Building A People-First Culture In The Restaurant Industry (Ep 223)

publication date: Oct 7, 2024
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author/source: Jaime Oikle with Michel Falcon
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In this episode, Jaime Oikle interviews Michel Falcon, a restaurant entrepreneur and author, to discuss the power of a people-first culture in business. Falcon shares his unique approach to building successful teams, cultivating engaged employees, and fostering a workplace that thrives on transparency. Discover how prioritizing people can drive top-line results, enhance customer experience, and create lasting success in the competitive restaurant industry. Tune in to learn actionable insights for your business, whether you're in hospitality or beyond.

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Building A People-First Culture In The Restaurant Industry

I have some stunners for you in this one. Michel Falcon of Brasa Peruvian is doing it differently and it's working. You'll want to tune in and find out what's creating his terrific numbers and engaged culture. Stay with me.

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Welcome back to the show. We're bringing the tips, tools, and techniques you need to know to make your restaurant more profitable and successful. I have a great episode for you with Michel Falcon, author, speaker, and restaurant entrepreneur with Brasa Peruvian. Michel was a guest with us a few years ago. It was a great episode. It’s episode 165. Make sure you check that out. We're going to reconnect and talk about what's new. Michel, how are you? What's new?

A lot. The last time we spoke, I lived in Toronto. Now, I live in New York. I’m opening restaurants here while still managing the ones that we have in Toronto, back and forth between both cities. I’m living with my wife. I wasn't married then. I'm now married.

Congratulations.

Thank you. I have a happy and healthy seven-year-old Rottweiler named Maggie. She's the apple of my eye.

Walking a dog in New York is no joke.

A lot of things to pick up on the ground. I have to be on guard.

It is. I've in been to the city. You opened a place in New York. Congrats, first of all, because that's always a struggle. The New York City restaurant market is like no other. How has it been?

I am cautiously optimistic. We opened on Monday and I'm on the show with you. The team is running the show. That's an indication that we're doing well. We hired correctly. I have the right management in place. As soon as I'm done in this show, I'm going to head to the restaurant and meet some customers and shake some hands, but it's good. We're in Brookfield properties. The largest landlord that they are is a real estate partner for us in Toronto.

They approached us to open something in New York. I jumped at the opportunity to do so for different reasons. One of which is this location in New York that we opened is in an office tower as well. Monday to Friday 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. We know this well because of prior successes in Toronto. It was a great entrance into a new market for us. It’s something that we know extremely well. That was the only way I was going to do it. It was making sure that we had past wins to help propel us forward. The first week is great.

How am I measuring the results? Top line sales. How are our team members showing up every day? They are. They’re showing up early. They're showing up very engaged. How are our guests' responses and Google reviews? Check. Everything is going well, but as you and I both know and everybody here, you have to earn it every single day. What you did yesterday is irrelevant today. We operate in a business of nickels and dimes. You hope that there's a lot of them. I'm content but not getting too confident.

Success isn’t guaranteed by what you did yesterday. In our business of nickels and dimes, you have to earn it every single day.

The Key To Restaurant Success: People-First Culture

I recall from our previous conversation that the people part, and you've already hinted at it, was such a big component about your previous launches and previous restaurants success. The way you bring people in, engage them and treat them. It sounds like that continues to be the case because why would you walk away from that? It's a very important part of building your success. Before we jumped on, you said you're doing even something newer with your staff, people’s pay transparency. Did I hear it correctly? That's pretty radical in this industry. What’s going on?

I call it People-First Pay Transparency. It dates back to 2009 when I was building my career. I always found it bizarre that companies will punish their employees for talking about compensation. The number one thing that secures our livelihood that's based on performance or at least it should be. In 2019, I said, “One day, when I started a company of my own, I'm going to go against this taboo.” About a few years ago, I said I'm going to do it now.

Every team member knows what their peers or managers earn to the dollar. Not payback or salary advance. It’s the actual dollar, including my salary. Picture a Google sheet. In one column, it has your name. The next one, date you joined the company? The next column after that, how much did you earn when you joined the company? What position are you in currently? What do you earn now? The last column which I call career growth is a story of why you earn what you earn now. Make a documentation of all the greatness that you have brought to the table.

Picture this. Jaime is a team member, joined us on this date, and is a team member. Now, he’s senior team lead earning $25 an hour, whereas when he started it was $20/hour. You can see that visual growth on this chart. In the last column, it will be very descriptive and be like, “On January 4th, Jaime earned three five-star cool reviews.” We’re recapturing all the good that you're doing so that when Jaime’s peer looks at the document, they say, “Jaime started when I started. Why does he earn more than me?”

They’ll read the last column. It's undeniable that Jaime has brought more value. Not to undermine other people's efforts, but you have to be very clear about why Jaime earns what he earns. Before I did it, I discussed the idea with some friends. I was told, “Don't do this.” I said, “I'm going to do it. If it blows up in my face, I'll course correct.” It’s those same friends who said, “If your company does not implode because of this, maybe I'll do it, too.”

I haven't had anybody join me yet in this journey of People-First Pay Transparency and that's fine. It's not for everybody. It was something I did for myself largely because I would want to work for a company that did this. When we go from employee to entrepreneur, sometimes we forget about how we wanted our companies to behave like when we were on a seat on the bus. I don't want to behave in a way that is untrue to how I would want to come and operate because I was a member of the team. It's helped performance also. When you have Jaime look at his manager and be like, “My manager makes $95,000 a year. I want $95,000 a year.” We're in it here. It's been done before. Why can't you do it? They can.

The first reaction is, “Oh my God.” People probably hear that and go, “You can't. It's a secret. People can't know.” Whether it's open book management where people see the numbers of a business, which I believe in too in restaurants. If you show your staff the whys and where those nickels and dimes go, it helps understand the business as well. The public believed that restaurant owners were millionaires. They're automatic millionaires because they're running a restaurant. They think that. The reality is far from the truth.

If you bring 8%, 10%, or 12% on the dollar, you're doing fantastic. There's so much that goes into it but to bring pay, which is as you used the word taboo into the public. I'm fascinated by this. The staff, when you first loaded that thing up there. It's a google sheet and they can log in. What were some of the first reactions?

Building Trust And Accountability Through Transparency

They were impressed. They appreciated it. Every company will call itself transparent. They’ll say, “We're a transparent organization, but not this topic.” The topic that secures your livelihood, we don't talk about that. If you talk about this, we're going to punish you. Here's the thing. You're not punishing the employees. You are fracturing the trust that they have with you, the company, and the leader. It's negativity all around.

I'm not trying to be a martyr by doing this but it makes sense. Let's get past this. You're starting to see government legislature that says you have to post what this job pays when you go to market. It's a matter of time before the majority of companies and I'm not going to say, “I was here first.” I'm going to say, “It's about time we’re out here.”

I'm curious to know this. Your book has been out for a while though, the People-First Culture book and when we talked a lot about culture in our previous conversation. In this topic here, I can see it. If you're not already working on it, I can see a book coming out about this topic and your learning about it. Is that potentially coming down the road?

How People-First Culture Reduces Employee Turnover

I have it in my head but I have to find the time to write. The thing in the book is around pride like how proud are you of your business and the things that you're doing? Whether it's a restaurant and insurance brokerage, whatever the case might be. It's a topic that we don't talk enough about. I'm proud of the pay transparency. I'm proud that we only have a 17% year-over-year turnover among our employees when the market is typically 100%.

I'm proud of our Google reviews. It’s like building a company that when I look back on my career, I did good work. I'm proud of that. I lifted people up instead of stepping on people. There's something there. I promise you the output is profits. In the name of transparency, we're running restaurants that are hovering around 20% net margin. Our labor percentages are microscopic because of a lesson I learned called talent density.

I learned it from Netflix and this is something that also gives me a lot of pride. Talent density is something from Netflix in how they compensate their engineers and anybody who works with them at head office. Essentially, we want such dense talent that we can pay over the market because these individuals are so talented that they're equal to one and a half people. When we went to market in New York, we did this in Toronto, but the most common example is going to market in New York to build our team.

I took a look at, what was the minimum wage. $15.50 in the state of New York. What does a comparable restaurant pay for team members? $17 on average. I said, “We're going to go $21 right off the bat.” We had 1,500 people apply in a handful of days. Why is that? I get it. They see how much we're paying. and then we take them through a rigorous interview process to make sure that we're getting the best. These individuals know that you need to bring one and a half people worth of effort or else this whole economic model won’t work.

Pride In Company Culture and Long-Term Success

For these individuals, because they're such high performers, they know how to take three steps instead of five. For them, this is easy work. This is easy. This is fluid for them. I'm proud that I pay 21% higher than comparable restaurants and so much so that I have a sticker, a decal on the sneeze guard of our restaurant in New York. It's going to come to Toronto shortly, but it says, “The team member serving you earns 21% higher than comparable restaurants. Thank you for choosing us.”

I hit me. I was walking home. This was five days ago. It was two days before opening. I quickly ran to my printer and said, “Can you produce this in time for my opening?” It hit me and I was like, “We should trumpet this messaging of great company cultures.” It doesn't have to be on the pay component side of things but your restaurant, your business is special. There's 1 or 2 or 5 things that are unique to you and you know that. Your current team members know that. The market needs to know how great you are.

We're so inundated with marketing for customer acquisition. We forget about recruitment and marketing for talent. You have to pound that drum of how special you are. Your unique superpowers may be different than mine. Regardless of the superpower and if there are current people that like working with you. You have to understand why. Intimately why they like working with you and then you have to go to market with that. Put it in your job descriptions, your social ads, and on Indeed posts because other people are going to want to join you too. You have to let everybody know what you did great.

You're talking about a lot of stuff that any organization can use. You talked about Netflix and learning from them. Where else are you learning as a business builder and as an entrepreneur? How are you integrating that information into what you bring?

We look at other companies for inspiration sometimes in our industry. I would argue if you're trying to create something that's never been seen before, look outside of your industry. If it’s a podcast or books written by the founders of companies that you admire as a consumer yourself, what about your own self-development? Your company will not grow if you the leader aren't growing first. It won't happen.

If you’re not growing as a leader, your company won’t grow. Self-development is key to pushing your business forward.

Where I go for my education are people outside of my industry. My friend exited from his company. In other words, he sold it and he was in the medical field. You look for people like that. I have a friend in private equity that I look for education from him because he's a financial wizard - he's phenomenal in finance. Regardless of where it is, you have people in your community or your city or maybe some of you connected with on LinkedIn. You have to go and get after that education first for yourself. That's going to empower you and influence the growth of your company too by way of education. Listen, New York is a very expensive city.

I've heard that.

Michel's Coaching Program And Team Building Tips

It's extraordinarily expensive. I don't cut myself a big salary. What I had to do to be able to afford the livelihood for my wife and I is I start a coaching program. It's called Teams by Michel Falcon. I meet with entrepreneurs and business leaders every Thursday at 2:00 and I host a coaching program. What individuals can do is there are tons of coaches available to you as well at affordable pricing or free podcasts or YouTube videos while you're walking. I am very pro of getting free education. I post stuff on LinkedIn all the time for people to be able to rip off and duplicate. That's where I go. Very grassroots. I'm not an academic. I don't say that proudly, but I like to find progressive ways of learning.

Even inside of that, two things I wrote down, especially in the restaurant business. People tend to believe, “I know it all. I've done it this way. It's always been done this way. I'm not going to change.” That's the first thing and then generally speaking, once we graduate high school or college or we go beyond, “I've stopped learning. I don't have to learn anymore. I don't have to do anything.” That's been historically the case.

I like to read a lot. What you pointed out is it has changed so much. There's so much digital learning and streaming. There are courses online. It doesn't have to be a big thing that you need to think, “I need to go back to graduate school.” You can get little nuggets on a daily basis from podcasts and these online courses. Some are free, cheap, and expensive. Pick your poison.

Coaching services as you mentioned. I listen to you. I'm sure you'd be terrific with folks encouraging. There's so much out there, so don't stop. I'll put it for one more second. If you think you're busy, fine. Read a chapter a day. Read for five minutes. I swear to God, you'll pick up some tips that you can bring to your day. That's how I feel about it.

Here's the thing. Everybody has the same amount of hours in the week. We've heard this before and it's not that you're too busy. It's just that you're choosing to spend your time somewhere else. That's not to say that what you're doing is irrelevant to what you should be doing. You shouldn't say that you're too busy because maybe you cut out an hour of what you're currently doing that doesn't bring you a lot of value but you think it does. Audit this, then be like, “I do have an hour to self-educate if I get rid of this thing. Why can't my assistant manager do this?” I'm sure that they can. Whatever the case might be, but make the time.

Similarly, when I meet some restaurant professionals and they say, “I can't afford to do that for my company culture or whatever the topic might be.” You can. You're just spending that money somewhere else, which is fine, but don't say that you can't. Somebody asked me. The question is escaping me, so I'm going to paraphrase it. How do you know if somebody is committed to company culture? It’s something like this. I said, “Show me your P&L and I'll tell you what matters to you the most.” Often, what matters to you the most is what you spend your money on for your restaurant.

You’re spending $2,000 a month on this and it seems like a lot of line items are related to marketing, which again is fine. If you want to invest in company culture, guest experience, strategies, or leadership for yourself, could you shave those line items down by 15% to free up a little bit of operating capital to invest in yourself or your team? You can. You just have to put everything under a microscope. One thing that I was taught early in my career is to inspect what you expect. That's overturning stones. Always looking at your P&Ls, your Google reviews, and spot-checking restaurant operations. It’s quite simple. It's a habit for me.

I want to go back to something you talked about and this will be our last bucket for this episode. Interviewing 1,500 people, I can't even imagine or I don't know if you got to everybody but that many people who are interested in joining you. Building a team, I know from our previous conversation, is a big part of your way of operating. Building teams now versus how you’ve done in the past. What does it look like? How do you talk to people? I remember specifically our last conversation. You talked about asking interesting questions as part of the interview process. Anyway, what does it look like?

Very progressive and it makes no sense to anybody other than me, but that has phenomenal results, so bear with me as I describe this. I treat our job description, which I've renamed career description because when I googled the word job, it said something like the definition for a job is compensation for ordinary work. I don't want anything ordinary, so I changed that. I banned the word job or job description from our company. It's a career description now. It's more uplifting.

Our job description isn't ordinary work for compensation. We call it a career description—it’s about growth, not just a paycheck.

It's five pages and this is for team members. This isn't for your CFO or your controller. Within the five pages, there are four links. You have to watch videos that are about 30 minutes in duration in total. At the bottom of this five-page career description, you click a link and you have to answer fifteen questions in the application. I use this software called Typeform Powerup. You're not even guaranteed an interview.

One of the first questions in the application is, did you watch the videos in the career description? Anybody who says no isn’t offered an interview. You already told me you can't follow directions. You've already shown me that you don't care enough. That's one tripwire that we have in place. Next, we asked a question, have you ever been called kind before? If people say no, then they don't get any interviews either because that aligns with our core values. One of our core values as a company is experience-driven.

We want everybody who interacts with people in the kitchen to have a phenomenal experience. I believe customer experience and great customer service are the better acts is kindness, hospitality, and graciousness. You see that I connect the core values to the interview process and the questions that we asked. I asked another question in this application, what's the temperature of the Sun? We may have talked about this last time.

I don't remember that.

If somebody says very hot, they're not getting an interview either because when a customer inevitably asks you a question that you don't know the answer to, you are going to be general like that. “I don't know. I think it's this.” What's the temperature of the Sun question in the application, what we're looking for is does this person has the wherewithal to go and Google it, go back, and respond. Anybody that does not respond with the right answer then they don't get an interview either. It goes on and on. What are we looking for? We're looking at these applications.

Hiring great people isn’t magic, it’s process. We look for those who go beyond general answers to show their commitment.

Only because we had 1,500 people apply through Indeed does not mean 1,500 people applied to the application. We're already starting to filter people out because I know some people are like, “This person wants me to read a five-page job service and watch videos? I'm not doing this.” Great. The system is working. We're turning you over before we even offer your role within the company.

Where we review the type form applications, we're looking for sentence structure punctuation, and enthusiasm in the answers, and then you're invited to a group virtual interview. If you get the interview, it's almost a formality like, “You're hired,” pretty much. You don't even know that you have been interviewed. We interviewed you that whole way you don’t even know it. Now, if you show up on time to the interview and are still enthusiastic, it's a yes for us.

That interview is typically fifteen minutes long. I'm just showing, did they show up on time? Do they have a smile on their face when they show up? We also give them the interview questions ahead of time. By the time they fill out the application and we like it, we send them an invite, “This is the interview. Here's the link. By the way, we've attached the interview questions for you. These are the questions we're going to be asking you and here are some best practices. Have a good WiFi and good natural light and so forth.”

If the person shows up to the group interview and they're outside at a park. We’re like, “We told you not to do that.” You’re not following directions already. The reason we give the interview questions ahead of time is that I'm not trying to make you fail. Interviewing is not an interrogation. You're trying to understand whether you want this person at your dinner table. No pun intended but that's what we're doing. I see Brasa Peruvian kitchen as a dinner party. Every single person that works with us has earned their seat. There are empty seats at the table, but you have to earn it like the others have.

How often do we build teams where 100% of the work is done by 33% of the team? It's not fair, especially with the idea of talent density paying over the market. It does not work before. Our labor percentages are 17%. The industry is 25%. It pays to pay more. This isn't just the thought of a pipe dream. This is real life of what I’m experiencing and it goes back to the pride piece. I'm proud that we pay what we pay and word gets out. There's word of mouth. People are applying all the time, but here's why I'm extremely proud of it.

Our mission statement as a company which I have rephrased as, why do we exist? Why do we exist as a company? I’m a Peruvian-inspired brand. We are not traditional Peruvian food but here's our mission statement word for word and I do not have it anywhere posted. It’s stitched in my brain. I'm going to say this word for word, “To build a company that the world needs more of. One, where every day people are empowered to make great money, achieve career growth, and help close the income of equality gap.”

Now, that is why we exist. The outcome of that is clinically clean restaurants. Food that is consistently flavored and served by hospitable professionals. That building the business but because the foundation is very people-first. Imagine if I had a reputation of being a poor employer and I wrote the People-First Culture book, that's fraud all over it. I have to keep myself on my toes because I know what I posted on LinkedIn but having that brings a lot of meaning to my work.

At 8:15 AM, I called Veneta. Veneta is somebody on our Toronto team. She joined us not long ago as a part-time team member working in the restaurants. I called her to tell her that she was being promoted. She's going to be bumped up to $65,000 a year and be our operations manager overseeing three locations with our senior director of operations. I'm very happy. I'm living my truth. I am living the truth of the company by being able to put people first. Truth be told, Veneta is going to make more money than me on paper, which I'm totally fine with because I know I'll get sorted out as an individual if I'm able to put people first, able to learn and earn at the same time. 

I want our team to feel, “I can't believe I'm getting paid to learn all of this stuff,” but there's an agreement. You got to take care of me too, and I'll take care of you. We’ll have a phenomenal relationship. It's not dissimilar to my relationship with my wife. We've been together for eight years and married for one. She serves me and I serve her. As soon as either party stops serving the other party, that's where the fracture of the relationship happens. Sometimes it can crumble or sometimes it recovers, but more often than not in the workplace, once that trust is fractured, it's hard to recover.

I'm a jotter. I jotted a lot down there. That was not HR 101, that was not basic stuff. That was an advanced-level HR 401 class. If you took that approach of tripwiring people out of the application process and bringing in great people, it's no secret your finding success. Nice recipe there. Very good stuff. We hit on a lot. If folks were tuning in, hopefully, you can take pieces of this and implement it. I fully endorse all the stuff you've talked about, Michel. Hit them with socials, websites, and the coaching stuff. Anything as we wrap and close parting thoughts or wisdom.

My parents blessed me with my name Michel Falcon. I've been called Michael Falcon every day for years. I bring that up because I'm very easy to find online. Type in my name, wherever you are on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. You can find me quite easily. With the coaching program, it's at Teams by Michel Falcon. 

I over-indexed on the kindness and hospitality. You have to have a good personality and be razor-sharp because you'll be joining a community of people who are very friendly but very ambitious and very smart people. That's what I like. That's where you can find me. I share a lot of free stuff on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Go there first. Don't pay for things first. Get preliminary stuff. Get your feet wet. As you said, Jaime, a lot of the stuff I do is very advanced, but I position it in a way where beginners can get their feet wet because you don't want to start with the advanced stuff. You're going to demoralize yourself when inevitably it doesn't work. There's a lot to be said about momentum and compounding your effort. It gets you in a good place for 90 days.

Lots of good stuff there. Michel Falcon of Brasa Peruvian. You can find them on the web at BrasaPeruvian.com and MichelFalcon.com for that stuff, for more insights and tips from Michel including some of his favorite books and quotes. Stay tuned in right here after we wrap up a series of bonus questions with Michel. For more great restaurant marketing, operations, service, people, and tech tips stay tuned to us at RunningRestaurants.com. In the meantime, please do us a favor and like, subscribe, review, and rate us wherever you read or watch. That helps us out and I certainly appreciate it. We'll see you next time. Thanks, Michel.

Thank you.

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Here we go with some bonus content questions with Michel Falcon of Brasa Peruvian. Michel, how did you get your start in the restaurant industry?

My friend Brandon called me one day and said, “Would you be a consultant for my restaurant group?” In 2016, I moved to Toronto from Vancouver. Three months turned into six months and turned into, do you want to be a partner? That's how I got my start in a restaurant.

It's amazing how it ropes us in, isn't it? I know you've come across a lot of advice over your life. What's one of the best pieces of advice you've ever got?

“It's all about the people,” Brian Scudamore. 1-800-GOT-JUNK. My real-world MBA. He could not have been any more correct. It's all about people. Invest and the reward is a phenomenally organic growing business with a great brand reputation.

Let's go to a quote or saying that you love. What do you think?

“Adequate performance earns a generous severance.” It's not for everybody, but if you truly want to build something great, you have to audit habitually the performance of your team. If they're not meeting your expectations, don't kick a can down the road for too long. Write them a nice check and make sure they're able to pay for their rent or cell phones and so forth while you replace them. They can’t have a seat on your team if you're trying to build something great just like the sports team. Look at every single high-performing team out there in different industries. They do the same.

You can't point the finger at your own book here, but you can bring it up. What's a book you're reading now or a top recommendation you got?

I've read it three times and I'll read it a fourth, No Rules Rules written by Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings. It documents the inner workings of Netflix's company culture. Paradigm shifting, if I come back on here in ten years on your show, I'm still going to be saying that book had a profound impact on me and I picked it up at the right time.

With that recommendation, I will buy it later on Amazon. I appreciate that. As a busy restauranter and operator, what keeps you up at night?

Am I truly a good employer? My company is ruined if one day I have team members say, “It used to be a good place to work.” Always constantly check on my team. How are you? Talk. That's what keeps me up. I’m making sure that we are who we say we are.

Let's talk about mistakes or lessons. We all have some. What's one of the ones that sticks in your mind as a lesson learned?

Are we moving people fast enough. Sometimes, they go, “I'll get to it,” or they're a warm body. It's good enough. Good enough isn't great. It's not exceptional. The C-plus of restaurant operations is that you know who you want to the left of you or the right of you. If you're not fully confident in that person, they have to be removed or coached. Whenever somebody is underperforming, you have to ask yourself first, am I the problem as their leader?

You're seeing a lot in the industry. You're in it every day. You probably look ahead sometimes. What do you see coming down the road 2 or 3 years from now?

I see automation was not good. I don't believe that customers want automated restaurants. I believe customers want to spend their money and have human connections. We are living in such a digital world with Instagram and TikTok and all of this that we are removing that. I am not pro-automation restaurants. I think in three years, it will be undone.

There's a lot of push towards that way. Will it stick? Michel says no. We'll check back. Elevator advice, you are a restauranter but behind you, you're in that elevator that goes up for 60 seconds and you find out that they're starting a restaurant too. You can give them advice for 60 seconds. I'm going to put you on a simulated clock. What do you say?

Think of how much you invest in your people. Whether that's how you build your team, how you compensate them or reward them, or you're learning development strategies. Anything that impacts the team. Think of how much you're investing in that. I'm not suggesting you have to write a big check because some of it is critical thinking. How much of your week are you spending and thinking about the team the construction and the maintenance of them and can you crank that number up a little bit? I think 10% of your week, four hours a week has to be a minimum. It has to be focused on this.

I know you're a huge believer in that, so I appreciate that. Last thing, what is one thing that not many folks know about you?

My middle name is Alexander. Up until the day I was born, my name was supposed to be Eric. How South American immigrants from Peru ever heard of the name Eric is beyond me because there's no Peruvian named Eric in Peru. My dad called an audible last minute, changed the plans, and made me Michel. That is something people don't know about me. I'm also double-jointed in both my thumbs. Those are the first few things that come to mind and don't ask me why.

Thanks Michel - I appreciate you.

 

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