If you want to be a successful leader, you need to be present with each person you interact with, prioritize the growth of your team, and meet people where they’re at. Today on Love In Leadership, we are joined by BIGGBY® COFFEE partners, Brandon Cruise and Jeff Konczak to discuss what has brought them success in their leadership journeys. Hear all about their effortless partnership, how they define the BIGGBY® COFFEE culture, and what they love about the brand. As the conversation progresses, we dive into the nitty gritty details of our guest’s leadership styles. Jeff and Brandon humbly share their strengths in building and maintaining relationships before discussing the importance of finding balance by doing what you love. We even hear about what we can look forward to from the two of them in the future. Finally, Brandon tells us how faith has made him a better leader and Jeff reminds us to make the most of our limited days on earth. To hear all this and so much more, tune in now!
If you want to be a successful leader, you need to be present with each person you interact with, prioritize the growth of your team, and meet people where they’re at. Today on Love In Leadership, we are joined by BIGGBY® COFFEE partners, Brandon Cruise and Jeff Konczak to discuss what has brought them success in their leadership journeys. Hear all about their effortless partnership, how they define the BIGGBY® COFFEE culture, and what they love about the brand.
As the conversation progresses, we dive into the nitty gritty details of our guest’s leadership styles. Jeff and Brandon humbly share their strengths in building and maintaining relationships before discussing the importance of finding balance by doing what you love. We even hear about what we can look forward to from the two of them in the future. Finally, Brandon tells us how faith has made him a better leader and Jeff reminds us to make the most of our limited days on earth. To hear all this and so much more, tune in now!
Guest Bio:
Brandon Cruise is a BIGGBY® COFFEE franchise owner based in Marysville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, Laura, and their four young children. Since signing on for their first franchise in 2018, Brandon and his family have successfully grown their business, now owning two locations (556 and 1048) since 2020. Brandon’s parents, Sandy and Clancy, play a crucial role in the business. Sandy manages the essential administrative tasks, including payroll, while Clancy, a former pastor with over 30 years of experience, is a certified espresso machine technician who handles equipment maintenance and repairs. Together, the Cruise family’s teamwork and dedication have been key to their business's success.
Jeff Konczak is an entrepreneur and founder of BCubed Manufacturing, specializing in modular drive-through BIGGBY® COFFEE shops. Based in his hometown, Jeff has built a diverse business portfolio, including four BIGGBY Coffee franchises and extensive real estate holdings, such as VA clinics and historic properties. Starting with a single prototype in 2017, BCubed has since grown to 77 locations. Jeff is also deeply involved in local development, acquiring and revitalizing properties, including cinemas and waterfront buildings. His innovative approach combines business growth with community revitalization, making a lasting impact both locally and beyond.
Key Points From This Episode:
Quotes:
“We want the best for the brand. I've fallen in love with [it].” — Jeff Konczak [0:21:04]
“There's nothing that isn't possible if you put your mind to it and work hard.” — Jeff Konczak [0:31:44]
“The people that work for you are everything. – If you don't have [them], then you do become unbalanced really quickly because then it feels like it's up to you to do everything.” — Brandon Cruise [0:43:21]
“I'm all about letting people make mistakes and move forward and try to get better every day.” — Brandon Cruise [0:51:46]
RESOURCES:
FOLLOW:
Follow Brandon Cruise:
Follow Jeff Konczak:
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08] 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 I am joined as always by the one and only, Mike McFall. Mike, how are you doing?
[0:00:20] Mike McFall: I am thriving, Laura. How are you?
[0:00:22] Laura Eich: You’re thriving. What a good word.
[0:00:24] Mike McFall: Thank you. Yeah.
[0:00:24] Laura Eich: I'm doing well.
[0:00:26] Mike McFall: Good.
[0:00:27] Laura Eich: I don't know that I'm thriving, but maybe –
[0:00:29] Mike McFall: I think you're thriving.
[0:00:31] Laura Eich: Okay. What does that mean for you? What do you have going on this week?
[0:00:35] Mike McFall: Oh, gosh. There's this concept that I live within, which is you put things in the world and then the world starts to support you around the stuff that you put in the world. You have to be careful what you put in the world because it might come true. I'm not ready to fully disclose all the things that I'm in the middle of, but –
[0:00:58] Laura Eich: It's just you and me here. No one else will know.
[0:01:03] Mike McFall: Well, we're in a beautiful conversation with the NHL right now in terms of partnering and putting together something that's near and dear to my heart, and also near and dear to the gentleman at the NHL that we're working with. We'll see. It's really complicated. I’m marveling in the complexity of the world that is something like the NHL, and how many different – Our little world, we want to do stuff, we do it. I mean, there might be a couple of people that weigh in here and there, but for the most part, we can just tear into whatever we want. Whereas, you work for something like the NHL, and there's a lot of complexity there.
[0:01:47] Laura Eich: Yeah, I bet.
[0:01:49] Mike McFall: I'm just marveling at that, and having to deal with that in your day-to-day, it makes me appreciate our little world in many ways. That's really amazing. I wrapped up our semester yesterday for my class, and I really try to up the ante on engaging them in a lot of the work that we're trying to do. I closed the class yesterday with – we’ve got in groups of four and did some exercises around listening, did exercises around engaging each other in our own uniqueness, and appreciating that. I think it went really well. I don't know. You never really know. That's a hard part of teaching is you don't really know if you're having impact or not.
It felt really, for me, anyway, selfishly, it felt really good to engage that content with the students and talk a lot about how the lessons of what we've been teaching them are not just lessons for you, if you are interested in being an entrepreneur. They're really, in many ways, life lessons that we hope that they can apply no matter what they do, or where they go. Yeah, that's always a cool moment to wrap up a class.
[0:03:04] Laura Eich: It's fun because the class itself is another one of those things that you put into the universe a while ago, was wanting to impart wisdom and impart knowledge and they made you a, I forget what it's called, lecturer?
[0:03:18] Mike McFall: Yeah, lecturer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[0:03:20] Laura Eich: At U of M.
[0:03:22] Mike McFall: Yeah. That whole thing came at me a little quicker than I expected it.
[0:03:27] Laura Eich: Well, it’s what happens when you put things in the world.
[0:03:28] Mike McFall: I know, right? It was five years I've been at that.
[0:03:32] Laura Eich: That’s so cool.
[0:03:33] Mike McFall: I know. It's incredible.
[0:03:33] Laura Eich: I love that.
[0:03:34] Mike McFall: What's going on for you?
[0:03:35] Laura Eich: Well, it's interesting that you're talking about this idea of putting things into the world and what it ends up leading to, because a lot of work stuff this week and last week, and I'm also going to be a little cloaked about it, because we haven't sorted it all out yet, has been about things I think I could help make better, or take to the next level of all that to its next thing. I've been doing a lot of that this year as I rejoined operations land and everything. We're really talking about what operations is within the organization.
There's some pretty high-level conversations around establishing what our operations are. Then on the very granular level, I'm also having conversations about things I think I could help influence the operation of, and potentially pull into the world, to pull into our orbit of what we're doing right now. It's been a lot of, I've been doing this action a lot this week. I know this is a podcast, so people can't see what I'm doing with my hands, but it's like, moving puzzle pieces around, has been a lot of what's been going on. I think a lot of it is inspired by putting things out into the world and being, I always say, it's not always things that I'm complaining about, but I find that if I pay attention to what I'm really having the desire to professionally meddle in, usually that's a sign that I have something there, that it's something I should pursue, that it's something that I'm clearly passionate about, whether I'm complaining about it, or celebrating it. But if I'm super focused on it, it's something I think I should be pursuing for some reason, and I have to unpack what that reason is and then see if it's pursuable. That's been a lot of the conversations this week.
[0:05:20] Mike McFall: Man, that was a complicated little thing you went through right there.
[0:05:22] Laura Eich: I know. I'm really sorry. It's been a complicated conversation.
[0:05:28] Mike McFall: Yeah, I can imagine. You spent the day at Lovejoy yesterday, right?
[0:05:34] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:05:35] Mike McFall: How was it?
[0:05:35] Laura Eich: It was so cool. It was the Life You Love Laboratory annual meeting, where we really focus on both the next year and beyond. We actually didn't get to the beyond, because next year is, I think, going to be an important year. Yeah, we were at Lovejoy. What are we calling it? Retreat Center? Retreat?
[0:05:55] Mike McFall: Well, we don't have that iced yet.
[0:05:58] Laura Eich: Okay. Well, we'll workshop that later.
[0:05:59] Mike McFall: We’ll just call it Lovejoy.
[0:06:01] Laura Eich: It’s Lovejoy.
[0:06:01] Mike McFall: It is what it is. We can use it for many different purposes.
[0:06:05] Laura Eich: Yeah. Yeah, hopefully this future retreat meeting, beautiful little hub of inspiration place along a beautiful lake – We had the whole day. It was just gently snowing. We had some aggressive snow the night before, but then the whole day was gently snowing and oh, it was just gorgeous. Did some good thinking with the LifeLab team and planned out what we're going to do next year, which is really about integrating ourselves better in the organization and in the operating system of BIGGBY Coffee over the course of the next 12 months. We're ready to go. Got a lot of clarity, which was really great.
[0:06:45] Mike McFall: Yeah. Is it getting more complicated now in that you have to marry all of that stuff up with all of the other responsibilities that you've taken on and that the team has taken on?
[0:06:57] Laura Eich: It might actually be simpler the way we're talking about doing it. I always use this analogy. I think, probably annoys people, but it was very similar to when you pull out your clothes out of your closet in order to organize your closet and put everything back away. We had to dump everything out, get it all sorted out into different categories and put it away in a place that it'll make more sense in the future. In that way, it'll be simpler. Instead of holding more buckets, or more categories, we're actually going to have fewer categories of things, which we’ll simplify, I think. The getting there is the complicated process.
[0:07:39] Mike McFall: If you can wave the magic wand and have accomplished one, two, three things by this time next year within LifeLab, what are they?
[0:07:49] Laura Eich: The one thing is that the integration map that we drew yesterday will be complete.
[0:07:56] Mike McFall: Cool.
[0:07:56] Laura Eich: Yeah. It'd be a big deal. That's way too much businessy business. We should probably get –
[0:08:04] Mike McFall: Business. Oh, yeah.
[0:08:06] Laura Eich: We should get into our podcast interview because we have two brilliant minds joining us today, Jeff Konczak and Brandon Cruise, both from the BIGGBY Coffee world and beyond. I'm really excited to jump into this conversation with them. You ready to go?
[0:08:21] Mike McFall: Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it.
[0:08:23] Laura Eich: All right, let's do it.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:08:25] Laura Eich: Jeff and Brandon, how you guys? How are you doing today?
[0:08:29] Brandon Cruise: Doing good.
[0:08:30] Jeff Konczak: Doing great.
[0:08:31] Laura Eich: Awesome. You'll do a better job than I would of introducing yourself. I'm going to have you each go one at a time. I'll try to choose someone so that we don't get too confused on here. Brandon, I'm going to start with you. If you could just give us the rundown. Who are you? Where are you from? What is it that you do in this life?
[0:08:48] Brandon Cruise: Yeah. My name is Brandon Cruise, married to Laura Cruz. We have four kids, Arbor, Maddox, Collie, and Coda. They're all under the age of eight. Eight, six, four, and two. Yeah, my wife's very strict with me. Two years apart. Yeah, so we live in Marysville, Ohio. It's about 20 minutes northwest of Columbus, Ohio. We own stores 556 and store 1048. We've been doing this since 2020. I think we signed in 2018 for our first franchise. It's been a dream come true. My mom, Sandy, and my dad, Clancy, they own and operate both stores with me. Could not do it without them. My mom does all the really, really difficult, boring stuff that nobody else wants to do. She kicks butt at it. She makes sure people get paid, which is extremely important, obviously.
[0:09:48] Laura Eich: That is important.
[0:09:49] Brandon Cruise: Yes. My dad has been a pastor for 30 plus years, and he's become an espresso machine technician. Like, literally flew out to Simonelli and got a certification, learned all sorts of stuff. He knows how to take apart our grinders, our brewers, our espresso machine down to nuts and bolts. Fix them. He's done a great job of networking with different owner-operators to make sure that everything, as far as the building, any emergencies with equipment, he can fix that. That's an overview of our team and what we're doing now. Yeah.
[0:10:27] Laura Eich: Awesome. Thank you. Jeff, what about you? Who are you? Where are you from, and what do you do?
[0:10:33] Jeff Konczak: I do absolutely nothing. I'm Jeff Konczak. I'm married to Tina. We have four kids. Two of our kids are in our businesses. We have four big re-franchises, three in Alpena and one in Indian River. I'm the Founder of BCubed Manufacturing. We make modular drive-through BIGGBY Coffee shops. We're currently on, I think, number 77. We are real estate developers. We own VA clinics all over the place. Lots of real estate. Yeah, there's more, but we don't have time on this call.
[0:11:10] Laura Eich: I mean, I want to get into it. Can you maybe give us a little more on how did you get here? How did you get to, the quick version? But how did you get to BCubed into manufacturing? How did you get to BIGGBY Coffee? What were you doing before that led to all of this?
[0:11:26] Jeff Konczak: Well, Mike's favorite word, I'm a cementitious chemist. I'm a concrete guy.
[0:11:31] Mike McFall: It's absolutely my favorite title on the planet.
[0:11:34] Jeff Konczak: Favorite words ever, which is just a –
[0:11:36] Laura Eich: Is that a real title? Because I don’t feel like I –
[0:11:38] Jeff Konczak: Oh, it is, actually. It's just a funny way of understanding cement reactions and concrete products and all of that.
[0:11:45] Laura Eich: Fascinating. Okay.
[0:11:47] Jeff Konczak: It's much deeper than that, but it will bore everyone to death. Moved back to my hometown and decided to take over and acquired a lot of ground and a lot of buildings, historic buildings, our cinemas and just a lot of real estate. I had a building that was right downtown at the harbor. I wanted something cool for our little town. I was familiar with BIGGBY Coffee. This is going back to 17, I think. I just wanted something cool and sustainable. We got a franchise through a partnership and put it into that building, a brick-and-mortar store with no drive-through. While we were building it out, we decided we probably wanted a drive-through. The city wouldn't allow us to have one at that corner. We invented BCubed and really begged to let us build the first one as a prototype and didn't really expect to do any more. Here we are at 77, so we're pretty excited about it.
[0:12:52] Laura Eich: Amazing. How did you two come together? Because I don't think you guys knew each other pre-BIGGBY life. I don't know who wants to answer this, but how did this marriage happen?
[0:13:04] Jeff Konczak: The Cruise family decided they wanted to go off into the coffee business, and from the Clancy and Sandy from the pastor side, the nurse side. They bought up BCubed, and we put it in the Mire Store at Marysville and became fast friends. We'd do a lot of business and they were new to that. We supported and supported them, supported us. Now, Brandon's part of our, forgot to mention, we're area representatives around Columbus for 10 counties as well. Brandon's part of that team. We've operated it more like a family group. We're all in with the Cruise family. They're clearly the rock stars of what we're doing in BIGGBY Coffee. It's pretty well-known out there. That's my perspective.
[0:13:55] Brandon Cruise: Yeah. I think to add to that, when we first got into buying our BCubed building, just the way that Jeff did business with our family spoke volumes and the personal nature of it, the helpful nature, and really had a lot of great conversations with us, particularly my dad and just built a really solid relationship over the years. Then, when Jeff came to us with this area representative opportunity, we were like, yeah, no doubt, no hesitation there. Because just because of knowing who Jeff is and how he does business and it was, yeah, it was just really cool to be at that. Because we were customers first of Jeff, I guess. Then friends, and then now working together. Yeah, super cool.
[0:14:44] Mike McFall: Brandon, what's your role going to be in the AR entity in that business?
[0:14:48] Brandon Cruise: Yeah, that's a great question. I think first and foremost, I don't know if I have a title necessarily, but one of our biggest values is setting the BIGGBY Coffee culture. I think that's had a lot to do with our success at Store 556 and building Store 1048. I think that's what people are looking for in a job and for where they're going to buy their coffee at, along with the quality and the speed of service that we offer. That's a huge part of my role. Then alongside of that, opening stores, training people, training baristas, shift leaders, managers, and establishing them to get them running on their own. Yeah. Yeah.
[0:15:37] Laura Eich: How do you define the BIGGBY Coffee culture?
[0:15:39] Brandon Cruise: That's hard. I know it's been said a million different times in different ways. For me personally, I've said this on town halls. I've said these different ways, but the whole idea of helping people build lives that they love is just massive. To me, mostly because I've seen it happen in real-time. I've seen all different types of people on whatever spectrum you want to put out there, like from high school students who learn how to work really hard for the first time in their life. They go from very, very stressed out to like a barista ninja because they're motivated and they're like, “Oh, you're telling me I can be successful at this age at something, right? I can have accomplishments.”
I shouldn't say everybody, but a lot of times, the stereotype for the barista position, the lowest position is like, oh, it's a cute little barista job. Like, oh, yay, fun. That is part of it, but it's a really difficult job to have the pressure of people paying their hard-earned money for something that you're making. That's just so cool to see those young people accomplish and achieve at such a young age and learn how to work really hard. Then there are people who have been with us from the beginning, who, like my managers, Tracy and Carrie who are supporting their families and people that have gone off to bigger and better – not bigger and better, but bigger careers that they want for themselves, right? Opening businesses themselves.
Just the good that we can do for people, I think that's what I mean when I talk about BIGGBY culture. It's hard to convince people at first that, hey, we have this for you. We have this for you in our store. But just opening store 1048, we're just over a month in, and I'm already seeing that magic happen with our baristas there and it's really cool. It's really cool.
[0:17:44] Laura Eich: That is very cool. I visited Mike McFall's class a couple times at U of M. I try to tell any of the baristas in the room like, “Watch out. This job might change your life.” Because I for sure started as a barista saying, this is my “part-time nothing job.” However many, 12 years later, now I'm the VP of operations at BIGGBY Coffee, and it's very cool. I really love the path of that baristaings that's you’re on. I'm also obsessed with the term barista ninja, or BIGGBY ninja. I'm stealing that for sure.
[0:18:14] Brandon Cruise: It's like, they're moving without their eyes following them, and they just know it.
[0:18:18] Laura Eich: They just know.
[0:18:20] Mike McFall: What I love that you said there, Brandon, and I've said this forever, which is that it's my opinion that 98.7% of people want to be successful. They want to be successful in their work and in their jobs. It's up to us to create an environment that facilitates that. When that works, it's fulfilling for everybody, all right? It's like, everybody's having a great experience.
Jeff, I'd love to hear your take what you see as the BIGGBY culture and why you've made such an incredible and massive investment of energy, time, resources into the brand. What draws you to it?
[0:19:05] Jeff Konczak: Well, I think a bit of everything that's been said, I didn't come into BIGGBY Coffee looking for another career. I have plenty going on and certainly, didn't need to go to this level. That being said, there was something – it's hard to describe, but that first BNS, I mean, I don't know what it was. Tina didn't go with me to that. There's just something about it. I mean, Mike, I've said pretty openly to you and Bob. I mean, I'm so all in, it's not funny.
I mean, I'd start selling other assets just to stay in the game. The truth is that like Brandon said, I mean, if I take it even on a small scale, like Emily Barch on our team, who works with Brandon in Columbus, she started as a barista, I think she was 17. She's now 21. She runs all of our stores, manages the group of stores. She is in Columbus with Brandon on the AR team, opening stores, doing the AR responsibilities. Our idea was, like I could pretend to be the guy that does all of these tasks. We're very unique in our business model and our AR group, where I don't want to be the one doing that. I want the pros. If you go through a Cruise store and you spend time with Brandon and his team when I say rock stars, I can't even, and that's not even close to the right word. I mean, they exude the culture and it passes to everyone.
Why wouldn't we want the best people at the lead? That's what we've done. We've placed the right team together. Steve, Allen, and I, the three of us, the partners, we put an organization with some of Allen's people, their marketing people. Brandon and Emily interacting with our current franchisees opening stores. I mean, we want the best for the brand. I've fallen in love with – and business is hard. I mean, you guys know more than anybody else. Business is hard and it's not always fun, and it's complicated. But when I look at it, there's such an energy and entrepreneurship that is taking place in every one of these deals.
As I said, we're on 77 on BCubed, so that's probably around 70 of those are open, close, open and operating. You certainly have the multi-unit people who have BCubed, but you also have first time business folks, right? Where this is a reasonable cost of entry to the business. Then all of a sudden, they turn into the Cruise family where now it's, they've got one store, 556, and now 1048 with this giant XXL BCubed. They're putting employees together. They're putting them on their path. It's fantastic. The energy is amazing. I love it. I'm completely in.
[0:22:13] Laura Eich: I love that.
[0:22:14] Mike McFall: It's almost scary. Just scares me on a regular basis.
[0:22:22] Laura Eich: Why is it scary?
[0:22:21] Jeff Konczak: Give us another year or two. Yeah, give us another year or two.
[0:22:25] Laura Eich: Mike, what are you scared of?
[0:22:27] Mike McFall: Oh, gosh. You're not in the inner conversations that Jeff and I have. There's just this incredible commitment to constantly getting better and improving. Always thinking about the future. I don't find too many people in the world that live in that space. I would say, Jeff lives 95% of his life in the future. Thinking about what can be and what will be. I love that. It's something that I thrive on and I enjoy. I say it's scary, sort of a jest. At times it's like, holy smokes, man. There's a lot going on.
[0:23:07] Jeff Konczak: I should be medicated. I should be medicated, but I'm not.
[0:23:09] Mike McFall: Don't do it. No medication for you. I love it.
[0:23:13] Laura Eich: Well, so I wanted to dig into that. You both have a lot going on. Jeff, you've mentioned a lot of businesses, a lot of things. You're also a, how do I say it? Simima –
[0:23:23] Jeff Konczak: Cementitious chemist.
[0:23:24] Laura Eich: Thank you. I won't attempt to resay that again. You have a lot going on. And Brandon, you have a lot going on, including four kids and all of that behind you and a lovely wife. You have AR business. You have franchise business. You've got BCubed business. There's things happening everywhere. I want to talk about, this is a podcast about leadership. I want to talk about how you lead and what really your leadership style is. Both of you are probably a little different on that front. Brandon, let's start with you. How do you approach leadership? How do you approach being a leader for the different types of businesses that you're interacting with? Yeah, where do you go from there?
[0:24:05] Brandon Cruise: I knew this question was coming or something like it. It's hard to put it into words. It is. I'm a very gut-level person. We did the DISC test at –
[0:24:17] Laura Eich: Yeah, what's your style?
[0:24:19] Brandon Cruise: I'm DI. I'm dead in the middle. Depending on the day, apparently, I could be a D or an I. Yeah, very gut-level person. But I think, I guess, if I could start somewhere, what works for me in leadership is paying attention to my people as much as possible, and how they are? What's the vibe in the store? What's going on? How can I support them and help them? For me, that's actually something I've had to really learn and get better at over the years. I think for a lot of my life, I was not a very self-aware person. I'm still not as much as I'd like to be. when it comes to just considering others, considering people. That's something that I've consciously worked on over the years, and I think that has helped tremendously. Because if you give me a to-do list and it's up to me to do something, I'm cool with just knocking it out. I can grind myself all day.
The thing that I have to wage war against myself on is, hey, it's not about you and you doing your stuff and getting your stuff done. It's like, can you train other people and delegate? Can you bring other people along? Then in your communication with them in person and working in the store with them, can you see things how they see it? Can you be considerate enough of the other person to bring them along with this idea? It sounds manipulative, but it's not. It's like, make them want to work with you, if that makes sense. Because you're considering their point of view. Yeah. One of my BIGGBY bibles is the classic How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's so much common sense, and it gets criticized a lot. Like, well, that's just common sense. If you're just a nice person, then you accomplish everything in that book.
It's like, yeah, but have you met somebody who's a truly nice person who just does that stuff? No, it's all of these values that are so much easier said than done that you can easily mentally assent to. But to actually go out and practice them is so much more difficult. I use a lot of those principles, and I've listened to that book on audio probably six or seven times. Because I need the constant reminders. I'm by no means even 50% close to perfect or whatever. Yeah, and then I'm very hands-on. In our stores, I'm working on the line. I'm working drive-through. I'm trying to grow our team to where that's not the case and where I can be more of a support role. I'm in the Mike McFall canon, I'm somewhere between grind and grow transition.
[0:27:09] Laura Eich: Very good. That was nicely played.
[0:27:16] Mike McFall: I'm going to revel in the canon part of that. Brandon, I was just going to comment, you made an interesting – I think you had this concept of, you said it's not meant to be manipulative, right? Because when you talk about it in so many ways, it can sound that way.
[0:27:34] Brandon Cruise: Yeah. Right, right.
[0:27:35] Mike McFall: Really, what I hear you saying is, is I need to be the person that people want to work with, that they want to engage, that they want to spend time with, that they want to show up and be a part of what we're doing. It starts with you and your behavior. I find that so many leaders and I'm not going to call them leaders, because they're not leaders, they think it starts with the employee's behavior. When an employee brings the right behavior or the right attitude, then we'll show them respect, then we'll be good to them, and so on. What I hear you saying is you're flipping that around. You're saying, “No, I need to be the person first. Then people can come along with me. Because if I'm not, they won't.” I love that flip on the expectation of behavior. It starts with us. It starts with the leader first. Then your group, your team reacts to that behavior.
[0:28:36] Brandon Cruise: Yeah. It is somewhat natural for me to have that point of view, though, because I still wonder to this day, why would anybody want to work for me? Why would they want to do what I want them to do? I'm a musician by trade. I have a music degree that's gathering dust right now.
[0:28:54] Laura Eich: Same. I didn't know that.
[0:28:58] Brandon Cruise: Yeah. But that just shows how accessible the BIGGBY model is. If you can work hard, you can make it happen. Anyways, yeah. It's like, why would anybody want to work for me? I do feel external pressure to be the type of person that people want to work for, because I do have imposter syndrome sometimes. Now, five years in, it's gotten a little bit better. Yeah, starting out, that imposter syndrome was like, I'm faking it until I make it. I know I can work really hard, but I'm definitely, like you and Bob like to use the metaphor of building the plane as you fly it. Sometimes that's the only way to do it. Sometimes, that's the only way to get it done. In this case, it definitely was. Now, we have our pilot's license, if you will. yeah.
[0:29:50] Laura Eich: Jeff, I want to talk to you about your leadership style, too. How do you approach leadership? You have a lot of different kinds of businesses, which I also imagine is a lot of, if we use Brandon – I was thinking, as Brandon was talking about meeting people where they're at, you're meeting a lot of very different types of people where they're at in your leadership approach. Will you just talk to us a little bit about how you approach being a good leader?
[0:30:11] Jeff Konczak: Sure. My approach is twofold, really. One is to – so much of our lives are caught up in potentially a singular idea, meaning a barista, if you bring it to the coffee side, a barista, they're trying to figure out their future. Not sure exactly what path they're going to take sometimes, which many times is why they're working for us. Then, they make their decision and either move on or stay in, in Emily's case, as I was explaining.
My approach, frankly, is I look at this as a race, a bit of a race, in that none of us know how long we're going to be here on this earth. My attitude is, we've got a lot to do. If tomorrow is the day, I want to make sure that we've either inspired folks to reach farther than they normally would. If I look at all of our business, I tell most people or have told most people until recently. I think Tina and I are blessed to have, I think, 13 companies, or something at the time. Of course, Tina reminded me that it's now 30. I keep saying 13. They're all different kinds of businesses in different LLCs.
It's because I look at the big picture and driving into new things. When you say out of the box, there is no box. There's nothing that isn't possible if you put your mind to it and work hard. That to me is a bit of an inspiration to all of our teams, no matter what business it is. If they see me driving hard and looking at new ideas and trying new things, they don't all work. But the ability to try is really important. What you see with Brandon and Emily and our AR side, we then take the big idea, launch it, stay focused on it, and then get the appropriate people to lead it and move on to another concept. Even within our BIGGBY, or BCubed world, Mike can attest. I mean, we have everything going from the AR side to new stores, to turnkey deals, to which is all new in Wisconsin and some of it.
I mean, there just seems to be a need to get it done sooner. I'm more of the big picture, big thinker, big strategy, and then put at the right time once it's launched, put the right people in charge. Then just make sure that the culture is right. I mean, Brandon is the culture leader, in my opinion, of our AR business. If you walk into his stores and watch him operate with the baristas and the folks, you quickly know that he's the right guy. Emily is the same here and what she does in Columbus as well.
My approach is I don't need to be involved in all the decisions. I need to be driving new opportunities and new businesses and putting the appropriate people in place to make it successful. That's a strategy that many don't take. Many get wrapped up in one genre, one piece, one direction, and they stay there for a really long time, fearful of trying something new. That has never been my problem. Trying something new has never been my problem.
[0:33:59] Laura Eich: You have 30 businesses?
[0:34:02] Jeff Konczak: Funny, a week ago, a week ago, I told someone, I think we've got something like, 13 LLCs and of course, every year you have to renew your LLCs at the state and Tina heard that. She's like, “No, dummy. It's 30. I just renewed them all.” I'm like, “You got to be kidding me.” You lose sight of all the pieces and parts. Coffee and BCubed, it seems obvious in this group. But there's movie theaters and glass bottom boats and kayak boats and real estate and different addresses. But it's because I want to get all of this done before I go home, right? At the end of the day, we don't know when that is.
I want to be an inspiration to our team. I mean, I want to see guys in the plant. We've got one gentleman in particular who started out working for us in the plant. Every time I walk through the plant, he has a question about a small business that he wants to start. It doesn't matter – It started out as, how do I get a bank account, right? These are guys that are swinging hammers. He's got eight kids or something, right? It progresses and I give him a little tip and a little tip. Now, does that mean he's going to leave? Probably not. But he may start another business on his own and bring additional revenue into his family, which will make his life better. Because he sees me doing all of these different things. I'm just trying to get it all done before my time's up.
[0:35:36] Mike McFall: Jeff, my response to this is that you very much sound like the prototypical serial entrepreneur, and you are. I'll just say that. But there's something very different about you. I think it's one of the reasons I'm drawn to you. You have a remarkable ability to listen. In someone that has your mentality and your approach in the world, which is, like you said, you’re just trying to get as much done as you possibly can. At the same time, though, when we're together, there's a remarkable ability for you to, I believe that you're listening and that you're hearing what we're talking about and you're fully present in that conversation. That's not a typical trait, in my opinion, of most serial entrepreneurs.
They're just buzzing along. They're just knocking stuff out in their concert. I always feel almost a sense of calm when I'm around you, which is just like this yin and yang. I don't know how you get so much done. For example, I called you impromptu the other morning, and I think we spent 40 minutes on the phone. It was like, you had all day. My hat's off to you on that. That's a skill that I think few leaders have, where they make people feel and that they are incredibly present and listening and caring, and so on.
When you talk about yourself, I think you sell yourself short a little bit on the leadership thing, because I do think you're a remarkable leader. I think your people know that you care deeply. I think you do care deeply. I think you have this incredible ability to make people feel that like you're there, you're with them, you're in it, you're doing it with them. My hat's off to you.
[0:37:31] Jeff Konczak: I appreciate that. It's never been about me, right? It really has never been about me. None of it. It's always been about either trying to inspire our kids to have that same work ethic and drive. When you take the time to listen, which I try to do when you called, I literally pulled off the road and sat there, so I was totally focused. I wasn't even driving. I do that all the time. It really is because if you're not paying attention and you're not in the moment, you not only miss issues that need to be addressed, but you also miss opportunities.
So many of the conversations that we have during the day, there's always something else that we need to do on our calendar. There always is. Particularly in my case, it's in so many different directions, if I'm not paying attention, if I don't give it that moment and be there and listen, I'll miss the problems and I'll miss the opportunities. BCubed as an example, we didn't get it all right. I mean, this was – we're building the spaceship at the same time we're trying to launch it. It doesn't mean that you have to have all the answers. You just have to be there to help when something is recognized. I just look at it like, I need to take that time to understand because in some ways you get disconnected if you don't, right? The businesses operate and you get people rock stars, like Brandon running involved, everything else and you lose sight of something that should have been caught that can spin out of control and you have to listen to it. Then the opportunity side is huge. I mean, there's huge opportunities if you pay attention. Sometimes it's not apparent, but the serial entrepreneur always figures that out.
[0:39:30] Laura Eich: I wanted to ask about, I think to be a good listener, you have to be somewhat balanced in your life, because often, when people are not listening well, it's because they're distracted and they're on to the next thing and blah, blah, blah, blah. There's a certain level of balance, or centering, or whatever in your life. Brandon, I'm going to ask this of you, too. But Jeff, since we're on you right this minute, how do you balance your life? I know people call it work-life balance. How do you balance work and life and all of the things you have going on and stay connected to your kids and stay connected to your wife and all of these things? What do you do to remain balanced as a serial entrepreneur?
[0:40:10] Jeff Konczak: It's hard. It really is. It's difficult. I think, believe it or not, Mike referenced the call the other morning, and part of being present and listening is you just shut the hell up. That brings calm, which seems like chaos is all around you. Those moments are important. I do a lot of closed eyes, be quiet, run through my list myself, but that being present is a calming factor for me. I don't do a lot of hobbies. My hobbies are deals, and new ideas and those kinds of things. I spend a lot of mental time.
Fortunately, I drive a lot. I don't waste that time. I walk through the full list and balance, balance is, I mean, everybody talks about balance. I think if you dig what you do, like I've said to our kids every day, I think, from when they were small, I've used this analogy. Eating is not an excuse for doing something you hate. I mean, most people get into a spot and they're worried about making money. They go down a path and there's an end to our path here. The challenge is you can spend years and years and decades and decades because you either are trying to eat, trying to buy a house, trying to do something and you lose sight of what you really love.
When you find what you love, you don't have to balance. Everything is the balance. I dig what I do. I only do things with people I love that are cool. I've had partnerships that I've gotten out of because the people weren't in line with where I was. I just love hanging out with everybody that I'm hanging out with right now, which obviously is the three of you. That drives my life. To me, you can have a balanced life. You don't have to do anything sexy. You just have to do what you love. And I'm doing exactly what I love.
[0:42:24] Laura Eich: I love that. Brandon, what about you?
[0:42:27] Brandon Cruise: My wife helps a lot for sure, whether that's direct feedback like, “Hey, you're not balanced right now.” Or, just I constantly want to be with her. So, that helps. I think a huge part as well is having really good leaders in our store, in our regional store. We're still establishing leaders at the new store, but they're definitely emerging. We definitely have some great leaders emerging at 1048, which is awesome. Tracy and Carrie, and to be honest, especially in the last couple months with some crazy hard things we've been through, our shift leaders there, our team of shift leaders have stepped up and kept the ball rolling at the same level that we want, but with literally, less people.
Just establishing those good leaders. Like Jeff said, the people that work for you are everything. The people that work for you, your team, if you don't have that, then you do become unbalanced really quickly, because then it feels like, it's up to you to do everything, right? I am just one person. Then, last but certainly not least, just our three-person team as the Cruise family, with my mom, dad, and I, we're looking at the next five, 10 years of my parents. Nobody's getting younger. So, how do they transition out, and how do I buy them out and help them retire? How do I take on the roles that they're playing right now?
It's like, we're going to have to figure out that balance because they certainly help me feel, or they helped me be balanced, not only in their roles but also as sounding boards and just having small therapy sessions with them every once in a while. They are the foundation of my balance as well. Yeah, yeah.
[0:44:22] Laura Eich: Cool. You started to hit on something that I wanted to ask you both about as well, which is the future. What are you growing towards right now? What are you pursuing? What are your big goals for life right now? Brandon, I'll start with you. Jeff, I'll come to you in a second, because I bet they're big.
[0:44:38] Brandon Cruise: Yeah, as far as our little LLC, just getting our two stores, especially the new one established and solid. And just the nature of the job, like employees will come and go and there will be somewhat of a rotating door. But building into those leaders, like we talked about, the leaders that are emerging, and then supporting the leaders that are established at 556 and just staying on top of that, and then building this Columbus territory with Jeff and following his lead in that and doing everything we can to get new stores open, and then do the same thing that we're already doing here at Marysville, establishing teams of leaders that will keep those stores running at a high level. Yeah.
[0:45:26] Laura Eich: Awesome. You’re building a strong foundation. Jeff, similar question, but you also referenced a few times like, there is an end to this. I am curious what your goals are right now, but also, what would ‘done’ look like? You're like, “I got to get done. I got to get a lot done.” How do you describe that?
[0:45:46] Jeff Konczak: Well, our job, when we talk about ‘done’, what I really mean by that is I constantly have ideas that pop up in lots of different directions, and we just take the BIGGBY side at the moment. We sat on this path with BCubed, and the amount of stores that have opened in that format, in the BCubed format is pretty astonishing in such a short period of time, considering, I think we only did three during the COVID year, right? We're putting a lot of people into business, and that's growing BIGGBY nation. We're starting to make moves to increase production and put stores out at a faster rate.
Our whole reason for going to Columbus, it was a territory that really didn't have BIGGBY Coffee in it. Capturing that territory, it allowed us to be able to focus solely on getting stores open. That's the entire approach. We have aspirations of that market being 108 stores, right? If we can get that right, Mike and the leadership team at Global Orange can take that model, that concept. There's a whole lot of Columbus's out there across the country, right? That can be proven out how it was done, why it was done. It's completely different than any other AR position that's out there. Everyone is doing it differently, which is great. This is the experiment. The experiment is how fast can we grow a BIGGBY nation? It's good for BCubed. It's good for BIGGBY Coffee. It's good for new franchise owners, right?
In our case, we're going to be the franchise owners to make sure that that is driven hard. Get the culture right. Then that can be duplicated across the country. Imagine the rate of growth. When I talk about done, I'm really, really just talking about, this is an idea that we had, we put one foot forward, it's been successful. Now, we have 20 stores open. Now everyone across Global Orange can take that to Oklahoma, to Los Angeles, to Las Vegas, to so on. There's a lot of players out there 10 times, 100 times, 1,000 times, bigger than I am, but they have the ability to take that model and then drive it.
You'll see stores just exponentially grow, building BIGGBY nation, which is what we're all really trying to do. At the same time, we're putting families in business. We're giving income. We're building new entrepreneurs. That's how I see it across our businesses, right? I mean, the guys in the plant very well could be business owners, right? Baristas that are in the store can very well become Emily Barch or their own business owners. We look at that as we're just capable and able to put all the juice in on the front end to hope that we help other people do that. That's what I'm talking about. When it's done, I just want to have it so far along that I can be forgotten and everything else can move forward, and it still moves forward.
[0:49:00] Laura Eich: It's funny that you say –
[0:49:01] Jeff Konczak: I'm just realistic about where life is. It's coming for all of us. So, why would we waste time? We can impact so many more people if we just get after it. That's what we're doing. We're getting after it.
[0:49:13] Laura Eich: It's funny that you say you'll be forgotten, because all I was thinking as you were speaking is like, man, you're creating a heck of a legacy, a huge massive, like the tree of life that is born from the roots of Jeff Konczak are amazing. They are. Sorry.
[0:49:30] Jeff Konczak: I mean, we will internalize that. I mean, the kids will be proud of us, Tina and I for taking the risk and taking the hard steps. That's all that matters to me. What everybody else does is that's their decision. I know what we're doing and why we're doing it. I'm all in.
[0:49:49] Mike McFall: Brandon, if I can ask you – that's beautiful, by the way, Jeff. I know that's true. I mean, I believe that completely, what you say there. Brandon, I wanted to ask you, I know that, and I don't know too much about it, but I know that your faith is super important to you. How does that impact you as a leader?
[0:50:07] Brandon Cruise: Yeah. I mean, the golden rule, I try to let it saturate everything we do. Love your neighbor as yourself, right? That every person is created in the image of God, that they matter, that they're important. I didn't plan on crying in this thing here. That there's been way too much grace given to me by my wife and my parents at my lowest points in my life and way too much grace, infinite amount of grace given to me by God, that how could I not extend that same grace to other people? I do that very imperfectly. I don't do it sometimes. Yet, I think that is the goal is to extend that same type of grace to people.
Yeah, it's just, that's the most powerful driving force in my life is that every day is, I think, it's Psalms or Proverbs that says, the mercies of the Lord are new every morning. One of my favorite bands who have same faith as me, that my boys love, we just saw them in Cleveland. They're called Switchfoot. They have a song, and there's a line on the song that says, “Every breath is a second chance.” I've been given thousands and thousands of second chances. Yeah, that certainly impacts my leadership style.
You do have to let people go sometimes, sometimes for the benefit of the team. You need to protect your team. You need to protect your culture. I'm all about letting people grow. I'm all about letting people make mistakes and move forward and try to get better every day. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. That was a great question.
[0:52:00] Mike McFall: The topic here is Love in Leadership. That's really what you're summarizing there, to me anyway. That's how I hear that from you is it's about your love and commitment to your faith. Also, that means to all of your people. It's inspiring to me.
[0:52:16] Brandon Cruise: Thank you.
[0:52:17] Laura Eich: We're totally out of time. I also heard, I think Jeff has a meeting starting that he's probably – I heard the little ding.
[0:52:24] Jeff Konczak: I'm in the moment.
[0:52:27] Laura Eich: I so appreciate both of you. It's so interesting because you both approach things super differently but with a very values-aligned clarity. You both bring this really high-level perspective, like you're never doing something just to do the thing. You are doing things with purpose and with meaning and with love and with care. I hear that in the way you're describing all of your work that you do. I wanted to say thank you. I so appreciate you guys bringing your hearts and your minds. You’re brilliant human beings. I love that you work together. I love that you found each other in this world. I can't ask for a better partnership out there in the world. Thank you guys so much for sharing everything you brought today.
[0:53:06] Jeff Konczak: Thanks for having me for sure.
[0:53:08] Brandon Cruise: Thank you.
[0:53:09] Mike McFall: Appreciate it.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:53:18] Laura Eich: Wow, wow, wow. Wow.
[0:53:20] Mike McFall: Well, I mean, I think everyone, I hope got a little glimpse into and maybe has a better understanding why Jeff Konczak’s one of my favorite people on the planet. And then Brandon, he's just so inspiring to me.
[0:53:37] Laura Eich: Just good hearts. Good hearts, good brains. I love. That should be the criteria for joining this podcast is if you have a good heart and good brain.
[0:53:47] Mike McFall: Yeah. Yeah. The heart leads the brain in those deals. I think the brain follows. The brain follows the course that the heart sets, right? I love that conversation. It's amazing to me. You think about an hour, you think an hour's a long time. I mean, I could have kept going. I just wanted to keep going. I know you had a laundry list of stuff that you want to.
[0:54:11] Laura Eich: Yeah. There's a whole page of unasked questions over here. I'm just going to have to save for next time, I guess.
[0:54:16] Mike McFall: Save for another time. Yeah. Yeah.
[0:54:19] Laura Eich: I really was struck with when Jeff was talking about staying balanced, and you were talking about what a good listener he is, which like, yes, he's so peaceful and calm. I mean, he was like, yeah, just shut the hell up and listen and that kind of thing. I just thought, that was so interesting and so different from a lot of the business owners that we talk to in and out of every day is there is not a lot of calm. There's not a lot of peace. Like, he felt very zen. I just thought that was fascinating. I mean, he mentioned, he's like, “I don't really do anything. If you love what you do, it just balances.”
He also did say, he spends time just in his mind and in his body and making sure he's clear and he knows what he cares about. That felt like an important piece of it is he knows what he cares about and he pursues what he cares about. If he doesn't care about it, it's not on the list. It just falls away. That just was really inspiring as far as a way of being to me.
[0:55:23] Mike McFall: Well, what I find fascinating about Jeff is that he presents himself and he talks about himself in this way that is like, that he's this frenetic serial entrepreneur, a billion things going on, which is all true. But I had to interject and say, yeah, but you're different, man. You're different. You make everyone you interact with feel special. You're so in the moment. I had a moment with Jeff. I celebrated my birthday in Alpena. I mean, he basically took the whole weekend and made it about me. I remember one time, we had spent some time at their – there's a museum there through Noah and he owns the building and Noah leases it from him.
My dad and I went over and took a tour of that building with him. Then we ended up out on this river walk that goes right by the museum. I think we stood there and talked for an hour. To the point where I was like, “Jeff, man. I mean, we got to go, man.”
[0:56:32] Laura Eich: Got stuff to do.
[0:56:33] Mike McFall: Yeah. We got to be at plant. Anyway, I'm pretty amazed by him and how he approaches the world. He’d be a fascinating case study.
[0:56:43] Laura Eich: I was having the thought when we were talking that if we got him and Ari in a room, Ari from Zingerman's in a room together, the world might implode. Just because I think they would exchange philosophical concepts about just doing things your way and the way you love. Something else that I was really struck with was just the humility that both Jeff and Brandon, I feel like, that is their values alignment as it starts with – the first thing Jeff said when I asked him what he did, he's like, “I don't do anything.” Brandon's like, “I don't know. I just, I do what I can.” They're just so –
[0:57:18] Mike McFall: Yeah. I mean, if you listen to Brandon, you think he's the most troubled person on earth.
[0:57:23] Laura Eich: He’s not.
[0:57:24] Mike McFall: “I'm so imperfect.” I'm like, dude. Right, there's just this amazing awareness of how they understand their flaws and the stuff that they're working on. It struck me too with Brandon, Tasha Eurich's a bit about, if you think you're self-aware, you're not. He's like, “Yeah, I know I'm not self-aware.” I think he said, I hope it's getting better or that I'm improving, but I know I'm not self-aware. To me, that's always a wise person speaking.
[0:57:59] Laura Eich: It's a good sign. Yeah. I feel like, that conversation left me just wanting to be a better person, be a better leader, be a better person in general.
[0:58:08] Mike McFall: Yeah. Yeah, it's inspiring. I enjoy the selflessness that comes from both of them. Again, that's inspiring, because I get wrapped up in my own little world and my little world's important and I got all these things I want to do, or I have to do, or whatever. It's like, hanging out with people like Jeff and Brandon makes that melt away. It feels good.
[0:58:32] Laura Eich: Yeah, we're going to have to have them back on. They both referenced – I feel like, they're both in this moment of business transformation, or something. Brandon's talking about building up the foundation around him. Jeff is talking about the experiment, the experimenting Columbus. We're going to have to have them on in a year or two and talk about what has happened since then. That'll be a lot of fun.
[0:58:54] Mike McFall: Yeah. Yeah, it was great. I enjoyed that.
[0:58:56] Laura Eich: Awesome. Dear listener, to make sure you don't miss an episode of Love in Leadership, be sure to hit that follow button wherever you find podcasts. While you're there, do us a solid and leave us a rating and a review. We've got some ratings. I’d love some reviews. 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 biggby.com. Love you, Mike.
[0:59:29] Mike McFall: Love you too, Laura.
[0:59:30] Laura Eich: We love you for who you are, too, listeners. See you next time.
[END]