My Name is Anthony Martin and this is my first post on this board after a long time of following it and actually even using it for research.

I'm a born and bread Oklahoman who is a foodie and who has my dream job as a account executive with one of the largest, longest lasting and successful restaurant marketing firms in the country. I'm a self admitted message board junky and I'd like to start contributing to this message board. Sorry for the long winded post but if I’m going to be on here as a contributing member than I thought I’d at least offer an introduction of who I am and why I’m on here.

The one thing that I can bring to the table for the other members of this board right off the bat is rewards. If you are a frequent diner and would like to earn Airline Miles, Best Buy points, Hilton family and Holiday Inn family hotel points, college tuition or cash back you can become a member and be rewarded for eating at our featured restaurants. Another component of being a member of our frequent diner rewards programs is that your opinions and feedback are not only read by the restaurant but actually broke down into extremely useful data that helps them improve, train and motivate their performance. While staying anonymous, restaurants can actually contact you and address your positive or constructive reviews through a managed portal. If anyone is interested in more details just respond on here. Typically we get all of our members through our airline, Best Buy, U-Promise, Hotel partners etc. so please don't think I'm trying to sell you on anything. I'm just making the members of this board aware because there are obviously frequent diners on here that could benefit and there are also great local restaurants that would benefit from your business and actually reward you for your loyalty and feedback with no coupon or discount required just a great dining experience and rewards. I just happen to be the guy that’s responsible for servicing and adding featured restaurants for Rewards Network in Oklahoma. We are a 27 year old company with 12000 restaurant partners and 4 million members in the US and Canada. Oklahoma is one of our newest territories to have a dedicated rep we already have around 40 "Program Restaurants" in the state of Oklahoma and more are being added monthly. We have several OK restaurant partners who have been with us for more than 8 years. Currently most of our restaurant partners are in the downtown area but we’ve been expanding into areas that are more convenient and closer to where most of our members live. I’m also trying to bring more variety to our members.

I've been in many restaurants in many markets and OKC may not have as many restaurants as LA or NY but the ones we do have stack up against the cream of the crop. There has become a food culture in OK that can be credited to a lot of great people and I'm blessed to get to rub shoulders with many of them daily. Excuse me if I get on a soap box for a second but I believe it's in Oklahoma restaurants and customer's best interest to not coupon or discount. I believe it's a downward slope and devalues service, value and the over all experience. Some marketing programs can even over leverage a restaurant and ultimately break them. I want what's best for both Oklahoma restaurants and our members because believe me, compared to the other markets that I've been too, Oklahoma is a great place to be for both restaurants and diners. I’m afraid that the trend that I’ve seen in other markets to discount is going to hit Oklahoma like it has other markets. It’s already happening here but it’s my hope that Oklahoma restaurants are close nit and talk to each other enough that the competition doesn’t turn kamikaze and train customers to focus on price as opposed to service, quality and value.

I’m a strong advocate for restaurants making profit and customers receiving great service and a great dining experience. I’m very passionate about the company that I work for and the services we provide to our rewards partners, program restaurants and frequent diners and I’m glad I get to serve the industry in a positive way.

BTW…GO THUNDER!