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HOST: ALICE CHENG
Welcome to Hospitality On The Rise, the podcast about the people shaping the hospitality industry and their journeys. I'm your host, Alice Cheng, founder and CEO of Culinary Agents, hospitality's go-to hiring platform. And I'm here to give you your dose of virtual mentorship.
Here, we'll be sharing the stories, lessons learned, and advice from hospitality leaders who've carved out their own path to success. After all, this industry is where many get their start and go on to do incredible things.
Whether you're a pro, starting out, or just love the hustle, this podcast highlights what makes hospitality extraordinary, the people.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
I'm so excited to have Amanda Signorelli with us today. Amanda is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Owner of Golden Steer, which is a 2022 Infatuation “The 25 Best Restaurants in Las Vegas,” 2022 USA Today “Top 100 US Restaurants in 2022 based on 13 million OpenTable Reviews.” I can kind of add a couple more, but I wanted to throw a couple of them in there… and a new location opening up this fall to New York City, coming to New York City.
Amongst that, she's a trustee member for Vegas Chamber, largest business support organization in Nevada, communications committee member of the International Women's Forum, and an advisory board member of Digital Restaurant Association. She's also had a decorated career inside and outside of the industry. So we're particularly interested in hearing Amanda's career-changing– I don't even want to call it career-changing because it sounds like it's like “coming back to the industry” type of situation. But Amanda, welcome.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, and I'm so excited to be involved with Culinary Agents because I love this platform.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
And we're going to give you that love right back because we are very, very excited to continue to support your growth. But tell me, tell us how you got started in hospitality.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, absolutely. So I definitely stumbled into it. I did not have a background in hospitality. My father had bought the Golden Steer in 2001. I had been in Chicago working in technology, venture capital, consulting, etc. And then I got a call in 2018 from my father that said, “Hey, I need some help with the restaurant. Do you want to step in?” And I'm like, “I can't even cook. What are you talking about?”
And so it was a very bold decision to jump in. I was fortunate at the time that my husband, and now a business partner as well, had gone to culinary school. So I was like, “How about we do this as an adventure? Like we'll jump in, we'll do it for a year.” And here we are six years later, and things are rocking and rolling.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Wow. Well, and how is that like–? I mean, you went off and did other things for quite some time. So talk me through a little bit about your career path.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, absolutely. So for me, I was very fortunate to start my career off in consulting, which was a great way to get a mini MBA, learning how to use Excel, learning how to read a P&L, all the things that are the basics. It was very glamorous, but the reality is you tell a lot of people what to do and you don't do a lot of that work yourself. And I realized there was a gap there. So I jumped in to join a tech company and a small startup–which is called Techweek, which I eventually ran as CEO for about three and a half years–left, and then started another company in the e-commerce space before I got the call. So I got a chance to get an awesome opportunity to interface with several different types of industries and people and skill sets and constantly learn from them.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
And I have to ask, like tech people versus hospitality people? Come on. I'm very glad, because I kind of have a foot in both worlds, but they're very different. And obviously the hospitality industry is the best industry in the universe. But talk to me a little bit about transitioning, right? From that life to coming into this daily life. Did you have any eye-opening moments, or like, “wow, this is really different,” or “this is hard” or “why do people do things this way?”
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, I had so many. I was so blessed by a team that was extremely patient with me, which I am so, so, grateful for. I mean, first and foremost, hospitality is always way more fun and exciting. The other element that you run into is like there's just so much more humanness, right? You spend all your time and your energy, whether it's technology or consulting or finance in this kind of view of like, “How do we systematize? How do we turn this into a process? How do we make it really fast and efficient?” And you tend to then rip out the human element. And you discount that. It's something that it's like, “Let's produce a widget over and over again.” But the reality is what makes something super special is that it is tailored, it is human, it is imperfect, and it is specific to that person in front of you. And that's what hospitality is great at, is remembering we're human and there's something beautiful about that.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, yeah, I'm totally going to use that with my team because sometimes my co-founders are like, “We have a framework, we have a process. Why are you doing it?” I'm like, “But it's different to this person or business.” Like, “Let's add a little little extra over here because this is what they care about.” And that's because we're the tech company that adds that hospitality approach to it. And we love it. But we always have a fun time when they're like, “Really? We have... OK, then just plug your extra thing into our existing framework and let's run with that.” I’m like, great, perfect. That's hospitality in tech. I love it.
So you stepped in right before COVID, right? So you're learning this new industry, if you will, this new business. And you're not on the strip. You're off the strip in Vegas. Am I correct? I've never been there before. On my bucket list.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
We're right in between Fontainebleau and Resorts World. So we still consider ourselves a strip property, but we're not in a casino, which makes us one of the only independent operators that is right there and in it.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Oh, one sidebar. How is that like? Like, what is marketing like with that? Because do you have the same level of foot traffic? I mean, I'm ignorant. I haven't spent that much time in Vegas. I spent time inside hotels doing trade shows in the past, but not enough time playing, I should say.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, absolutely. So we find ourselves, like, our team is predominantly strip-based, right? So we understand that most of our team members are coming from MGM or the Wynn or Caesar's or Resorts World. They've worked at those properties. And so we know that's what our team looks like. In terms of our customers. They're coming off the strip. But the downside is we don't get the built-in foot traffic. We're not inside Caesar's Palace. We're still a destination for people to get in a car and get in a cab. And most people, we like to say they show up and they look and they're like, “There's a strip mall. Am I at the right place? Really?” And then they get inside and they’re like, “Wow, this is magical.” But there's definitely this duality and initial startle that's definitely a juxtaposition.
And for us as well, just as a business, we're kind of held and regulated as if we were in a casino, which we really felt during COVID, which was a big surprise of having the gaming commission show up with a tape measure. And they're like, “Hey, we're here to measure that all of your booths are six feet apart.” And you're like, okay, so we're going to get regulated as if we are on the strip, but we don't get all the folks that are actually gaming.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Oh… So you don't get all the benefits, but you definitely get all the regulations. I see how that works.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
A little bit.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, and you have to get creative, I mean, with that, right? Because not everyone has foot traffic. I mean, in certain cities, there are definitely more highly foot traffic–I mean, the new location you're going to have here in Manhattan definitely has foot traffic. So I feel like you're going to have some different, potentially pleasantly surprising challenges on the other front. But as far as marketing, promoting, finding out ways to get people to come, were some of the things that, since you took over, you were like, “Let's try these things” and it worked? What did you A/B test that was like, this is gonna work or this is not gonna work?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, absolutely. The first year we got involved, frankly, we were so afraid to touch anything because the restaurant was doing well, but it also wasn't necessarily on this great, great growth trajectory. And so we're like, “Well, we don't want to disrupt what's great. We still want to test some things.” And we were just really timid. And then eventually we got to the point where COVID hit and it was like, well, you know, anything we try is good because nothing is going on, and we have to really run towards the storm. And once we ran towards the storm, we're like, “Okay, let's just start testing. Let's just experiment and see what happens.”
And so for us, what that really meant was social media. And so we had always had a legacy of storytelling that was really endemic to the brand, which was great. The question was how it manifested itself because we weren't necessarily very good at articulating it or putting it out there or visually representing it. It just wasn't our strong suit. And then all of a sudden when nobody was coming in to just experience the story, we were like, “Okay, now we have to tell it. Like we have to go out and do this.”
And so we started originally in 2019 with only 5,000 followers on Instagram and that was our only channel. Fast forward to today, and we've got multiple channels and about a million and a half followers and 300 million impressions of #GoldenSteer on TikTok. So it's a very, very different beast, and that really propelled and ran in parallel with the growth that we saw in the business that became a whole new engine for us to experiment with, to try and really do so both in terms of like how do we do something online but then also bring it into the restaurant? How do we connect those two, how do we have code words, how do we feature specific dishes, how do we do something fun and exciting? And so it gave us an opportunity and a sphere to just constantly iterate in.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, was that an impetus of, like, “Let's expand” or did you come in already thinking like, “Let's take this brand and bring it national or to different cities,” etc.?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, absolutely. I think the first phase for us was when COVID hit, March 17th, it was our one year mark of being involved in the business. So we had only just gotten to the point where we were like, we think we kind of know what's happening. And then it was, all right, now we definitely don't know what's happening. Where are we going to go? And we were very concerned about Vegas in particular, how long it was going to take us to come back from COVID because everybody has to fly there. We knew it was a big travel destination. We had seen all the data that was coming out from the Las Vegas Convention Center, who does a good job of showing you this is where people are coming in and here's how it's correlated with flights and people driving. We're like, “Well, that's going to be a problem.”
So then it was how are we going to make money outside of the four walls of the business to also make sure we can make payroll to cover our team that's here? And so we started saying, “Let's lean into it from a branding standpoint and start shipping our product.” So we closed March 17th. We shipped out our first shipment of steaks. I think it was like May 18th, so not too long in between those. And literally just started getting to work shipping product out. But the moment we were shipping product out, it was, okay, well now we have to digitally reach these people, we have to figure out how to do this. And so we ended up stumbling into it that forced us to experiment with these channels, which hadn't been a top priority for us. And that took off, whereas when we did to-go or any of these pickup orders, that failed. And so we're like, okay, well, press your winners. That's working. Let's keep exploring. Let's keep experimenting and then just keep doing that.
And then quickly it ended up becoming its own strategy. We were able to back into it, and now we have two lines of business. We have two teams. We're shipping out thousands of boxes every single month. And we've got our restaurant team who's benefited from the fact that because we had to figure out how to story tell and reach these people outside of the four walls, the restaurant itself has exploded.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
That's incredible. I'm taking a pause here because yes, we know that COVID was absolutely terrible. Yes, we know that there is ripple, there's after-ripple effects that are still being felt to this day, 5+ years after the initial shutdowns. But this is an example of, you know, you're making lemonade with lemons. It's the first time I've ever used that. That's kind of funny.
And it ended up being an opportunity, right? And for a lot of businesses, we saw that, not immediately, but everyone kind of mobilized and figured out like, how are we going to survive? Like, there's just not enough information. Nobody knows what's going to happen, but you can't just sit around and wait, right? And how do we take advantage of this opportunity to experiment, to do something that we said, like, we got nothing to lose. And that's a great example in the story of how you discovered basically a whole other business line. And then that you built a network and allowed you to tell your story to enable you potentially to grow into an international brand.
And so what was it like deciding where to expand to? Was it like, New York… always the moment of like, “We need a location in New York. That's definitely where we want to expand to”?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, well definitely selfishly I've always wanted to live here. So has my husband. So we were always like, “At some point in our life we want to be in New York.” But the first thing we did when we started thinking about expansion is we were like A, is this the right time? B, does this match the legacy of the brand and C, where are our customers? And so the first part of “is this the right time?” really came from seeing what happened after COVID with the launch both of F1 coming to town, Super Bowl coming to Vegas and the Sphere opening.
And all of a sudden it was like Vegas was on everybody's brain in a way that we had never seen before. And we were like, wow, okay, Vegas is here. It's a part of everyday conversation. And even just traveling and observing and people asking like, “Have you been to the Sphere? Have you seen this? Have you seen that? Did you go there?” I'm like, okay, this is different. You could feel it in the air, and you could see it in the numbers, even what we were seeing in Vegas and our growth rates just as a local economy and also in the composition of the types of people that were coming and the concepts that were here, because Vegas has always been about importing really exciting and sexy things to town. We've never done the reverse, and we're the first ones to really say why don’t we do that? And it's been really exciting and, so we were like, all right we think it's the right time. The question is what matches the legacy next.
And we think about the brand, a lot of it's tied up with these entertainers or these really progressive leaders or these people who have fought really hard to be an entrepreneur in whatever their space is even if it's something just as basic of how are we going to tax poker earnings? Like we have a booth in honor of Mr. Baxter because he was one of the people that brought that to the Supreme Court and changed how it was taxed, which is crazy and amazing and inspirational in its own regard.
And so we're like, all right, where do you find that entrepreneurship, that entertainment factor, that kind of connection with all the people who have come into our doors? And we put together that list and then compared it with our customer data on, okay, how are people engaged on Instagram, TikTok, what cities are they on, where are they coming from, website, what's their round of time that they're spending on the website? So not only who's coming, but how long are they spending it there for that duration and level of interest. You put all of that together, and very quickly New York was really the only answer.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, I second that.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Absolutely.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
I'm biased. I'm born and raised here. And where were you getting this customer data from? Like, did you have systems in place already when you took over, or were you putting your tech hat, coming in, saying, “No, we need to implement other things”?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, absolutely. The first round was we have to implement technology. There was nothing when we got there. The example that I always give folks is when we first showed up into the restaurant, I remember walking in and realizing that all of the checks that we were literally writing to people were being written with a stamp that was unlocked on top of the desk. Right? So it's just like, here's a stamp, here's a check, here's a vendor getting paid. There was nothing. There was no technology on the back end or the front end or anywhere else. And so we really challenged ourselves on like, okay, let's go in and figure out where we're using technology with purpose and intention and adding value. So it's not necessarily something that's just a layer for the sake of layer, but having something that has real value that comes from it.
And one of the big places is really we're flying blind on customers. We don't know anything about them. We have this great digital brand, and we know nothing. And so we started putting in that piping, and that ended up being really key to us later on for figuring out how to scale and personalize. And we were fortunate enough that that was our background because both my husband and I started in the technology business, so it's a lot easier for us to really push and say, “Why don't we use a tool from over there, here?” Just because then we can get the data.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, you know that's brilliant. I don't want to gloss over the fact that you had–I know you say your husband and [you] have been in tech–but you had quite a career, not just in tech, but also at General Mills, I see. You've got McKinsey and Company and some other places. Were there any things–learnings, I should say–that you picked up along the way or advice that you found yourself kind of utilizing in your new career path?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, absolutely. I think I was really lucky to constantly be surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurs when frankly, I don't think I was naturally ever one myself. And so because of that, I was always one of those people that I felt like was put in leadership positions or took over companies, what have you, because I was just the responsible one that was really good at getting things across the line. And then all of a sudden, I had all these entrepreneurs who were pushing me and saying, “Take the risk, take the risk. Do something and try.” And the fact that none of us actually know what was going on. I'm like, no, no, no.
In my mind, if you're running a company, you have to be the smartest person in the world, period. And there's no other way of doing it. And then once when they really push me on like, “Do you think anybody knows what they're doing? Everything is chaos.” And I'm like, “Oh, that's a first realization for me.” Like yeah, it's all about just outrunning the chaos to create something in that wake. And that was a really good push and reframing for me that allowed me to feel a lot more comfortable with let's jump in and just try, and then it doesn't have to be perfect, and there's so much beauty in that and letting it go. And that took a long time, especially coming out of McKinsey where I feel like we pride ourselves on making sure everything is very polished, very perfect, very accurate. What happens when the reality is the value is when it's not?
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, done is better than perfect, right? I mean, how are you going to learn unless you just try it, right?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, exactly.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
You don't have any data unless you do it, right? And I love that. I would say, like, entrepreneurs are the best at just pushing each other closer and closer to the edge. And eventually over the cliff, and you never know what's there. You either fall 100 feet or you fall and there's another ledge. Right? You know, the only way you find out is if you jump.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah. Or if it's a trampoline and you're like, we're off to the races.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Well, yeah. And there's so many parallels. Like, I would say independent restaurants anywhere, is so entrepreneurial. Like a lot of folks, you know, have dreamed to have their own business, or got thrown into it somewhere, fell, stumbled upon it and just went for it. They didn't know everything, and they surround themselves with the right people or at least people to support them in one way or another. And then they learn, and they learn, and they adjust, and they figure out how to get to the next step. And that's another beautiful thing I would say about this industry as well, just a lot of entrepreneurs trying to figure stuff out and coming together to help each other figure it out. Right?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, it's the best part. And I think that's what's so great, even with entrepreneurs in restaurants in particular, is that there's so much more warmth and care of expecting the chaos in a way that sometimes we often overlook. And there's so much joy around that, of like, we're all in it together. Like, isn’t this great?
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Exactly. All future and current restaurant entrepreneurs out there, you are not alone.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, 100%.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
I love that. I think one of the things that people often say–also on these shows when I do the speed round–is almost just like hope with during COVID, where it did force a lot of people to kind of take a step back and just get together and just talk, whether it's just talking about common challenges or just sharing and finding comfort in solace in each other, is that once things got a little bit back to whatever the new normal is, those times spent together are becoming fewer and fewer. And so we're seeing a lot of people just wanting to proactively get that communication back. But anyway, we'll get to that when we get to speed round.
OK, so you're in New York now. You've relocated. You've finally made that milestone goal happen. Congratulations.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Thank you.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
And now you're preparing for your new opening. What's it like going to another city where things are different, your clientele is somewhat different? I mean, you did all the data, and you do have similarities, of course. But how are you thinking about preparing and building the teams and what kind of leadership you need, etc.?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, I think something that was really big for us was we actually showed up in New York in April of last year, and we spent the first four months–to the chagrin of some of the folks we worked with–doing nothing but listening and dining and showing up at bars, and talking to servers, and talking to bartenders, and literally just asking questions, and looking around. And even when we finally did start looking at spaces, we would go to a space probably three or four different times. We'd go once, yes, with the broker, but then we'd go back on a Sunday night. We'd go back on a Tuesday right at four. We'd go back at 10 o'clock on a Monday just to see like, what does this look like? Because it was super important for us to accept that we know nothing, and we shouldn't assume we know anything. We should really fight really hard to listen to everybody and then put the onus on us to filter through. And so what does that look like to balance that consumption with the filtering for the insight to then turn that into action?
And so being able to have all those conversations, we ended up finding our space and finding our home really in December. So that's a long time to just be in the market and existing and looking around and seeing what do people love? Where do people light up when they talk about going to a restaurant? What's the moment of hospitality that people talk about and they say, “Oh my gosh, let me tell you about this amazing restaurant I went to and why.” And all those little micro moments are so important. It's such gold for us to be able to mine that then by the time we actually made the decision of “This is our space. This is where we're going. Now we're going to be working with people,” we had all this information that we felt really comfortable with.
And that was a really big element for us of how we've always built is it’s relationship first. Because again, this push on our business is human, so if we want to power it, it has to be based off of the power of the relationships and the people–not only the customers who are coming in, but also the hospitality leaders in the industry who have been here for so long and using them to help us say, okay how do we how do we try on different things for size? Does it fit, does it not? What do we want to keep, what do we not? And that was a really important conversation, an element of realizing that by the time 2025 came, and we were like, “Okay, we're gonna actually pick up a hammer and start demolishing things,” we already had all of these relationships and all of this input to be able to pull something from, because coachability is the number one thing that really mattered.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, yeah. And you remind me of a recent conversation I had with Maneet Chauhan where she was talking about Nashville and just having that level of respect and the community to understand that you're joining them. And so that reminded me of that. I think that's great. And I think that's very smart, by the way.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Thank you. I appreciate it. We're excited.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
But, you know, my opinion isn't the one that matters. When you open, I think others will also agree.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Thank you, thank you. We're very excited.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah. And I want to take a little sidestep here to talk about some of the other things that you do for the community, for women in leadership. Can you talk a little bit about outside of the restaurant, what you're involved with, and how you got into those?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, absolutely. So I've always been someone who's really passionate about what does mentorship look like, especially for someone who's always been– I've always been really fixated on this concept of like, what does a personal board of directors mean? And recognizing that no one person is going to have all the information or all the wisdom. It's just seasons and times in place and being able to kind of create that. And so for me, it's been about how do I create relationships with folks who are ahead of me, to the side of me, and also younger folks that can inspire me?
So those that are ahead of me, I initially joined the International Women's Forum, and I remember walking into one of my first meetings, and like six of the women that I got paired with were all in their late 60s or early 70s. And these were women who were trailblazers in their own industry, and most of them were the first in whatever they were doing. And hearing their stories and saying, “I was the first partner,” “I was the first person that my firm hired who was a woman,” “I was the first this,” and understanding the amount of discipline that came to get them where they were, and the standard that they set was really inspirational for me. And so that was kind of like my first round of the folks that were inspiring me from above.
And then turning around and saying, okay, how are you bringing people to the side of you who are your friends, that are your peers, that maybe you guys are in the same bucket, but they've experienced something a little bit different that you can learn from. How are you asking?
And then the folks that are below you, and even that big element for us has always been this kind of apprenticeship model. So something that's really key to what we do at the Golden Steer is we have a lot of individuals and a lot of phenomenal folks, especially women leaders, who have started where maybe they didn't even finish their GED. But today, they're now directors, senior managers, folks that are running the whole gamut. And they're phenomenal at what they do, because they are so good at learning and taking feedback. And it's always been about designing professional plans for them. How do we take somebody who started as a busser and turn them into the best operations leader that we have? What does it mean to take somebody who started as a hostess and then turn them into the director of all things marketing? What does it mean to create specific paths?
So whether that's been through International Women's Forum or some of the work that we've done with just starting to create these networks of both women and male leaders who have an opportunity to study leadership. Because it's not something that's always very natural in the hospitality industry, something we kind of all fall into because we're constantly receiving and interacting with the public. But how often do we take a step back and say, what does leadership mean? How does it look for every individual, and how do we study it and treat it as its own craft?
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, absolutely. And how do I acquire those skills to be a leader myself one of these days, right? And I think that self-reflection and just taking a moment is something that I'm seeing more common amongst leaders, because they “go, go, go” so much. Right? And then one day they're going to burn out or something's not right. Or they have a moment, whatever that may be, that gives them a pause. And so that's so important. But. Yeah.
Well, and we, you know, I have to say certainly, we became fast friends. I'm going to say that out loud. I mean, you're incredible. And I recently also saw you speaking at the Chef Conference here in New York, and you were just like, spewing knowledge left and right, and people's mouths were just dropping to the ground. How do you keep yourself motivated and inspired? You know, obviously you’ve high energy, smart, type A probably. And, you know, balance is probably not a word. It's like harmony. Your life is in harmony. How do you find yourself picking your priorities and keeping yourself inspired?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, consumption is definitely the biggest thing for me, on what content am I intellectually consuming? Who am I listening to? What am I learning? The same way that we create professional development programs for our leaders, and we have individuals who are going through multiple– I mean we have a group of leaders actually at our company that are doing two-year leadership programs with folks that are teaching them kind of the best practices across, how do we think about, sure, personality tests, but hiring and all these things.
I spend all this effort and energy on the team of setting them up with education and then turning around and making sure that I'm also doing that for myself because I can't bring my team along, I can't find these resources if I'm not also equally fixated with how do I be 1% better every day? Which is one of our core values we have for our team. We've got four core values at Golden Steer and one of them is 1% better every day, trying to improve personally and professionally.
And so for me, I end up creating my own personal development and professional development plan at the top of every year, and I'm going through, and I'm identifying like, where are my gaps? I'm getting feedback from my team, I’m getting observations from folks and taking a moment to say, like, “Oh actually, I'm really bad at negotiating this year, I need to get better at it.” What does that mean? It means education, it means observation, it means practice. So I'm setting goals for myself, I'm attending webinars, I'm going in, I'm reading books about it, and then I'm bringing it back to the team and saying–
It's also not about just us teaching each other leadership, it's about hearing from other individuals. So it's who do we find that's in AI that's an expert that we're bringing in? Who do we find, maybe that's in sports, that's really good at motivating teams when it comes to physical work? Bringing in and having them teach. So constantly getting that consumption. What am I consuming? What am I reading? What am I listening to? Who am I talking to? And where is that inspiration coming from? And it has to be constantly this fire hose, because I think the best place that I always really distilled it down to was a professor who taught me that creativity by definition is about making novel and practical applications from disparate sources. And so if it is disparate sources, what are you consuming outside of your immediate sphere? What do you see beyond your own aperture to be able to widen it so that there's enough to be able to get that inspiration? And it can't just come from you. It has to come from everyone and everything else that you're consuming.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Great. I don't even have anything to say after that. I love it. I'm super motivated right now. You know, when you go, go, go so, so hard and so fast and so long, sometimes it's easier to just be like, “All right, let me just take a minute.” And absolutely, 100%, I believe people should take a minute. I remind myself, like, take a minute. My flight was delayed three times yesterday coming home from Chicago. And I was like, OK, take a minute. My Wi-Fi didn't work on my flight. And instead of, like normally I’d be like, “Oh my God, my Wi-Fi is not working,” and I'm like, you know what? OK. Back in the day when I used to travel for business all the time, there was no such thing as Wi-Fi on the plane. So let me just take a minute and read my magazine or watch a movie.
Anyway, there is that time that people must take for themselves and figure out what works for them. And then that balance of like, OK, yeah, you know, there are things that motivate one, and whatever that is, know, fold that into your life and figure out how to share that, because it's absolutely invaluable. I mean, the energy and the yearn for knowledge, it's infectious. And if you're looking for those types of leaders and you want to motivate them to say, “Absolutely, I believe this is important. I believe this is important for you, and I'll support you as you go on your learning journey,” that's I think something really important from a leadership standpoint as well. Instead of, I'll say, some corporate situations where it's more like, “This is your job, and you do great. Keep doing this because that's your job.”
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And the evidence has to be there, right? It's like you can say that you really care about something, but then how do you follow up, and do you do so timely and unprompted, right? Does somebody have to chase you down for the fact that–like, we have these professional development classes, we also have additional training and we have stipends towards people and we're constantly putting people through training, but do you make it easy for them? Because if you say you care about it, it should be easy.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yeah, yeah. And we talk a lot at Culinary Agents about, from day one–this is our 13th year. We're a 13-year-old startup. We're not really a startup anymore. I know we had this conversation.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Congratulations!
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Thank you. And from day one, which 13 years ago, this industry was in a different place, we focused on, OK, this is a profession. And it's one of the most amazing places and the only places where it welcomes everyone, and you don't have to be here forever. However, if you would like to be here forever, there are different career paths. There's examples of how people have done it. There are a lot of career changers of people who have come to this industry and have brought immense knowledge and experience with them and have often changed the way things are done and what the norm is. And that just adds more color and diversity and just excitement and creativity to the industry.
Right now is so exciting because we're seeing talent from all walks. You get people who are excited and trying to get into the industry, whether it's their first career or they’re a career changer. And then have folks who are in the industry that have this new sense of pride of this ongoing professionalism and development of this industry. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still hard. There's a lot of challenges in the industry, and it's not perfect. But it definitely is one that continues to evolve for the better. And the more that people continue to take perspectives, like yourself, and bringing in outside expertise to better how people serve other people, right? I mean, at the end of the day, you're educating yourself and the team on themselves so that they can do their jobs better, right? Or differently in the way that matches your culture and what you're trying to do. So congratulations, that is not easy.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Thank you. And to your point, it's like one of the best times I think to be in the industry is truly today.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yes, yes, it is. On that note, we are going to quick-fire.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Cool, love it.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
What advice would you tell your younger self?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
No one knows what they're doing, truly. I will never forget that, and I wish I knew that younger.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
What's your advice for someone struggling in the industry?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Don't suffer in silence. I feel like especially in the industry, we can be really bad about keep it to yourself, pull it together, have that professional face, put on the theater, whatever it is, but then we don't give ourselves a chance to open up and get help when we need it. And so I think that's the biggest thing, is just don't suffer in silence. Especially if you want somebody to help you, if you want any help at all, you have to know first that there's something wrong.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
What's your advice for fellow hospitality leaders?
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
I think that one is, for me, really appreciating that feedback is one of those things you can get from anyone at any time. Even if you don't agree with necessarily something that's being said, it still tells you how the other person thinks. So if you're not asking for feedback from every single person on the team, you're missing an opportunity to understand your team, who then isn't necessarily going to understand the customer as well, because that is a circle that feeds it, right? People make people happy.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
People make people happy. Absolutely. On that note, Amanda, thank you so much for spending time with us and sharing your expertise and your career path. We're so excited for this fall.
GUEST: AMANDA SIGNORELLI
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. We can't wait to open, and it's going to be an exciting run.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Yes, see you soon.
HOST: ALICE CHENG
Remember, success looks different for everyone in hospitality. No two paths are the same. If you have a leader or a topic you want to hear about, email [email protected].
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