Member DashboardOn Jan. 14, the NAFEM Young Executive Forum (YEF) Learning Session featured a panel of personal and professional branding experts to discuss “Defining Your Own Personal Brand.”
NAFEM YEF member Meghan Daro (MD), CFSP, Middleby, led a thought-provoking conversation with: Chef Vincent Rotolo (VR)—owner of Good Pie, and a 25-year veteran of all types of dining experiences from coast-to-coast; Zee Shami (ZS)—owner of ZeeTheCook Culinary Studio, a metro-Detroit independent hospitality vocational school focusing on training, preparing, testing and certifying future culinarians; and Philip Tzeng (PT)—head of a social media marketing & consulting company aptly named LasVegasFill, boasting a roster of well-known eateries. Following are the highlights of the conversation.
This webcast featured 30+ NAFEM Young Executive Forum-member participants. Following are the highlights of the conversation that took place on Jan. 14. Although this was a webcast, the recording is not available due to technical issues experienced.
Session Summary
MD: Let’s start with some background and introductions. Zee, please share with us how you got started.
ZS: I got started by cooking in my own kitchen, just innovating and cooking without recipes. I use it as therapy…just give me a bunch of ingredients and leave me alone in the kitchen! When people started asking for recipes, I needed to develop them because I don’t typically measure when I’m cooking. This led to me teaching from my house, telling people about spices and sauces and how things work together. Before you knew it, I was working with kids and teenagers because they enjoyed it and elementary schools in my area didn’t have any cooking classes for kids, so I started to work with them. I started out renting supermarket or bakery spaces for two years, until I got my own culinary kitchen. Today I have 16 employees and my own kitchen and am really blessed to bring people together in the kitchen. The pandemic has been a heartbreaking setback this past year, but our overall mission is to bring a positive environment and help people increase confidence and gain self-esteem by cooking. So much happiness comes from this industry, so we share it via social media and try to inspire others.
MD: I love that story. Next, I’ll ask Vincent Rotolo to introduce yourself and share a little about your background.
VR: My background is more of a hospitality guy who loved pizza. I started busing tables in NYC, on Bleecker Street, part of a legendary, iconic pizza place. I moved through positions as a server, bartender, manager and then opened different restaurants like The Meatball Shop in NYC. Pizza was a huge part of my life and it all hit me when I moved to Las Vegas in 2011. I moved there to be closer to my parents and they both passed away within a year of my arrival. After my parents passed away, I realized life was too short to not do what you love so I just went for it. I just started making pizza every day and became a self-taught pizza maker with a lot of front-of-house expertise who never thought he’d cook professionally. My confidence grew and I started a pizza club and started seeking investors. I was able to open my own store in February of 2018 and now we have a bigger store that just opened. We’ve been overwhelmingly successful in the most challenging time in the history of restaurants. I’m here to tell people to do what they love and don’t be held back. Find a way to do it.
MD: Awesome story. Thanks for sharing it with this group. Phil, please give us your background.
PT: I started out writing reviews on yelp and became “yelp-famous” in Las Vegas. Restaurants started to approach me, asking me to run their social media accounts so that’s how the business started. About two years ago now, I took the leap and quit my full-time job and do this full-time. One of my college friends died so it made me realize time is short. It’s been awesome to run my own company. I have a “united nations” of restaurant clients in Vegas and restaurants bring everyone together. Every client is unique and has their own challenges, but we work through those to make them successful.
MD: Thanks for sharing. Now that we’ve heard everyone’s background, let’s jump into some discussion. When we talk about branding and your personal brand, we hear that it’s rooted in authenticity. Zee—what have you done to create your brand around authenticity?
ZS: It’s important to be original and unique and not compete with anyone but yourself. I’ve made it a habit in each new year to rise above what I’ve done the year before. It took us 11 months of hard work to get a post-secondary license. Only two years ago, I didn’t see myself in this role. You grow by reading good books, surrounding yourself with like-minded, passionate people, and learning from everyone in your industry. People are focused on anger and hatred today, so you need to get around that to grow your brand. I speak from the heart and try to be fearless.
MD: Vincent, please address the same question. There’s a lot of pizza out there. Can you share a little about the authenticity of your brand?
VR: I’m emotionally connected to the food that I cook. It’s my childhood, my memories, all tied up together. I was a student and a history buff in the pizza world. I studied the evolution of different styles. The authenticity comes from my desire to preserve my heritage, the real story of pizza from Italian immigrants. Pizza-making for the first generation was a way of staying connected to the homeland but they were struggling in hard times. No matter what style of pizza you enjoy, it comes from the immigrants who came to a certain area. I try to tell those stories through my food today to honor their legacy. If we don’t tell the stories, then the stories will die out, and the future generations will never understand the story of the Italian grandma! People can connect with that. When you eat it, you get it! It’s important to find something relatable and personal in the food and the culture.
MD: Super impressive. Phil, I know you spent a lot of time traveling in Asia and living in Japan. Can you tell us how that affected your authenticity when you talk about your brand?
PT: Living in Japan confirmed to me that I was a foodie! Aside from that experience, my guiding principle is if I am recommending a restaurant, I make sure it’s something I genuinely love. I’ve turned down employment opportunities and income to post about places I’m not passionate about. Be honest and true to yourself. When I used to be able to travel, I discovered new foods, new thoughts and ideas; all of that was part of an awesome evolution.
MD: Let’s transition to your social media following, and what that means for your brand. Phil—what do you do to drive traffic to your social pages?
PT: It’s been an ongoing evolution from pictures to simple videos to more highly produced videos. In the next couple of years, I’ll probably be running more Tik Tok accounts than Instagram accounts. With video, you need to make an impression in the first three seconds because there’s so much content out there. The timing of your posts is key—11 p.m. or 2 a.m. probably isn’t the time when most of your audience is engaged. Video is where it’s at…I don’t think pictures are eye-catching anymore. Tik Tok is where it’s at! It’s for everyone and it’s not just about teenagers dancing!
MD: When we talk about developing a brand and what you put on your social pages, do you promote and talk about your business all the time on social? Do you leverage your professional and personal lives?
ZS: When I share personal photos, I get around 3,000 likes. When I share something about an event we had, I get maybe 700 likes so people want to see me! They’re interested in the human, not just the business. They can relate to me as a woman, a mom, a wife, etc. If they’re not currently a customer, maybe they are following us for the adventure behind the scenes. It might turn out that they think of me when they want to take their kids on a field trip so they could turn into a customer. We keep up with the trends and relevant information. I don’t talk about politics, even though we all know drama brings attention! Any time I sneak in a conflicting view on something, we get more engagement. You’ve got to stir it up!
MD: We do love drama! Vincent, how do you balance your business and personal vibe on social media?
VR: I respect Zee’s approach but I am the opposite. I don’t do any personal posts. I don’t believe in a work-life balance if you love your work so that’s where I am right now. I’m a grandfather, but I keep that private. I like to highlight my team and the activities we do in the community or places that I like to go, to support them as a consumer. I’m a fan of highlighting those things but I don’t share who I’m dating or anything like that! I don’t do social media for my followers, I do it to express myself. I want to showcase the best of what we do, our restaurant design, our cocktails, our slice window. I don’t live my life based on who’s liking our posts. If I like something, I’m posting it. I’m not about quantity of followers, but the quality of our followers. If you want to get to know me, eat my pizza!
MD: There isn’t a one-size fits all approach for developing your brand. Phil—you have an awesome following on social. Technology is obviously a big part of developing a brand and you’ve built your images mostly with an iphone. Can you talk about that a little?
PT: I still don’t own a “real” camera to this day! Photo captions, for me, are how my authenticity and my personality come across. Ironically, the pandemic has been a great time for social media because everyone is home and on their phones. During this time, we improved our quality and gained a lot of followers. For us, the message is just as important as the post itself.
MD: You have 100,000+ followers, correct?
PT: I do! A few years ago, restaurants needed a PR person and a video person minimally to handle social media. These days, with a phone, you can be a one-stop shop. It doesn’t have to involve three or four separate companies anymore.
MD: Very cool. Let’s talk about building your personal brand and the idea of giving back. Zee—can you talk about what you do?
ZS: When it comes to giving back, it can be sensitive because you can get inundated with requests. I approach it by asking myself if the initiative resonates with me and what I represent. In Michigan, there’s an organization that gives out 500 boxes of food each week to those in need. They asked me to partner with them to show how to use the ingredients in the box, so I provided recipes and the food didn’t get wasted. I showed them how to store and use the contents of each box. We did a show every week with that information and we got creative with the recipes. Collaborating with that organization brought me exposure and customers, but more importantly it helped many people, so it was a win-win.
MD: Such a good message in these challenging times. Vincent, what about some of your experiences with giving back in your community?
VR: I try to find things I’m connected to. Back in 2018, we worked with The Partnership for Homeless Youth to do some training and help with career development. I’m more into giving my time than giving product. There are many things we can do without spending a lot of money. I have been blessed with great mentors in my life, and I feel an obligation from that positive experience to help others. I’ve even helped other pizza makers! I struggled for many years, so helping someone else is healing for me. I schedule time on my calendar for sharing and helping others because it honors my mentors and feels good to do it.
MD: That’s great. Mentoring is so important for us all. You learn as a mentee and as a mentor, so you need to be on both sides. Let’s turn to challenges with your personal brand. We’ve discussed authenticity, but what challenges have you had with your personal brand?
ZS: I’m a Muslim woman and I wear a hijab. People assume I make middle eastern food, but I make everything. I’m proud of who I am but I want to make sure my company and my brand are respected on a broader level. I don’t care what culture you come from; all humanity is my target market! Social media helps me with that because I can show them the diversity of my team, my customers, and my cuisine at Zeethecook. Otherwise, people might make assumptions. Social media helps us leverage the overall diversity that exists in our business.
MD: We’d like to close by asking each of you to share a piece of advice for our YEF group.
PT: Start working with videos, editing, lighting, all these aspects are super important. That’s where everything is going and that’s what you should be doing.
ZS: Keep up with the way the world has headed. Blogging is now vlogging, for example. People want to see you, especially during this pandemic. Get on the screen, be courageous and tell people (quickly) what you have going on. They want to see you and hear you and I highly recommend you be authentic and let people feel your energy. Keep up with the changing times!
VR: Everyone who’s trying to create a brand has to be fearless and go all in. Someone will always be negative but have a thick skin and don’t let that affect you. Another thing you can do is pick up the phone and call someone. Connect with people in every single way you can and be resilient! It will take time but stay focused to keep pushing forward. Don’t look for instant gratification, because that’s not always realistic. Building a brand takes time and it’s little by little, day by day. You won’t regret trying something and having some failure. You will regret it if you let your fear stop you from trying to do something you love.
MD: Many thanks to the panelists for sharing with our YEF group. You are an inspirational group.