Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2015 | Page 46

MULTI-BRAND 50
“I don’t have an office; my office is my restaurants.”
MANAGEMENT
Business philosophy: Our business philosophy is to constantly grow
through a healthy combination of good operations and strong development, and
to have a succession plan in place to give people growth opportunities.
Management method or style: Hands-on.
How do others describe you? I am a good coach. I like to facilitate and
empower people. I like to make people smarter and give them the knowledge
to grow.
How I give my team room to innovate and experiment: Being
part of a large restaurant organization gives us the luxury to innovate and
experiment. I am all about innovation and testing things. Each district management team has five to seven restaurants under their belt, and if someone has a
good idea I let them roll with it. There have been a lot of ideas that have come
from one or two of our restaurants that we have incorporated company-wide.

department. On the Corner Bakery side we are going to do a lot of hands-on
local marketing. It is very important to shift your marketing strategy and understanding—that shift is your bread and butter. In the QSR business you have to
have a healthy balance between premium and value. Value is what is going to
drive traffic into your restaurant, but to gain you have to focus on your food.
How is social media affecting your business? Digital and social
networking has been so successful for Taco Bell. They have pioneered this to
leverage their business more than any other brand out there, in my personal
opinion.

What are the two most important things you rely on from your
franchisor? We really look for trust and guidance on growth and development from our franchisors.

Ho do you hire and fire? We use a broad approach to hiring. We do a
lot of our hiring in restaurants. I’m not currently using an online model for
hiring because we believe in face-to-face, in meeting somebody and speaking
to them. This is very important on the crew level. I use a recruiting company
called PeopleScout to help find above-restaurant management talent, and we
don’t limit ourselves geographically. We buy 7 to 10 Burger Kings per year. We
aren’t like a lot of organizations; we don’t clean house or start over. We retain
and hire everybody the previous organization employed; we give everybody
a chance. The ones who don’t stick around are the ones who don’t embrace
change.

What I need from vendors: Economies of scale. I look to my vendors to
understand what we hope to accomplish and to understand our growth model.
We are looking for the highest quality of vendors and the highest quality of
services.

How do you train and retain? Training and retention go hand in hand.
The people we hire are looking for growth opportunities. We offer management
classes and train people even if there are not positions available. We have a
deep bench because turnover is part of our industry.

Have you changed your marketing strategy in response to the
economy? How? There has been a big shift in the economy over the last
five years. We have gone through waves and work closely with our marketing

Fastest way into my doghouse: Lack of responsiveness. I am looking
for people who are engaged and who want to interact. The fastest way into my
doghouse is to not embrace change.

How close are you to operations? I don’t have an office; my office is
my restaurants.

44

MULTI-UNIT FRANCHISEE IS S UE II, 2015

muf2_c_ghai(40,42,44,46).indd 44

3/16/15 12:47 PM