Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue II, 2015 | Page 24

MULTI-BRAND 50
MANAGEMENT
Business philosophy: Taylor: We have a passion for providing perfect food
in a happy, safe, productive, and energetic environment where people can flourish personally and professionally. We always do the right thing, even when no
one is watching. Smith: Systems, systems, systems.
Management method or style: Taylor: Great people running great systems. Smith: Have fun and set people at ease, so you build trust, coach, mold,
and grow.
Greatest challenge: Establishing and maintaining good management infrastructure while growing aggressively.
How do others describe you? Taylor: Intense, direct, humorous. Smith:
Have high expectations for myself—and others, maybe?
One thing I’m looking to do better: Taylor: Minimize turnover. Smith:
Measure Moe’s true speed of service. Moe’s says we want guests to order and
pay within three and a half minutes, but we have no way of truly measuring
that. I found a tracking system that we’ve recently rolled out to two stores and
plan to roll out to more of our stores. Soon, we hope to have a true understanding of how many guests truly get that 3-minute, 30-second promise.
How I give my team room to innovate and experiment: Taylor:
We often test new technologies or systems in a single store and we allow the
DMs/GMs to own it and report back to the group on the results.
How close are you to operations? Taylor: We are BFFs. Nothing is
more important than operations. Smith: I’m in the stores usually three days per
week or more. I have an office in one of our locations.
What are the two most important things you rely on from your
franchisor? Taylor: Additional systems and marketing support. Smith: Keeping food supplier costs under control; and innovation to keep the brand moving
forward (mobile ordering, mobile payments, etc.)
What I need from vendors: Taylor: Trust, reliability, performance. Smith:
Cost control and transparency. We have a linens provider that would not budge
on price while other competitors could provide the exact same service for half
the cost. They continue to lose our business as each store’s contract ends.
Have you changed your marketing strategy in response to the
economy? How? Taylor: We have made it out of the Great Recession,
which has encouraged us to get more aggressive with marketing in general,
thus we are spending more money on marketing. Smith: Yes. We had to
Taylor soon noticed that Smith was
“working harder than I was, and he wasn’t
an owner at the time,” he says. “I had a lot
of respect and admiration for Chris, so we
carved out a piece for him.”
It was a telling test run for their future
partnership, where titles aren’t important.
Smith is now known as “Head Nacho”
while Taylor is the “Big Burrito.” The duo
credit their success since opening their first
store to being free thinkers willing to try
new things in a franchise culture often set
in its ways. Adding Smashburger to their
portfolio three years ago as a way to diversify opened their eyes to new ways of

22

Chris Smith

choose to be bad at something if we couldn’t be great at it. We couldn’t be
great at TV, so we cut it and poured our efforts into outdoor, social media, and
several local campaign promotions.
How is social media affecting your business? Taylor: It is good
for building awareness and loyalty. However, we have been forced to spend
more time and energy monitoring sites like Yelp, Google reviews, TripAdvisor,
Urbanspoon, etc. for customer comments and complaints. Smith: It’s integral
to our marketing approach. Five or more years ago, it was nonexistent in our
marketing plans.
How do you hire and fire? Taylor: We use an online application and assessment tool for new hires. If the candidate passes the assessment then they
are highly likely to perform better and work within our system. We do background checks on all new hires. We discourage using the word “fire” because
it’s derogatory in nature. We are dealing with human lives here, so let’s be
courteous in everything we do. People are watching. Smith: We’ve been rolling
out Corvirtus in both concepts. We send interested candidates to a Corvirtus
website where the candidate completes a pre-screening evaluation. If they’re a
“red” we don’t interview. “Yellow” we may interview. “Green” we usually interview. Regarding firing, we have a progressive discipline approach. However,
there are some unforgivable offenses like “no call, no show.” I like to say, with
a good employee handbook bad employees will inevitably “fire” themselves.
How do you train and retain? Taylor: We offer significant bonus plans
plus great benefits: 401(k), paid vacation, health insurance, life insurance, etc.
We build relationships with our employees. Smith: We are testing a centralized
training approach where a market will have a training manager located at one
store in that market. New hires go to that training store for at least a week.
The training is a mix of online and hands-on learning.
How do you deal with problem employees? Taylor: We try to create
a business culture that does not tolerate problem employees. Be part of the
solution, not part of the problem. You can tell a lot about your business culture
by describing the last three people you asked to leave. Smith: Coach them. If
they’re receptive to it, then we can grow the relationship. If they aren’t, their
employment will end one way or another.
Fastest way into my doghouse: Taylor: Dirty and unorganized stores
with apathetic employees not paying attention to customers or food quality. No
passion to run a successful store.

doing business.
Smashburger, for inst ance, is good at
analytics, says Taylor. Moe’s does a great
job focusing on ticket times, but lacked
concrete data to back up how well employees met the metrics corporate set.
Smith, a self-described “data nerd,” found
a photo tracking system that they’ve rolled
out in two stores. The technology eliminates guesswork by assigning a real time
to customer service.
“Moe’s says we want the guest to order
and pay within 3 minutes and 30 seconds,
but we have no way of truly measuring that,”
says Smith. “ Soon, we hope to have a true

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