Welcome And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another edition of Give and Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Zach Oat, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and tactics to help you create a five-star guest experience. This podcast is powered by Ovation, the AI feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what's actually happening in your restaurant and exactly how to improve while driving revenue. Learn more at ovationup.com. And today we have a most unconventional yet most inspiring guest, Sully Finlay. He is someone that, if you haven't checked him out, actually, I'm probably sure if you are on Instagram or TikTok, you have seen him. He's an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers. He is a recovering CPA. He's now a full-time comedian. He's worked with brands like Delta, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Old Spice, Gillette. And I love that he's got this basically mocking capitalistic tropes. And I think it's just so funny. And the way that I think of this, if you have not seen him yet, is he's like created the TikTok version of Dilbert for the new generation without the controversy of the creator. And I think it's been amazing to watch, but I gotta say, Finley, I, you know, sometimes don't always appreciate how you portray CEOs in the space. And I think it's uh it might be a little bit too, you know, too characterization, but there is a lot of synergies if you really think about it. But yeah, so let's circle back on that later on. Yeah, touch face. Anyway, well, welcome to the podcast, Sally.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Thank you. Thank you for such uh nice words. I'm honored to be compared to Dilbert.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Uh so well, by the way, I saw your face when I started making when I started like coming down on you. You're like, oh my gosh, is this like a total hit piece? Like, is that why he had to go on this podcast? Is just here we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Total hit job for 45 minutes.

Leaving Accounting For Comedy

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Okay, so Sally, tell me about this journey because you were CPA, you worked at Salesforce, you worked at some of these big companies, and then you went full-time into comedy. And I'm sure that like your parents were like, Oh my gosh, what's happening? But be supportive. Like, how did you make that transition? And what was that like?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, I mean, it was tough. Had kind of started doing comedy in 2020 when you know nothing else was going on. And I was still only counting at the time. I started doing content in 2021. So before that, I was doing like improv and sketch and all that, and just wanted another outlet to do characters and things I did on stage.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Wait, by the way, had you done this all in school, all like had you been acting in school or college or anything? Nothing.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

No, to be honest, I'm also very stereotypical accountant in that I was probably too socially anxious to do like theater or improv or anything in school. And then eventually it was like, I had a friend who was just like, hey, let's do this improv class. I'm like, sure, why not? And then he bailed last second. I am suddenly a Midwestern accountant in an improv class, and the rest is history, I guess. But yeah, so had done content for a few years before going full time with it. Again, very stereotypical accountant, very risk averse. I was like, should I even do this full time? And thankfully, my wife is a very good support and was like, Yes, you should do this. You will regret it if you don't. And yeah, it's been a couple years of doing it full time, which is great. I'm so glad it did.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

What's your process for coming up with content? Because you come up with some funny stuff, man. And I I I told you before we hit record. We share your stuff at ovation. I mean, we've shared it for like the last few years because it just is so spot on. It's like Silicon Valley, except like today. Like it's just it's so real. How do you come up with that stuff?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Thanks. Yeah, I think a lot of it is I'll have to say training, like coming out through like Second City, UCB, a lot of these schools

How Sully Writes Funny Videos

SPEAKER_01 3:55

that are really good at teaching comedy. When I was doing more of that, I think it's just enabled me to have like a writing process. I'm a little weird. This is getting very in the weeds, but coming from an improv background where to write, I will have to talk, like I'll have to improvise something. I'll just hear it, and then I can write it down and like the jokes come. But yeah, it's truly just writing, writing, writing as much as I can trying to do that like daily.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So will you be like turn on your camera and then just like start talking to the phone and then be like, oh, that one that was pretty good?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Sometimes a lot of it is like with my here I have it here, uh, my notebook out, and I'll have like a pen in my hand. And as I'm going to write, I'll just start talking. So if say, you know, I'm wanting to do some sort of like meeting thing, I'll just start from the top of where I think like a meeting. So may I just start going like, hey team, how are we doing? Uh I think we're just waiting on like one or two more here, and then so I'll just start writing this down, and then um the jokes will come from that.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

But oh, that is so what did your like colleagues think? Like, did this ever get you in trouble when you were working full time and making your content?

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yeah, it's a great question. I was terrified of them like finding out, and then one by one, everyone, when I was at Salesforce, everyone did find out. And it would just people were like so supportive of it because I think I was around other accountants who were also like, I would never do that. Oh yeah. And and there would it would be the one-off comments at like random company events, like there would be some sort of all hands, and then like there's a party after, and one of my coworkers is like, hey, the microphone's right there. And I'm like, Okay, like I'm probably not gonna perform it just at a a work function.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Um but yeah, this isn't this totally

When Coworkers Discover Your Content

SPEAKER_00 5:45

isn't you, Jerry. Like, yeah, right, right. I know. I can just I can just imagine in one month you're like, what it's like to be a CEO having a podcast, be like, hey everyone, I'm Jack Oates. Uh right.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, there wasn't any like me impersonating a CEO, and then like Mark Benioff comes up to me and is like, hey man, cut it out. You know, that would have been cool, but that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

But I mean, like, you did some work with Salesforce afterwards, right? Like, so it obviously ended well and they like played into it. They were like, Oh, this is funny.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

The funny thing about that, Zach, was it the the first partnership with with Salesforce was when I was still working there and they didn't know I worked there.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

No way, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

They reached out and it was through my agency, and they're like, Hey, uh, just want to see, like, is Sully like a user of Salesforce? And I literally respond, I'm like, I'm an employee of Salesforce. Here's my badge number. Right, right. Uh I have benefits through you. So then later, like a week later, somebody from the social team like messaged me on Slack and it's like, hey, I think we're working together on this campaign, but yeah, they're great to work with.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Oh, that is so funny. I mean, what a compliment, though, of like you nailed that demographic. And so, as you're thinking about, and this is one of the reasons why I thought it'd be great to have you on this podcast, is because we have thousands of restaurants that listen to this podcast and they're thinking to themselves, how do I create content that's gonna break through, that's gonna talk to like the new generation? And what advice do you have for them on both the creation of the content and then like coming up with new ways? Because it there are a few people like Fry the Coop, there in uh your hometown of Chicago,

Content Tips For Restaurant Brands

SPEAKER_00 7:30

where he does a great job with his social. And that doesn't mean that every single post is a killer, but eventually he gets to one that like gets into the hundreds of thousands, the millions, and like that helps the brand grow. And so Sean Walcheff is another great restaurateur who does amazing content. But like, what advice would you give to those who aren't as comfortable in front of a camera?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, I think well, to the comfortability, like it's just a hurdle that you have to get over with time. If you just do it enough up front, eventually, like I have nothing else to lose at this point. I'll just keep recording myself. But I think the other thing with that is the consistency in posting. I mentioned starting content in 2021. I didn't have anything go viral until like seven months after I first posted. And like how many was it about you? Oh my gosh, I could find it somewhere, but it's well over a hundred. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And so it was it was wild. And then the first one was something about living in Chicago. And the kind of part two of this, I'd say, is I think why that hit and why I think a lot of things hit is it was deeply relatable. It was just a conversation about like when you move to Chicago, this is the conversation you have with everyone you talk to. And I knew it because I had just moved to Chicago two months prior. And so I think just knowing what you're good at and like creating content from that, or knowing your lived experience and creating content from that. It's the old adage of like truth and comedy. That's what will like break through more than anything.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

And do you feel like this new generation, are there things that you found, hey, these types of things work and these types of things don't? Yeah, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

I think what we've started to see a little bit with kind of Gen Z starting to get into Gen Alpha, like is that there's this weird thing in the last couple of years where you're almost penalized, and I think it's starting to break back, which is good. You're almost penalized for looking like you're trying because then it's dubbed as like cringe. Like it's something that's like, oh, this is okay, cool. You really went for it here. And I think that's one of the hardest things at first, but again, it's just something you have to push through where it's like, just do the thing, just be your

Authenticity In A Cringe Culture

SPEAKER_01 9:50

authentic self. Because I think why it's starting to break back is now people are looking for that authenticity contrasted with like AI and the rise of AI. They want to hear that human voice and that human story. So I think it's starting to break back, which is good.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

And when you think about collabs, how are collabs helpful? Is that something that you found increases followers, or is it something that's kind of like, you know, something that used to work back in the day?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, with brands or with other creators, yeah, like with other creators. Yeah, I think for me, more than anything, I just think they're so fun. Like it's fun for me to create with friends of mine because it's just so much of this job is you creating by yourself. And so it's fun to have different voices writing, performing together. I think too, it does definitely help with growing a following. There was a group of like five or six of us who were doing a number of videos together with kind of the main purpose of like, let's just expose each other to each other's audiences. Yeah. And we definitely found that. There was even in ways I wouldn't expect, I had a friend who's not in content creation at all who was telling me, like, yeah, I saw that video you did with like other creators, and a lot of these creators are like bigger than I am. And he was like, I went and followed them because I was like, I want to support them. I'm like, that's so wholesome. One, two, it is kind of wild that like these are all people who are like pretty well established, but sometimes people just haven't seen them. And so I think that was a pretty good example of working with other people, collaborating with them, and it was helpful

Collaborations That Actually Grow Reach

SPEAKER_01 11:25

for I think all of us.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Who are some of your favorite comedians that you follow in kind of like similar veins?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Oh, that's a good question. There's the group Almost Friday, and like Will Angus specifically, they do a lot of great sketch stuff, especially on YouTube. There's Kylie Breakman and then Jeremy Colhane, who got on SNL this year. They have a podcast called Artist on Artist on Artist on Artist, which is just very it's all improvised, very inside baseball, like Hollywood and the arts and all that that I think is very funny. Yeah, those would be a couple that come to mind.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, because I think and and it's so interesting because you there's like this whole push, kind of uh this anti-establishment push, right? Where it's like, let's make fun of all these corporate tropes because it's like it's so ridiculous when you're in it. And the thing that's wild is how close you are to completely accurate, right? It's not one of these things where yes, it's a caricature, it's a character and a caricature of like certain things, but also I literally have said some of the stuff that you say in your videos on my all hands meetings, word for word, and that's actually how I found you. Someone sent me a video of you and it was like our all hands meeting. I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe this. I am like a

What Corporate Leaders Miss

SPEAKER_00 12:45

living meme. But like when you've spent years inside corporate America, and now you make a living making fun of it, and when you think about that, like what's something that corporate leaders are doing that employees secretly hate, but like no one's really telling them. Like, what are leaders missing on that again, relatable because all of the content you're doing that's getting so so many views, people are like, oh yeah, I totally can see that, but leaders sometimes are oblivious to it.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I think kind of um the sentiment you're sharing, I think that's something I've been wrestling with, even of like I think in content in general, and especially in corporate content in this like corporate comedy space, there's a lot that does skew negative, and I am a participant in it, you know, and so it is like something I wrestle with of like how do you kind of satirize this well in a way that like people find funny and find relatable, but it's still like somewhat uplifting. And I don't know that I found the answer to that, but it's something I'm always asking myself. I think as far as like what corporate leaders do that people kind of push back on. Okay, this is somewhat controversial, but I think sometimes in an effort to seem cool or hip, corporate leaders can be like way too chill about working from home where where I think getting together is a good thing. I think community is good for humankind. And I think sometimes it can be in an effort to like seem more relatable or like cool, like it's like, hey, like, yeah, we can just work from home, it's all cool. It's like, yeah, but the point is that we're like meeting people and working with people. Yeah, like eventually if you've just worked from home for so long, and there are great benefits to it, and some people need it, and that's great, but I think like sometimes it can go too far.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

By the way, your publicist, I think, should be so proud of how you navigated that question. I mean, that was PR training right spot on, Sully. You're like, but some people need it, and that's great. And you know, like corporate's great, but here's the funny thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Anyway, my PR training is just like listening to too many podcasts myself where I hear people do these same things.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Um, so yeah. Yeah, it's like I know you always have that the in the back of your mind with everything that you say, it's always like, Yeah, don't get canceled, don't get canceled, don't get canceled. Thank you.

Hooks That Boost Watch Time

SPEAKER_00 15:18

So as you think about creating content, what are some good hooks? What is the anatomy of a great video on social media?

SPEAKER_01 15:27

I think one of the biggest things on TikTok that I think about, because it's kind of seen as like the main metric is like watch time and how many people watch your whole video. So like completion rate. And so for me, a lot of videos that I did that started working were this like checklist style where throughout the video things would start checking.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Like where the CEO says all these like, you know, corporate things and like okay, and like synergy and like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Right. Exactly. And so it's like each time something's being checked off, and there's something that's like oddly cathartic to it, I guess. But like people want to see them all get checked off. And so I found that watch time was much higher for those types of videos. Another one I find is if it's two different things, like uh my friend Jacob Caposi and I will do a lot of these where it's videos where say it's how white-collar workers versus blue-collar workers describe what they do for work, and then the white-collar worker goes first and it's like just jargon-filled, and it's a lot of whatever. And then the blue-collar worker comes on at the end, it's just like I'm a welder, you know. And so it's like it's just people want to see the second thing because you've set up this thing of like this versus this, A versus B. I want to be able to see B, and then we just keep B short so that they complete the video, and because it's just a quicker out, it's a quicker last joke, so it's generally we try to make it funnier. But yeah, I think anything that can increase watch time. I'm always trying to think of like new formats to drive that, but yeah, that is some killer, killer advice there, Sally.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Because like I see loads of videos all the time. You won't believe what happened next, or yeah, they cut the videos off at number two, so that way it like prevents and so now it makes more sense. Why? Because you watch the whole video waiting for number one, whereas at the second I see number one, you usually I'm like, Oh, I know what this, I know what this is, right? And then you skip it. That's yeah killing. Now I know why they do that because that's so annoying. Or oh my gosh, Sully, the worst is when you're on Instagram and you see this video, and then at the very end, it's like, like, go for part two. And it's like you go onto the page and you're like scrolling, like, what did I just watch? How far down is this?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

And I saw that Instagram started to do like a click here for like the second part two video. They started interesting. They started to have that. I noticed that last week. I don't know when it came out, but so anyway, I just think stuff like that is really interesting, and that is some great advice there, Sully.

Where To Follow And Final Ask

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Well, how do people find and follow you? What's the best way to see you?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah, um, it's just at Sully Finlay on all platforms on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, all the little things.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

So and what do you think, by the way, of using your name versus like Jen from corporate or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Oh, that's a good question. Because I have friends that do that, like corporate Natalie or at least a piece of plays, like corporate Aaron, corporate bro, like, and I think that's great. It works for them. I personally have kind of taken the stance of I want to be able to navigate through different things and use my name.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Oh interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Try to pigeonhole myself because I've kind of pigeonholed myself enough already where I am doing a lot of corporate things. I'm like, I want to do, you know, other types of content, but yeah, I try to just be able to use it for different things. I also perform and do like improv and sketch a decent amount where I think I'd rather have my name on a show than you know, some character name or something. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Awesome. Well, anyway, interesting. I, you know, it's only I just appreciate you coming on. This has been such an awesome podcast. Super interesting to hear the journey from being chained by corporate to conquering it uh through comedy. And for being the real synergy here today, today's ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Given Ovation. Thanks, Doc. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen. We're all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by Ovation, a two-question estimate-based actionable get feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurant. If you'd like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at ovationup.gov.