Clay David Laugier

Clay Laugier does not write for the corner office.

He writes for the person running a double on four hours of sleep who still finds a way to make their team believe the night is going to go well. The shift lead carrying more than their title requires. The store manager holding three locations together with one good manager and a prayer. The operator who knows something is broken on their floor and cannot figure out why the fix keeps not sticking. That is who this is for.

Clay is a leadership coach, operations consultant, and author with twenty years building teams in food service, hospitality, and retail. He worked every level from the floor to the GM chair before founding Clay Laugier Ventures and Seeded Concepts, where he works directly with restaurant groups, food service operators, and retail businesses on team development and behavioral coaching systems.

The proof is not theoretical. More than 1.6 million dollars in documented sales growth. Number one in his district in competitive retail. He has stood on the same floor his clients are standing on, and he builds systems that hold during a rush, not just on a quiet Tuesday morning.

He also cofounded a community café and business incubator in Kingston, New York, built to train and pay the people the market had already written off. Fifteen dollars an hour when nobody in the county was paying it. Seventy-five percent of the profit went back into the café and the community.

That project is still the clearest thing he believes. People who get written off are not a liability. They are a strength nobody bothered to deploy.

Lead with Heart. Coach with Clarity.

Book one. Available now in paperback and Kindle.

This is not a management theory book. It is a field guide for real people in real operations who need behavior that sticks past onboarding week. Restaurants, food service, and retail.

Two frameworks form the foundation of everything Clay teaches.

The Coaching Loop. Observe. Coach. Apply. Review. Repeat. A five step behavioral reinforcement cycle built to make new habits automatic across shifts, across managers, and across locations. Grounded in behavioral science. Designed for an active kitchen or retail floor where nothing goes according to plan.

The S.H.I.F.T. Sequence. See it. Hear it. Install it. Frame it. Transfer it. A diagnostic and implementation system for operators tired of fixing the same breakdown twice because the first fix never fully landed. The most common mistake in operations is installing a solution before understanding the failure. S.H.I.F.T. solves that.

You do not need a title to lead. You need behavior that sticks.

SET THE TONE

What to Say, and How to Lead, When It Matters Most.

Book two. Out now.

Rewritten to sell the book that exists. No AI framing.

Book one gave you the system. This one gives you the words.

Set the Tone is about the conversations nobody trained you for. The pre shift that decides the whole night, or does not. The correction you have been avoiding for three weeks because you like the person too much to be honest with them. The good employee who quietly became a bad actor, and everybody knows it except the schedule. The first ninety days with a new hire, which most managers treat as an evaluation window and which is really a confidence window.

And the team you inherited from somebody else and did not choose.

Every chapter names the script. Not a principle. The actual words, in quotes, ready to say out loud. Every chapter ends with one move you can run on your next shift.

It introduces the Ted Lasso Effect and the Shoresy Standard as one framework. Belief and accountability. Emotional intelligence and an uncompromising standard. Heart and fire in the same leader.

Because culture is not a poster on the break room wall. It is what your team does when you are not in the building.

FINE

An adult coloring book.

Bold. Irreverent. Built for adults who need to create, decompress, and laugh without a single good reason.

Because not everything has to be a leadership lesson.

COMING IN 2027

Two novels.

Gritty, honest, and built on the same belief in people that powers every coaching book Clay has written. Working class characters. Real stakes. The kind of stories where people show up imperfect and become something anyway.

More details late 2026.

Clay lives in Red Hook, New York. He is the founder of Clay Laugier Ventures, built around consulting, coaching, publishing, and live events for independent operators and small business owners in food service, hospitality, and retail.

The mission has never changed.

Help people show up braver, clearer, and more connected to the work they are already doing.

Your team isn't broken. Your system is.