Chris Schultz spent 15 years with the Starbucks management and leadership team before joining MOD Pizza, aka the MOD Squad in 2009. Schultz helped MOD Pizza go from 1 location to 100 locations in 2016 as Senior Vice President of Operations. Today, Chris serves Voodoo Doughnut as their CEO. You can see, Chris Schultz has developed a track recording of helping great brands scale. That's what we're here to talk about today: When You Know You're Ready To Scale.
Show notes…
Calls to ACTION!!!
Favorite success quote or mantra:
Be authentic.
When You Know You're Ready To Scale:
- Business
- Can you show a conservative growth period over the period: Month over Month: quarter over quarter
- Don't be fooled by being on Main and Main
- Location is a factor.
- Your brand must be great to help manage cannibalization
- People
- Do they understand the Mission?
- Who are your culture carriers that can help lead and build the stores
- Pick front line people with whom you'd share a foxhole.
- have Confidence in leadership
- Embrace growth and opportunity without fear
- Culture
- Must have a solid culture to grow and employees want to grow-- "Growth mentality"
- Failure is not an option -- not just words on a wall, but a feeling you have
- "Growing big while staying small"
- Infrastructure
- A realistic view of the brand - Is it actually scalable AND scalable *where* you want to scale?
- When to hire in for growth VS "stretch" for growth to make it work
- Failure can occur because of too much overhead or by burning out good employees.
- Get utility players; they are vital to infrastructure-- find people who can wear different hats. Then empower them.
- CEO's must be able to sacrifice their own opinions and play the role of the visionary.
- Having leadership you trust to make decisions based on your vision.
- Why Growth?
- Making money - nothing wrong with wanting to make more money; but, important to recognize the complexities that come with it.
- Bringing the brand and experience to a larger consumer base.
- Growth is not necessarily an indicator of success
- Incremental growth
- One to two is hard
- Two to five is harder and the hardest
- Five to 10 is impossible
- After 10 it gets easier
- "Selling" Your Brand
- It's okay to strategically utilize for growth
- Why franchising works
- Brand based companies are different
- licensing and Licensees
- Company Operated.
- Are you Ready as a Leader?
Contact info:
Chris@voodoodoughnut.com
425-372-6556
Thanks for listening!
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Huge thanks to Chris Schultz for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time!
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