Drew Kimball, Relationship Manager at SpotOn, joins Zack Oates for an energizing conversation on relationship building, tech-driven hospitality, and building businesses through service. With a background in restaurants, B2B sales, and even game store ownership, Drew shares how his mission mindset and love of people power his success.

The Power of Connection (01:43)

Drew explains how his early experiences—from missionary service to door-to-door sales—shaped his passion for making friends and building relationships.

“My superpower is making friends.”

Restaurant Roots & Hustle (03:14)

He shares how his career began in restaurants at age 13 and eventually led to B2B sales and food distribution.

“I’ve worked every position in the restaurant except line cook and owner.”

Guest Experience Mindset (04:31)

Drawing from Dale Carnegie’s wisdom, Drew emphasizes being interested over being interesting.

“It’s not about what’s in it for me—it’s how can I help you?”

The SpotOn Core Framework (07:18)

Drew highlights the four pillars of restaurant success: customers, operations, revenue, and employees.

“If you’re not getting good food costs or keeping great employees, your business will struggle.”

Tech that Enhances Service (09:03)

Drew shares how Pat’s Barbecue improved guest experience using QR code pay and spot-on tech integrations.

“You’re not a hostage at the restaurant—you’re a guest.”

The Galaxy of Games Story (11:34)

He tells the story of how a community gaming passion turned into business ownership during the pandemic.

“We’re reinvesting all profit to grow. It’s a true passion project.”

Ovation Goes To… (15:09)

Drew gives a heartfelt ovation to Donut Star and its owner Dave for their resilience, hard work, and award-winning cronuts.

“Dave remains consistent and loyal—go get a cronut, you’ll thank me later.”

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drew-kimball-844a1912/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/spoton/

https://www.instagram.com/spoton/

https://www.spoton.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:09 – 00:00:26:15

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give An Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zack Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and tactics you can use to create a five star guest experience. This podcast is powered by ovation, the feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what is actually happening at your restaurants and how to improve without a long survey.

00:00:26:17 – 00:00:47:05

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovationup.com. And today I’ve got one of my good buddies, Drew Kimball, on today. He’s a relationship manager at Spot On. He’s been there for 15 years. He’s got an amazing social media game. He is a world renowned networker. I mean, this guy just knows. Everyone is just so great at giving of his time and his thoughts.

00:00:47:05 – 00:00:58:00

Zack Oates

And he’s also part owner in a game store. But anyway, most of all, he’s just like a good straight up guy. So drew, welcome to the podcast man.

00:00:58:02 – 00:01:08:07

Drew Kimball

Thank you, thank you. You have such good energy and perfect hair and your style is so good. I just dig your whole vibe and aura is like, oh, I want to be like Zach when I grow up.

00:01:08:10 – 00:01:14:24

Zack Oates

Oh geez. Well, you know what? In like 30 years, when you look as old as I do, you, decide what you want to do.

00:01:14:24 – 00:01:17:12

Drew Kimball

I got the grays just up the. I’m hiding them.

00:01:17:14 – 00:01:43:01

Zack Oates

Yeah. What? Drew, you’ve got such a fascinating background. You’re doing so many cool things. But one of the things I especially want to dig into is your ability to connect with people. Because you are like hospitality through and through. You care about the people that you work with. And so I’d love to just get your take on what is your philosophy on building relationships.

00:01:43:03 – 00:02:07:20

Drew Kimball

Oh man, that’s my favorite question. Thanks for starting with that. So everyone has their strengths. My superpower is making friends and they all stems back to 2004. I decided to go serve in LDS Church Mission. I went to Houston, Texas, southwest Louisiana. I cleaned up homes after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita. I just love talking to people and making connections and making new friends and serving people.

00:02:07:20 – 00:02:26:02

Drew Kimball

So in our blood, in our culture here in Utah. But after that, I went and did door to door sales for a summer sales company called First Line Security. And it was in that office that I started recruiting and learning the power of managing and being a mentor and training people out on the doors. Because I was having success.

00:02:26:04 – 00:02:42:22

Drew Kimball

I was the top first year sales rep for that company, is a fortune 500 company, and I ended up being the top first year sales rep that year in oh seven. And I don’t know, I just after door to door sales because everyone’s like, oh, that’s such a grind. It it is a grind. Say what you will about door people, but it builds character.

00:02:42:24 – 00:03:14:20

Drew Kimball

And I just it was a means to an end. I basically left that industry in oh eight. They basically the recession came and destroyed a lot of the companies. So I didn’t get back in checks properly. This is a roundabout way to answer your question, but I ended up going into B2B sales. I’ve been in restaurants my whole life, so I started out under the table 13 year old kid going to a place called High Mike’s Pool Billiards in Sandy, Utah, and I would wash dishes and essentially clean up after the chef, and I ended up loving that work there, too.

00:03:14:20 – 00:03:23:05

Drew Kimball

I was about 15, and then they closed, and I ended up going to work as a server dishwasher host for Frontier Pies, if you remember that.

00:03:23:07 – 00:03:24:10

Zack Oates

Oh yeah.

00:03:24:12 – 00:03:48:00

Drew Kimball

I think we still have one in Idaho. I’ve worked every position in the restaurant except line cook and manager owner, but I love it. Love the guest experience, so we’ll get into that. But when I went into B2B sales, I was a food broker and distributor for a group called The Nutty Guys. It was a Utah’s on a manufacturer that would enrobed nuts in chocolate, chocolate, cinnamon, berries, yogurt, pretzels, that kind of stuff.

00:03:48:06 – 00:04:10:12

Drew Kimball

And I ended up selling it here locally and distributing throughout, like mom and pop locations in Utah. And then I ended up opening a distribution franchise or a territory for them in Houston, Texas, and I was their number one outside distributor sales and distributing. I moved a lot of product. I just fell in love with chefs and cafes and managers in the restaurant, retail space, hospitality space.

00:04:10:12 – 00:04:31:07

Drew Kimball

And I think my favorite thing about to answer your question more directly is I read this book in college called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Carnegie man. Yeah, I love it. There’s a quote in there. It’s still resonates in my mind. He says it’s more important to be interested than interesting. So like when you’re making connections, it’s all about, how can I help you?

00:04:31:07 – 00:04:51:22

Drew Kimball

Not what’s in it for me. And I feel like in this day and age, we have a look at me or what’s in it for me attitude, especially amongst like social media influencers and subscribers. And it’s just like for me, working with restaurants, the passion ones, the ones that are successful, it’s all about the guest experience. It’s all about, hey, I want to improve what people say about my restaurant.

00:04:51:22 – 00:05:11:11

Drew Kimball

Not just, oh, it was cheap or food was good or whatever. It’s all about the whole the ambiance of the restaurant, the entire of the people that work there, the style, the vibe, everything matters. All those little details. Right. So relationship management is kind of like that for me. It’s all about like, do we connect on a personal level?

00:05:11:11 – 00:05:28:02

Drew Kimball

I mean, you do, Zach I see like good things in our future with the business. And then also it’s just who do you want to know and how can I open a door for you? So understanding what your target market is, it helps me go, okay, let’s play the who the you know game. But then let’s make those introductions.

00:05:28:02 – 00:05:33:00

Drew Kimball

So it’s a personality fit. Not just that you guys should do business together because of you’re in the same industry.

00:05:33:02 – 00:05:55:08

Zack Oates

Yeah. And I think that’s something that so many people are like, hey, we should do something together. We should, like, connect. But you have been so good at the follow up, the texting, making sure that we keep in touch as opposed to because, you know, you and I meet a lot of people. Yeah. And it’s just so rare that I meet someone who’s like, actually follows through on like, yeah, let’s actually, like, do something.

00:05:55:13 – 00:06:00:09

Zack Oates

We got our families together and we went to like, a roller rink fun center.

00:06:00:09 – 00:06:07:09

Drew Kimball

One of my clients class and Fun center. I’ve been going there since 93 or 94, like my whole life.

00:06:07:11 – 00:06:28:04

Zack Oates

Stuff like that, where you meet 100 people and maybe one of them is actually going to invite you to do something. So like, I was just so impressed that you do that follow through. And the people going to your store, seeing you talk to people, seeing you engage with your clients, it’s like you get that. It’s about a great experience.

00:06:28:04 – 00:06:37:11

Zack Oates

And so based on what you’ve seen and based on your 15 years in this industry, what do you think is the most important aspect of guest experience nowadays?

00:06:37:13 – 00:06:53:04

Drew Kimball

Oh man, that’s a good question. So you’re in the review space. You understand the power of a word of mouth referral, right? And you understand that when you go to a restaurant and you say, me and my wife had a great experience, that is going to have an impact if you go to your friend, say, do, do not go.

00:06:53:04 – 00:07:18:05

Drew Kimball

There is a terrible environment. The staff was mean. They didn’t refill my drinks. All those things. That’s going to resonate with your friends too. So we are consumers, but we are also sells billboards for these restaurants, right? Yeah. They don’t understand that we word of mouth is everything. So to me, as a company spot on or software, a tech company, it’s a system built by restaurant owners for restaurant owners.

00:07:18:07 – 00:07:42:00

Drew Kimball

And I love to be a part of that because their end goal is to improve the efficiency of the business, the guest experience and overall revenue. So my sure is it says spot on core. It stands for customers, operations, revenue and employees. It’s the four components. The core components of any restaurant is the customers first right operations. If you’re not getting good food costs, you don’t have a system in place.

00:07:42:00 – 00:08:02:00

Drew Kimball

You’re going to fail your revenue. What do you make a month? But more importantly, what do you keep? And then employees? It’s hard to find good help in this market right now. So how do you keep your employees tied into the vision of the business and the mission statement? And those things are so important. So our company is dedicated to improving the core, the four things.

00:08:02:02 – 00:08:03:04

Zack Oates

I love about man and.

00:08:03:04 – 00:08:05:03

Drew Kimball

Not just, you know, workout shirt like core.

00:08:05:04 – 00:08:28:02

Zack Oates

Yeah. Well, and you can’t miss any of those things. That’s what’s super important to remember, is that all of those pieces come together and I think that when you look at technology, a lot of times, like spot on, like ovation, like others, these aren’t things that are coming in there to just like make all of your life work, right.

00:08:28:02 – 00:08:52:11

Zack Oates

Were things in there to help improve things that have always been done from the beginning of restaurant history in ancient Rome, right? To today, you have the same basic things. It’s just a matter of how quickly, how efficiently, and how much visibility do you have into what’s actually happening. And that’s where technology comes in. And nowadays a lot of this is table stakes, right?

00:08:52:13 – 00:09:03:02

Zack Oates

But when you look at your clients, what have you seen of who’s producing a great guest experience and what are some tactics that you’ve seen that create that great guest experience?

00:09:03:04 – 00:09:23:19

Drew Kimball

Well, restaurant I took you to I’m going to highlight Zach is Pat’s barbecue in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a staple barbecue restaurant. It’s a one location currently and they have multiple but pre-pandemic changed owners. And they’ve done a phenomenal job of interacting with the communities they host to connect you to a Salt Lake networking group there on Thursdays.

00:09:24:00 – 00:09:52:15

Drew Kimball

They just do a lot of catering. So what I’ve seen is they went from toes to spot on, and from a point of sale provider perspective is they really wanted to cut down the wait time from running around with the handheld and taking people’s credit cards. And so we put QR code ordering checkout experience on the receipts. So you make an order, Zach, you got your receipt and you had to dip and get back to Spanish Fork, which that means coming out here to eat lunch with me was awesome.

00:09:52:15 – 00:10:09:13

Drew Kimball

And then you probably scanned Apple Pay on that receipt and bounced. And then you ask for permission. You’re not a hostage at the restaurant. You’re a guest. You could do that. And so our feedback from them was, everyone likes that. They like to be able to pay and go. And a big group of 60 people there for lunch.

00:10:09:15 – 00:10:37:05

Drew Kimball

They all run businesses. They’re self-employed, and so they don’t have every minute counts. They don’t want to wait in line to check out. So efficiency is key and running any business. But for them, table turn means more revenue. So we have to figure out ways to kind of improve that from every aspect. I think another great thing about working with them is because the GM, they’re she’s constantly interested in feedback and reviews, which is kind of where you come in.

00:10:37:05 – 00:10:54:12

Drew Kimball

And so making these connections from my network is like, if I can’t do everything for the business, I know the professionals that can. So plug for ovation, it’s like, hey, you need to talk to Zach. And so you’ll get that meeting here shortly. My friends are your friends. So it’s all about for me like, hey, what keeps you up at night?

00:10:54:12 – 00:11:03:07

Drew Kimball

What’s running the business? Right? What’s hurting the business and taking that puzzle apart and just having a second set of eyes to be like, I have some people that could help. And then making introductions.

00:11:03:07 – 00:11:25:11

Zack Oates

So I appreciate that, man, because you get this and your ability to make those connections because, you know, so many people, you’re constantly like, hey, can I help here? Can I help here, like in such a helpful way that people can’t help but just be like, man, we love drew. Not only you nice guy, but you’re someone who’s very helpful.

00:11:25:11 – 00:11:34:18

Zack Oates

And I think that’s incredible to the point that you got involved in a game store. And I’d love to just, like, dive in quickly to that story.

00:11:34:20 – 00:12:00:04

Drew Kimball

Yeah. So I have a lot of clients that I manage and I’m vertical agnostic. So restaurants are my main focus and vertical, especially for spot on. But I have a lot of like what we call retail or non restaurant accounts with spot on and being in relationship management for 15 years in B2B sales, what I’ve learned is you have to provide massive value with more than going above and beyond the.

00:12:00:04 – 00:12:16:02

Drew Kimball

And same with restaurants going above and beyond the experience. So to get into the game store, I have to tell you this story. I have a client from Pakistan and she would always ask me for referrals and most of them she would send running because she is a really skilled negotiator. I think it’s a cultural thing, but she love to haggle.

00:12:16:04 – 00:12:38:16

Drew Kimball

So they I would kind of prep my network, hey, you go in, but you’re not going to get the sell on the first visit. You have to learn her needs and you have to be budget conscious to her bottom line, because she will never pay full price for anything. I ended up networking with her so well and understanding her buying mentality so well that everyone I would send her, she would call me and you drew, this was fantastic.

00:12:38:20 – 00:12:57:18

Drew Kimball

This person allowed me. I grew my business or got someone from my home. She’s like, you’re like my personal Angie’s List. I don’t go to Google. I don’t go to Angie’s List or Facebook Marketplace. I’ll call you and say, drew, who do you know? I know you got a guy or gal for this. So Zig Ziglar said it this way, and I like this quote is my favorite quote.

00:12:57:21 – 00:13:17:14

Drew Kimball

You can have anything in this world you want if you’ll help enough people get what they want. So it’s all about the law of reciprocity, right? So with the game store, actually a kind of funny story I’ve done Jeff’s merchant accounts for his storage units for years with Spot On, and he loved doing business with me. We built a friendship and it was during the pandemic.

00:13:17:14 – 00:13:40:23

Drew Kimball

Our church was sending Missionaries International from Utah and other countries or other states, but those countries were essentially shutting down, and it was so much unknown. Right? So lots of missionaries got sent home from Brazil and the Philippines and Mexico. And essentially our church was putting them in hotels. So I offered them a chance to live with the Kimball’s, which my wife still hates me for that, but they ended up, oh, here’s my God.

00:13:41:03 – 00:14:01:12

Drew Kimball

They ended up moving into the basement for a year and every night because they couldn’t really go out. They would finish their like missionary work. We would play like Settlers of Catan, or we would play like exploding kittens or dumplings, or just like they would play Magic The Gathering. And so Jeff would come over, play games and be like, dude, we should start a game store.

00:14:01:12 – 00:14:21:04

Drew Kimball

And then I’m like, yeah, that’s a great idea. There’s no money in that. So he’s like, no, the community is alive and well in Utah. He started a company called Game Haven and sold it after they got to multiple locations and had a nice exit from that and then essentially open a store, and I set up the merchant account for him and then ended up you needed some money.

00:14:21:04 – 00:14:39:10

Drew Kimball

And so I invested in it and been a part of it. So it’s called Galaxy of Games or Herriman, Utah. We started in West Jordan and we were in a 3000 square foot building, and I would do a lot of networking there and expose people to the store that otherwise want to know about the story, like our naturally interested in those things, but it’s such a fun community.

00:14:39:12 – 00:14:59:11

Drew Kimball

I don’t take a paycheck on the store right now, but we’re reinvesting all the profit into the store. It’s going great. We just built a location in 6000ft², so we’re doing the ribbon cutting March 23rd. So everyone listening. And Zach, you guys got to mark your calendars. August 23rd. All day raffles, ribbon cutting, food trucks, the whole nine.

00:14:59:13 – 00:15:09:18

Zack Oates

August 23rd. I just put that down on my desk now because I want to remember that drew, who is someone that deserves an ovation, who’s someone that we should be following? I would say.

00:15:09:18 – 00:15:35:19

Drew Kimball

Pat’s barbecue and I would say Donut Star. Donut star won Best of State for their cronuts. I heard those are good. And a donut. Yeah. And Dave and his wife, bless her heart, she’s gone through cancer. I just love, love the way Dave goes to market. He is in his business making those donuts. He’s got two locations Draper in South Jordan, and I mean, he’s one of the hardest workers I know.

00:15:35:21 – 00:15:57:11

Drew Kimball

I’ve worked with them through all of the challenges and the tech issues, from internet to point of sale outages to all the frustrating things of running a business. And Dave remains consistent. And he’s always been loyal to me. And I just from the bottom of my heart when he listens to this like, go to Donut Star, get yourself some donuts, get a cronut, you’ll thank me later.

00:15:57:13 – 00:16:01:23

Zack Oates

There we go. Love that man. Drew. How can people find and follow you?

00:16:02:00 – 00:16:21:15

Drew Kimball

I have a YouTube channel now. It’s called Drew Kimball. And I have, Doctor Strange profile picture that all my friends are nerds, and they say I look like Doctor Strange. So we went for, Doctor Strange headshot for that. And then obviously, Facebook, Instagram drew underscore Kimball LinkedIn. We weren’t connected on LinkedIn. Now we are.

00:16:21:15 – 00:16:41:06

Zack Oates

So I can’t believe that. Hey. Well, good. I know we righted a deep wrong well, drew for not just being one on 100, but for being 1 in 1,000,000. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Give It Ovation. Thanks, man. Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen.

00:16:41:11 – 00:16:58:02

Zack Oates

We’re all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by ovation, a two question, SMS based, actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants. If you’d like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at ovation up.com.