Multiplying your marketing impact

Adam Golomb
Thanks, Justin. Great to be here. Hopefully, by the time this publishes, the Steelers are in the Super bowl. So lots of excitement yesterday with us making the playoffs.

Justin Ulrich
Super cool. Super excited for you. Awesome. Well, yeah, and if they do win, maybe you could push out some cool promos or something.

Adam Golomb
We did you know, we did send sandwiches to the Tennessee Titans as a thank you, you know. Sent sandwiches down there to thank them for helping us get in the Super Bowl or playoffs, at least.

Justin Ulrich
That’s one of the reasons why I was so excited to have you on the podcast is because not only are you guys a client of ours, which is awesome, you guys are great to work with, but your brand is hysterical like, it is so engaging and the social content you guys push out and the burns that you guys put out there I think are so hilarious.

Adam Golomb
Our social team does an amazing job being in the moment. I always say some of the stuff they’re playing with the NFL is great. But yeah, really being in the moment and being kind of having that witty attitude. I think Wendy’s was probably the first one to do it. You know, we just learning them from what they happen.

Justin Ulrich
Exactly. They kind of show that, hey, it’s okay to be real and have fun and engaging. 

Adam Golomb
You know I’ve worked on a bunch of brands in my life, and this is probably the brand I work on that has the least restrictions, which makes it really fun. You’re not going to screw things up by having some fun.

Justin Ulrich
I agree. I did a stint at time leading the marketing team over at Polaris for their off-road Rzr brand. And it’s funny, the vehicles are so capable and you could show so many cool things, but the legal team was always just putting the hamper on things because all the risks and stuff like that. So it’s cool to have the freedom to do what you want to do.

Adam Golomb
I like to call those departments the sales prevention departments. The last brand I worked at, we had lots of sales prevention departments, from legal to risk management to loss prevention. So you’d come up with ideas and you’d be like, yeah, it’s just not worth it. It’s not worth going through 27 hoops to come up with something that by the time you get approval, the moment has gone.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, that is a tough thing. That’s one of the things, as you know, we talk about how we help folks with their marketing. It’s like if you can automate stuff based on very timely things that are happening, then you’re able to get in front of clients when the moment is there, as opposed to waiting on an agency or whatever. 

But not to get too deep into the product stuff of what we do, but I guess if you want, just kick us off with a little bit about your background. You talked about working at other brands, maybe kind of how you got to being the leader over there at Primanti Brothers.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, so grew up in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh at heart. Yinzer’s is kind of the colloquial term for us, Pittsburgh-ers, but always had a love for kind of hospitality. My mom worked in it, went to Johnson Wales University for hotel restaurant management, did a startup there with a friend from college. And then after that ended, went to. In that startup, which you look back was really funny. We were going to be the Amazon.com of cookbooks. Like that was going to be our niche.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, yeah.

Adam Golomb
Which I don’t know, it was a great learning experience. But then went to Penn State for grad school, got my master’s with a focus in hospitality, joined a company called Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, which was at that point I think they had 80 restaurants. But they also were just emerging into some new adventures and some new ventures into contract food service. 

I spent 13 years there in marketing. Ultimately ended up building an ecommerce and a wholesale cookie business. The company has got this famous cookie, but we had a cookie manufacturing plant, so we realized we could build a whole direct to consumer ecommerce business. 

Left there after 13 years joined Giant Eagle, which is a $10-11 billion grocery and convenience retailer. So quite a difference from coming from a couple of hundred million dollar company to $10-11 billion, but started in marketing there, working on their new ventures team. 

So once again, a company trying to expand into convenience stores, which really restaurants at that point was like, how do you become a restaurant? High-end grocery. We also had discount grocery, beer, wine, liquor, ecommerce. So led the marketing group there. Multiple rounds of layoffs later, I ended up running product development for the company. 

And then my last stint there was running one of the largest gift card marketplaces in the country. Did over a billion dollars in gift card sales. When the music stopped, I was the only one that understood how the business worked. So I was like, well, Adam can run it.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Adam Golomb
But it was to run a billion dollar business from a P&L standpoint, have full ownership over it, and then got to go work at Primanti Brothers, a brand I grew up with, a brand I probably had when I was, like five years old and fell in love with. It’s a Pittsburgh icon. And came in 2018 to rethink the growth strategy for the organization and worked on that. 

And then something called the pandemic showed up in 2020. All those great plans, I think Mike Tyson says. What does he say? Everything’s great till you get hit in the face.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, everybody’s got a plan.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, everybody’s got a plan. We had a great plan and great strategy. Invested heavily in tech, and going into the pandemic, we kind of looked like the most brilliant guys with anything. But the pandemic really taught us a lot of things. 

We spun up three virtual brands during the pandemic. Pretty fast. We saw what Chili’s was doing is like, okay, let’s go do that. And then I ended up taking over operations in supply chain at some point in the pandemic, and then in ‘23, became CEO of the organization. So it’s been roughly a year and two weeks, I think.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, no, it’s a great brand. We have 45 restaurants today. We’ve got four more adding this year, so we’ll be up to 49. We operate in four states. We jokingly say we’re almost famous. That’s kind of a humble brag, but it is a famous brand when you say, you explain it, and a lot of people know it. 

It’s won a James Beard award. Go figure. This with fries and coleslaw wins a James Beard award. You name it, national show. It’s an amazing brand that every day I get the pleasure of leading a team here, that this is our 91st year of business. I mean, how many restaurants out there are 91 years old?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Crazy.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, no, it’s a lot of fun. And eat a lot of sandwiches.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. You eat them every day?

Adam Golomb
Not every day, but enough that my doctor asked. My cholesterol is perfectly fine and everything, but it’s like, how many times do you eat there again? Because I think I read an article. I think I read an article in the paper that said you were eating there four to five times a week. And I’m like, yeah, something like that. But we got a broad more than just sandwiches, so you can.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, there’s variation. So let me ask you this. So I’ve never been to a location. Unfortunately, you guys don’t have one in Charlotte. But what I love know, watching your content, your videos and stuff online, your interaction with your guests is so hysterical. Like they come to Primanti for the experience of the sarcasm and just throwing it at the servers and it comes back to them. Is that something that’s always been there?

Adam Golomb
It has. So, you know, the first thing is we don’t call our customers guests, we call them fans. And that’s really the goal, these raving fans. So I’ve worked in. So, like, when you work at so many retail and restaurant chains, you got all these terms in your head spinning around. But fans I absolutely love. 

But, yeah, it really was like, the first location opened in 1933. Kind of had this attitude of, like, they’d come to the table and you’d be like. They’d say, okay, what do you want? And you’d be like, oh, I don’t know. And they’d be like, okay, I’m gone. Or we jokingly say when people say, I don’t want fries and slaw and that, we’re like, yeah, okay. There’s the know. Get out. 

Yeah, there’s a great clip of Jimmy Fallon. And, you know, I love JJ Watt, but he is the only Watt brother didn’t play for the Steelers. So shame on him, you know. Jimmy Fallon and JJ Watt. And JJ is talking about coming to Pittsburgh to visit his brothers, and Jimmy’s telling the story about going there, going to Primanti’s for the first time, and he asked for stuff on the side, and they were like, yeah, there’s the door. Get out. 

Really that probably is. So we don’t take things seriously. I always say, not only are we unrestrictive from PR, we’re unrestrictive with our people. We tell our people to come as they are. I say, the more tattoos and piercings, the merrier. We really allow our people to come as who they are by not being restrictive and being prescriptive. 

There are certain chains that are super prescriptive and super have all these requirements and check this, and you got to do this and you got to do that. And as a server, you got to approach the table like this. And we’re the exact opposite. And I think that’s why people, we have a lot of people that really like working for us for that reason.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. You create not only your loyal fans in your guests, but also in your employee base because you’re willing to give folks a shot that other people may not.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, I had a server the other day that there is no way any restaurant chain other than us probably would touch this guy. But he was phenomenal. And the way he touched the table and the way he interacted and he knew the menu and people from out of town, the way he made suggestions and the way he took care of us, it was great. So what, he has crazy hair and tattoos and a piercing.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. It doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

Adam Golomb
Yeah. Starbucks is probably the first to really embrace that. When you think about it, it was out there doing it early on.

Justin Ulrich
And if you think about just from purely an operation standpoint, if you think about how small the hiring pool is today, like post-pandemic, it’s so hard to bring in not only employees, period, but good employees. And there’s a pool of employees that is just untapped resource. And those that are like you’re explaining right now, other folks may not give them a shot, but they’re incredible at their jobs. Give them a chance.

Adam Golomb
They are. I mean, it’s a tough market. I think that the pandemic taught people that they can stand in an Amazon warehouse and make more money or make equal to being a cook. So, like, I’m going to stand. I might as well, maybe I stand with Amazon. Before the pandemic, you didn’t have those challenges of people competing. People weren’t deciding between Home Depot and a restaurant. Now they are. 

People aren’t deciding driving an Uber and working in a restaurant. Now they are. But I’ve been through. This is my called fourth hiring crisis in my life. They’re all the same. You just got to get better. You got to be better placed to work. You got to offer better benefits. You got to pay better. There are staff out there. You just got to hunt them down.

Justin Ulrich
Well, and when you create an experience, this show is mainly focused on marketing. Right. And engaging with your local audience and creating that experience that you guys do brings people coming back. Like the most expensive marketing you can do is acquisition and bringing them there for the first time. But if they have an awesome experience bringing them back, it’s so cheap. You’re creating a raving fan base and just a loyalty that’s undying compared to other brands.

Adam Golomb
Flip side, a bad experience, like, how do you win people back? Is always the challenge.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, because people might come in not realizing what they’re going to get in terms of the sarcasm. Like a healthy serving.

Adam Golomb
Yeah it’s not like Dick’s Last Resort or Ed the Baffe. It’s not that level. But we tell our. Here’s how we think you should approach the table, high-level. I jokingly – one of our best (we call our general managers head coaches) one of our best head coaches, he jokingly will see somebody in a Patriots jersey and be like, yeah, we don’t serve Patriots fans here. 

And he’s just good at it. And people are like, wait, what? And he’s like, no, we don’t serve Patriots fans in that they’ll start turning around. He’s like, I’m kidding. Come on, let me get you a table. But it’s like that.

Justin Ulrich
It’s something that’s very unique to the northeast, too. I grew up in Buffalo area. That’s where I’m from and first 20 years of my life, so I definitely have some sarcasm in a lot that I do, and I just love it. And it creates real moments with folks to be able to connect with them as a person as opposed to just, you’re just turning tables. 

So given all your years in the restaurant space and specifically focusing on local marketing, what do you think is the most impactful thing that someone can do from a local marketing standpoint?

Adam Golomb
Yeah. So my first gig out of grad school was field marketing, and back then, we’re just developing programs to help general managers figure out what can they do in a three to five mile radius. So employee discount programs, church programs, car dealer programs, dine and donates. 

And I look 25 years later, and what are we building? Church programs and cars? Same thing. What I found to be the most successful is to give tools to the general manager so that they can execute against that are easy because GMs are not salespeople. Many of them aren’t. A lot of them come out of the kitchen, so my experience. 

But our top GMs are great at knowing what’s important in their community. So dine and donates continue to be an unbelievable success. We still generate a ton of business off dine and donates, and it’s a great way to use somebody else’s equity. So if you’re a member of the PTO or you support your kids soccer team, well, all of a sudden you’re going to come to Primanti Brothers to support their soccer team, and you maybe just learn a new thing. 

On top of that, we do a tremendous amount of digital advertising. We do very little traditional advertising, mostly digital. The pandemic pushed us there super fast. The tools nowadays to not only get to the right person, but to track if they actually came in the door is unbelievable. It’s like what I dreamed of 20 years ago.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, it really is. You think like, man, how do we do this without these tools? But it is incredible to see the actual attribution of your system set up right.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, I just don’t get it. I mean, I know a lot of chains still use TV. It’s like, how are you figuring out if that works?

Justin Ulrich
Seriously. Or they just have buckets of money to burn.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, the Applebee’s of the world have buckets of money to burn. The Olive Gardens. I think local marketing, corporately managed, digital is still huge. And then the next level down is giving tools. We don’t have field marketers, so we give our people tools to help them drive their business, be it catering, be it how do you drive business from a mall if you’re in a mall, how do you drive business if you’re freestanding? 

We do a lot of fun things with grand openings and make sure a restaurant opens successfully. A lot of buzz, a lot of PR. We do this thing called the first hundred where the first 100 people to line up get free sandwiches for a year, and it’s usually like 200 people. Don’t tell anyone because no one wants to be number 101 after sleeping out all night in 20-degree weather. But that’s a great buzz tool and creates media connection day one with our fans.

Justin Ulrich
That’s a really cool idea.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, and it’s fun. You see people dancing in the parking lot, three in the morning.

Justin Ulrich
All these things. Exactly. When you have these activations like that, then you get your marketing team out there, capture the content, and just be able to kind of sweat that asset for weeks and weeks.

Adam Golomb
Yeah. Our team does a great job with having buckets and buckets of content. We’ve got pillars that we work off of from a content standpoint. And it’s all about promotion or social media, promoting yourself, because that’s not what it’s about. It’s about being, as I said at the beginning, being kind of in that moment in time and talking about what’s important.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, absolutely. If you had one piece of advice to give someone who’s maybe struggling a little bit at the local level, just trying to drive traffic, trying to drive increased tickets. What would you say that they could do today or sometime this week to start turning that around?

Adam Golomb
Yeah, I think two things. The short term is run a sales contest with your people. And I’ve found – I’ve given away cars, I’ve given away trips, I’ve given away cash. Do you know what I found moves the dial even more? Telling servers. Telling servers they don’t have to wrap silverware.

Justin Ulrich
Really?

Adam Golomb
Yeah. It’s unbelievable. Or scratch and win tickets. It’s like, holy cow. I wish I had known that before I gave away three cars.

Justin Ulrich
You gave away cars and then found the silverware…

Adam Golomb
Yeah I told our servers they don’t have to wrap silverware, but we do a lot of contests. We get GMs compared restaurants, going against restaurants. But if you can sell one more dessert today, that’s easy stuff. The second thing I always recommend is go talk to your staff. A lot of times, our GMs don’t. We love when our GMs live, our head coaches, live in the community. 

But go talk to your staff, because they all live in the community usually, and ask them, like, okay, what’s important? Who do they know, and how can you activate sales? So dining donates an easy thing to do, catering. We build an unbelievable catering business just through that. 

But ask people like, okay, what’s important in the community? What’s going on? Oh, there’s a little league tournament down the street. Okay, well, go make food and bring it down the street. Yeah, but use your staff. Our GMs don’t need to be the person always being the sales driver. Sometimes it’s a server, it’s a greeter, it’s a cook or a prep cook wants to be that person in the community, and they’re better in the community than you’ll ever be.

Justin Ulrich
100%. And give people the ownership, the feeling of ownership over the success of that location, and it’ll surprise you in terms of how much everyone will step up, not only just from the fan engagement, but also content creation or whatever it might be. Just give more freedom to do things, and you’ll drive some positive impacts.

Adam Golomb
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
So who do you think is doing some really cool stuff from a local marketing perspective? If you could give somebody a shout out.

Adam Golomb
Beyond the regulars that I hear on your show all the time, I think what I like is the model. And I’ll use Texas Roadhouse, probably as the example where they have these operating partner models, where the general manager is actually a partner in the business. I’m really interested in that model because I think it gets a highly invested person where they put into the business and they’re operating like called a franchisee, but they’re not a franchisee, they’re an owner of that business. 

I think that’s where you have a real win. So I’m seeing more and more of that. I think that’s really interesting. I think also these direct-to-consumer models understanding how they’re getting what they’re doing, especially the ones that have local people, I’m seeing more and more of these models and they’re not multi-level marketing schemes, but where somebody locally is they’re responsible for a territory and they’re pushing it and growing it. 

I mean, I think there’s a lot to learn and apply to a restaurant, you know. How do you get somebody so invested in it that they’re willing a talk about on their own Facebook page and get their friends together? Yeah, I think Texas Roadhouse, one of the best operators out there. But when you drill into it, is it the Texas Roadhouse corporate structure or is it the fact that they’ve got these people that are invested in their unit and run it like they own it?

Justin Ulrich
It’s a very interesting model because it kind of goes back to our conversation earlier about when you’re giving people a chance that may not otherwise have gotten a chance. And these folks, if they become very loyal employees and you give them an opportunity to work their way up and have a potential ownership stake in the location, it’s an opportunity they may not get anywhere else. And it’s like that type of opportunity is going to keep folks around.

Adam Golomb
Name any other industry where you can go from being a dishwasher to make it six figures in a very short period.

Justin Ulrich
I don’t know any other industries where you’d be a dishwasher.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, but name another industry. Name another industry that will take people that have trouble in their background and will help them get a career and build a career and build a life for their family. I don’t know of any other ones. 

That’s what I love about the restaurant industry. It’s one of the few industries out there that can take people from making $8 an hour to making $100 grand. We promote people on performance, not on tenure. So I tell that when I’m out recruiting on campuses, I tell people like, you can be a head coach for us in 12 to 18 months if you perform well and you can be making six figures. 

Who else is recruiting on this campus? That’s saying that. Walk me through, guys. Come on.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah seriously.

Adam Golomb
I don’t think anyone else here is talking that language. Hotel chains are, and I’ve got friends that took them 15 years to be GMs of a hotel and have top performers. So I think that’s what’s great about the restaurant industry.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. And the more you expand, the more loyal your employees are, the more they’ll drive fan engagement. The quicker you’ll expand, the more opportunities you’ll create for your employees. And it’s just a rolling snowball.

Adam Golomb
We always say, if you’re not growing, you’re dying, because that is true. Because growth means opportunity for people. So we’re going to open four restaurants this year. That’s four head coaches. When we add four to six restaurants, that’s another operations director, and we promote from within. So those are opportunities for people.

Justin Ulrich
100%. That’s awesome. I love what you guys are doing over there. We’ll jump into the next section here, and we’ll talk a little bit about your facts about yourself. So, as you know, we take those facts, we dump them into AI.

Adam Golomb
I’ve been waiting for this one because I’m waiting to see what you guys put together.  I bet there are some weird ones.

Justin Ulrich
There are some weird ones. You told me that your favorite band was Bare Naked Ladies, and needless to say, I was not throwing that into AI.

Adam Golomb
I think the band, huge fan of them, traveled throughout the country. I’m, like, with a good friend from college. We try to get to a show every year somewhere in the country.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, that’s so cool. Yeah, they were awesome. Are they still around?

Adam Golomb
Yeah. Oh, yes. I saw them last summer, and I’m seeing them this summer.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, fun.

Adam Golomb
25 years, I think they’ve been on the road.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. That’s crazy.

Adam Golomb
One guy, I don’t know if he retired or whatever, but the rest of the band is the same.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Well, the other thing that you told me about is that you liked Incredible Hulk. And to me, I literally, you sent that info over a couple of weeks ago. I had some deadlines, and I dropped, like, everything. I got completely distracted because I thought, this is exactly what AI was made for.

Adam Golomb
I want to turn people holding bare naked ladies? As a kid, did you watch the show as a kid where he. What was it? Lou Ferrigno was?

Justin Ulrich
Lou Ferrigno. Yeah.

Adam Golomb
That’s brilliant.

Justin Ulrich
It was so bad. You watch it now. It’s like, how did his makeup? It looked like they just dumped flour in his hair.

Adam Golomb
Yeah. It didn’t age well.

Justin Ulrich
No, it didn’t. I saw this, I was like, man, this is pretty fun to make.

Adam Golomb
That’s great.

Justin Ulrich
Awesome. Well, hey, Adam, it was a ton of fun having you on the show. Why don’t you, before we head out, just let us know how people can follow you, how your fans can get in touch with you.

Adam Golomb
Yeah, I mean, Primanti Bros is our handle everywhere. It’s like our short lingo. So we’re heavy on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. Adam Golomb on LinkedIn. I try to post, like once a month if I have a chance, but it’s usually Primanti’s content, but always anybody has any questions, needs advice. I think that’s what’s great about this industry.

You know, I know Julie Wade. I heard your episode with her. I had a question. I hit her up on LinkedIn. She immediately shared with me the vendor she’s using, which was like, need to go hunt that down. 

So I think that’s what I love about the restaurant industry. Huge industry. I think it’s the second largest industry in America after the federal government. But it’s such a small industry that you can two degrees of separation, you pretty much can get touch to anyone, and people are very sharing. So anybody has any questions, advice they need, LinkedIn is always place I’m on.

Justin Ulrich
I love that. Yeah. It’s an industry where everyone has an opportunity to succeed, and it’s not a zero sum game. It’s like, literally, the rising tide will raise all ships. It’s a really cool place to be.

Adam Golomb
So, yeah, if you’re looking for good laugh, good banter, our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, always. Promantibros.com. Our social team does an amazing job of just being in the moment.

Justin Ulrich
I will give a shout out to Ryan Wilkinson and his team. I will say your social is very good. So if you get a chance, if you’re listening, check them out on their different channels. Also, if you’re in the area, you’re mainly in the northeast, but you’re down in Florida as well, right?

Adam Golomb
Yeah. The two in Florida are licensing, but they still serve. It’s a great guy. Pittsburgh guy predates me, but, yeah, the little known secret on our social media is our head of social media is a Cleveland Browns season ticket holder. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell the Browns because I think they’ll pull his season tickets for the banter we always have.

 But no, I mean, we’ve got a great team. We allow ideas to. Anyone has any ideas come from anywhere. I think the biggest thing is we react fast and don’t have a lot of restrictions. So it makes it very easy to come up with something that’s happening in the moment and jump right into the conversation.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. Well, if you’re in the northeast, check out Primanti Brothers.

Adam Golomb
Have a sandwich. Right behind me, they’re slightly smaller than this, but you hear french fries. A lot of sandwich. Doesn’t sound good. Let me tell you. It’s amazing. Brilliant, brilliant idea.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. Well, awesome again, Adam, thanks so much for joining us in the lab. It was a ton of fun.

Adam Golomb
Thanks, Justin. Have a great day.

Justin Ulrich
As always, thanks for joining us in the Local Marketing Lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook @Evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.