Multi-Unit Franchisee Magazine Issue IV, 2013 | Page 30

D OM I N A T O R S
“People know we have some of the best iced coffee,
but they may not know we sell more bagels
than anyone in the country.”
M A N A G E M E N T, c o n t i n u e d
How close are you to operations? Very early on, I was very close.
Now with the scope and responsibility and our COO, I’m less close. I provide
feedback but don’t step on his toes. With new stores, I’m close with all that
goes into them until they open.
What are the two most important things you rely on from
your franchisor? Marketing is at the top of my list, and then innovative
product offerings.
What I need from vendors: Honesty and the lowest cost possible.
Have you changed your marketing strategy in response to the
economy? How? We’ve always been a value-driven brand. And for us in
the West, we’ve always been in a bad economy. Our marketing has focused
on driving awareness of what Dunkin’ Donuts has to offer. We provide a great
donut but also a lot of other products. Stores on the East Coast seem to be
more beverage-based, while in the West we’re split between beverages, bakery, and sandwiches. People know we have some of the best iced coffee, but

they may not know we sell more bagels than anyone in the country.
How is social media affecting your business? It just makes customers more nimble about providing responses—good or bad. I take all feedback, and try to respond and promote our business through messaging and
social media. It’s another tool in our toolkit.
How do you hire and fire? I don’t do a lot of that.
How do you train and retain? We have a training program set up in
the stores, and the biggest conversation our team has every month is about
providing the best possible environment for our employees. We retain by offering the most competitive pay we can afford.
How do you deal with problem employees? We assess the problem
and get a game plan in place to put measurable results around fixing the
problem. We follow up on that to ensure the problem is fixed.
Fastest way into my doghouse: Not doing what say you say you’ll do.

BOTTOM LINE
Annual revenue: $35 million-plus.
2013 goals: Increase of 10 percent comps, 10 percent cost reduction,
and 10 percent increase in operating income.
Growth meter: How do you measure your growth? By comparable sales over the year and managing costs versus the previous year. Since
we’re also an entity that continues to expand, we make sure we’re meeting
current store commitments and keeping good employees in the pipelines.
Vision meter: Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10
years? I like what I’m doing, so I’d like to be in a similar position with
continued growth—with close to 75 stores—and working with the same
people 5 years from now. In 10 years, I’d like to continue to grow and expand, but have a greater work/life balance. I have no real interest in slowing down at this point.
How is the economy affecting you, your employees, your customers? The economy is getting better, especially in the last 12 months,
across our different markets. On one hand, it’s great because more consumers are willing to spend more and come more often. On the other hand, it
makes the job market more difficult and we have to make sure we offer
paths of growth to attract employees.
Are you experiencing economic growth or recovery in your
market? We’ve YH