Seven educational workshops, created to focus on the topics restaurateurs and foodservice professionals have said are most important to their business, have been added to the education offerings at the Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo. The workshops will provide actionable solutions and ideas, from industry subject matter experts focused on battling inflation, negotiating leases, marketing, winning talent, customer loyalty, starting a restaurant, and improving customer service. The Food & Beverage Academy will run from Sunday, August 28 through Tuesday, August 30 at the Los Angeles Convention Center and feature 50 free education sessions. In addition, these in-depth workshops are $99 each and focus on the following:
Seven In-Depth Workshops Offered at the Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo
- The Restaurant Inflation Battle Plan (Sunday, August 28 from 11:30 am -1:30 pm) Donald Burns, Founder & CEO, The Restaurant Coach™, will provide restauranteurs with valuable insight on how to analyze financials to identify where inflation is hitting the hardest. Attendees will learn how to develop a pricing strategy, balance quality and affordability, adjust a menu to maximize profit, and implement operational efficiencies. Click here for session details.
- Negotiating Restaurant Tenant Leases (Sunday, August 28 from 2:00 – 4:00 pm) Dale Willerton, The Lease Coach, will offer a deep dive into the process of negotiating restaurant leases. This session is ideal for both new startup tenants negotiating their first lease, multi-unit restaurant owners and lease renewal tenants hurt by the pandemic needing a rent reduction. Session attendees will receive a complimentary autographed book Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals FOR DUMMIES byDale Willerton. Click here for details.
- A Five Step Framework for Marketing any Restaurant (Monday, August 29 from 11:30 am – 12:30 pm) Chip Klose, Restaurant Coach & Host of the Restaurant Strategy Podcast will provide a simple 5-step framework for marketing any restaurant in any market in the world. Learn more about a restaurant and their customer base and discover what it is customers want and how a restaurant is uniquely qualified to deliver it to them. Come out of the session with a new way of thinking about a business, and with a better strategy for growth. Click here for session details.
- Interviewing and Selecting Winning Talent (Monday, August 29 from 12:45 – 1:45 pm) Bill Wagner, CEO, Accord Management Systems will provide practical, easy-to-use tools to help assess candidates more objectively. The focus is on behavior-based interviewing, which has been shown to be three to five times more effective than the traditional interview. This program will provide models to improve promotions, teamwork, and employee development. Participants will learn how to determine critical behaviors and interview questions, use past behavior as a future predictor, conduct legally defensible interviews, link reference checks to critical job behaviors, and get beyond the canned responses of the well-coached candidate. Click here for details.
- Building Customer Loyalty Through Email Marketing (Monday, August 29 from 2:00 – 3:00 pm). Elizabeth Jacobi, Founder, MochaBear Marketing will teach how to create a successful email marketing program for restaurants, hospitality, and food service businesses. She will cover: how to get started, basic best practices, how to utilize POS data to drive repeat business, acquisition best practices, what makes a successful email marketing campaign, and quick B2B email marketing tips. Walk away with a solid understanding of acquiring, connecting, and retaining loyal customers through email marketing. Click here for details.
- Starting a Successful Restaurant – The Non-Negotiables (Monday, August 29 from 3:15 – 4:15 pm) Doug Radkey, President and Project Manager, KRG Hospitality Inc., will go over the general requirements, costs, mindset, characteristics, and strategy plans needed to start a successful brand in this industry. Learn the five key characteristics needed to win in today’s environment, the self-assessment needed to complete to prepare for the journey ahead, and the systems and strategy plans that are 100 percent non-negotiable. Click here for details.
- Talk is Cheap: How to Deliver Better Customer Service Experiences That Multiply Loyal Customers Word of Mouth Referrals (Tuesday, August 30 from 11:00 am – 12:00 pm) Jesse Good, Customer Relationship Expert, Jesse B. Good. Talk is Cheapis an entertaining, educational, and engaging experience that teaches specific actions for building a word-of-mouth customer service strategy. Loaded with real-life examples, current research, and successes (and failures) learned from serving more than one million customers, this workshop offers keys for designing remarkable experiences. Click here for details.
In addition to these workshops the Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo and Coffee Fest Los Angeles will showcase hundreds of leading vendors, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, demonstrating and sampling the newest food products, technology and equipment for the restaurant, foodservice, specialty beverage and hospitality markets. Attendees will also have access to the brand-new Food & Beverage Academy, offering program tracks for all segments of the industry – from independent owners to chains to specialty coffee and tea – offering more than 50 complimentary educational sessions included with show admission. Registration is now open at www.westernfoodexpo.com with early bird rates available until July 26th Each workshop is $99 if purchased prior to the August 27. On-site rates are $129 per workshop. The trade show and conference will take place Sunday, August 28 through Tuesday, August 30.
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The Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo is owned by Clarion Events Food & Beverage Group and sponsored by the California Restaurant Association. Clarion Events (us.clarionevents.com) produces 37 events across thirteen sectors of both trade and consumer events. The Clarion Events Food & Beverage Group also includes the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show, the International Restaurant & Foodservice Show of New York, Coffee Fest and The NGA Show. Clarion Events acquired PennWell in early 2018, bringing 4 Tradeshow 200 events into the U.S. portfolio and super-charging the already rapid growth. Clarion Events has offices in Trumbull, CT; Kennesaw, GA; Boca Raton, FL; Tacoma, WA, and Fairlawn, NJ.
