Tom Belongia is a leader who embodies the essence of passion and dedication in his approach to business and life. This week on Love in Leadership, we explore Tom's inspiring journey, from overcoming personal challenges to becoming a transformative figure in his community. We’ll get candid on the importance of human-centric leadership, the power of passion, and the art of creating a legacy through positive influence.
Reading Between the Lines (featuring Tom Belongia)
A franchise owner shares the simple power of listening
GUEST BIO:
Tom Belongia is an influential franchise owner and area representative for BIGGBY® COFFEE in Wisconsin. His journey from working at Pilot Travel Centers to becoming a key player at BIGGBY® COFFEE showcases his dedication to community-centric business practices. Over 15 years, Tom has significantly expanded BIGGBY® COFFEE’s presence in his state, emphasizing a leadership style rooted in personal growth and empowerment.
Diagnosed with dyslexia as a child, Tom overcame educational challenges with the support of his family and mentors, an experience that deeply influences his approach to nurturing young leaders within his business.
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CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:
[29:39] - When Weaknesses are Strengths
From discouragement and frustration to resilience and empathy
Tom opens up about his personal struggles with dyslexia as a child. He recounts how he was discouraged early in life but found strength through supportive teachers and family members, and that now in his role at BIGGBY® COFFEE and beyond he wants to be that influence for others. This experience also shaped his remarkable resilience and informed his empathetic leadership style, teaching him the value of supporting and believing in others' potential — no matter their surface-level weaknesses.
[42:31] - Sometimes Work is Just Work
Tom on finding balance in personal and professional goals
Tom shares insights on how maintaining a healthy balance between professional and personal life is a common concern among his staff. Too often, managers and leaders make the mistake of thinking that managing work-life balance is up to individuals. But when they take a proactive stance on helping them with that balance, employees are inspired to give their best when they are at work. Tom emphasizes the necessity of creating an environment where employees feel valued and can manage their personal needs alongside their professional responsibilities.
[43:21] - Listening Speaks Louder than Words
Want to know what your employees think? Ask them.
Tom recalls the time he asked his employees directly what would make them feel appreciated, no strings attached. They told him in no uncertain terms that they wanted time off. This led to the implementation of a paid time off (PTO) policy that had employees literally applauding. This shows the simple yet powerful significance of listening to employees' needs and how simple acts of understanding can lead to transformative leadership decisions.
[54:16] - Loving the Ones Who Leave
When great people leave, consider it a success
Tom talks about the importance of celebrating employees' growth, even when it leads them away from the company. He believes that supporting employees' career aspirations and life, including when it means they leave the organization, creates a positive work culture and fosters goodwill and community respect. This is what makes this such a wonderful place to work —people who genuinely care about the individuals beyond their value to any bottom line.
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ABOUT LOVE IN LEADERSHIP:
At the Life You Love LaboratoryTM and BIGGBY® COFFEE, we’re out to prove that financial success and healthy workplace culture aren’t two separate goals. BIGGBY® COFFEE's own cultural transformation is proof that not only is it possible to have a successful company where people aren’t miserable at work, but that the happier your people are, the more your business will grow. Each week, join host Laura Eich, Chief Purpose Officer at BIGGBY® COFFEE, and her co-host and BIGGBY® COFFEE co-CEO Mike McFall as they’re joined by guests from around the world to learn how they are fostering a culture of love and growth in the world’s most innovative and people-centric companies. Get inspired. Get real. Get ready to transform workplace culture in America with us. This is the Love in Leadership podcast.
Learn more at: loveinleadershippodcast.com
ABOUT THE HOSTS:
Mike McFall began his journey with BIGGBY® COFFEE as a minimum-wage barista at the original store in East Lansing in 1996. Over the span of 23 years, alongside business partner Bob Fish, he has helped create one of the great specialty coffee brands in America. Today Mike is co-CEO with Bob, and BIGGBY® COFFEE has over 250 stores open throughout the Midwest that sell tens of thousands of cups of coffee each day. But more importantly to Mike and BIGGBY® COFFEE, the company is a profoundly people-first organization.
Mike is also the author of Grind, a book which focuses on early stage businesses and how to establish positive cash flow.
Laura Eich is BIGGBY® COFFEE’s Chief People Officer, having worked in a variety of roles at BIGGBY® COFFEE for the last 11+ years. She helped launch BOOST, the department at BIGGBY® COFFEE which ultimately became LifeLabTM — BIGGBY® COFFEE’s inhouse culture cultivation team designed to help people be the best versions of themselves and help companies support them along the way. In her role, Laura helps people build lives that they love through the process of building profitable businesses and robust, growth-filled careers.
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In Detroit, history was made when Barry Gordy opened Motown Records back in 1960. More than just discovering great talent, Gordy built a systematic approach to launching superstars. His rigorous processes, technology, and development methods were the secret sauce behind legendary acts such as The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.
As a nod to the past, Detroit Podcast Studios leverages modern versions of Motown’s processes to launch today’s most compelling podcasts. What Motown was to musical artists, Detroit Podcast Studios is to podcast artists today. With over 75 combined years of experience in content development, audio production, music scoring, storytelling, and digital marketing, Detroit Podcast Studios provides full-service development, training, and production capabilities to take podcasts from messy ideas to finely tuned hits.
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Laura Eich:
Welcome to the Love and Leadership Podcast. My name's Laura. I'm joined as always by my very favorite co-host in the world. Mike McFall. Mike, how are you doing?
Mike McFall:
I'm well, Laura. I'm well. How are you? How's Blueberry? Or is it Blueberry? Blueberry.
Laura Eich:
Blueberry. Blueberry's doing good. She is keeping me awake at night, but we're making through it.
Mike McFall:
Yeah, it was so great when you told me that your nickname was Blueberry because my nickname for all my babies was always Bueberry. I left out the L, but anyway, that's a side note.
Laura Eich:
Oh, that's very sweet. I've heard the Blueberry song and it's beautiful.
Mike McFall:
I actually sang that for you, didn't I?
Laura Eich:
You did actually sing it. I legitimately felt like blessed. I don't think you've ever sang for maybe anybody.
Mike McFall:
This podcast can't go public because I've never sung to my wife. Ever.
Laura Eich:
Oh, no. Okay, we'll edit this out.
Mike McFall:
No, she'd be all right. She'd be all right. Well, I had an event yesterday morning, and by the way, so check this out Wednesday night I had a hockey game at 10:30 in Brighton.
Laura Eich:
At 10:30 PM it started?
Mike McFall:
Yeah, yeah, which is as-
Laura Eich:
Why?
Mike McFall:
... late as it goes. Maybe there might be a 10:45 game, but 10:30 is the latest.
Laura Eich:
Oh my gosh.
Mike McFall:
So I got to drive to Brighton play hockey at 10:30, we're done at 11:30. I drive home, but then I have to keynote an event called Mind Capture Bootcamp on Thursday morning at 8:30.
Laura Eich:
And where is that?
Mike McFall:
Kalamazoo. So it's an hour and 40 minutes.
Laura Eich:
Oh my gosh.
Mike McFall:
I know, I know, I know. But I have to. The reason I have to play hockey, I was talking to my mom earlier in night, she was like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "Mom, I'm on a heater. I'm on a heater." And my mom doesn't know what heck a heater is.
Laura Eich:
I don't know what that is.
Mike McFall:
Oh, you don't know what a heater is either. So a heater when you're on a hot streak, you're on a hot streak and you just cannot give it up. When you're in the middle of a heater you got... So anyway, I had to play hockey and then I had to obviously go do this event on Wednesday morning.
Laura Eich:
Of course.
Mike McFall:
Anyway, that's not the point of the story, the point of the story is go up and I do this keynote which is the keynote I've been working on that you're well aware of for a long time, and I'm starting to roll it out now in bits and pieces. And so I did this the whole moment on human-centric leadership and unlocking people's inner superpowers. And how we do that as leaders is through building trust and how you build trust is investing. Anyway, I go through the whole thing and this is the moment that makes all that effort and energy to get there and do it worth it because a guy walks up to me. He's probably, I would say he's in his early '60s and he shakes my hand and he says, "I've never heard anybody talk about leadership like that before." And he's got a tear in his eye.
Laura Eich:
It's wild.
Mike McFall:
And I just [inaudible 00:03:10]. You just have this moment of like, "Oh my gosh, everything's worth it." Everything's worth it. And we always think about inspiring young people and engaging young people, but to have somebody who's quite mature in their career and have seen a lot to walk up to you and say, I've never heard somebody talk about leadership that way. I'm all fired up now. I'm ready to go. I want to go out and have that conversation with every single person in the world. And by the way, we are through this podcast.
Laura Eich:
I was going to say that's why we made a podcast where this is what we get to talk about is the healthy leadership practices that sometimes it seems like how I have the question of forgetting that this is a new concept, forgetting that the idea of human-centric leadership or servant-based leadership or purpose-led leadership or things like that, that those are relatively new in the business world and that kind of thing. I forget about that until those [inaudible 00:04:08].
Mike McFall:
I don't know that they're new, Laura. I think in history they've just been defined as good leaders. I think good leaders have been leading this way forever.
Laura Eich:
Oh, interesting.
Mike McFall:
It's we've never articulated some of these things that they were doing to be good leaders and we never put the value on it or we never put the title on it or whatever it might be because I do think there have been plenty of leaders over the years, very strong leaders that approach their people very much in the way that we're talking about and advocating and so on.
Laura Eich:
But it hasn't been taught, I don't think.
Mike McFall:
Exactly.
Laura Eich:
And maybe that's what's new is the actual evangelization of loving leadership and that sort of thing.
Mike McFall:
Yeah. No, [inaudible 00:05:04].
Laura Eich:
What you're doing with your keynotes, what we're doing with the podcast.
Mike McFall:
Yeah, it's never been articulated well about why leaders... And actually it's been articulated the exact opposite of that. You got to be this cigar chomping, KPI driven, egomaniac who drives the business at all costs and those costs are always human and for whatever reason that's been the language protocol for decades and decades now, and it's kind of disgusting, no, it's very disgusting. And I don't think that has been good leadership over the years. I mean, I guess those people-
Laura Eich:
Or it's contributed to problematic things. If it's like you said, the cost is usually the person and that's the thing that's I believe the future will be unacceptable.
Mike McFall:
Yeah. So you're right. So maybe that approach has made the shareholder whole and profitable and so on, but has left everybody else like scorched earth.
Laura Eich:
Yeah. Actually, what has been tumbling around my mind this week is connected to this which is just from conversations we've been having, the idea that an organization doesn't exist without humans. It seems so simple. It seems so simple to be like, of course, an organization, a business doesn't exist without humans, but so often we spend so much of our time in business talking about the systems and the processes and the plans and the goals and the KPIs and the stuff, the stuff that you have to do in business to have a successful business.
But literally the business does not exist without the human. And that concept I think is related because I think that's what people have realized over the last few years is this business doesn't run without me. Businesses don't open if I don't show up for work and that kind of thing. And the power of the employee and then the responsibility of the leader to figure out how to care for their people it's a big honor and a big privilege and really difficult to do well.
Mike McFall:
Businesses don't exist without humans, but the fuel for the human being is the relationship with the other humans and that's the fuel for the business.
Laura Eich:
And the strength of the business, yeah because if it's just a bunch of disconnected human beings that show up to work and checks and boxes in a day that's not a strong business. It's not going to last. Well, thankfully, I think our guest today is going to have a few things to say exactly on this topic. He's someone that I think of as an incredibly loving leader, someone who happens to come from within the Biggby Coffee world and has some really beautiful practices and philosophies behind how he wants to lead. So I'm really excited to jump into the conversation with Tom Belongia here just in a moment. Are we ready to jump in?
Mike McFall:
Tommy B.
Laura Eich:
Tommy B from the proud state of Wisconsin. Let's get into it. Hi Tom. How you doing?
Tom Belongia:
Good.
Laura Eich:
Mike. I'm good. Mike, you doing good?
Mike McFall:
Outstanding.
Laura Eich:
We ready to jump in?
Tom Belongia:
Let's do it.
Laura Eich:
Let's do it. All right. Tommy B, even though I just told everybody who you are, will you please tell us who you are, what you do, and where are you from?
Tom Belongia:
Well, I am Tommy B, the area representative and franchise owner for Biggby Coffee here in the great state of Wisconsin. I'm born and raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin, went to school there, University of Wisconsin Parkside, go Rangers and took a job where it took me all over the country, met the love of my life along the way there, decided we wanted to have kids and the moving every three to six months was not what my wife had in mind when she decided let's settle down and have kids. So we moved to Wausau because we had some family here and it was in between her family, and my other half of my family. And then I started on the journey to try and figure out what I wanted to do because my job wouldn't let me come here. And I started figuring out I wanted to do a franchise and I found Biggby. Now it's 15 years later.
Laura Eich:
And you still live in Wausau?
Tom Belongia:
Still live in Wausau.
Laura Eich:
Can you tell us a little more about Wausau? Because I find Wausau to be a magical place.
Tom Belongia:
It's this small town, but with big aspirations. We have so many cool things. Our art festivals, Yankee Museum, they have kids events, they have adult events, they have wonderful art that comes through the town. Our 400 block is this amazing place where it used to be I think it was like a JCPenney. And then they moved in and moved into a mall and they gave the bland to the city and the city's like, "What are we going to do with this?" It's right in the heart of downtown. So they made it into a square and there's a band shell and there's music down there. They do live projection movies down there, and everybody in town can kind of go and show up.
And it's right across the street from our theater, the Grand Theater which just brings in really cool shows. We get to be able to catch things going from the Twin Cities to Chicago or Chicago to the Twin Cities because we're right along the way. So it'll be really weird. We'll get really good shows, but it's like on a Wednesday, so you got to go to the theater on a Wednesday night to catch it. It's just really awesome. We've got great schools. We've got an awesome ski hill here. It's the second-biggest ski hill in Wisconsin. And Brie Roper will yell at me for calling it a ski hill. It's a ski bump, but it's big in Wisconsin. It's right in my backyard. We have some great local businesses and people and it's just a hugely welcoming and inviting community and I love being here.
Laura Eich:
Yeah. I just find Wausau literally magical. It was my first introduction to Wisconsin and I think it's the perfect introduction to Wisconsin.
Tom Belongia:
It's just fun stuff.
Laura Eich:
That's so good. Tell us a little bit more about that journey that you just referenced. You talked about how your wife wanted to move to where you are now. You had a job. Tell us what that job was and what you were doing was and how it got you to Biggby Coffee. How'd that happen?
Tom Belongia:
Well, I was working for a large truck stop company, Pilot Travel Centers, and I would go around and take over stores that were failing, get them turned around, get them back to good, and then go on to the next one. I'd gone from Illinois all over the place and then up to St. Cloud, Minnesota which is where I met my wife, fell in love. I tricked her into falling in love with me. Definitely married way up.
Laura Eich:
Well done.
Tom Belongia:
Yeah. And she moved with me to Kentucky. Anybody who knows me knows this one fact about me, when I'm in, I'm all in. It's do or die. I'm going, let's go for it.
Mike McFall:
Like your chicken.
Tom Belongia:
Yeah, absolutely. [inaudible 00:12:56].
Mike McFall:
[inaudible 00:12:56] chickens this summer. I mean, I came home from Wisconsin and I told Veta, I'm like, "I'm getting chickens." And she's like, "You're what?"
Tom Belongia:
She caught me at BNS and literally was like, "I've been trying for two years. He came with you for 20 minutes and now we're getting chickens?" So it was awesome.
Laura Eich:
Amazing.
Tom Belongia:
So we dated for a short period of time, and I mean a really short period of time, and I knew I was going to ask her to marry me within six months of us being together. I asked her to marry me, within eight months we were married and 10 months later we had our first kid. And it's been an amazing, amazing time. She is just the best thing that has ever happened to me and makes me better all the time, and the person who gets me on all things and helps keeping me doing my best every single day.
Laura Eich:
I love that.
Tom Belongia:
So then we decided to move back home because we wanted to be closer to family. We were down in Kentucky at this point in time and we didn't have many people around us there, so it was like let's move back. And there was no job for me here. So we were sitting around trying to figure out what to do, and in working with Pilot, I'd worked with a ton of different franchises. Every truck stop has multiple ones in it, and I knew that I wanted to do something business. I didn't want to have to reinvent stuff. And I literally wrote it down. I had a list of 10 things that I wrote down as the most important things for me, and then went out and started looking at franchises and comparing them against the 10 things that I needed.
Laura Eich:
That's a good idea.
Tom Belongia:
And I could get pretty high with most places. The last thing, I was literally on a tour of six different businesses with Anna and Biggby was the last stop, and we almost didn't go because I got down to three that I was really comparing and my wife Anna, again, best thing that's ever happened to me goes, "No, we're going."
And we went and because of the van ride from the home office to Paramount Coffee and Sandy Green who didn't talk to me, he talked to Anna, very smart man, and explained to her absolutely everything that she would go through if we opened this up and all of the things that she was going to get to experience and do. And the decision was pretty much made on the way home when we started comparing to my list of 10 things and we got to 10 and that was the only company that we got to all 10.
Laura Eich:
Wow.
Mike McFall:
That's cool. This is not meant to be a Biggby Coffee advertisement, but thank you for that. I want to get back to the chickens. So peaceful moment in Tommy's life is when a chicken is sitting on top of his head.
Tom Belongia:
It's beautiful. You're sitting out there and you're having your zen moment and you're just interacting with life, and you're just interacting with nature and you're sitting there and you're soaking up the sun which we only get for three months here in Wisconsin. You find that inner peace and then when this creature that you take care of and gives you things back because I get eggs from them, they're wonderful, but it just kind of comes over and if they'll sit on you, and you don't understand chickens per and coo, and when they settle down and they just sit and coo with you, it takes you to a place where you got no choice but to be happy. There's nothing that can ruin that.
Mike McFall:
Do you see how I came home wanting chickens? Okay. All right. I can move beyond the chickens thing, but man, I'll tell you what, I came home, I was-
Mike McFall:
I can move beyond the chickens thing, but man, I'll tell you what, I came home, I was ready to build a coop. I was ready to do the whole thing, and I hit pause for a moment just to think about it before I make the whole commitment.
Laura Eich:
That's best.
Tom Belongia:
Yeah, you don't want to do it, start it in winter. You want to start it more towards spring.
Laura Eich:
Yeah. So we don't want this to be a big coffee advertisement, but I did think it was really cool knowing Mike, knowing your story of the 17 things I think it was that you were looking for in a wife and that form of visioning, and I think Tom just described a form of visioning by having the 10 things. Tom, do you remember the 10 things or any smattering of them?
Tom Belongia:
Yeah.
Laura Eich:
Yeah. What were they?
Tom Belongia:
So number one is it had to be something that was going to match me. So full of life, energy, excitement, loud.
Mike McFall:
Oh, yeah.
Tom Belongia:
Two-
Laura Eich:
Benefits.
Tom Belongia:
... it gets me excited every day because I couldn't be an accountant. Could you imagine me sitting in an office being like, "Yes, today in insurance land..." I would die. Yeah, no. I had to have something that was wanted in my community. I didn't want to be just another something. I wanted something new to my community because I wanted to be the first to bring it to somewhere. I wanted it to be something different, something that could grow, something that I could do multiples of, was fun when it was hard. That was a big thing for me. I do like a challenge, but sometimes you can get over challenged and you have to have some fun in it because if you're not smiling in life, if you got to work 8, 10, 12 hours a day to do something and you're not having fun doing it, man, that just crushes your soul.
I wanted no corporate stores. That was a big check mark, leadership that listened as much as it talked because that came from a company that it was top down. Things came from the top and not much went up and had to have a stable growth future. There are some industries that you can get into that I think are on that bubble and it's going to go down from there, or you're just riding that wave out or it's hit its peak of what it's going to do. And I wanted something that I thought had a high growth future.
Laura Eich:
Very cool. That's a good list. I want to talk about challenges that are fun because specifically one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, because we have you on not because you're a Biggby person necessarily, but because you're someone that at least I admire as a leader of people. Someone who cares for people really, really well through their business and through their organization as a whole. And I want to talk about a leadership challenge that you've faced that was fun and also tell us about it, about a leadership challenge you've faced. You've been in this business for a while, you've owned stores for a long time, and then you became an area representative.
So now you sort of counsel a group of people who also own Biggby locations and that kind of thing, which means you've had all sorts of from leading our maybe traditional barista demographic of 19 to 22-year-old people. But now you're also leading franchise owners who I think probably have a lot of opinions and a lot of thoughts, that kind of thing. If you can think of one, what was the biggest one? What was the biggest leadership challenge? And also will you tell us how it ended up being kind of fun?
Tom Belongia:
Sure. There's a couple different ones. I'll go through the one I'm going through right now at this moment, and I do like it. It's fun, it's challenging, it's consuming more of my time than I would like it to, but there's light at the end of the tunnel. So in the last year, I have worked really, really hard with a couple of my long-term employees who have now become store owners who I've helped to transition into positions of power, which is awesome and that's cool and it's really exciting and I didn't think this all the way through because I depleted all of my leadership for my myself in getting them to grow and become the awesome people that they are. I didn't think about myself in that one, and now I don't have as much leadership around me and I have to go back to my basics and redevelop that with some newer people, with some people who don't yet have as much experience in it.
I have one girl named Taylor who is awesome. I love working with her. She's got that spirit, she's got that drive. She's younger but hungry and aggressive and community minded, and she in a couple of years is just going to be unstoppable with what you watch her go do. And I miss having her by my side all the time, and she still is. We talk probably every day, but it's different when she's out doing her stuff and it's not mine. So I'm having to go back to my basics and I'm working with the new leadership I've got and the new people that I'm bringing in, and it's fun and challenging because I get to do it all again and I get to watch these people grow and there will be more opportunities for them.
So that's exciting. It's also challenging because it's a lot of questions I've answered, but I got to teach the new people and it's humbling and reminding to what those steps are going to be, what I'm going to need to do with them, how I'm going to get them to grow, let them make their mistakes, but then coach them on what to do next time to make sure that they're succeeding.
Mike McFall:
So Tom, let's talk about that engagement. What do you think are the top two or three things that you need to do as a leader to get them to develop as leaders themselves?
Tom Belongia:
You had a post out, I'm going to quote you on this that you did a while ago.
Laura Eich:
That's checks in the mail, right?
Tom Belongia:
You did a while ago when you were talking about you have to earn their trust and that takes time. You need to invest that time in them. You have to accept that they're going to make mistakes and they're not going to do it the same way you were going to do it. And you can't get upset about it, and you can't worry about it because it's the growth process that they're going to have to go through because nobody who is successful now was automatically successful at the beginning. Nobody who plays in the NHL was an eight-year-old, amazing, never missed a goal. They all sucked at some point in time and had to make those mistakes because that's the only time you're truly learning is when you are making mistakes and then you go re-examine them. And that is something I think too many people spend too much time not letting people fail. You've got to let them make the mistakes and then just talk to them about it. Say, "Oh, next time maybe try it doing it this way. Let's talk about how this happens. Let's talk about this going on."
Mike McFall:
Yeah, I like how I'm articulating that at the moment, and I'm not sure I did in that post is as the leader, you need to earn the right to lead. And so much of that is about building trust and giving space, seeding control, silence is the magic elixir. These things that leaders need to do in order to let the leadership in other people develop, which most of us are pretty bad at. It takes practice, it takes work. That's not easy. It's really not easy, especially when you come out of an entrepreneurial mindset where you are in charge of every detail, everything for years and years, and then all of a sudden now you have to hand over and seed control and keep your mouth shut when they're working and pick your opportunities to coach. It's like is that a tough transition and not to make this a complete endorsement of all the shit that we have going on, but that's what grow is about. That is the concept of my book. Yeah.
Tom Belongia:
Well, and that's one of the things I talk with everybody about. I love the book Grind and I make everybody in my leadership take that book and read it. And I point out a couple of different sections in there because they always ask me, "What's my job?" And I'm like, "Mike already wrote your job, just do what Mike did. Everything will be great." Because I want them to look at it and understand everything they're going through, everything that they're developing, everything that they're going to see as a challenge in front of them, somebody else has already done it. They can do it too. Just look for what parts they really like, what they're really going to succeed at, find the things that they are awesome at and just run with it.
Laura Eich:
I think there's another challenge. So you guys just identified an important leadership challenge, which is always the leader feels the pressure to have all the answers to be the smartest person in the room to make sure that they help people grow, but they help people grow. They're doing the doing and that kind of thing. And the other challenge though that you highlighted in your story about Taylor, Tom, was sometimes we can also get selfish as leaders where we know what that person wants to do, but we want to keep them and we want to keep them doing what we have them doing and what they're so good at, but their passion or their vision or whatever for their life is starting to lead them in a different direction. Did you ever have moments with her, I know you mentioned you have another one too that is pursuing something else where you're like, "I kind of want to keep you and I kind of don't want you to do this other thing?" Did that moment come into your mind? Did you have that fight with yourself?
Tom Belongia:
Yeah, yeah. I mean obviously you do. When you've got talented people around you, you want to keep them there. You want them to be still part of your team. But it was the realization of, especially for me and what I'm attempting to do, grow the stores in the territory that I'm at, I need to develop positive passionate people who are going to go out and do that every day. And what better way than from within my own organization to develop that talent to develop those people. And we're talking two people who are like 25 and 20 and they are in store ownerships in a franchise system that we've been able to help coach them, give them the systems, give them the tools, and let them then go succeed. When they're my age, they're going to be 10 times as successful as I am.
Mike McFall:
I was just going to say that. Can you imagine how good they're going to be at this when they're our age? Crazy.
Tom Belongia:
We're developing the next level of leadership around us that are going to do it. I'm talking, I'm here 15 years, they're going to talk, I'm here 40 years.
Mike McFall:
Right, right. All right, Tom, listen, this podcast is called Love and Leadership, right? And I want to get into the nitty-gritty of that. I have known few people in my life there as passionate about the people as you are. Where does that come from? You don't see that in the world so much. I love it. It is a salivate to my soul, seeing you work. And so where does that come from? Was it always there and why is it so important to you?
Tom Belongia:
Well, I'm very open and honest about this. Back in fourth grade, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I have a very low reading ability. I do everything. So when I'd say I read your book, I listened to your book and went along with it by going through the different points, I got told that I would never graduate high school, that the best I would ever going to achieve was going to be a medial task kind of job. Thank God I had one teacher, Mrs. Raymaker, I had my grandparents. I had my parents who were like, "Hell, no, you can do anything you want to it. We're not going to let you use this as a crutch." And they got me the proper testing. They got me the proper instructions. They helped me to develop instead of using a crutch to slow myself down, we used a crutch to be able to propel myself forward as if I was a long jumper. And having somebody-
Mike McFall:
You long jumping is an interesting thought, by the way.
Tom Belongia:
Yeah, I don't think it'll be that long. But using this as a means of being able to propel myself forward, Mrs. Raymaker, who was my sixth grade teacher who she gave everybody in. I was put in the special remedial classes and she gave everybody these workbooks and it was like, "Here's your work for the entire year. Work it at your own pace." And I am a overachiever, but I am lazy. And I took that workbook home and I did the whole thing in the first week. And I'm like, "I'm done with school."
So she saw that and she's like, "You are a very smart person. You just need assistance." And she helped guide me from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade what they would call a transition back into regular classes. So I got back into regular school. I got back into what I needed was some assistance to get me to where I am. So I use that to graduate high school. I use that to graduate college. I use that as, okay, I just have a different set of rules that I have to play by. I am not going to let something hold me back. I'm going to use it to propel me forward. And yes, I have to work twice as hard. And yes, when our 87 emails a day come through when I have to go read our 360 page FDD, those are going to be long days.
And I know what I'm in for and I just have to plan it. But I think everything in your life, if you've got a goal for it, you can achieve it. And when you guys talked about vision boarding and dreaming, I do that in my own way and I just make a road map and that's how I'm going to get there. Yeah, it might take me twice as long and yeah, it might not be comfortable, but I will get there. Don't tell me no because I will make it happen twice as fast and push things forward. Being able to now pay that back to somebody else, yeah, I'm all in. And like I said earlier, when I'm all in, I'm all in. Let's do this.
Mike McFall:
So you want to be like your teacher, Ms. Rainmaker, which I love that name by the way, for others.
Tom Belongia:
Yeah. If I can do that for somebody else, that's me paying her back. Because obviously somebody did that for her and she did that for me, and she did that for countless other people. And we don't have enough stories in life that we talk about. We don't have enough things going on, or we get to talk about awesome, positive, amazing people who go unrecognized every day, but still every day are out there doing these things. And that's amazing.
Laura Eich:
I know that people talk about you that way. By the way, I don't actually know if you know that.
Laura Eich:
That way, by the way, I don't actually know if you know that, but if I talk to some of the folks in Wisconsin, if I talk to Taylor, there's a lot of similarity in how you talk about Ms. Rainmaker to how they talk about you, which is very cool. I feel lots of feelings right now.
Tom Belongia:
I love that. I love the development of what I'm trying to build here with everybody that I've got in my system. I love trying to help out, even the guys up in the UP or now down in Chicago, trying to get more and more of these people to catch that. Because I know that if I can get people to be my level of passion and my level of drive and my level of excitement for every single day, they can go do that for 10 other people and that will catch fire.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, the impact expands. Yeah. On the flip side actually, is there something you see other people in formal leadership positions, maybe it was back in your former career, maybe it's something you see in other business owners wherever, that you just wish, you just sort of want to shake it out of them because that's not helpful. Other leadership attitudes or traditions or practices that you're like that just needs to stop, people. This is your moment to try and put a stop to it. Is there anything that comes to mind?
Tom Belongia:
If there was one thing I could just erase from business world, it is the top down decision making. Everything flows in previous lives. Everything flows from the top. They have all the ideas, they have all of the answers and it flows down from there. And they make all of those decisions. And I don't know if I want to tell this story or if I absolutely should tell this story, but I'm going to tell the story, but I'm going to leave the names out to protect the innocent. There was a pickle and this was supposedly the million dollar pickle. We were going to sell, every store was going to sell a million dollars worth of these pickles. It was going to be the greatest thing ever. Every store had to get on board. The top decision maker in the new product line was like, "These pickles are amazing." And everybody in the store knew this was the dumbest idea ever. You've ever seen those big pickles in those bags with all the juice in them?
Laura Eich:
Yeah.
Tom Belongia:
Can you imagine-
Laura Eich:
I've tried them.
Tom Belongia:
We're going to sell a million of these to people driving in their cars.
Laura Eich:
Sounds like a mess. Potential mess.
Tom Belongia:
You got people in business gear, you got moms and dads, you got truck drivers and we're going to sell a million pickles per store. We're all in, bags of pickle juice. What on Earth are you talking about? And there was dictate and yelling at and we weren't hitting our numbers and you got people getting screamed at. And we're like the statement, the customer is always right. That's not about customers actually being right. It's about what your customers are buying is what you should be selling.
Your customers are always right in their purchases. And when your customers aren't purchasing something, it wasn't we weren't advertising it. It wasn't because we didn't have enough stock on it. It wasn't because it wasn't in the right place in the store because God did we have these massive displays of them. They didn't want them. You can't force people to buy something you don't want. But this idea went for like six months and people got screamed at in meetings like pickles were being thrown at people. It was ridiculous. But nobody could get the message to the top, this isn't the right thing. This is not a million dollar pickle, this is garbage. And if they had listened more than they had talked, again, one of those things I had on my list, they would've known that if they had just gone and asked a bunch of the managers.
Mike McFall:
Oh my God, the pickle story, that one's going to live for me for a long time, Tom. I love that story. If we can't sell pickles, but it reminds me of... Was it the shark bite?
Tom Belongia:
Yeah.
Mike McFall:
When I called you to scold you about the shark bite latte, remember? Do you remember this?
Tom Belongia:
Oh yeah, yeah. You were fired up.
Mike McFall:
Oh, yeah. But by the end of the call, what was going on? I'm like, oh no, no, no. Sell it. Sell as many as you possibly can. And by the way, I'm going to be your advocate around here. And guess what? We now have the shark bite line.
Tom Belongia:
[inaudible 00:38:54].
Mike McFall:
Yeah, yeah. That pickle story. I mean, it's so funny that it's a pickle too, but endemic. It's endemic. It's endemic.
Tom Belongia:
It's all over the place and it's not just in products and it's not just in this. And people don't hear. And in the same breath, I'm going to give a big positive thing that this company did. Every year, everybody from the home office was forced to work a week inside of a store somewhere. When you want to talk about how do you learn what's happening in your business, go spend a week in those people's shoes, leave all of your corporate stuff behind, leave all of the home office stuff behind and go live a week in a manager, in a barista, in an owner's shoes. You're going to learn so much. And it didn't matter if you were in the accounting department or if you were in the marketing department or what you were in. Every one of those people when I would talk to them at the end of their week, so what did you learn?
And they were like, oh my God, I learned these 15, 20 different things that changed their perspective on what they were going to do when they went back. And we would immediately see a bunch of changes. So the marketing people, when they would go out there, they would realize some of the marketing stuff that they thought was brilliant was a dud, didn't work. So what did they need to change to make it happen? And they would tag people up with certain stores and send them out there. And it was this amazing week and I had one of the vice presidents of the company literally said, "This is the best week of my job because I go back and I know what for the next three months I'm going to be working on." That's powerful.
Laura Eich:
That is powerful. Did they do that during the Pickle Gate? Because I feel like they would've learned a lot of things about the pickle situation.
Tom Belongia:
No, it was somebody who obviously wasn't listening when he was doing the week long stuff inside the stores. And lots of companies do some stuff amazingly well and do some stuff, the traditional, I think burned out way that doesn't really help guide people through what they need to be doing. And they've taken their eye off of probably the most important aspect of what their business is and what made them successful in the beginning because we all get caught up in the 800 other things that are going to get thrown at us. The boogeyman jumps out and punches you in the stomach and then you get distracted.
I was just recently, I was down to Milwaukee and I was listening to the Emmy Revisited because it's one of those books that I like to remind myself about all the different things in my brain about trying to remember, keep this one in check and do this one and make sure, because there's times where you got to be the tactician and you've got to be the engineer and then you got to remember to get back to the entrepreneur so that way you can keep your business growing.
Mike McFall:
So Tom, think of your people, your staff, your group, your team. What do you think the top three concerns they have are right now? And not just about work, not just about being a barista, but in the world. What are the top three concerns they have right now?
Tom Belongia:
Number one thing that I hear most often about people is their work life balance and how to maintain that, how to not burn out, how to not go home exhausted. How to still have somewhat of a life with maintaining things. That would be number one. Number two I think is happiness. That everybody is concerned, trying to find what makes them happy. Trying to be happy in what they do, not just at work, but in everything else. And number three is what their future is going to be. Where are they going to go? What are they going to be able to achieve? How are they going to get there? And having a positive outlook for being able to get there. That'd be my three.
Mike McFall:
Thank you.
Tom Belongia:
It was weird. So we had this moment during COVID and you're trying to celebrate your staff and you're trying to encourage them that they're doing the right things. And this must have been halfway through 2020 and those dark moments where we were all having these daily meetings and we're huddled in and I was trying to figure out how do I thank them? How do I find something to say positive things for them? How do I encourage them to keep coming to work when we were labeled essential and had to still stay open. And I couldn't figure out anything, pizza party, whatever, gift cards.
I had this epiphany and I literally just said, what do you guys want? I'm tired of coming up with ideas. I was literally, it was this moment of frustration, epiphany, what do you want? What's going to make you guys excited and happy? And two of my employees go, "I just need a gosh darn day off, but I can't afford it." Awesome. How about a PTO day? We're going to give everybody a paid day off that you can pick to use whenever you want. Will that make you guys feel appreciated?
Oh my God, did everybody explode? They were so fricking happy that they got a paid day off. So then we started using it in contests like, okay, we're going to do this. I won an ABC award, I got it over here on the shelf. So when people ask me about it, I don't tell them this, but hopefully nobody from Bigby watches this. But one of the things we've done as motivation for our stores is they can earn paid time off if they hit certain numbers. And you can imagine a part-time employee who works 15 hours a week who's like, wait, wait, I'll get an eight-hour day if I get all of this stuff done and paid for it? They are motivated.
Laura Eich:
That would've worked on me. I was so competitive and I was competitive just to have my name on the top of a list. So if I could have also gotten a paid day off?
Mike McFall:
Well, the thing-
Laura Eich:
I would've had all of them.
Mike McFall:
I mean, I've said forever that the most valuable thing we can provide people that work with us is time off, paid time off. Let them be able to manage their lives, let them be able... And so we work really hard to have a PTO program that allows people to live their lives. And yeah, the weekend shouldn't be about administrating your entire life. So you can go back to work on Monday morning. You should be able to take a Tuesday afternoon off and go get your tires rotated and your oil changed. So the most valuable thing, I'm not surprised that you said that as something that came up for you because you were listening and you figured it out, but the most valuable thing we can provide people that work with us is paid time off.
Tom Belongia:
I looked at it. So you'll go to business owner, it's a dollar amount. In the end of the day, for me it's a dollar amount. So I just need to make whatever it is I'm asking them to do worth that dollar amount. And then it's the same as doing anything else. It's the same as buying t-shirts or hoodies or pizza parties or gift cards. It's just a dollar amount for me. But for them it's my kid is sick and I don't lose any money. It's I need to go get my car fixed and I don't lose any money. It becomes this huge thing for them because they don't have to worry. And that's the biggest killer is worry. That's why people get burned out at jobs. They're worried.
Mike McFall:
Totally.
Tom Belongia:
So what can we do to fight that? All right, it was PTO, let's do it.
Laura Eich:
And it's so interesting because what I think what you tapped into is there's the dollar amount and then there's the value. So you could spend the same amount of money and get everyone presents, and that might be nice and some people really thrive on a gift, on that kind of thing. But what you realized was the highest value for the dollar amount was in fact just paid time off. And if I was to guess, it's very likely made you more money just to put it crassly. If the competition is in raising the average beverage check or whatever the thing is, it's at least probably a wash. It's afforded itself to be there and then everyone gets the value from it.
Tom Belongia:
Well, and then it's the unmeasurable stuff. So one of my favorite people that I get to interact with, and I'm going to brag about Laura Anderson's store and Michelle, who's her district manager. Michelle is the secret behind Laura Anderson. She is absolutely amazing. We were over at her store and literally I had Cordell Riley with me and he was over there and we're sitting in this store and he literally looked at me as Michelle is introducing him to every customer who came through the drive-through, not just as, oh, here's Bob. No, here's Bob, who the first day we ever met him passed out in the store. We got to save his life. And this is his wife. And then the next customer, oh, this is Janelle. She is the biggest Bigby fanatic. She used to go here and now she does this and here's her dogs and here's her kid. And going on and on and Cordell is sitting here there like "Wow."
Every single person who was coming through, Michelle knew not just their name, but who they are. And that is one of those things. And Laura is an amazing, amazing person. I absolutely love working with Laura and she's one of those people that I hope I have inspired to do kind of these things and I hope that I instill these kind of things in with her. And I see it when I go to her store there and you see these kind of interactions. So it's that third generation of these things all from Mrs. Rainmaker who has now instilled all the way down into me, into Laura, into Michelle.
Laura Eich:
Oh my gosh, I love that so much.
Tom Belongia:
And you have no idea what that value is. I can't put a dollar amount to it. I can't say because I get paid for that. That's awesome. I have no idea. I was telling this when we talk about unforeseen events, Laura's store almost didn't open. It was the week before COVID hit. Her employees didn't show up. We were going to have to push her store a week. If we had done that, it would've meant we would've been opening post COVID, which we probably meant she probably wouldn't have opened.
I had again, a call with my lovely wife as it was one of those moments of we're out of employees, but there's this possible other thing. But I got to give up my weekend to go do it. What should I do, honey? And my wife in her brilliant manner goes, "You know what the hell to do, go do it." Click. And so I gave up my weekend to train more employees to get her open on time. And because we did, we had this amazing open, she had a great week. And by Friday, COVID hit. If I hadn't have given up that weekend, if I hadn't have sacrificed that one thing, probably-
Tom Belongia:
... wouldn't have given up that weekend. If I hadn't have sacrificed that one thing, I probably wouldn't have Laura. Laura wouldn't have two stores. I wouldn't have Kim in Plymouth. I wouldn't have the store in Appleton. I probably wouldn't have the store in Milwaukee. I wouldn't have the stores that are every day that are interacting with her and all of these different things because I gave up one weekend. It's these things that we don't know what it's going to touch and what it's going to do, because I have a passion for my job and I have a passion for people. I don't know. I can't calculate that number. I know it's real. I know it's out there. I know it's high value, but I can never really put a number to it. And I think the same thing is with those PTO days.
Mike McFall:
Listen.
Laura Eich:
Exactly.
Mike McFall:
You have an amazing business on your hands. It's thriving and growing and beautiful, yeah.
Tom Belongia:
Yeah.
Mike McFall:
It's because of this conversation. It's called leadership. It's called good leadership. It's like human-centric leadership and-
Laura Eich:
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Mike McFall:
And when people look at business owners in the world or leaders in the world that have these thriving, amazing organizations, it's my opinion that it's actually this approach that gets that done. And I will make that case from now until the day I die, and businesses grow and get big, and then they end up with leaders that managed via spreadsheets. And the business is so strong and so powerful that they can do that for a while, but at the end of the day, it doesn't work. And so I think throughout history, your great organizations had this kind of leadership at some point in the organization to really compel growth and build a culture that's outstanding in power.
Tom Belongia:
110%.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, everything you've talked about, Tom has been making the next right choice for the people around you, which isn't always the next right choice or the logically right choice for the business-
Mike McFall:
Or for you.
Laura Eich:
Or for you to say, okay, here have some PTO days. That's not a simple decision that's saying that's going to cause some scheduling difficulties. That's going to cost some money. There's going to be some challenges that come along with that, but if this is just the next right choice for the people, that's what I'm going to do. And it sounds like that's just what you do. Same with the Laura Anderson story. You were like, well, this isn't the best choice maybe for me, I don't get to cuddle any chickens this weekend, but it's the next right choice for what she needs and what for her community. And then you ended up having such... The ripple effect of all of that is so major given the unexpected pandemic that was looming and that kind of thing. I do think we need to start wrapping things up as usually when Mike's like, "What? How can we be wrapping things up?" So I want to ask Tom, what do you want your legacy to be?
Tom Belongia:
My legacy is my kids. They are what I am creating and what I'm developing and what I'm working with. I have three kids. One is on her way to being an eagle scout, is going to be in conservation, and she's passionate and she's driven, she's amazing. My middle daughter is like, she is my idol, and I hate to say it almost this way because she can sit down and grab a book and something I can't do and power through this thing and she knows everything in there. My son is eight and a half years old and he is just a rambunctious, crazy, awesome kid. And that those three, that's what my legacy is. If personally business-wise, I want to see a hundred stores in my state, I want to see a BIGGBY Nation Summit in the Wisconsin Dells, I want to see a transformation in the way that we're talking about what it means to be successful.
It's not just in the spreadsheet. It's important. I've said this a long time. It's awesome running a coffee shop. It's even better running a profitable one. But that isn't the whole statement of what it means to be a BIGGBY Coffee owner. It shouldn't be the statement of what it is just to be an entrepreneur or a business person or a small business person. It's how many lives have we affected? How many people have we improved? How many things can we have touched on? How many people can we have inspired to go on and do something different? I love all of the people who have been with me and have moved on to other things, have gone to finish college, have gone on to go be parts of different businesses or maybe starting their own or becoming teachers or becoming nurses or becoming whatever it is that they are passionate about. Love those stories. And I tell everybody when they start with me, unless you're planning on retiring with me, I want to celebrate you wherever it is that you go next.
Laura Eich:
Beautiful. Perfect.
Mike McFall:
There's this Dr. Seuss book, Oh, the Places We Will Go! And there's a quote in there, and I'm not going to get it right, but it's essentially like this is your moment. This is when you will shine. We celebrate you moving on to beautiful things. That's definitely not the quote, but that's what that reminds me of. I mean, oh my gosh, the power of celebrating people in your organization moving on to do incredible things, there's nothing more powerful to me than that. And that flies in the face. It's heresy to most business managers. Most business managers approach it like, oh, you're going to pour all this energy, all this money, all this time and effort into someone, and then you're going to celebrate them leaving and moving on. Absolutely. That's what it's about. And that shift in mentality to me is so important to be a strong, powerful leader.
Tom Belongia:
I'll turn it back around on people when they challenge me on it. I'm like, what would you pay to have a champion out in your community saying how awesome you are? What would you pay to do that? You pay influencers to do that. I don't. I have past employees who we've celebrated and gone out and do that, who come back every day to come and get their drink and tell me, "Oh my God, I miss working here. It's such a great job." And then they go off to their big kid job, their adult job, and they're going out and doing their own things, but they still think back on what their favorite job was. And I hope to be that for at least a few people.
Laura Eich:
I think you've already succeeded with a few people. I think you're well on your way to everything you just described in your legacy. And I just want to thank you so much for coming on and pouring your heart out, bringing your 100% with us today. I think everybody could hear that. I could talk to you for hours and hours and we might have to bring you back on for season 2.
Mike McFall:
Tom, you're a beautiful soul and I love you very much.
Tom Belongia:
Oh man, that means the world to me. And I love you too, both of you. But Mike, I got to get you to come out to Wisconsin for my meeting. Okay. March next year.
Mike McFall:
You know Wisconsin is my second favorite state in the union. I'm there. Tell me when and where.
Tom Belongia:
It's the Minton [inaudible 00:59:03]. Yeah.
Laura Eich:
Oh, let's not get into that.
Mike McFall:
We thought we're going to get through this whole thing without that debate.
Laura Eich:
Okay. We'll put the debate, maybe there can be a poll in the show notes about who is the true Minton state to be continued later. Tom, thank you. We love you. We'll talk to you. We'll talk to you soon.
Tom Belongia:
Thank you.
Mike McFall:
Holy smokes. Do I love that guy. I mean...
Laura Eich:
So much.
Mike McFall:
Just can't get in enough of him. I remember... So listen to this. I got a great Tommy B story. One of our bankers, Ed Hardin went to Wisconsin with me on a little golf trip, but really we were going to meet with Tom and his people and spend time there, and we got a little golfing on the side, but we went to dinner one night and Eddie sat next to Tom and they talked all night and we're walking to our car, and this is Ed's analysis of Tommy. "I've never met anybody like him before." I was like, "Yep, us too."
Laura Eich:
It's so accurate. If I could spend all of my time talking to people as passionate as Tom is about whatever he's passionate about, oh, I'd be just so happy.
Mike McFall:
I know.
Laura Eich:
I love being inspired for things as simple as taking care of chickens and learning that they, I think he said pur and coo, which is just the cutest. I've never thought of chickens as adorable in that way, but now do. But also, that's how hard he goes for his people and taking care of his employees and his franchise owners that are under his care and his family. You can just hear it. He just, I don't know. He drips passion for whatever he does, and I just, I think that's so admirable.
Mike McFall:
Yeah. I loved his story about PTO and that it wasn't this loving, listening session where he explored what people wanted and so on. He got pissed and frustrated because he was like, "I can't think of something else to do, so you know, why don't you all tell me what I should do?" And then they like, and they tell him, and then he's like, "Oh yeah, that's a pretty good idea. That's beautiful. Let's do that."
Laura Eich:
Yeah, let's do that. Yeah. So simple.
Mike McFall:
And to me, that moment of it wasn't about having this kumbaya conversation with the employees. It was like he's pissed. He doesn't know what to do. He's frustrated. That's just so telling for me.
Laura Eich:
Right. Or nor was it the, I'm just going to keep doing what they've taught us all in small business school 101, which is we throw them pizza parties and we buy them t-shirts and we get them presents every once in a while and it's like, those can be great. I was never mad when my franchise owner threw us some dinner when we were on the closing shift and that kind of thing. That does feel fine. But he realized there's got to be something more to this and oh, that something more is actually relatively simple. I know there's complication in enacting a PTO policy, but it's like, I can do that. Let's just do that.
Mike McFall:
Yeah, let's just go ahead and do that, and it isn't even... The thing that's crazy, and you nailed this was you could bonus somebody a hundred bucks, and that's cool and that's meaningful. But the value, what they really need is just some time. And they can't take the time because they can't afford it. And so if the hundred bucks meant they could take a day off, I guess that equates. But they really, really value the time.
Laura Eich:
Yeah, and a little bit of flexibility. Also, I so appreciated his stance because this is something we definitely practice within the BIGGBY Coffee home office, which is to celebrate when people move on from us. And people are always questioning that a little bit. Like, you're happy that they went to another job or they went to another company, or whatever. The thing is, we're like, yeah, if that's where their passion is, we don't want to handcuff anybody to our company and say, you must work here because you work here. We want you to chase your dreams. We want you to chase your passions and we might just be a lily pad on the way to your next lily pad moment and that kind of thing.
Mike McFall:
That's what's frustrating me about this podcast a little bit because I wanted to tear into that. I really did because there's so much there, but we just can't, we don't have enough time.
Laura Eich:
Yeah.
Mike McFall:
But what I wanted to tear into is that it's also this thing around how people are presenting you in the world, and people talk about, oh my gosh, how do I find good people? It's so hard to find good people. Well, how about this? How about create an environment that people want to work in and then celebrate them when they go on. And guess what they're going to tell everybody they know how amazing it is to work within your business. And then guess what? People are going to have a line at the door, people that want to work for you. It's not that fricking hard to understand, is it?
Laura Eich:
Right. No. I've talked to several franchise owners about considering their staff as their future customers and their future influencers. I loved when Tom was like, "A bunch of you pay influencers, I don't. I just treat my people well."
Mike McFall:
And they're my influencers. That was beautiful. Yeah, it was so good.
Laura Eich:
They're so good. Yeah. And they live right there in the community and they bring their family and they tell their friends.
Mike McFall:
Yeah. Yeah. Love it.
Laura Eich:
All right friends, if you enjoy what you heard today, you could of course find more episodes of this podcast at loveandleadershippodcast.com or wherever you find podcasts. You can follow us on the social channels at Life You Love Lab on Instagram and TikTok. You can find out more about Mike and what Mike is up to. We talked a lot about his books today and that kind of thing at michaeljmcfall.com. Did I get that right?
Mike McFall:
Yep. Perfect.
Laura Eich:
Michael J. McFall, we're very formal with your.com. Yes, okay. Fabulous. And we hope to have you listening in next time. So thank you all so much for listening. We love you lots. Mike, I love you lots.
Mike McFall:
Love you too. Love booberry.
Laura Eich:
We'll talk to you guys soon.