BIGGBY Coffee feels more like a family than a typical franchise. In this live-recorded episode from the BIGGBY Nation Summit, we dive into the power of community in business. Hosts Mike McFall and Laura Eich, joined by a live audience of franchisees and staff, use the BIGGBY brand as a lens to discuss how to foster relationships and culture within a franchise network. They explore the core elements of a successful franchise system and emphasize the importance of authentic relationships for long-term success.
BIGGBY Coffee feels more like a family than a typical franchise. In this live-recorded episode from the BIGGBY Nation Summit, we dive into the power of community in business. Hosts Mike McFall and Laura Eich, joined by a live audience of franchisees and staff, use the BIGGBY brand as a lens to discuss how to foster relationships and culture within a franchise network. They explore the core elements of a successful franchise system and emphasize the importance of authentic relationships for long-term success.
Laura shares her insights on the unique bonds within the BIGGBY community, while Mike opens up about his franchising journey. Together, they discuss the value of attending annual conferences, building strong community ties, and why collaborative decision-making is key to organizational success. The episode wraps up with a Q&A session where Mike and Laura address common challenges faced by franchise owners, offering solutions rooted in mutual support and mentorship. Don’t miss this insightful discussion; tune in now!
Key Points From This Episode:
Quotes:
“When you are part of a franchise system, or at least part of what I consider to be a healthy franchise system, you've got a whole bunch of people doing the same thing you're doing day in and day out that have a vested interest in your success.” — @MikeJMcFall [0:04:02]
“[BIGGBY is] selling a coffee that improves communities.” — Laura Eich [0:12:18]
“Your organization should start with taking care of people as its basis.” — @MikeJMcFall [0:15:37]
"Aggregate time is important. I get it, but perception to me is more important."— @MikeJMcFall[0:27:16]
RESOURCES:
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:07] Laura Eich: Welcome to Love In Leadership, the podcast where we explore what happens if you bring a little or a lot of love into the workspace. My name is Laura Eich, and you will hear in just a minute when I'm joined by my co-host and friend, the one and only Mike McFall. This episode is just a little bit different than our normal episode because this episode was recorded live at the BIGGBY Nation Summit. It's our annual gathering of all of the citizens of BIGGBY Coffee.
This episode was so much fun to record. It was with about 100 of our closest BIGGBY friends in the audience, and you actually get to hear them join in the podcasting fun towards the end of our recording session when we opened it up to the audience for questions. We didn't know what they were going to ask, and we didn't know what we were going to answer. It was a lot of fun, but I'm going to ask you to please forgive any funky sound moments. This was our first live recording. We learned a lot, and we had a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Love In Leadership.
[0:01:02] Laura Eich: I'm not kidding when I say we don't know what we're going to talk about today, but we do kind of have a plan, but I want to start with saying welcome to the Love In Leadership podcast. This is the podcast where we talk about people and guests and everything where we're talking about bringing a little bit or a lot of love into the workplace. My name is Laura Eich. I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Mike McFall. Today, we're joined by all of you. Yay! Oh, I hoped you would cheer there.
[0:01:28] Mike McFall: There we go.
[0:01:29] Laura Eich: This is going so well so far. I'm so happy. This is – I don't know how many of our closest BIGGBY Nation friends. We are at BIGGBY Nation Summit. For those that are listening here in the future. We're going to talk a little bit about what the heck BIGGBY Nation Summit is in a second, but Mike, how you doing?
[0:01:46] Mike McFall: I'm doing great now. I always wonder what it would sound like if I tried to do what you just did.
[0:01:50] Laura Eich: It'd be cute. It feels so good.
[0:01:53] Mike McFall: That's great. I loved it. I loved the enthusiasm that Laura brings in that moment. I'm doing great. Yeah. We're in it.
[0:01:58] Laura Eich: Feeling good?
[0:01:58] Mike McFall: We just wrapped up the keynote. That's always sort of the 20 minutes, half hour of BNS. It's a little bit intense for me. I always breathe a nice, big, deep sigh of relief when it's over.
[0:02:08] Laura Eich: You did great.
[0:02:08] Mike McFall: Now, I just get to have fun.
[0:02:09] Laura Eich: Did you guys like Mike’s – yeah, I did too. It was great. So, how today's going to work is a little bit different than our normal podcast or normal podcast. We like to have guests on the show. We're usually talking to them virtually, so it's very strange to see like 3D bodies in front of me, but instead of bringing a guest, we decided that you all are our guests for today. Don't panic. You don't have to talk on a microphone later if you don't want to.
We're going to chat for just a few minutes at the start here talking about BIGGBY Nation Summit, talking about some of the things we've learned, some of the things we've heard, some of what we're experiencing here. At some point, we've got a little bit of a giveaway surprise. We've got prizes for you guys. We're bribing you to stay here and be enthusiastic. We're going to talk a little bit about why we do this podcast and what purpose it is serving in the world.
Then we're going to open it up to Q&A. That's the part where you guys really come in. I want to give you a warning that we might Q&A you right back. If you want to get into a conversation with us, we have another microphone that's going to be your opportunity to join us on the podcast. In life in general, I did want to talk at first just for a few minutes like we normally do about what you've been hearing at BNS. Actually, talk a little about what BNS is first.
[0:03:18] Mike McFall: Oh, yeah.
[0:03:20] Laura Eich: First.
[0:03:21] Mike McFall: Well, we bring everyone together once a year to celebrate BIGGBY. We try to bring value if you're a franchise owner or a manager of a store and through classes and work sessions and so on, but mostly it's about connecting as a community, right? It's about celebrating — tonight's party is like, it's just a passion. We love that part.
You know what I said earlier is that thing in franchising that I don't think gets enough of a highlight in terms of why franchises are so powerful in the world. It's because of the community that we have. When you are part of a franchise system, or at least part of what I consider to be a healthy franchise system, you've got a whole bunch of people doing the same thing you're doing day in and day out that have a vested interest in your success.
So, people care that it works for you. They care that your business succeeds. So, we have that available to us. For whatever reason, that little bit of franchising doesn't seem like from an industry perspective that doesn't seem to get much play, but I think it's the biggest part, the reason why healthy franchises are successful and this is where we do a lot of that, right? A lot of the connecting and a good friend of mine became a franchisee of another system. I don't know. He was in like year five. His business was doing well. He's like, “Ah, I'm not going to go to Dallas for the franchise convention.” I'm like, “You're not? What?” He's like, “You go and it's like the classes are all the same and do I – "
I was like, “No, wait, time out. You got to go.” I gave him a homework assignment. I said, “I want you to call your contact, your person inside the home office there in Dallas. I want you to ask them who the five most successful franchisees are. Get that list from that person. I want you to go to the summit and I want you to make best friends with all five of those people.” I said, “I promise you that that will have a more positive impact on your business than anything else you'll do this entire year.” He did it. He was showing me the text messages he had going back and forth with these people that he had met at the annual convention, but that's what the convention is about for me.
[0:05:37] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:05:38] Mike McFall: I think, we do a good job.
[0:05:40] Laura Eich: I think we do a great job.
[0:05:41] Mike McFall: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for being here. Thanks for doing that.
[0:05:43] Laura Eich: Yeah. Thank you. I went to the IFA conference one year and I went to a round table and they were talking about community and culture. I don't remember what the exact name of the round table was, but one of the things they talked about was their annual conferences and people had that kind of attitude where they were like, “How do you get people excited?” I was like, “We don't work that hard to get people excited. People just show up excited to ours.” They were like, "Well, how do you do that?” I was like, “I don't know. Everybody just loves each other, like there's all these hugs.”
I got like four kisses on the cheek yesterday and that made me perfectly happy. I'm a huggy-lovey person. It feels so nice when we walk in here, when I described it like a family reunion yesterday on the big stage, I meant it. It feels like I'm walking in. I'm like, “Oh, my gosh. We're Rob Farrow is here." I sprinted across the floor this morning to go hug him right before the show started and it just feels so good. I love BIGGBY Nation Summit.
[0:06:34] Mike McFall: There are these relationships, right? I mean, they go back so long. We got the O'Connor's. I mean, I was 25 years old, 26 years old and we were working on putting your deal together. That's a long time ago. Peggy, these relationships go back and then to see each other. Yeah, yesterday, sometimes it's hard, because do I want to sit and talk to Joe for 20 minutes. Of course, I do, right. We're glad Joe's here. He survived his bike accident. He informed me yesterday that he's now wearing a bike helmet. Joe. Hey, bike helmet – We haven't known about bike helmets for 25 years, but Joe's finally on board with bike helmets.
[0:07:09] Laura Eich: So glad.
[0:07:11] Mike McFall: Yeah. Once they had a daddy get that done, but that's okay, Joe. I mean, that's also just the coolest thing. They connect to meet new people, right?
[0:07:16] Laura Eich: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
[0:07:17] Mike McFall: I mean, it's so beautiful. The session I had yesterday I met two brand new operators and like, oh, you can just sense the anxiety.
[0:07:26] Laura Eich: Oh, yeah.
[0:07:28] Mike McFall: The pressure they're under and like, is it going to work? It's like, yeah, we just, we just –
[0:07:34] Laura Eich: Look at you.
[0:07:34] Mike McFall: Love in Leadership.
[0:07:35] Laura Eich: Yeah. Love in Leadership. A couple of things have stood out to me as far as things I've been hearing from people either in conversations and breakouts in the whole rooms. One of my favorite things, you actually echoed this morning and I was like, “Oh, he's already stealing my thunder.” Which is par for the course for this podcast, but it's the power of what's possible. That's like this unexpected theme. We didn't plan that as part of the theme for BNS this year, but I do keep hearing this is, is there's a really important power in hearing what is possible by other people and what other people have accomplished.
I think this happens. I'm a runner. Any runners in the room? Do I have any running friends? Yay. Running friends. Let's talk later. In the running world like when a world record falls, all of a sudden, the expectation changes and you'll see that world record fall again, and again, and again in pretty quick succession. This probably happens in other sports, that's just the sport that I know, but seeing what's possible and seeing limits broken through by other people really instills a lot of confidence in the rest of us that are following behind.
I actually went to your panel yesterday too, and I was hearing some of the new franchise owners in the audience who were like, “I just can't wait to be you in 10 years.” That kind of thing. Like, seeing what's possible is really powerful. That was one of the things that stuck out to me. What about you? What have you been hearing?
[0:08:52] Mike McFall: I spend a lot of time at this just connecting with people. I'm hearing there is optimism right now, and the numbers are finally moving in the right direction. We've been through it before. We've been through tough moments before, of course. They do pass. So, the message, the energy that I'm hearing is, is that it feels like we've turned the corner.
It feels like the numbers are trending back in the right direction. That's just a huge relief, because like that just sucks. When people are making less money and that's trending in the direction of less and less money, that's a very difficult moment. Then it feels like it's turned and we're headed back in the right direction. So, and we can just start improving on that. I mean, that feels really, really good.
[0:09:41] Laura Eich: Yeah. Momentum feels really positive right now. Another thing I was hearing, this was just in conversation. This was definitely not part of anybody's presentation. I don't think so far, but it was about process of decision-making and when you're approaching your store, and when you're approaching your people, especially, and the power of doing just the next right, which is like one of my favorite phrases.
There happens to be a Disney song from Frozen 2. Let’s do The Next Right Thing. It's really beautiful. Anyway, we can talk about that later, but doing the next right thing, the next right thing for your store, the next right thing for your people and staying focused on that. We can get so stuck. I do this all the time where I get into ruminating mode or I'm just worrying about the next thing or worrying about the problem I haven't solved yet. Staying focused on doing the next right thing. I think it's part of that positive momentum and it feels really good.
[0:10:32] Mike McFall: Yeah. Also, I'd be remiss without acknowledging that the farm direct relationships, I mean, the fact that we're at 50% is the trigger for when we decided that we could tell the world about what we're up to there. It's been an enormous investment. It's been an enormous amount of energy and time by Bob and Michelle. The financial investment that we're making is extraordinary in that. I do believe in my heart I believe people care. I believe people give a shit and when they start seeing these stories.
I mean, I tear up every time I watch these things, you know? Maybe it's because I know that these are actually real people and I had dinner with them last night. Oh, my God, they're just crazy, you know? But I really think that that investment over the last six years in developing this program, we're at 50%, we're going to go to 60, we're going to go to 70, we're going to get to 100% farm direct and I do believe the consumer truly cares. I do think the consumers jaded. Jaded as hell. What's going to take a while from the actually believe what we're doing is true. When they do, that is going to be game-changing. I think it's going to be absolutely game-changing for the industry and for our company, for our businesses.
[0:11:49] Laura Eich: I think the baristas care too. I was talking to Miriam from El Recreo last, maybe it was this morning, time has no meaning. I was talking about, I wish she could hear all of the times I hear a barista saying, “It feels so good to serve a farm direct coffee.” To know that that's there and understand what that means, and understand that they're not just serving properly grown coffee with ethical practices and everything like that, but we're selling a coffee that improves communities.
I mean, you see that I'm a relatively new mom, so this gets me every time, but when I see like the babies on the videos and I'm like they're going to grow up with a different generational expectation, simply because we've made this connection with them and we're buying that coffee and making that coffee and serving that coffee to a customer like that, ooh, that gets me out of bed every morning. It feels so, so good. Any other things you've been hearing?
[0:12:43] Mike McFall: It's really cool to have my best friend, I'm seeing, that was a big surprise, it was not even my idea. They came to me and they were like, “What do you think?” I was like, “Oh, absolutely, this would be awesome.” To go up on stage this morning and he's wearing a BIGGBY bombers jersey and big hug, like that, I don't know, that's a nice moment for me.
[0:13:01] Laura Eich: Yeah. I've been hearing about this guy, Bob Olson, forever, for a decade. Now, I finally know him. He's a delight. One other thing I know that stuck out to me, this was in a conversation right after a breakout, so maybe it was inspired by the breakout, but we talked about, there's a lot of focus, of course, I'm a LifeLab person, so like there's always a focus on like taking care of yourself and self-awareness, and all of these things. We were talking about the difference between the importance of self-care and community care. Sometimes we point people to self-care.
My husband, if I get cranky, tells me I either need to eat or I need to go sleep. That's usually true. Those are self-care actions, but there's a lot of times where we point ourselves towards self-care, taking care of ourselves, getting more rest, eating better, whatever, when what we actually need is community care. That's been part of the power of being necessary. That's what's been feeling so good, because I just, I walk up on groups of people who have never met before and they're exchanging ideas.
They're exchanging phone numbers. They're going to call each other. How did you solve this thing? What's your idea for that thing? Have you ever had road construction in front of your store? Because a lot of you have and you've all come up with different ideas for how to solve for that. So, like that community care, not feeling alone, that's been a really powerful thing. I've been hearing shattered throughout the halls.
[0:14:21] Mike McFall: Yes.
[0:14:23] Laura Eich: All right, we're going to do a giveaway, which is exciting. There are three, I'm so sorry to the standing-room-only folks, you had to be a little earlier that you could come grab a seat if you wanted. There are three little tickets taped underneath a couple people's chairs. I love that you don't even know what it's for. This one's exciting. Yay, there's one. There's one. Where's the third? Yay, Sophie, so fun. What we've created is these LifeLab team-building kits. They're pretty extensive.
We actually have them at the LifeLab booth. After our session today, if you hit up the LifeLab booth and bring them your little ticket, that's going to be for this team building tool kit that it's all of our favorite tools and everything you need in order to build a healthy and strong team, which is very cool. We're going to give away two more of those in just a little bit, which is all be very exciting. Can we talk about why we do the podcast? Ready, go.
[0:15:30] Mike McFall: We have a firm belief that this concept of human-centric leadership, your organization should start with taking care of people as its basis, right? We want to have that conversation more broadly in the world. We want to live it, of course, but then we want to talk to other leaders who are either doing it, which we did last. It was more BIGGBY-focused last season and it was all people that were bought into the concept. We also want to have conversations with people in the world that kind of don't buy into that concept, you know?
I know, for example, I just had a conversation with somebody who's a CEO of a pretty big company this morning. It's a franchise company. He was saying that their franchise owners are bewildered by the difficulty of employing people. I want to respond to that and say, you're just not building a culture that people want to be a part of. When you do – so you know Jim Collins, this concept of get the right people and the right seats on the bus. You know that one? How about this? How about building a bus people want to ride on first, and then figure out what seats people need to be sitting in.
So, it's a shift in mentality. I feel sorry for people that manage businesses who spend their time complaining about their people. It's sad to me, you know? Because people are fricking awesome, right? Like, if that's your experience in the world, like the world's a beautiful place. People that sit around and complain, like I'm just like, “Oh, my gosh.” Like, it's on you. They suck in your mind because you suck. Is that too much? But when you approach your teams, you approach your people and we have so many in our system that do and it's so beautiful to watch, right? You just watch the businesses thrive. You go into the stores and they feel amazing, right? So, we wanted to have that conversation right there in the world. That was the point of the podcast.
[0:17:56] Laura Eich: Yeah. That's what we're doing. Mike mentioned a little bit of what we're trying to do differently in season two is maybe talking to some contrarian opinions.
[0:18:04] Mike McFall: Or people that just have a maybe what we might call a more traditional viewpoint.
[0:18:08] Laura Eich: Yes. I don't think anyone is in the world doing business, not trying to do a little bit of good. I think in general, people are good, which I love and I believe that, but they just might not have necessarily linked it up to their actual business practices and their system and making it so ingrained in part of who they are that the culture will not be ignored and that it would be thriving and healthy and everything like that. So yeah, that's what we're doing on the podcast. That's what we love to talk about. We love to talk about healthy workplace culture.
Obviously, this is inspired by all of you, which is why it's so fun to be in a room with all of you guys. Like, we're not just pulling this out of our butts. Like, we have our own, the home office has a workplace culture. You guys all have your own individual workplace cultures and they're all different and they're all unique, but they're all beautiful. You guys are all giving it different attention, different ideas, different special things that you're doing in order to take care of your people and care for them better.
It's showing. I'm going to talk a little bit later today when I do the purpose word presentation about the progress, our system has made in holding onto employees longer in improving employee tenure across the system. It's amazing. It's been every month. There has been an increase in employee tenure over the last year, which is just incredible. You guys are holding on to people longer. That's challenging, right? It's not bad. It's challenging when we're in the QSR industry when lots of our staff, it's their first job or they're not sure what they want to do with their lives.
They start as baristas because they want a part-time nothing job. This is me talking about me. Then they end up having their whole life change and stick with a company for 13 years. It's fine.
All right, friends. That's enough frame-up. We're going to open it up to questions. Ash, would you be our – this is producer Ashley. Give it up for Ashley, everybody. We're going to open it up to questions. Actually, a little bit of how I forgot to mention this part of how we started the podcast is for a couple of years, a pandemic life.
Anybody remember the pandemic that we did a couple of years? Yeah, good times. During the pandemic, we started and asked me anything that was live on Facebook, because that's where you did live things at the time. Live on Facebook every Wednesday night. It was Bob, Mike and me. It was actually that that inspired the idea that we wanted to talk to people. We do love the idea of talking to people and we loved being asked questions every week and not knowing what we were going to talk about. Just engaging in conversation with people in that way. That was a little bit of the heart of the podcast and a little bit what we're bringing back today.
We're opening it up to questions. I mean, the world is your oyster. You can ask about anything. You can ask about Bob, not Bob. Well, you could ask about Bob. We could try to represent that, but Mike or I, you can ask about things we are working on, working towards. You can ask if you want to challenge anything you've heard at BNS so far, like and what the heck? What do we think about this? We're open to anything.
[0:21:09] Mike McFall: Yeah. We might pass the mic to one of you to answer the question too.
[0:21:13] Laura Eich: Yeah. We might ask you a question right back. Heads up.
[0:21:15] Madysen Hunt: My name is Madysen. I work for Meghan Atkinson. I help with her AR role. We had a meeting a couple of weeks ago with new franchisee and I was like, “Oh, my gosh. Are you like, are you excited for your first BNS?” He's like, “Oh, I'm not going. It's just like any other conference like there's no point.” I'm like, “But it's not. It's totally different than any other conference.” I said that and he like didn't really have anything I should say, but I'm nervous that he's stuck in that mindset with BIGGBY. I'm like, you realize BIGGBY is not like any other concept, like you have to go and you have to pump up your staff with that. I'm nervous for him and I'm nervous for his future store. I don't know. Maybe any tips on – he didn't end up coming. I'm like a little bummed.
[0:22:10] Laura Eich: We should call him, right now.
[0:22:11] Madysen: Right.
[0:22:12] Laura Eich: You're on the podcast.
[0:22:15] Mike McFall: I would encourage you to take that one head-on. I did this yesterday in our panel and it was a franchise owner complaining about their last hour of operation and how it doesn't perform. They want to close earlier. We're not granting the variants and so on, right? Go back and forth. Matt Lemmer had a beautiful answer to all of that, but I said, it sure seems to me like you feel like that last hour sucks. He said, he goes, “Well, yeah. Yeah, I do.” Like, well, if you think it sucks, it's going to suck, right?
I would take it on. Like, boy, you seem really down about the BIGGBY culture, like you're not believing in it, like what's going on? You signed a franchise agreement, because of who we are. Why aren't you buying into that? What's the matter? You know? I would just ask the questions and go right to it with that franchise owner, because that cynicism – did I talk about that in my keynote today, the cynicism? The franchise owner sits back and is a little bit –
[0:23:18] Laura Eich: Yes.
[0:23:19] Mike McFall: Yeah, I did. Okay. That to me sitting back and just resisting it. Yeah, you're going to kind of get the benefits of it. You're going to kind of maybe be successful. The franchise owners, the owners that thrive when I watch are the owners that are all in. I mentioned Victor Face this morning. This guy is like, I mean, he's like, he’s beautiful. Well, I talk about his working position for you. I don't talk about anything else, because that is the answer. I mean, he inspired my keynote today, right? But that's what – when you go down the list of the most successful franchise owners, it's the ones that are leaning into that and they're buying it and they're doing it. They're figuring out their own way of doing it. I would go straight at him with that right there.
[0:24:08] Laura Eich: I'd want to make sure he knows he's wanted and welcomed in this community. I think it's really challenging before you have your store to come to this very intimidatingly friendly and over-caffeinated crowd. Yeah, dig in with him. Make sure he's wanted. It might be a little more motivating once his store is actually open. Then once he's here, we got to make sure he makes some friends, so that peer pressure is there. He's got to come see Peggy, like everything. Yeah, just making sure people, that's why Keegan's here is to see Peggy.
Yeah. Just making sure they know they're wanted. I know BNS in particular is intimidating for new franchise owners. So, anything we can do to make it feel welcoming and friendly is a good thing too. Skepticism's okay. I welcome it. We have one more live toolkit. It's going to go to John. So, we'll ask for more questions still. We just only have so many toolkits.
[0:25:03] Jon Sell: Maybe you guys know the answer to this question, it's a two-part question is, are you aware of how, like the 7 Brew and the Scooter's concepts that are coming up?
[0:25:17] Laura Eich: Sure are.
[0:25:17] Jon: Do you have people come and investigate BIGGBY and decide they don't want to go with BIGGBY, and they go with the Scooter's or the Brew or whatever, a copy concept? Do you know why they pick another concept and not the BIGGBY concept?
[0:25:35] Laura Eich: I will answer. Yes, the shortest answer is yes. I think the 7 Brews and the Scooter's, they're super focused on speed and convenience. It's all about getting through the line as quickly as possible. I think when people sometimes interact with us, either through a franchising webinar, when they're getting to know us, or when they're exploring us, they find out that our biggest priority isn't necessarily the speed and convenience. We have this priority of people. We have this expectation of leaving people in a better mood than when they arrived.
I think when they explore that, the individual person is going to bring in their own priorities to the table and what they're looking for in a business. They might want the mostly automated, really fast. That's what they're going for. They get to us and it's like a little too friendly, like a little too cheerful. That's a reason that I think people go over there. I don't know why, because like we're the most fun. I wish they would stay, but I think that is one reason that people choose a different concept is really like matching their own priorities. We want people to match our priorities. We want the people that love people.
[0:26:47] Mike McFall: I know that I've definitely heard multiple times that we weren't available where they wanted to go. If you're hell-bent on being in a certain location and a certain geography and we say, no, we're not putting a store there, then you move on and consider other concepts, of course, right? I've heard that multiple times too. I'm probably going to get called out on this.
I'm kind of old-fashioned, but I still believe in this idea of pee and perk, right? That yeah, aggregate time is important. I get it, but perception to me is more important. This obsession with aggregate time, you're giving up that human connection. I do still believe that it's the human connection that builds loyalty to a brand. I believe that. You know what? We might get proven wrong –
[0:27:36] Laura Eich: I don’t think so.
[0:27:37] Mike McFall: But Love in Leadership, like this is what we're here to do. So, they are focused on that stuff. I mean, these are sophisticated groups. You know. I mean, they are. I'm just looking forward to the first time that that private equity firm spins it out to another private equity firm. I can’t wait till they do it a third time. When the franchise owners are like, "Holy —" that's going to be exhausting for franchise owners, right? We'll see.
Now, Dutch Brothers is different. That's a publicly traded organization. They're not going to go through these flips of ownership. They scale. Dutch Brothers is obviously an incredibly impressive company. Talking about what's possible, that $2 million. Wow, I was blown away by that number. I really was. That's a big number.
[0:28:17] Laura Eich: Did that answer your question? Okay.
[0:28:23] Lexi: I have a quick comment and then a question. I have a comment about the thing that Mike, you were talking about being open that last hour. Actually, just this past weekend, I worked a closing shift and this guy came pretty late in the evening. When we greeted him in the drive-through, the first thing he said was, “Thanks for being open.” I just wanted to share that.
[0:28:44] Laura Eich: That's the best.
[0:28:45] Lexi: Like you said, you know sometimes it might suck being open when there's not many customers. It may suck for us, but it makes the customers happy, especially when like some people are going into third-shift jobs or they're coming home from their second shift jobs and they deserve coffee too.
[0:29:01] Laura Eich: I had that experience on the flip side a couple of weeks ago. I was visiting one of our stores in Saginaw. I needed to be up early, so I was there at like 5.50am on a Saturday morning. I was like they're not going to be at the drive-through yet. I'm just going to like go up and wait. I hate being that person because I'm a former barista and I understand that you are still brewing coffee and putting bagels out, and everything like that. But I pull up and I was greeted with the friendliest, “Good morning. Welcome to BIGGBY Coffee. What can I get started for you?” I was like, “You're here? Like, you're ready for me?” They were like, “Oh, yeah. We got you.” I was like, “Oh, I love you so, so much.”
So, like, yes, the power of those bookends and like the desperation of the consumer when they're coming in on the bookends of your day is like really important. You can have the biggest impact on them in that moment.
[0:29:47] Lexi: Yeah. Then I have a question. I'm sorry. First of all, can you remind me what your name is?
[0:29:51] Laura Eich: I'm Laura.
[0:29:52] Lexi: Laura. Okay. I'm Lexi.
[0:29:54] Laura Eich: Hi, Lexi.
[0:29:55] Lexi: My question. I have a LifeLab question for you. I ask this as a mom of two toddlers myself. How has BIGGBY supported you in your new endeavors as a mom?
[0:30:07] Laura Eich: Thanks for asking that. BIGGBY has been amazingly supportive as a mom. I have described this to a few people as like, I can't imagine doing this any differently, but so I have a privilege, which is to work remotely. It's an important piece of working for the home office. We went remote when COVID happened. What that's allowed me as a mom is my husband is a stay-at-home dad, which is very cool. He's a retired firefighter. Stay at home with our girl. The impact of me being able to go out in between meetings or at lunchtime. I call it a power snuggle, like a power snuggle in and like seven minutes in between meetings, like that has an incredible impact on my day and my life.
I believe someday when I'm looking back at this time and having not had to miss many days. I mean, I'm missing today, but not missing many days with my girl and getting to see her grow and thrive. There was one time when he was like, “I think she's going to roll over.” I like booked it out of a meeting because he was telling me, and then we freaked out. We got to hug and have that moment, like that is, I think, life-changingly important for me. That's been really powerful for me.
I can't imagine anymore driving – I also commuted an hour and a half to Lansing every day and back an hour and a half each way. So, like I can't imagine doing that and having a baby girl at home. We also have a beautiful new parent program. I was able to take 12 weeks of maternity leave, which was incredibly important for me as a first-time mom. I can imagine maybe once you do this a couple of times, you'd be like, yeah, I'll get back to work the next day. Like, no problem. But man, that first time when you don't know what's coming and you don't know what life is going to be like that. That leave was really important to me.
In general, I also just have this really supportive community around me. So, I'm kind of, we're just going there. I am a breastfeeding mother, so my – oh, thanks. People have been really incredibly respectful of like, when I have to put holds on my calendar, because I have to take care of some business and that thing. Everyone's been so supportive of that even here, like I'll mention to someone up, stand up and they're like, “Get out of here. Go take care of that baby.” I just, like the community that is supporting me in that is incredible. I don't think I would experience that anywhere else. It feels very BIGGBY. It feels very special. Thanks for asking about that. How old are your two?
[0:32:38] Lexi: Two and three.
[0:32:39] Laura Eich: Two and three. Stop. Little terrors, right? Yeah. We love the girls. Ash, we had a question right up here in the middle.
[0:32:47] Brooklyn: My name is Brooklyn. I am an assistant manager. I've been with the company for nine months. I just really enjoy it and, hopefully, I can work forever.
[0:32:56] Laura Eich: Great.
[0:32:58] Brooklyn: I have a question. Mike already knows I wrote a paper about him for school.
[0:33:02] Laura Eich: About Mike McFall?
[0:33:03] Brooklyn: Yeah. Mike McFall.
[0:33:04] Laura Eich: Oh, that's funny.
[0:33:05] Brooklyn: Yeah. I'm a hospitality management master's major, so.
[0:33:09] Laura Eich: Wow.
[0:33:09] Brooklyn: Yeah.
[0:33:10] Laura Eich: At which school?
[0:33:10] Brooklyn: Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island.
[0:33:13] Laura Eich: Wow. Very impressive. Yeah.
[0:33:14] Brooklyn: Thank you.
[0:33:16] Laura Eich: Claps, claps, claps. I love that.
[0:33:18] Brooklyn: For my first paper, I had to write about leadership and I found an article written by Mike for Forbes and it talked about fluidity in leadership. I just wanted to know what is a good example of fluidity in leadership.
[0:33:30] Mike McFall: As I mature as a leader, I'm realizing that like if I think something should go a certain way, it's a sensation of like used to think I had the answers. Now, I understand I absolutely don't. There's this need to be fluid. What fluidity does is it gives you the opportunity to gather more information. So, when you go into something and you feel like you've got the answer, all you do is try to confirm that answer, right? Confirmation bias. All you're doing is seeking the information is confirming and you're ignoring all of the other information.
So, fluidity allows you the opportunity to get more information when you go into something from a flexible standpoint, plus the people you work with, if you're and we've probably all worked with these leaders, I think I was this leader at one point, which is if you go into meetings and you know that it's going to go this way regardless at the end of the day, all you do is line up with that approach, especially if the person that is doing that is the leader or holds the keys to the proverbial kingdom, right? Like, you’re just going to line up with that. You're not getting any real thinking out of the deal, right? So, when people feel like there is the opportunity to be fluid.
We had our C-Hive Retreat in Saugatuck, Bob and Michelle hosted us in Saugatuck and we go into, and the leadership team had some real reservations around some things like our core values and how they don't necessarily believe that our core values work perfectly and various other things. We had a long conversation about purpose and vision, and so on. These are things that are like at our core and they were nervous.
I mean, think of Erin Kaylor being nervous, right? But she said she was nervous coming in, that it was just going to be a big no. That there was going to be no flexibility on that, right? Well, imagine that mentality coming in and knowing it's going to be a no, like you're not coming in inspired, you're not coming in thinking. So, when she came in and really quickly realized that we were you and I, essentially.
[0:35:44] Laura Eich: They were afraid.
[0:35:45] Mike McFall: We're going to be okay with having a conversation about changing some stuff up. All of a sudden, the energy in the room became vibrant. They started contributing. They were engaged. I got thanked like 15 times. I'm like, you know, really, that's just the reasonable approach, right? Fluidity. I think it's the concept in leadership that leaders really need to consider that they don't have all the answers.
[0:36:09] Robert Pharo: My name is Robert Stanley Pharo. I'm a barista at 307 New Baltimore.
[0:36:13] Laura Eich: And?
[0:36:14] Robert Pharo: A few years ago, I was the Barista the Year.
[0:36:16] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:36:22] Robert Pharo: I was just thinking one of the advantages of having a few years behind you is some experiences that you might be able to share. I worked for a company a long time ago that was very, very forward-thinking for its time and even today is. We had a couple of things we thought about. One of the things that the – now deceased chairman of the company said was, he believed very firmly that good people working together towards a common goal can achieve anything they set out to do. The other thing that they thought of was the biggest asset that the company had and we were about a — in the 90s and 2000s, we were about a $2.5 billion grocery company was its people.
Yes, we had a hundred stores and we had meat counters and a bakeshop in Rochester, New York, and all sorts of other things, but the people is what made the company important. The other part of the whole thing was fluidity and leadership was — we had a philosophy of continuous improvement. There was nothing that we did for a hundred years that we couldn't take a look at and maybe see it's time to revise it a little bit. We can always talk about it. Maybe we're going to do it. Maybe we weren't going to do it. But that ability to look at anything you want to and make that challenge or improve it, I think is vital. That's all.
[0:37:43] Laura Eich: Absolutely.
[0:37:43] Robert Pharo: That’s all I got.
[0:37:44] Laura Eich: I love that.
[0:37:44] Mike McFall: That was at Wegmans.
[0:37:46] Robert Pharo: Yeah. It's a great company.
[0:37:48] Jessica: Hi. My name is Jessica. What advice would you give to someone who knows that they want to franchise a BIGGBY, but life events cheat, like kind of keep putting it off, like, “Oh, I want to do this first. I want to accomplish this first.” It's like, where's that timeline going to – where's BIGGBY going to fall in that timeline?
[0:38:11] Laura Eich: Keegan wants to answer. That's awesome. I love this.
[0:38:17] Keegan Piro: My name is Keegan Piro. I am a second-generation BIGGBY owner. This is my 20-somethingth year.
[0:38:25] Laura Eich: Yeah, it is.
[0:38:26] Keegan Piro: I learned at a very young age that the one thing that was going to give me freedom of time was to become a franchisee. I didn't get 12 weeks of maternity leave. That'd be fabulous. I didn't get any, because I owned a business, but I learned that if I could control my own schedule, I could travel the world. I could have my babies. I don't miss a single field trip. I'm the PTO president. I do whatever the hell I want.
[0:38:52] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:38:55] Keegan Piro: I learned that the only way I was going to be able to do that was to control my own schedule. Talk to a bank. That's where you start.
[0:39:04] Laura Eich: Yeah. That was making business ownership the enabler instead of the obstacle. I love that.
[0:39:09] Jon Sell: Can I add to that?
[0:39:10] Laura Eich: Yeah, please.
[0:39:11] Jon Sell: You both know my story. For timing, 20 some years ago now, when BIGGBY Coffee was beaners, I went to the Discovery Day. I had graduated college and moved down to Atlanta, Georgia. I had been down there for about five years. My folks came to me and said, “Hey, we went into this coffee shop in defiance. You can franchise it.” They know that I always wanted to run my own business.
So anyway, I went to it. I went to the Discovery Day and Bob and Mike are up there in their little sale chairs or where you have it. I really liked what they had to say, but I wasn't ready to, I was still brand new in my job. I wasn't ready to move back home to the Midwest. Fast forward 15 years from that point in time, I went back to Discovery Days and then it was just like clicked. It's time now. I don't feel you have to do it tomorrow when the time is supposed to happen, it'll happen for you.
[0:40:20] Laura Eich: Trust your gut. I saw Tim also wants to weigh in over here, and then I'll come back there. I love this. This is what BIGGBY people do. This is so good.
[0:40:30] Tim: I spent 20 years in a retail environment and started a boat company with three buddies selling boats out of a parking lot. We grew to selling like 250 boats a year and I was still working retail, so now I was working 90 hours a week. I would go to the leery store with Rick every morning. I was their first customer and they really wouldn't be open, but they would still serve me, every single morning. So, I started talking to Rick and one day I just went home and I told my wife, I said, “You know what, we're going to open a BIGGBY store today.” She said, “Are you crazy?” I said, “Yes.”
[0:41:04] Mike McFall: Yes.
[0:41:04] Tim: I said, “I'm out of boat sales. I'm getting out of retail. If I want to go for bourbon allocation on Wednesday mornings, I'm going to be there for bourbon allocation on Wednesday mornings. I'm done with this.”
[0:41:16] Laura Eich: Awesome.
[0:41:17] Tim: That's just – I mean, there really isn't a time. I put a request in online and then maybe a month later I get a phone call and it all says is Mo. I thought it was a telemarketer. I answer it kind of crazy. I'm like, “What's up, Mo?” Just like that and he's like, “Hey, this is Mo from BIGGBY coffee.” I'm like, “Oh, no. Now I feel like an idiot."
[0:41:40] Mike McFall: Mo can handle it.
[0:41:43] Tim: It's really not a time. Just do it.
[0:41:46] Mike McFall: I know as well. I just heard a story recently of a franchise owner. She saved for 13 years – to pull it off. She's now an owner, right? I would also say that talking to everybody about it, hear all of these stories, tell everybody it's what you want to do. You'll find the support. You will. It'll be amazing. You'll be amazed at what comes of telling a room like this and telling everybody in the room what you want to do. It'll manifest. I promise.
[0:42:18] Clancy Cruise: That was really super close to what I wanted to say, especially –
[0:42:22] Laura Eich: He steals thunder. This is what he does.
[0:42:26] Clancy Cruise: Well, the girl that saved for 13 years, that was the neighborhood I was in. Tell everybody what you want to do, but ask everyone the really, really hard questions, especially about cost. Make sure you know how much this is going to cost you because it's way more than you think, but still do it. We love being BIGGBY owners. We love it. But the advice I give people is there's a lot of smarts in this room.
There's more smarts at that table than you even need, but ask them to be specific. How much do the fees cost? How much does the startup? How much does the construction? How much does the building? How much are the taxes? Do your homework on that. Then you'll know when the timing is right because you can't live on — you can have dreams and you should have dreams, but you can't eat it.
[0:43:16] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:43:17] Mike McFall: Peggy’s going to wrap us up.
[0:43:18] Laura Eich: We’re going to drop the mic with Peggy Rector.
[0:43:21] Peggy Rector: All I can say is do it. You'll have ups and downs, but you can retire from it.
[0:43:27] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:43:27] Peggy Rector: I have. My son owns my stores now.
[0:43:33] Laura Eich: She's literally here for fun. She is here for fun. She's still wearing a logo shirt, which I appreciate. All right, friends, I think we're going to have to call it because we are just out of time. Thank you so much for joining us for our first live podcast.
[0:43:46] Mike McFall: Thank you.
[OUTRO]
[0:43:58] Laura Eich: Dear listener, thank you so much for listening in on our conversation from BIGGBY Nation Summit, today. We had so much fun, again, recording that episode live with an audience. Can't wait to do it again sometime, but to make sure that you don't miss an episode of the Love in Leadership Podcast, be sure to hit that follow button wherever you find podcasts. While you're there, do us a solid. Leave us a rating or a review to follow along with Mike and I as we explore the world.
Follow us on our social channels @lifeyoulovelab and @MikeJMcFall. If you have an idea for a guest, you think we should connect with, please email lifelab@biggby.com. To learn more about BIGGBY Coffee's purpose of supporting you and building a life you love, please check out B-I-G-G-B-Y.com. We love you for who you are. We'll see you next time.
[END]