Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2011 | Page 20

P O W E R

P L A Y E R S

MANAGEMENT
Business philosophy: In the restaurant business the most important thing
you can do is have the best people, the friendliest people that you can find. Anybody can make a sub, but doing it in a way that builds relationships is always the
hard part.
Would you say you are in the franchising, real estate, or customer service business? Why? Definitely the customer service business. I
bought a franchise, but taking care of customers is really the core of everything.
What gets you out of bed in the morning? I like to make little improvements every day. If you make your business just a little better every day,
over the long term it makes a huge difference.
What’s your passion in business? A lot of this goes back to people. I
love my regular customers and getting to know the people.
Management method or style: I’m a younger guy and I’m pretty relaxed.
I think most of my employees have a good idea of what I expect and I make it
very clear. Aside from that, I tell my guys to have fun.
How close are you to operations? I have four stores. I get to an average
of a couple a day and I usually work lunch in one of the stores each day. So I’ll be
in each of my stores at lunch once a week, on average.
has helped him weather the economic
downturn in his region. And he plans
to keep on building up that end of the
business in the year ahead.
“This year we have over 50 special
events scheduled,” he says. That way he

Have you changed your marketing strategy in response to the
economy? How? We have done more discounts and specials than in the
past. However, great food and great service are still the best ways to retain loyal
guests.
How do others describe you? I’d like to think that other people think of
me as a nice guy, but my employees know I have high expectations.
How do you hire and fire? Firing? I don’t do very much of that at all.
Usually if you hire the right people you never have to fire them. As far as hiring goes, I use a couple of tools. The most important is a structured interview.
I ask a lot of hard questions that get them to open up. More than just “Tell
me about yourself.”
How do you train and retain? I make sure that people start out with clear
expectations. And the franchisors provide a lot of that as well.
How do you deal with problem employees? I guess all people are
different. It depends on the person. Of course I don’t have a lot of problem
employees, but when I do we just like to make sure they understand what the
expectations are and why they aren’t meeting them. If we can help them, great.
If we can’t, we part ways. Most things can be worked through.

I like to make
little improvements
every day.

can build his revenue without adding
to his fixed costs. And he stays focused
on making daily, incremental steps forward. For Lanz, winning at franchising
takes long-term commitment, and he’s
all in for the long haul.

BOTTOM LINE
Annual revenue: I prefer not to say.
2011 goals: My biggest goals are to grow my event business and grow sales
overall. We’ve had a couple of tough years, like everybody, but I think things are
starting to look up a little bit. We’d like to see things turn around.
Growth meter: How do you measure your growth? I measure
everything, maybe too much. As far as growth, I’d say same store sales is what
we want to see grow.
Vision meter: Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years?
I would imagine still running my restaurants. I imagine that I will have grown in
some ways, store-wise. I guess I’m a one-thing-at-a-time guy and now I’m focused
on growing the restaurants I have.
How has the most recent economic cycle affected you, your
employees, your customers? Obviously it’s been tough on everyone. Our
customers are a lot more cost-conscious than ever before and so are we. We pay
attention to our bills more closely than ever.
Are you experiencing economic growth/recovery in your market? I think things are starting to look up and we’ve come through it. It could
have been a lot worse.
What did you change/do differently during the recent tough
economic times that you plan to continue doing into the future?
Before the downturn I was used to having consistent sales growth. It was easy
to let the little things go because rising sales fixes all problems. Over the last few
years we’ve been very careful about every cost. I make sure we’re getting a competitive deal from every vendor and I think in the long term that will be beneficial.
How do you forecast for your business during trying times? Can

18

Multi-unit Franchisee Is s ue II, 2011

you even forecast at all? It’s tough. No one knows what will happen in
the next two years, or three or four or five. My goal this year is to have some
kind of growth.
Where do you find capital for expansion? To be honest I haven’t
looked in a couple of years.
Is capital getting easier to access? Why/why not? That’s obviously
a little tougher.
Have you used private equity, local banks, national banks,
other institutions? Why/why not? We’ve used local banks mostly.
What kind of exit strategy do you have in place for your business? At this point I don’t really have one. It’s not a great time to leave a business and I don’t think it will happen anytime soon.
What kinds of things are you doing to take care of your employees? We have incentive programs. Our corporate office mystery shops,
where they send people in to buy subs, find out if the service is good, is the
restaurant clean. If an employee gets 100 percent,