing

your story and experiences with us.

Tony Nash (00:34.698)

Yeah, thanks for having me and I really appreciate it. It's cool what you guys are doing.

Shane Murphy (00:39.252)

Absolutely. And maybe before we dive into a bunch of the meaty topics here, can you tell us a little bit more about your background and that of your branding agency as well?

Tony Nash (00:50.648)

Sure, well my background is in hospitality so it kind of goes along with what you guys do and what you talk about. I was a hotel general manager. I got my start in restaurants, serving and doing all the things and managed some restaurants and then became a GM of a couple of hotels. I did hotel management for about 10 years and actually just love the hospitality business but as you know it is a lifestyle. Like and so started having family and kids and realized like if I want to have any quality of life I can't run these hotels forever.

At least the way I did it, took a lot of commitment. so I decided over the course of the years, I had learned a lot about marketing, branding, and what it takes to make a business grow. And of course, working in hospitality, it's all about people and service. And so you learn how to really connect with people. And so I thought I think I could do something to help other hotels and restaurants grow their brands. And so when I started AZ, it was actually called AZ Business Solutions. And it was about 10 years ago.

One of my main services at that time was hotel consulting, hotel and restaurant consulting. And actually had several restaurants hire me to help recruit staff and train managers. But again, that found me on the road a lot and I have a big family. And so we've kind of niched down into really what we call a branding agency. So today we have kind of a couple of years ago, we rebranded ourselves to AZ Branding Solutions, growing your brand from A to Z. So we say that we're a one stop branding solution.

that gives you access to a team of branding experts that will help you connect your brand to your buyer. And so we partner with companies and organizations of a variety of different sizes all over the country really. And we help them figure out where the best ways to spend their marketing dollars. And so we offer everything from web design, graphic design, social media. We have a full scale video production, podcasting, promotional videos, TV commercials.

We have you know photographers and then we have a full-scale print shop as well. So we do screen printing embroidery Signs banners and so our clients love the fact that they can go to one place and get everything needed to help take their brand to that right place and You know, I think we talked about this earlier before the show every business has a finite number of marketing dollars, right? They only can spend so much but it's always like where do I spend this? What's the best way? What's the best return?

Tony Nash (03:10.188)

And so what we try to do is help them channel those dollars towards the right places. Not always with us. Sometimes it's for other things. But we try to partner with these organizations and really help them grow. And it's been amazing over the last 10 years. we've we've been a big part of a lot of businesses, you know, from start to where they are now and seeing them grow with them. And one of our first clients, I think our second client was a barbecue restaurant that we still have today. And they are thriving and they're doing awesome. And they're one of the best barbecue places here in the state of Michigan. So.

They actually have a tagline called Real Michigan Barbecue, which we helped them develop and nobody else did it because there never was such a thing as Michigan Barbecue, right? You Texas Barbecue, Carolina. So we kind of helped them come up with this idea of Real Michigan Barbecue and it was really a marketing campaign, but it's been highly successful for them.

Shane Murphy (03:57.56)

I love that. That's one of the things that Tony and I can bond over because I'm also a Michigan native, but I'm transplanted in Utah these days. But this is in...

Tony Nash (04:06.764)

Are you rooting for the jazz or the Pistons? I gotta know. Or are you not a basketball guy?

Shane Murphy (04:10.926)

You know, I'm not following it enough, I don't know. That's a hard one. That's a hard one.

Tony Nash (04:19.202)

Sorry to throw a tough question, I was just curious. It's playoff time, so.

Shane Murphy (04:23.09)

Totally good. But I think this is interesting because you talk about helping people to channel their marketing dollars and walking them through that process. I think understanding how an agency like yours interacts with restaurants and customers when you first meet them and are helping them analyze their needs and where to put those dollars would be really helpful. Maybe can you talk through your process of whether that's a barbecue restaurant or another customer that you

You meet for the first time and you're helping them to identify the areas to tune up. What does that process look like?

Tony Nash (04:59.182)

Yeah, I think that's a great question. mean, that's a lot of thing a lot of people are intimidated about and they're worried that they're going to get someone that's real salesy and trying to sell them all these things that they don't need. And, know, I was in that world for 10 years. So I understand getting a salesman to stop by every day like we're going to help take your brand to the next level. And, you know, there's a lot of that stuff that's just not real. And so I determined from the very beginning, like, I want to be a partner to these businesses.

And so I could give you the example of the barbecue restaurant that I referred to, Johnny V's Real Michigan Barbecue. When I first made a connection with the owner, I just asked if could come sit down and I had him show me the restaurant and I him tell me about why barbecue, why Michigan, why are you doing what you're doing. He actually had purchased a struggling barbecue restaurant, happened to be his wife's favorite restaurant, and so he bought it for her. What a gesture, right?

And so just getting to know him, understanding he's a family guy, understanding that he has some Texas roots. he kind of presented me with this idea of real Texas barbecue in the heart of Shiawassee County. I'm like, man, that's a mouthful. And just really kind of helping him to hear out, what are your objectives? What do you want to be known for? What do you want people to think when they think of Johnny V's? And what do you want people to feel when they come in here? And so.

really getting an understanding of who the owner was and what his vision was and even in some ways helping him craft that vision and articulate core values and these types of things really helped us understand their brand and their brand voice. And I think that's the first part is you got to understand who you are, what you're doing and then help guide them through the process. And so, okay, let's tell this story. The brand to me is what builds trust and loyalty. I say this phrase all the time. If people don't know you, you have a marketing problem.

but if people don't choose you, you have a branding problem. And so as a new restaurant taking over, they had a little bit of both. Not a lot of people knew who they were, what they were doing, but the previous owners had a really bad branding problem. People knew about them but weren't choosing them. So that helped us determine, should we spend our time on a lot of marketing objectives or should we really help retell the story of this new brand? And so over the course of time, we built a lot of trust amongst one another.

Tony Nash (07:14.074)

He refers to us all the time as his marketing agency or his marketing department, excuse me. We have a great personal relationship and we've seen them go from one location to two locations. He's considering franchising the business. He's won some awards here in the state of Michigan. And, you know, we wouldn't certainly say that we were the reason for their growth, but we definitely feel like we've been a big part of their growth. We've had just a great partnership, even to the fact of when they open their new location, they asked us to come help them.

design the interior and we're not interior designers, but because we understood their brand, we're able to help them figure out what's the right colors, what's the right look, what's the right art and all those things. And so for me, like the process is not just here's what's worked in the past for a restaurant B or here's what this restaurant down the road does. It's what are you about? Who are you? What are you trying to be? Why are you serving this type of food? Who are you hoping to reach? What do you want people to feel?

And once we get to know the entrepreneur and get to know the family or the people behind it, that helps us determine how do we craft this brand and help them succeed.

Shane Murphy (08:18.71)

And so as you're crafting that, a big part of it is you craft the narrative and what is the story and the feel that you want to put out there. But how do you go about translating that into a story that is actually getting told to customers?

Tony Nash (08:35.918)

That's a great question as well. mean, some of that has to happen internally, right? You got to make sure that, you know, we're not setting them up for false advertising, right? So what we're going to put out to the world in terms of we're going to be known for, you know, their their big thing, we'll go back to Johnny B's, their big thing is chef inspired, smoked on site daily, Southern hospitality. They say my pleasure like you're going into a Chick-fil-A. So if we're going to promote that, that's what they are. We got to make sure first off that.

matches what's happening inside the four walls and it does and then we do that through a lot of different ways sometimes that can be done through great video sometimes that can be done through little social media ads do great photos through introducing people to the culture of the business itself not necessarily the culture of sitting down as a customer but let you see a little behind the scenes get to know the owner get to know the employees sometimes that's done through blog writing sometimes that's done through

a podcast, you know, in some cases. mean, so we really kind of hear what level of comfort, you know, some owners want to stay behind the scenes. They don't want to be out in front. And so do you have someone on staff that likes to do that? And so crafting that story really can happen in a lot of different ways. And we really kind of based it on the comfort level of the particular business and owner. Some people are like out. They want to just be out on front and camera every day all the time doing tick tocks and all these crazy things.

And some people wanna be a little more somber, a little more serious, but still tell their story. so really I'd say it's different for everyone, but it really comes down to the level of comfort that that particular business or owner might have. I hope that answers your question.

Shane Murphy (10:14.434)

Yeah, no, that's great. Because I think branding often is the competitive advantage that is really hard to create. Because there's a lot of competition, especially in restaurants. And the way that you separate yourself, you can only go so far on the ingredients. we get the best ingredients, we have these different things, but the brand and how you interact with your customers

Tony Nash (10:27.502)

for sure.

Shane Murphy (10:43.874)

And the story that you tell the customers is what starts to really resonate and bring them back over and over again. Now.

Tony Nash (10:50.392)

Well, I would say, you know, figure out what is that thing that makes you unique and double down on that. You know, like you said, you know, there's a lot of places to get a burger. There's a lot of places to get, you know, a steak or some ribs or whatever. So if your recipe isn't what makes you different, sometimes it is the physical recipe. So then we let's double down on the way we do it, our process, you know, this is smoked for 19 hours on site in our own house. You know, we're using these processes or whatever.

But sometimes it's not the recipe. Sometimes it's the environment. Sometimes it's the culture. Sometimes it's the service. It's the hospitality. It's the it's the vibe, you know, and so and sometimes it's all of those things. And so I think that if you're trying to do something that you saw somebody else do and it's not your own, you're going to have a really hard time replicating that. And so I say, what makes you especially in the restaurant business, especially in the restaurant business, you got to find something unique, different. It can be the same style of food, but what's your spin? What's your twist? What's your what makes you different?

And then that's where you build the brand. And the brand to me is what builds trust, it's what builds loyalty. We say it this way, your brand is a combination of who you say you are and what your customers know you are. And so if those two don't match, you have a brand identity crisis. And so, you know, trying to help somebody build out that idea. And it's something that surprisingly, a lot of businesses don't think about. You know, they think of marketing.

how to put it out to the world. They think of here's what we want to serve. Here's what, but they never think about what is my brand? What makes you, if you think about the most successful restaurants in the world, there is a brand built around those restaurants. And if I say a restaurant chain, you will immediately think something. It will give you a feeling. It might give you a good feeling. It might give you a bad feeling, but there is a brand. And that's where I think a lot of independent restaurants, especially sometimes Mr. Mark, they just think, we have the best burgers around. Well, why, how, where? So that's kind of the.

the thought.

Shane Murphy (12:49.162)

I that. that, yeah, those are great insights. I loved how you talked about doubling down on what makes you unique, find that thing, and just how branding is that combination of both what you say you are and how the customer sees you. So I know one of the things that you mentioned that you have kind of a full service marketing package that you do or social media package that you manage for people.

Tony Nash (13:14.478)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Shane Murphy (13:17.166)

What are some of the common mistakes that people make when managing their social media and the benefit that you and your team have brought to people as they've corrected some of those mistakes?

Tony Nash (13:30.423)

You know, I remember 10 years ago when I started this company trying to convince business owners they should have a Facebook page and there wasn't a lot of businesses that did 10 years ago, honestly. And then, you I would say today every business has a Facebook page or they just they just just as part. It's part of the thing now. But where most people go wrong now is either they're not posting at all. They're not posting consistently or what they are posting is.

not doing them anything. It's not telling their story. It's not showing who they are. It's not unique. It's not making them stand out. They're just posting to post. So I would say probably the number one strategy is not that businesses don't have social media, because most of them do, is that they're not strategic about it. You know, I said I said it to a restaurant that we just signed recently. said, you know, your chef is incredible. And he sits down and he puts so much thought into what

he's going to serve and how he's going to serve it and how it's going to be prepared and how many employees he's gonna need to help him make that happen and how it's gonna be presented on a plate and how it's gonna look to the customer and how it's gonna be all of those things. So much strategy goes into one dish and yet you have this thing that's putting your business out to the entire community and there's no strategy behind it. Just like, well, what should I post today? there's a cool picture. look at this drink that just came out and you're using like

Android phone that's ten years old with bad lighting and you post it it doesn't look appetizing and that tells people something about your restaurant it tells people something that If they're not taking good and people might not think of it this way But if they look at it say they're not interested in taking good photos Or they're not interested in making the food look appetizing then how interested and they actually How much detail are they putting into the actual product? And so I think you know people have kind of

reluctantly said, okay, I'll do social media, but there's no strategy behind it. And so where we come in is we say, let's not just say, what are we going to post today? We work months ahead. You know, with all of our clients, we have either a quarterly or even in some cases, a monthly planning session where our team of experts gets together with their, whoever their, you know, their people are that would make those decisions. And we say,

Tony Nash (15:46.775)

All right, what's coming up over the next quarter? What's coming up over the next two months that we really want to talk about? What specials are we going to be doing? And what it does is it helps them think that through. Sometimes you get so busy in the day to day that you're not thinking ahead. And so we help them kind of think that through. And then we schedule a content day where we come and we capture the photos, we capture the video, we get interviews, whatever we're going to do. And then we start scheduling it out. And we also are past the days of a

viral organic social media reach. Unless you're using TikTok, which takes a whole other set of skill and time that I don't recommend everybody tries it. think if you have the right personality, the right niche for it, it's a cool thing. It's not something you should have someone do for you. If you're going to have a TikTok, you should do it yourself. But let's just focus on the main one, which would be Facebook and Instagram, right? That's the one every restaurant should have and should be active on. That what we're seeing is the days of organic reach.

where I just post it and a bunch of people, it's really gone. You have to spend money. So in all of our packages, we have four different social media packages, they're called our GROW packages, G-R-O-W, they all stand for something different. And in every package, 15 to 20 % of all the money you spend goes towards ad spend, because if you wanna get reach, you're gonna have to spend money. So I would say, that was a long way to answer your question, I apologize, but I would say the number one mistake is there's no strategy.

The number two mistake is they're not running any kind of ads. They're not spending money. And you don't have to spend a lot of money, but you do have to spend some money if you want to get reach.

Shane Murphy (17:22.078)

I think that's a common misconception when a restaurant owner says, yeah, I do social media marketing. Sometimes the connotation with that is I'm posting and I post consistently, but there is a difference between actually posting and marketing through the posts and the content that you're putting out there. I love that.

Tony Nash (17:34.69)

Right. Right.

Tony Nash (17:43.055)

through the channel. Yeah, I mean, many of them can't even articulate who their target customer is. Who are we going after? Who are we looking for? And so if you haven't thought those things through, sometimes you're just kind of shooting into the wind, you know, and so we try to help you kind of streamline where that's going and what the content looks like. And so I remember a day where you could post like Burger of the Week and it would get 200 likes. But those those days are gone. You're going to spend a little bit of money.

Shane Murphy (18:07.427)

Yeah.

Shane Murphy (18:11.692)

Yeah, one of the other components is when you do spend money, you're able to go after new customers, in addition to your existing customer base. And sometimes you wonder why social media isn't working for you. And it's because you're posting content that isn't engaging or isn't like you said, it's not working for you. It's not telling the story you want. It's not showcasing why you're unique or driving people to a certain action. It's just

Tony Nash (18:22.19)

It's a great point.

Tony Nash (18:35.288)

Correct.

Shane Murphy (18:40.972)

posting because you know you should post.

Tony Nash (18:43.36)

It's really just top of mind at best. It's just keeping you at the top of people's mind, but you're not attracting anything new.

Shane Murphy (18:49.548)

Yeah. And so when you start to do like paid social media, that's where you start to get into new customers. And if you aren't being strategic about it, about the what's going to capture their attention, why they're going to come into your restaurant, you're also going to miss and you'll pay money for those ads and still not get results and feel like it's well, social media is a waste and you'll give up on on an incredible.

Tony Nash (19:15.79)

100 % 100 % you used the key word there that I want to draw some you said the word attention I said, you know, think the number one currency in business today is attention We're all looking for we're all vying for and right now today in 2025 The attention is on social media and so that could change in a couple years But today we're preaching you have to be active on social media and just like you said you said it so well It's not just about

Shane Murphy (19:23.053)

Yeah.

Tony Nash (19:42.84)

putting out a certain number of posts, but it's about really getting specific about who am I looking for, what am I saying, what is this telling? It's not just checking that thing off the box while I got social media done today, but it's really specific and targeted.

Shane Murphy (19:57.068)

Yeah, and this is where you highlighted the importance of zooming out to focus on the overall strategy and what you're actually trying to accomplish and how to put that into place. It's so easy for restaurant owners to be caught up in the million fires that they have. My GM just quit. My oven is on the fritz. My food vendor got delayed and the price of tomatoes just skyrocketed and the tariffs are squeezing my margins. All of these things are

Tony Nash (20:13.676)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Tony Nash (20:26.222)

100%.

Shane Murphy (20:26.926)

that are so hard to manage for these restaurant owners. But you have to schedule the time to think strategically. And the brand, the relationship that you have with your customers and how you communicate that story to them is the heart of driving both new and repeat business. If you had maybe one piece of advice for

Tony Nash (20:36.716)

You have to.

Tony Nash (20:50.796)

Yeah.

Shane Murphy (20:56.232)

restaurant owner that's trying to succeed in these areas and trying to improve, what would that one piece of advice be for them?

Tony Nash (21:04.79)

That's a good question. I think I would go back to something I said earlier, which was if people don't know you, you have a marketing problem. If people don't choose you, you have a branding problem. So think about your restaurant today. We could all be doing more sales, right? You know, I always tell people never say we don't need any more business. That's the worst thing a business owner can say. We could all do better. But I could imagine if you are a mom and pop, you know, single location or few location restaurant in 2025.

There's a struggle at some level, right? It's a hard world we're living in. Whether that be the cost of your food, like you said, all of the things. So look at your restaurant today and say, okay, are the struggles we're having is because people don't know us, they don't know we're here, they don't know we exist, they don't know where we're located, or is the struggles we're having because people aren't choosing us? They know we're here, but they're still not coming. So I would say the first thing you should do before you start throwing any more money at anything else,

is delineate, do I have a marketing problem or do have a branding problem? I'll give a short example here. A restaurant we just signed, the one I was just referring to, they've been in this community for 20 years. Everybody knows they exist. They're known as the fine dining place in our community. And they've had a billboard on the main road coming into town for at least 10 years. And the billboard changes, I think, once a year. But it's always their name and a picture of their food.

And they spend a decent amount of money on that billboard and they're not hardly doing anything on social media. And so they're like, where do we come up with the funds for blah, blah, blah? And I said, OK, I think billboards can be great in the right situation. We recommend some people have billboards and some people don't. But again, it's a matter of a marketing problem or a branding problem. So I said, do you think that the reason your restaurant isn't as full as you want is because people that are driving down M 52, which is our main right here, that they don't know you're here?

Well, no, everybody knows we're here. I said, so the billboard is not there to make people choose you. The billboard is there to make people aware of you. And I said, so because everyone in this town knows you're here, having a billboard in this town, maybe put that billboard in a market that you're looking to break into or in a different area. But to have it in here, I said, I really think you're kind of throwing money out the window. So my best advice would be take the billboard down and allocate those same dollars. Don't see it as a saving towards some branding.

Tony Nash (23:28.79)

Let's get people to know your story and understand who you are and why you're worth the drive and why you're worth a you know Why am I gonna come spend $35 on a steak or whatever it might be? Let's tell that story And boy they jumped in on that and they're loving and they're seeing incredible results And so I think again the advice comes in there is Determined do I have a branding problem or do I have a marketing problem? And then I would say

Reach out to somebody who might know a little more than you about how to maybe even if it's just a consultation about where to point my energy. You we always say when you partner with us, you get to do the things that you're good at. Let us handle the things we are so that like you said, all the things that could go wrong in a restaurant and all the things you have to think of as a restaurant owner to also have to think, all right, I got to make social media content. It can seem overwhelming, but it cannot be something. And I just said social media, but

Really, you know what I'm saying, the marketing and the branding, it gets swept under the rug. And so you have this kind of great product that nobody knows about or this great product that nobody is choosing because you're lacking in those areas.

Shane Murphy (24:39.662)

That is great advice. I hope that everyone who's listening takes the time to ask those questions Is it is my problem that people don't know that I'm here? Is it people that know me but they don't they aren't choosing me because that can that can drive your strategy from there Tony that this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming and sharing these and I guess how can listeners best

Tony Nash (24:58.126)

100%.

Tony Nash (25:01.966)

Thanks for having me, I love it.

Shane Murphy (25:09.432)

follow you and or AZ.

Tony Nash (25:13.558)

I appreciate that. We're we're on all the socials. You can follow us on Instagram, Tick Tock, you know, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. We're everywhere. We also have a podcast called Brand Out where we talk about brands that we love and what they did and what they could do better and what we love about what they're doing. And you can find that on anywhere a podcast is found. Our website is www.azbranding.com and there you can find multiple ways to connect with us. If you are in our area or not in our area and you just need

help kind of thinking it through and just want to talk. I am a self-proclaimed branding nerd. I just love talking about branding as you can probably tell. I would love to just talk with you, whether you ever become a client of ours or a partner of ours. I just love to talk to you about what you're doing and help maybe kind of channel your energy in the right direction and would love to help. So yeah, reach out to us, follow our podcast. I think you might enjoy that. It's not restaurant specific, it's brand specific, but it's a lot of fun. We have a good time and you get introduced to our team.

But yeah, reach out if there's anything we can do to help.

Shane Murphy (26:14.894)

Amazing Tony, thanks so much and really appreciate you coming on today.

Tony Nash (26:19.214)

Appreciate you having me. I really like what you guys are doing.

Shane Murphy (26:22.338)

Awesome, thank you. You too.

Tony Nash (26:23.502)

Thank you, have a great day. Bye bye.