Last week, I headed south to the Sunshine State for the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association’s 9th annual Marketing + Operations Summit. It was a great event not only because it was my first in-person conference in almost 18 months, but also because Fish has been a member of FRLA for a year, so I finally got to meet the wonderful team at FRLA and network — in real life! — with our industry peers in Florida’s hospitality industry.
The summit kicked off with some early-bird breakout sessions on the hot topics of minimum wage and diversity, inclusion, and bias, followed by the official welcome lunch keynote featuring Gov. Ron DeSantis, Fred LeFranc of Results Thru Strategy, and best-selling author Scott Stratten of UnMarketing.
Then it was time for the breakout sessions! I must give kudos to FRLA for organizing such relevant and practical sessions with an impressive speaker lineup — and especially during such challenging times in the state. Bravo!
While I would have loved to have sat in on most, if not all, of the sessions offered at the summit, I picked a few that most closely related to Fish’s work, my personal interests, or that had panelists I was hoping to connect with.
3 Ways to Stay Focused During Times of Crisis – Melissa Hughes, Founder of The Andrick Group
- Given everything that’s happened over the last 18 months (and my day-to-day work in crisis comms), I couldn’t miss this session. During the Q&A portion, an attendee asked an interesting question: how do you end that vicious cycle of negativity (or feeling disheartened, in the case of the pandemic) that can often spread through a group? What I took away was that it only takes one person to stop the domino effect. So when everyone else around you is bummed out, you can start to help pick people back up — and then they can help others.
Branding: Being Purposeful with Marketing and Operations – Frank Rappa, CMO of PDQ; Jess Vahsholtz, Group Account Director & Lead Strategist at PPK
- This session was all about PDQ’s business turnaround, thanks in large part to creative marketing and advertising. With the help of PPK, PDQ listened to its customers and responded by streamlining its menu to focus on what customers actually wanted rather than what the brand, internally, thought customers wanted. And along the way, they weren’t afraid to have fun and take some risks with their advertising.
Master Class – What It Takes to Make It to the Top 100 – Carlos Gazitua, President/CEO of Sergio’s Restaurants; John Tallichet, President/CEO of Specialty Restaurants Corporation; José Cil, President/CEO of Restaurant Brands International
- OK, selfishly, I’m an alum of Burger King Corporation and will never miss an opportunity to hear from the brand. But I’m also a former Miami resident, so Sergio’s and Rusty Pelican hold a special place in my heart. I enjoyed hearing from these three CEOs, all of whom run very different businesses, but experienced (and are still experiencing) many of the same challenges during the pandemic. I later caught up with Carlos, who is big into using robotics in his restaurants, which is a topic I personally find fascinating having spent a few years working in restaurants in what honestly now seems like the Stone Age since it was the pre-iPhone days.
Overall, I think the 9th annual summit was a hit and I’d like to thank FRLA for planning such a great event that let me shake off the in-person networking cobwebs a bit. Looking forward to getting together again soon!
