7 Minutes to Better Selling Podcast - S2 - Ep. 8

Hey, welcome everybody to season two of the seven minutes to better selling podcast. I'm your host

Colin Lake. So with that in mind, I'm going to welcome Dom Fabiano on the show with us

Dom is an investor. He's a restaurateur. He's an entrepreneur and an all around really

really good guy. So Dom, welcome and thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Colin. Good morning

How do you get from that guy doing what he was doing to this amazing restaurateur

entrepreneur, and a really interesting guy? Well, my entrepreneurial venture started really young

I considered myself a hustler. So I was driven by making money. My parents were immigrants that

came from Italy in the 50s. They didn't speak a word of English, didn't have much money

came to Boston for opportunity. And, you know, if I wanted new shoes or clothes or what have you in

school, my dad's like, well, you're going to have to work for it. You know, you're not, we're not

just going to buy you the things that you want. And so that might've been detailing cars that

might've been going down to the convenience store and buying candy and then selling it out of my

locker at school for a profit. It was just kind of the mentality I had at a young age, and that

stuck with me. Dom, let me ask you this. This is slightly off topic, but you have a couple bucks

in your pocket, thank God, due to the wonderful culture and businesses you've created. How do you

do that same thing for your kids? You got a few bucks. How do you make them go earn their own way

and not give them what they want and what they're asking for you all the time in this day and age

where everyone has to have what everyone else has? Sure. So I'm lucky that my wife, we have two

children two boys five and nine Dylan and Bryce And you know luckily we both come from a great work ethic background The two of us share that in common and it something that we really want to drive home to our children

So making them work for what they have is a really important concept that we're continually driving home

So, for example, at home, it might be, you know, something as simple as, hey, if you're getting all these chores done, then you can get, you know, $5 in V-Bucks

You know, or fortunately, I have a restaurant and my oldest, who's nine, can help out at the restaurant doing small tasks

We have a really robust curbside takeout business, which means that folks drive up to the front doors and they give us an order number

We give them their takeout food. And Bryce has helped with with that, even just bringing the food from inside the restaurant out to the guest with a smile and earning some gratuities as a result

So that's great. Great point. I'm going to I'm going to ask you this question

It's a single question, but I'm going to break it into two parts, see if you can answer it in two parts

So I said a couple of times in promotion of this podcast, you took what was a what I would call an average business

I would even call it a below average business in a town with a few restaurants

and you've taken it to this behemoth restaurant where everyone wants to go

where it's always mobbed. It's terribly difficult to get a table. People want to eat your food so bad that they'll get curbside takeout, like I said

because people just want your food. It's so consistent. The staff is so good

I could go on and on about this restaurant. So very early on in this process, how did you sell yourself to build that culture

to build the restaurant the way you want it? And now that it's here

how do you continue to sell yourself every day to continue to make that culture so welcoming

and so consistently exceeding people expectations Like how do you sell yourself to build that business early parts and then today Okay Well thank you First of all a lot to unpack there I start with it takes a dream

right? And, you know, whatever your dream is. I mean, my, my nine-year-old has a dream of becoming

an NHL hockey player, whether or not that comes to fruition, time will tell, but I am driving home

the fact that it's going to take hard work to get noticed, to be part of a team and compete at the

highest level, right? NHL, you make it into the pros in any sport that is the highest level, right

So I would say that I started with a dream. I wanted to own my own business

really passionate about food. I grew up working for my family's restaurant and it's just something

that's in my blood. And being an Italian American, I think you grow up with hospitality as being a

part of your blood. I love taking care of people genuinely. In fact, I never went to culinary arts

school. And, you know, I went to Northeastern University and I have a degree in supply chain

management. But a lot of what I learned at Northeastern in supply chain, I applied directly

to my day-to-day operations here at Arturo's. So hard work, dedication, and then to get to the part about selling yourself

Well, you know, I think the perception of, you know, who you are in the community is really important

Your presentation, confidence in when you speak and making connections with people

is absolutely crucial to having you state the things that you said at the beginning of this conversation, you know, um, that, you know

we're, we're, we're, we're a great restaurant, but the idea is we're also in the relationship

business. You know, you could come here and have a bad steak or a bad meal. And, you know

we hope we get the opportunity to make it right And our goal is to get it right every single time Um But it about the relationships that we build We in a great suburban community and we have regulars but we also have new

customers that come in every single week. And it's up to myself to engage with my customers

and my entire team to build relationships daily. But I genuinely enjoy what I do. I genuinely enjoy

seeing people smile and stopping me and saying, oh my gosh, that was the best chicken parm I've had

or that was the best cocktail I've had in a long time, or things like that are very rewarding

and give me the drive to continue to do what I do. I think it's really important to tell a story

in sales, right? And I never personally view it this way, being a restaurant owner

But when you think about it organically, you know, you have to tell a story

I think it was Simon Sinek said it in a TED Talk. I don't know when, but he said people don't buy what you do

They buy why you do it. And, you know, for example, in the restaurant, that could be when I'm chatting with guests at the table

I never tell people, oh, we have the best food. Oh, we have the best wine list

Rather, I share stories and see where the conversation goes. So it might be, hey, this guy, Mike, started an organic, all organic winery

And we came in and we tasted seven organic wines and they were amazing

And that might be a segue into a discussion about wine and some of the wines that we're offering at Arturo's

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Okay, so if you want amazing food, amazing drinks and exceptional service, Arturo's is a place

This isn't a food blog, but I will say that. And then one of the great hacks in life is just as Dom suggested is when you have a dream

and you have passion about executing on that dream, everything else seems really easy in

order to execute on that dream. So Dom, thanks so much for sharing and good selling everyone