What if your workplace could genuinely help you build a life you love? Today, Alisha Beck, People Development Mentor at BIGGBY® COFFEE, shares her journey from barista to mentor, illustrating the transformative impact of the Life You Love Laboratory, also known as LifeLab. Through LifeLab’s workshops, centered on personal growth, financial wellness, and self-discovery, participants are encouraged to align their lives with their values. Discover how blending technical skills with human-centered “soft skills” nurtures a workplace culture that empowers employees to feel valued, confident, and truly connected. In a conversation with hosts Mike McFall and Laura Eich, Alisha delves into the challenges of embedding these principles within a busy franchise setting, noting that LifeLab's influence is still expanding. With programs like Vision Store, BIGGBY® COFFEE aims to make personal development accessible to all team members. Alisha’s wish? For every franchise owner to experience a LifeLab workshop firsthand. Listen in to uncover how BIGGBY® COFFEE is redefining workplace culture, one person at a time!
Guest Bio:
Alisha Beck, originally from southeast Michigan, has a rich background in people-oriented roles. Starting her career at Dunkin Donuts, she transitioned to BIGGBY® COFFEE, where she has held various positions at store and home office levels, including personal development mentoring, culture development, and employee coaching. Alisha currently holds the title of People Development Mentor and is a key part of the LifeLab team. Outside of work, she is a mom, wife, and dog mommy and lives in Farmington, Michigan.
Key Points From This Episode:
Quotes:
“Our purpose is to support you in building a life you love. And I am just so naturally drawn to that as a person because I have always wanted to inspire people to do exactly that.” — Alisha Beck [0:11:57]
“When we started building what we call the boost sphere, I felt really passionate about what that work was going to be turning into, and I wanted to have a seat at the table to help build it and help create it and help grow it.” — Alisha Beck [0:13:10]
“Part of [our quest] and that we’re trying to prove is that this work is how you are going to be profitable. – It can feel like an afterthought, and it can feel like something that can happen later, but when we keep waiting until after, we might miss that [opportunity].” — Alisha Beck [0:32:12]
“If I could wave a magic wand, it would somehow be finding a way to engage the owner-operators more. And that is a lot of the work that we are focused on this year.” — Alisha Beck [0:38:49]
RESOURCES:
Follow Alisha Beck
SEASON 2 EPISODE 4
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08.0] 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, I’m joined as always by the one and only, Mike McFall. Mike, how are you doing?
[0:00:19.1] Mike McFall: Good, Laura, good to see you.
[0:00:20.5] Laura Eich: Are you actually good? Should we talk about how you’re actually doing?
[0:00:24.3] Mike McFall: Well, yeah, I’m sick as a dog, yeah. Last night, I kept saying that I’m like, “I’m just so tired, like, why am I so tired? This is crazy.” And then I woke up this morning and I had the explanation.
[0:00:37.5] Laura Eich: Yeah, I’m so sorry.
[0:00:38.5] Mike McFall: That’s all right, you know, we’ll power through them in this little cell with all by myself, I’m not getting anybody else sick, so.
[0:00:44.8] Laura Eich: Yeah, that’s good.
[0:00:45.6] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:00:46.2] Laura Eich: We appreciate that.
[0:00:47.4] Mike McFall: Now, tell me what’s going on. You’re in your Florida, right?
[0:00:48.7] Laura Eich: I’m in Florida, yeah. I’m looking at the ocean as we speak which is really nice, and I’m loving the sunshine. It is like, peak Michigan fall beauty right now back at home. So, I’ve had a few people be like, “Why are you there now?” But, this time in Florida when it’s not a hurricane, it’s also like, peak Florida, warm but not too hot, humid but not too humid. Nobody’s down here, so like that’s awesome. So, we’re loving it.
[0:01:17.1] Mike McFall: Yeah, yeah. So, what’s going on for you this week?
[0:01:19.8] Laura Eich: Oh man, we’ve ‘had a crazy couple of weeks. So, we had back-to-back annual planning and quarterlies and just full-full days, I had another quarterly yesterday. So, it’s been a lot of meeting time, I’ve been in front of a computer a lot but I think it’s been good. I love the process of planning. Usually, by the end of a quarter, we all get a little squirrely and a little bit sideways as far as like, what we’re supposed to be focused on because we’ve finished the things we planned on for that quarter, and that kind of thing.
And so, when we are able to come back together and actually do the plan and get clarity, I think that’s a very satisfying feeling and I feel good going into the next week and the next week, knowing what we’re actually trying to do here. What about you? What do you have going on?
[0:02:02.3] Mike McFall: Well, so, I got this lake house, right? And it’s right up by where I grew up. So, it’s just right near my parents’ house and my parents, they have an apple orchard kind of near their house that is on the way from Ann Arbor to the lake house. So, I’m like, “Hey, let’s go to the apple orchard on Sunday.” It’s the same apple orchard I went to when I was four, five, six, right?
And I have a memory of what going to the apple orchard is like, and we go to the apple orchard and this place was crazy town. I mean, it was like a carnival. They had rides, they had Ferris wheels, they had – like, it’s no longer about cider and donuts and a pumpkin.
[0:02:48.6] Laura Eich: Oh, that’s funny.
[0:02:49.0] Mike McFall: I mean, it was packed. Like, the parking looked like a Walmart parking garage.
[0:02:53.4] Laura Eich: Oh my gosh.
[0:02:54.4] Mike McFall: Well, if we’re talking fairly seven years of progress, but somehow, it didn’t feel like progress to me. It felt like [crosstalk 0:03:01.4] kind of going sideways and going the wrong direction but anyway, the owner of that fine establishment, I’m sure is making bank.
[0:03:10.3] Laura Eich: Yeah, they’re doing fine.
[0:03:11.5] Mike McFall: I guess, that’s what it’s about, I don't know but it was really depressing for me because it – I had a vision of what my afternoon was going to be like with my kids, you know? And it really wasn’t that at all.
[0:03:21.8] Laura Eich: Were you able to like, find a quiet place on the orchard to kind of have the – oh, no. Okay.
[0:03:28.2] Mike McFall: No-no-no, because once you’re there, the kids want to be on the rides.
[0:03:30.9] Laura Eich: Sure, okay.
[0:03:31.8] Mike McFall: Yeah-yeah-yeah, so, and it was 28 bucks for my family to ride one ride.
[0:03:36.2] Laura Eich: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
[0:03:38.4] Mike McFall: They went on like four, I’m like, I’m over a hundred bucks into four rides, we’re done with this.
[0:03:42.2] Laura Eich: At the apple orchard, that’s so funny. It’s interesting because I was just having a conversation with my husband yesterday. Like I said we’re in Florida, this is a place I’ve been coming to since I was born, this was my grandparents’ place, if we show the video, you’ll know that it was my grandparents’ place because it’s pretty decked out in like some 70s golden turquoise and stuff and it’s pretty fabulous.
But we were in the pool yesterday after work, and I was just sort of reminiscing about how that’s a pool that I was in when I was a baby. That’s like one of the places I learned how to swim and stuff and that was another one of those parenting moments where I was like, “This is really nice.” Like, the ability to repeat a memory or have a memory as an adult that is about your childhood but with your child and so, all that to say, I’m so sorry that the apple orchard didn’t work out because I had kind of the opposite.
[0:04:32.7] Mike McFall: It kind of like be like going to the pool and now, there’s a floating bar in the middle of the pool with a DJ and you know, that kind of thing.
[0:04:42.0] Laura Eich: Yeah. nope, mine’s just a pool and it’s the same. I think, maybe the chairs are even the same, nothing has changed. Oh, so disappointing. Well, in light of some of the like, clarity meetings that I was talking about. Yesterday, I was in our Life You Love Laboratory quarterly meeting, where we do our quarterly planning, and a huge chunk of our time was clarifying, prioritizing our programs, what we do, what we care about, what we need to be focused on for this fourth quarter, and then the first quarter and that kind of thing.
And so, it feels very timely to me that our guest for today is Alisha Beck from The Life You Love Laboratory here at the BIGGBY COFFEE home office. She has been on the podcast before which is super fun. She’s, I think, our first repeat guest and I’m just so excited to get to talk to her today, find out what’s happening with LifeLab from her perspective, a little more about her story, I want to dive into, and she’s a ray of sunshine. So, I’m just excited to talk to her and with her for the next little bit.
[0:05:43.8] Mike McFall: Yeah, that’s great, and I can’t wait to make fun of her.
[0:05:46.6] Laura Eich: Awesome, perfect, great, that sounds like a perfect segue, we should get going. Can’t wait to talk to you, Alisha Beck from the Life You Love Laboratory.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:05:54.4] Laura Eich: Alisha Beck.
[0:05:54.9] Alisha Beck: Hi.
[0:05:55.6] Laura Eich: Welcome. How are you doing?
[0:05:59.4] Alisha Beck: Been good, how are you?
[0:06:00.5] Laura Eich: Doing very well. You are our first repeat podcast guest, that’s a very big deal, how do you feel about that?
[0:06:07.0] Alisha Beck: Very honored.
[0:06:07.7] Laura Eich: That’s great.
[0:06:08.3] Alisha Beck: Happy to be back.
[0:06:09.2] Laura Eich: Awesome. Even more fun because last time we had you out here, you were on with two other friends and so, there was a lot of people on that particular podcast episode. This is all you, all the time. It’s going to be amazing, and for the sake of our listener friends whoever has found us today, I’d love you to just get us kicked off with who are you, where you’re from, and what is it that you do in life?
[0:06:32.2] Alisha Beck: In life. Oh. So, my name obviously is Alisha Beck. I live in Farmington Michigan and I work for the BIGGBY COFFEE home office. I am on the LifeLab team, short for Life You Love Laboratory. Currently, I’m a people development mentor, worked with the company for almost 12 years at the home office level but I started as a barista. So, I worked for a few years as a barista. Other life things, I’m a mom, I’m a wife, I’m a dog mommy. So yeah, that takes up most of my days. So, that’s me.
[0:07:05.1] Laura Eich: That’s amazing. Can we go back? So, you’ve been with the home office for 12 years, you said you were a barista before that. Can you talk about that journey a little bit more? Like, how did you end up as a BIGGBY barista, what were you doing before that, and then how did you end up at the home office? Because we all have a story there.
[0:07:20.4] Alisha Beck: Oh yeah, right? So, I actually worked at Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins. I think I started when I was like 17 or 18 years old. My mom grounded me and was like, “You must go get a job.” So, I went and got a job.
[0:07:32.3] Laura Eich: I didn’t know that part of the story.
[0:07:33.2] Alisha Beck: She did, she totally did.
[0:07:35.3] Mike McFall: What did you get grounded for?
[0:07:36.1] Laura Eich: Yeah, what did you do?
[0:07:37.5] Alisha Beck: Honestly? I was in swimming. So, I swam like most of my afterschool stuff was swimming, and so once school or once swim ended, she was like, “You need to go work, you’re going to have all this free time, like go, get a job.” I was like, “Okay.” And she told me I couldn’t hang out with any of my friends or go do anything until I went and found a job. So, I went and found a job, obviously.
[0:08:01.7] Laura Eich: Great.
[0:08:02.2] Alisha Beck: Yeah, and so I worked there for probably about seven years, I had climbed the ladder there. I had started off kind of working as like a nighttime employee. I had unturned management, I was the store lead for a little while and I kind of had just hit that ceiling at that point. There was nothing else for me to do. I was kind of – kind of going to school while I was working at Dunkin but I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
I had no idea, I was just kind of going because I felt like it was the expectation to go. So, I was like, “All right, I’ll go.” Finally, my cousin asked me if I wanted to move in with her, and she was going to Grand Valley and they needed a fourth roommate and I was like, “I am not really doing anything here.” I felt the urge to go grow. Like, I just – I felt really bored and I didn’t know what was next, and so that landed me across the state.
And I started working or started looking for a job when I got over to the west side of the state and I got two different job offerings. It was either to go work at Panera or to go work for BIGGBY. I knew I wanted to work in something with like, coffee related or something like that because I was already really good at that and I had those skills and I chose BIGGBY, obviously. I just – the environment, when I walked in there was just amazing.
It just – it was very warm, very welcoming, I fell in love with the people who interviewed me, it was Dave and Kelly at the time.
[0:09:24.2] Laura Eich: Oh yeah.
[0:09:24.8] Alisha Beck: Yeah, and they just seemed so great and I was like, “Yup, this matches my personality, this is – this feels like it’s the right fit.” And so, I worked there for a little bit. I had Kelly who I just mentioned, she actually got a job at the home office as a home office percolator, and so she moved from the store and I had also met someone who came in and was doing our inspections, and she was like, just a ray of sunshine.
Like, she was so fun, it’s so night and day compared to the people who used to come and inspect at Dunkin Donuts. It was just a night-and-day thing.
[0:09:59.8] Mike McFall: Do you remember who that was?
[0:10:01.3] Alisha Beck: I do. Her name is Lindsey.
[0:10:02.6] Laura Eich: Lindsey Beckett? Yeah.
[0:10:04.3] Alisha Beck: Yup, yup-yup, and she was just, she ended up being my boss once I got to the home office after a little while but yeah, she made me feel like, “Oh yeah, I want to do this.” Like, if she can do it, I can do it, and it just became a really tangible thing and that next step into this feels like it’s the next right thing and so, I applied to be a home office percolator and I got the job and the rest is history, I guess.
[0:10:28.5] Laura Eich: I think that’s amazing. I don’t think there’s a lot of companies where someone is inspired to work somewhere because of the inspector of a store. Like, I don’t think that happens very often. Oh, that’s pretty great.
[0:10:43.8] Alisha Beck: Yeah.
[0:10:44.9] Laura Eich: Can you talk about your journey from, I know you worked – you worked in operations for the first couple of years, you worked as a home office percolator and then there was a few other versions of that job, and once again, turned into a manager at some point and everything like that but talk to me about that leap from the traditional operations world over into The Life You Love Laboratory world, and a little bit about what was happening in your mind.
Because, I love what you just highlighted in your BIGGBY story where it was like, you’ve mentioned a few times where it was like, “This feels right, this feels like it matches me, this feels like it fits my personality.” I think that’s such an important part of the career journey that we hardly ever talk about is like something feeling like the right door has gone opened and not just any door has been opened and stuff.
So, just talk to us about like, how you started pursuing working in LifeLab and what that journey was like.
[0:11:36.8] Alisha Beck: Yeah, so I obviously, like you mentioned, had a lot of roles within the operations world and I always kind of was just moving from thing to thing and growing and learning and absorbing more and helping the company however I could. We started pursuing our purpose and figuring out what our purpose, what our vision is as a company, and the purpose is to support you in building a life you love.
And I am just so naturally drawn to that as a person because I have always wanted to inspire people to do exactly that. I mean, back when I was in training, I wanted to help support people figure out what their strengths are and what they’re passionate about, and have fun at work, and make work an enjoyable place for people to be, and so I think, a lot of that stems from leadership too.
Like, you have to have really strong good leaders to be able to have that type of work environment, and I think when we started talking about coming up with like, a leadership training group and a place where we can really be the leveling up the leadership in our company, that’s where I started. My ears started perking up and I was like, “This feels like something like, I would be really good at.”
I’m really good at noticing those moments in our career, I feel like. I feel like I always feel like the tingle. I’m like, “Wait, something’s happening over there that I should be a part of.”
[0:13:07.9] Laura Eich: Oh, I love that.
[0:13:08.6] Alisha Beck: Yeah, and I – so, when we started building what we call the boost sphere, I just felt really passionate about what that work was going to be turning into and I wanted to have a seat at the table to help build it and help create it and help grow it.
[0:13:27.8] Mike McFall: When you went to stores, I can imagine you channeled your inner Lindsey.
[0:13:32.3] Alisha Beck: Oh, 100%.
[0:13:33.3] Mike McFall: And I think that that’s just so powerful, right? And you, you do – I think you do that for people as well, right? And I think that’s one of your superpowers is infusing others with positive Alisha energy, and so I – yeah, I never knew that Lindsey’s part of the story but it makes sense to me and would you say you were that way at Dunkin Donuts as well?
[0:13:56.3] Laura Eich: Yeah, who were you at Dunkin?
[0:14:00.5] Alisha Beck: Do we want to explore this? No, I’m kidding. Honestly, I think yeah. I think there was components of it, we didn’t focus on life stuff, you know? It felt very, like when you walked into the store, you needed to kind of just be here, work, do this.
[0:14:16.7] Mike McFall: Time to make the donuts.
[0:14:17.6] Alisha Beck: Yeah, yeah. I definitely had some four AM donut frosting days in my day.
[0:14:22.9] Laura Eich: Delightful.
[0:14:24.6] Alisha Beck: Yeah, oh yeah, but I think that’s what made me a really good leader and what made me a really good manager and what made me respected at Dunkin because I always made work fun. I truly feel like I always just made work fun and I have always had I think also a special superpower at helping people feel like they belong and so, when people would come in and work, and if they renew, I feel like I was really good at helping them integrate into the staff and making them feel like they could belong and they had a purpose and they had that stuff.
I just felt like I needed to do more of that. I need to be seen for that strength and then also be able to do more of that but yeah, I do feel like that’s always kind of been baked into who I am.
[0:15:07.9] Mike McFall: Yeah, except, you make everybody feel loved and encourage everybody to belonging, except for the CEO of the company.
[0:15:14.3] Alisha Beck: Listen.
[0:15:15.5] Laura Eich: Stop it.
[0:15:18.1] Alisha Beck: Listen, I called you back.
[0:15:20.8] Laura Eich: Wait, is there beef? What’s happening right now?
[0:15:24.2] Mike McFall: Yeah, I think I placed like three phone calls to Alisha to check in on her and she never called me back.
[0:15:28.9] Laura Eich: Oh my gosh.
[0:15:29.7] Mike McFall: Eventually, yeah. I gave her world a shit about it.
[0:15:32.4] Alisha Beck: He did. Listen, we talked, we had a whole conversation.
[0:15:38.6] Mike McFall: Okay, the air has been cleared, I know but I mean, it sounded like –
[0:15:41.2] Laura Eich: Yeah, are we good now?
[0:15:42.9] Mike McFall: We’re good, yeah.
[0:15:43.0] Laura Eich: Okay.
[0:15:43.9] Alisha Beck: Maybe, maybe now I’m mad.
[0:15:46.7] Laura Eich: Got a little sweaty.
[0:15:47.3] Alisha Beck: No, I’m okay.
[0:15:49.2] Laura Eich: Oh, I have so many more questions. Do you guys need to talk about whatever that was or did you actually talk about it?
[0:15:52.7] Alisha Beck: No.
[0:15:53.5] Laura Eich: Okay.
[0:15:54.8] Mike McFall: Just joking around.
[0:15:55.9] Laura Eich: Okay, that’s good. At the same time then, you were reflecting on your beef, that’s great, I was thinking about the flaw in this whole podcasting thing is bringing on people that I love and putting them out there into the public because I feel like someone’s going to listen to this podcast they should be like, “I want her in my company.” And I’m like, really nervous now that you are going to like, put some of our superstars up here on the podcast, and then you’re going to get poached. So, please don’t leave me.
[0:16:24.1] Alisha Beck: Yeah, it would take a lot. It would take a lot, so, I like it here.
[0:16:27.5] Laura Eich: Yeah, that’s good, except when Mike gives you grief. All right, so let’s talk about LifeLab a little bit more. You joined the team, it was amazing, it was wonderful. One of the programs in particular that I think you saw an opportunity then because you do – you have a couple of other superpowers that are – they’re not sneaky but they’re much more subtle, people don’t necessarily see it.
They see your joy, they see your love for people, that’s obvious but one of your other superpowers is like, turning things into a system, which is super valuable within a franchise world. I’d love you to talk about the process of getting your hands wrapped around our Life You Love workshops, and maybe explain what those are, what you saw when you first joined the team because I’d love in particular, I can.
If you want me to do the history of like, “How did you get started?” And blah-blah-blah-blah, but I love you to talk about the story of where you joined in and what you’ve done to evolve these workshops because it’s a big program that we run that’s very different from your average franchise system I think.
[0:17:28.8] Alisha Beck: So, the workshop program started as actually something called Lila Curriculum, and this was really focused on our purpose. BIGGBY COFFEE’s purpose is to support you in building a life you love and these were brought on as ways for people to really go to work on themselves and go to work on what we call these foundational elements of building a life you love, and those really stemmed from something.
I’m going to get super like, up here but Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Basically, this is a theory that suggests that for people to be able to reach self-actualization, to really be able to build a life that they love, they have to have their needs met first. Their basic needs need to be met in order for them to be able to do this thing, and so we wanted to find a way to really have people be able to go to work on that.
To be able to really put something behind the “We support you in building a life you love.” Something really tangible, and that’s where this workshop program was born, and so we have four main, they are focused on a sense of belonging, your personal vitality, the ability to exceed your basic needs, and knowing who you want to be, and so those are also – they all stem back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
They all fit in within belonging and having self-esteem and making sure you’re taking care of your basic needs like you know, making money, putting money aside for your financial future, all of that stuff, and so yeah, that’s kind of where they’re originated. When we had first built them, we were doing them at the home office with our home office crew, and this was back when we were still working at the home office.
Where obviously, you guys know, we’re virtual now and so – but we were in-person, doing these curriculums, doing these classes, building them out, testing them with that group, with the end goal of being able to launch them to the system and being able to go in market and do these things and really spread it to more of BIGGBY Nation, and so when I entered the team, it was – I was doing that.
So, I was always like, one foot in operations, one foot in this team. So, I feel like, when I entered it, I was kind of working on the workshop program and I was hosting some of these classes by making some of them better and doing all of that but then we got to a point where we went virtual, and we were like, “Okay, these classes have now essentially topped. What do we do?” And I think we saw an opportunity to be able to launch these to the rest of the system because we could do it virtually.
Virtual wasn’t really a thing that we did very often as an organization prior to the pandemic, we really didn’t.
[0:20:18.3] Laura Eich: Yeah, good times.
[0:20:20.0] Alisha Beck: I know, right? And so, it gave us the opportunity to share this with so many more people and that’s where we were able to launch it to the system and get people, integrate into it, and just have more opportunities for people to do this instead of having to go into markets and go into stores and worry about the scalability of that, it was easy to just adapt to that.
[0:20:46.2] Laura Eich: Yeah. I want to ask a question, which is, it’s going to sound like I have an opinion and I do have an opinion but it’s not how this question sounds. Why do they matter?
[0:20:56.1] Alisha Beck: Why do they matter?
[0:20:57.9] Laura Eich: Why does this workshop program matter?
[0:20:59.8] Alisha Beck: That’s a big question.
[0:21:00.7] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:21:02.9] Alisha Beck: I think, I mean, honestly, it’s a good question though because you know, I believe that they matter, they matter a lot. I think there’s so many reasons why they matter. The first one that I know is not a lot of businesses are doing something like this, and work is not just meant to be the hard skills, the training of the job, the making the coffee, the pulling the shots, the how do you engage customers, the checklist, all of that.
It’s not meant to be just those hard skills that they get taught during training, which our training programs are great and our systems are so-so great, it’s all that extra stuff. It’s the soft skills, it’s the way you show up to work, it’s the way that you engage your staff and your fellow coworkers and your customers. It’s the way you feel at work, whether you’re confident in what you're doing, you feel like you can raise concerns.
You feel confident enough to be able to do so. Is the company is the business also taking care of you as an employee, instead of you just showing up for a paycheck? It’s all of that extra soft skills stuff. That’s why it’s so important.
[0:22:12.8] Mike McFall: I would just add broadly that I have a feeling you’re going to keep going Alisha, but I wanted to add to this point, which is they matter because no one else is teaching this stuff. Nobody. You go to a university or high school or you know, like you said, other jobs, other organizations that you work in, no one’s teaching this stuff that we feel really, really matters in terms of building a foundation, right? For the ability to pursue and build a life that you love.
[0:22:40.0] Alisha Beck: Yup. Yeah, I think we’ve been able to see sort of the before and after journeys for a lot of people who have gone in and done this work, and so just in seeing that firsthand, you’re like, “Yes, it matters. Holy crap, this person has just become such a more confident and happy human.” And so, there is that but to your point, Mike, yeah, there’s not a lot of places in the world that are working on stuff like that.
And I think that’s part of the reason why I was so drawn to it because when I started with this company, I was in my young 20s, and I was at that point where I’m like, “I don't know what the heck I’m going to do later in life, I have literally no idea what I’m going to eat for dinner tomorrow.” And so, for people to start asking me questions like, “What do you…” And I’m looking at you, Mike, “What do you see yourself doing in 20 years?”
I was like, “Uh, great question.” And that made me feel so nervous, and I think that’s actually part of the reason why this work can seem so intimidating for people is because we do start asking those questions but we sort of hold your hand and like guide you through it and make it a lot easier and make it a lot easier and sort of take bite-sized chunks of it instead of just throwing things in your face, like, “Figure out your whole life plan right now.” But yeah.
[0:24:01.6] Laura Eich: Yeah, I was going to ask if you had any specific examples of stories that you feel like you can tell. I don’t want to obviously break any confidence of people but of stories where you’ve seen the impact of the workshop happen. I’m thinking one that I participated in, I know there was someone in there who – it was the basics of managing your money workshop and we talked pretty early on in the weeks about understanding the value of something, and the importance of the value being personal to you.
It doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to spend your money on what people are telling you, you have to spend your money on. It does have to be meaningful to you or else it maybe it’s not worth spending your money on. So, it’s not just about like, save a bunch of money to save the most money, that’s not the goal of the workshop. The goal is to like, understand your relationship with money, understand some basics of budgeting, blah-blah-blah-blah.
And I know, from beginning to end in that workshop, I got to see one person at least, really assess something they were spending a lot of money on, establish that it didn’t actually have a lot of personal value to them and they were able to reduce the cost of that over the course of the workshop with the ultimate goal of moving out of their parent’s house because it was someone that was still living with their parents.
But they had this goal that they valued higher than the thing they were spending a lot of money on at the time and just like watching those transformations is so cool. I’m wondering if you have any stories like that that you’ve witnessed.
[0:25:22.7] Alisha Beck: Yeah, so I think there’s definitely a really large amount of impact I think around it’s the workshop called discovering your values and vision. This one is really tied to that foundational element of knowing who you want to be and I think people who have gone through that and they have been able to start to write down some of their visions for their future, we do have a way to really have them take out their current circumstances and really just figure out what they want, what sounds nice, like and be able to share it with others.
I think being able to actually write that stuff down and share it with others, I have always, I think in almost every one of those rounds of workshops that I’ve gone through seen somebody makes a connection in the group that you know when someone says, “Hey, I want to do this thing or I want to learn this thing,” that other person in that group is like, “Hey, I actually know more about that, let me help you.” And that is one of the best.
Like, every time that happens it makes my whole heart so full because I’m like, “This, this is why we’re doing what we’re doing,” because we’re having people take the time to actually get out of their day to day, their busyness come think about their future a little bit, think about the things that they wish for and that they want for and that they dream for and we make it more tangible. It makes it more actionable.
You can then go have a conversation, I’m going to be silly and give the example of like embroidery for me. I’ve always wanted to do embroidery.
[0:26:51.3] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:26:51.8] Alisha Beck: Yeah, and you know this because I’ve talked about it with you but I’ve always wanted to learn embroidery. It’s always been something that’s been like a very crafty like passion of mine and I remember when it first landed in my moon check guidebook and I remember making a connection in the group and they were like, “Dude, it’s so much easier than you think. Here, let me send you some stuff.” And I do it now.
I love embroidering my kid’s name on some things and embroidering gifts for people and I’m like practicing all the time and that’s, I mean, that is like such a small little thing compared to what goodness can come out of this and then there’s also I will talk about them because I love them but Samara Stewart, she’s a franchise owner in our organization, as well as Michelle Dunkin Wilson and both of them, actually found each other through the workshop program.
This was before Samara even signed in as a franchise owner and they call themselves the BIGGBY besties now and that’s truly because of like the amount that they were able to share in the workshop and they were able to develop this connection and then be able to support each other outside of it with whatever they had going on. You know, they had a lot of similarities, they were noticing those similarities, and they were able to make that connection.
And now, I know that that friendship is like so adorable, and every time I see them, it makes my whole heart melt but yeah.
[0:28:13.2] Laura Eich: Oh, I love that.
[0:28:14.3] Alisha Beck: I know.
[0:28:15.2] Laura Eich: I think some of the friendships and connections that have been made in there were something I did not foresee when we were starting the work on these workshops. I probably should have foreseen it but it definitely is one where I think there’s a bunch of friendships that have popped out of workshops because it’s – you’re coming together, you’re talking about a specific topic but you all for the most part have things in common.
Most people are a part of BIGGBY Nation, people can participate in this outside of BIGGBY Nation but for the most part, that’s baristas, franchise owners, home office staff, and that kind of thing, and I just think that’s such a happy unintended consequence of these workshops and some of those friendships.
[0:28:48.2] Alisha Beck: I know. You know me, I love friendship.
[0:28:50.5] Mike McFall: Do you mind if I take it down a little different path maybe that isn’t quite so unicorny and rainbow?
[0:28:57.2] Alisha Beck: Let’s do it. Let’s do it.
[0:29:01.0] Mike McFall: This story goes back, I don’t know, it was 2021 maybe, 2022, and I got invited to – I don’t know how I can’t remember how the professor learned about our workshop program but he was really intrigued, and he wanted me to come and present it to his class over like a two-day period, and I think there were three-hour classes and so, I went and it was virtual and I went and did my very best, you know?
Like, really tried to represent this thing as well as we possibly could. It was a case study at Harvard’s business program, right? And so, like I was in there thinking, “Boy, if we can get a case study drawn up about this work in our group that would really give us some outside and third-party endorsement.” And I was fully engaged and we went through the two days and then we had an analysis call with, I don’t know who, it wasn’t every student.
But there was like a dozen students and basically, they came back and they were like, “Okay, so here’s the deal. If you can’t figure out how this thing is going to make franchisees more money, then it’s not going to go, it’s not going to go anywhere, right?” And I know you’re looking for that story, right? But I mean, I hate to say this out loud but there does feel like there’s some truth to that because we haven’t had the level of buy-in from the franchise community, the franchise owners that maybe we wanted or we thought we would get.
The intention here was just perfectly positive, right? Just try to bring resources and learnings to people and run these workshops and so on. So, maybe we can just spend a couple of minutes on – because you know, we’re continuing this, right? Like this is – we’re going to iterate. We’ve run the experiment, we’ve learned, we’re going to change, going in and tweak and change and redo-ish some things maybe.
But like, why do you think it hasn’t had the adoption that maybe we dreamed of or thought was pretty logical that might occur?
[0:30:51.5] Alisha Beck: Yeah. I mean, there’s definitely a lot of speculation, so everything I’m going to say is what my genuine think is, right? Because this is a lot of the work that we’re doing right now. We’re trying to figure out why this isn’t getting the traction that we wanted to have, it’s had an impact, right? It’s had an impact on the people who go through it but we wanted to be bigger, we want it to be better.
I think one of the reasons is because this work can seem intimidating, right? It feels like people are having to come and work on questions that maybe they seem just more farfetched, more in the future, and I think it goes back to the alignment thing for me. Like, if we’re working and we’re discovering what we’re more aligned with, the outcome will be better, more confident people in right seats type of work.
I think another thing is that I mentioned the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and people needing their foundational needs being met first and I think that this seems like a thing that can happen after. It doesn’t seem like something like this work doesn’t seem like something that is a need. People want to make sure that their stores are profitable and that they’re making money before they do work like this.
And part of the quest we are trying to be on and that we’re trying to prove is that this work is how you are going to be profitable. This work is how – what is going to make you more money but yeah, it can feel like an afterthought and it can feel like something that can happen later after but when we keep waiting until after, we might miss that.
[0:32:35.9] Laura Eich: Yeah. Something that’s also been happening, I’m participating now, thanks for asking a question, Mike.
[0:32:42.1] Mike McFall: My pleasure. [inaudible 0:32:44.3] Things are running a little slow for me.
[0:32:48.0] Laura Eich: Oh, God. I think something we’ve also been up against is trying to match. We think this work is really important, we think it’s important to do particularly for younger people and a huge element of our BIGGBY Nation population is younger people, 19 to 22-year-olds is a lot of the barista population, that kind of thing, and our barista population is our biggest population.
And so, reaching them is this interesting signal antenna challenge, where I sound like an old foggy the moment I start talking about this stuff but I’m like, “Kids these days, they have a different expectation for how information is exchanged and delivered and how they participate with information and the attention span stuff is out there and I think we all know that attention spans are getting shorter.
And so, if I think back when you were telling the first story of like how we formed workshops, that was me remembering that first version of our workshops were 12 weeks long. They were 12 weeks long, which feels now like, oh my gosh, how did we have anyone go through a 12-week workshop? Now, we have them down to six but even that still often feels wrong. I know this is some of the work that you’re doing Alisha, maybe you can talk about this.
But some of the work is like, how can we bite-size some of these so that people can get started because like, that’s the hardest thing, right? It’s breaking inertia, like getting started with something new is half the battle, especially with younger people who are busy all the time and working all the time and have things going on all the time and that kind of thing, like getting them to commit to a six-week program where they’re just going to talk about their budget, maybe not super sexy sounding.
Maybe not super exciting sounding but like oh my gosh, it’s so important and I wish someone had put me in front of a budget workshop or understanding the value of money and my relationship with money when I was 19 years old, that would have been amazing but I can only see that now that I’m 36 years old and that kind of thing. Anyway, the signal antenna piece is something I think we’re constantly trying to work on.
And the iterations are super fast right now because we do, do these longer programs, and we have to keep operating the program while we assess the program and anyway, Lish, what came up for you with that? I know that was more of a story than a question but –
[0:35:04.2] Alisha Beck: No, you’re good. I even thought about how our store sometimes are short-staffed right now and I know people going through the workshops, they’re very – they all signed up. They will register, they will get excited about coming but then the reality of the day-to-day kicks in and they’re like, “I have to go work the line.” And so, sometimes it does feel like we have to solve those things that are going wrong within the stores before we can make this a priority.
But that sort of and that just goes back down to like what comes first, the chicken or the egg type of conversation where it’s like I feel like this work should also be a priority and an expectation and almost be treated as important as you being on a shift on the line because the impact it’s going to have is going to be long term. It’s not going to be something you’re going to see right away but the payback is just going to be so impactful.
And that’s the thing that we’re trying to work tangible is what is that payback actually look like and put some numbers behind it so that people understand it’s importance and that is part of the work that we’re doing in something called the Vision Store Program.
[0:36:18.8] Laura Eich: Ooh, talk about Vision Stores, yeah.
[0:36:22.9] Alisha Beck: Yeah, so we have a program called our Vision Store Program where stores can sign up for leave shortened day, it used to be a yearlong program and now, we’ve made it about a six-month program this next year, where people can go through, and really learn some skills about how to be a better workplace for their staff and we’re talking about improving workplace culture in America, right?
And this program is directly focused on how to do that and we go over all those areas that I talked about, we go over how to create a sense of belonging within your store and how to help your baristas discover their strengths and their values, and doing this work in tandem to also creating amazing wonderful beverages and engaging your staff or engaging customers and being the community hub within your store and your communities.
And so, a lot of what we’ve talked about and what we’ve done in the workshop programs are also being baked into this and so we’re finding ways to have conversations and not necessarily pull people into a six-week workshop because that can be hard, right? But how can we infuse the workshop work into our day-to-day operations and that’s part of the work that we’re trying to do.
[0:37:42.9] Laura Eich: Bingo.
[0:37:43.7] Alisha Beck: Yeah.
[0:37:44.2] Mike McFall: If you could wave a magic wand and make one thing happen this year, what would it be?
[0:37:48.8] Alisha Beck: Ooh, this is an intense question.
[0:37:55.0] Laura Eich: Choose carefully.
[0:37:56.9] Alisha Beck: I know, right? Honestly, if I can make – made – oh my God if I could wave a magic wand, I truly would have more of our owner-operators engaging the work that we’re doing in LifeLab. I would have them engaging in the Vision Store Program. If we could, every single owner-operator who hasn’t come into Vision Store Program, let’s do it. I would have them come to a workshop.
A workshop, just one, and just see what it’s like and be able to talk about it from experience because we’re seeing it. The owner-operators that are coming through and they are engaged in the work and they’ve attended one if not all of our workshop program, we’re seeing their staff start to sprinkle in too and it’s because they’re able to amplify the experiences that they had and the impact it had on them and pull people in.
So, if I could wave a magic wand, it would somehow be finding a way to engage the owner-operators more and that is a lot of the work that we are focused on this year, that’s why we have you know, Bree working more within our area of representative program and why we have Jeremy, who’s working in the training operations world and stuff like that, so we’re coming.
[0:39:11.1] Laura Eich: Yeah, can I answer that too?
[0:39:13.3] Alisha Beck: Yeah.
[0:39:13.9] Laura Eich: It would be to have the actual data that we dream of having is my magic wand thing. So, it would be the – we’d be able to look at baristas that come through the workshop program or stores that are participating in the Vision Store Program and be able to say, “Baristas that participate in workshops increase their average tenure by this, which saves the franchise owner this.”
Or, “Stores that are participating in the Vision Stores program have on average higher AUV and on average a higher barista tenure, and that ultimately nets a higher EBITDA of this percentage.” And it’s like, we have all these numbers that we – the information is there, the ability to crunch those numbers and the time to crunch all of those numbers is much more complicated.
So, having that sort of analysis at the case study, if we can find another university class that wants to study us, I would love that because like, I’ve got the stuff to study because I think that’s all of the proving out that we need with franchise owners is we think if your baristas and your staff as a whole are focusing on their personal vitality, they’re going to be healthier, happier, less unexplained or unexpected absences.
They’re probably more enthusiastic salespeople, they probably sell better. Like, we could break that all down, like per barista just from taking charge of their personal vitality or folks who are just on survival mode with their money. Like that takes so much mental energy from people and that mental energy is just taken out of that like discretionary effort fund that people have within themselves as far as how much energy they put towards their job and their work and interacting with consumers. I could keep going but I will stop, that’s my magic wand wish.
[0:41:02.6] Alisha Beck: Yeah. No, I think we need to find a way to be able to communicate to all different type of needs. I think there are people who are just like, “Oh, you’re saying it’s impactful and these are the things I will learn? Sign me up.” But I also think they are the people who do need the data. They need that to be able to feel like it’s going to be a valuable worth of their time and I totally respect that, and so that’s a mission. It’s a journey.
[0:41:28.4] Mike McFall: You know, I think there has to be some recognition of the fact that like, we haven’t been doing this that long.
[0:41:33.1] Laura Eich: No. Yes, it’s still new.
[0:41:36.7] Mike McFall: And few in things, we met like five years, isn’t that right?
[0:41:36.7] Laura Eich: For real, less than five years. I think we formally established it in 2021.
[0:41:45.3] Mike McFall: Yeah, so like, we’re just getting started with it and we’re learning. I know there’s value and I just – I also think it just takes some time to get something like this rooted.
[0:41:56.3] Laura Eich: Can we talk about that a little bit? Like, I know we probably need to be respectful of time soon here but there is the challenge of setting up an unconventional or nontraditional program into something that it’s like a franchise system, there is deep-seated traditions, normal practices, normal departments, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, and what we’re doing in LifeLab is a lot of nontraditional, right?
And even offering things like workshops and like the Vision Store Program, like the Life You Love assessment. If you’d like to take the life you love assessment, go to BIGGBY.com/lyla but like setting these things up is new. What do you see as some of the challenges, Lish, that we face with trying to integrate this new stuff and getting people on board, and getting people willing to just try?
[0:42:49.2] Alisha Beck: I know. I mean, I think this is such a good question. I think a lot of it is, it boils it back down to like why does it matter and being able to show that it matters but I think also finding a way to make it just be part of the expectation, like how do we have it – I mean, we’ve been trying to do this work for a while and I do think we’ve gotten further and further along and we have a lot more to do but making it just part of our system from the get-go, right?
This stuff is important, it’s impactful, and how do we sprinkle it across all different parts, you know? From the minute you sign a franchise agreement the minute you become a BIGGBY barista, all the way up until you’re fully functioning, your store is open, all of that, how do we make sure that we have this work baked into all of our systems and all of our processes, so that it’s just the expectation.
And we no longer have to necessarily do the proving it out, it’s just there, and people recognize it for what it is.
[0:43:58.4] Laura Eich: Mike, what do you see is the biggest challenge?
[0:44:01.1] Mike McFall: Well, I think right now, I think Alisha talked about it earlier, there’s a lot – there’s a pretty significant head wins just for the business for solo cups of coffee and making a profit and you know, we’re been in a fairly inflationary – well, been in a very inflationary moment. The capital has gotten expensive and so just the simple fact of trying to own and operate the business is got to be a struggle.
So, I agree, like this can be a way for the franchise owner to build a better relationship with their employees and build more loyalty and have less turnover and so on but it takes time and they feel squeezed. They feel squeezed already, right? And so, I think that’s the biggest challenge. I think we can, you know, we’re working on the fixing the fundamentals of the business and you know when we get that squared around in the coming year or however, that should free up some people to think more about LifeLab.
[0:45:01.5] Laura Eich: Okay, I’m officially going to respect time. Lish, is there anything else you wanted to make sure to have the chance to talk through, brag about, acknowledge the challenge of, anything like that?
[0:45:13.5] Alisha Beck: I think, I mean I know I’ve said it a few times but I think I might just reiterate it in a different language but I think this work can seem not important and intimidating and it’s so important and it is so impactful and I just encourage people to do the work even if it’s not in our workshop program, like great but being able to take care of yourself mentally, emotionally, physically.
Set goals for yourself, really figuring out like where you belong, and understanding your strengths, like doing that work is so important and it’s just – it’s great and so, I just encourage people to do it even if it’s on their own but obviously, we have a lot of programs to be able to help and support them with.
[0:46:04.2] Laura Eich: Perfect. That’s amazing. Thank you so much, thank you for sharing your story, and your heart with us today, and I just I love you so much.
[0:46:12.5] Alisha Beck: I love you too.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:46:23.0] Mike McFall: Well, I sure enjoyed Alisha being on today, that was fantastic.
[0:46:27.1] Laura Eich: She’s wonderful.
[0:46:28.3] Mike McFall: Yeah, I could sit and listen to her all day, right? She has such passion for what she does and the work and it’s just an amazing – the struggle is what I’m cued on right now, right? Which is this struggle between the pragmatic of what we do as a company and then the impact that we want to have on the world that maybe, maybe some of our franchise owners are that interested in, and so on, right?
And like, that struggle is real and I heard you know, her talk about it but the thing is, is the passion is there, right? Like you can just feel it, hear it, you know especially when she basically closed with, “I don’t care if you do this or that or whatever, just make sure you’re taking care of yourself, make sure you’re getting this stuff in your life.”
[0:47:16.4] Laura Eich: Yeah, and I think she was right on when I asked about the challenge at the end, she was honing on something that I’ve been really focused on, which is the, we have to make it easier, we have to make it almost so easy that it just is part of the system, part of the expectation because I think when it feels like extra or it feels like another thing or an extracurricular or whatever, the immediate response is going to be push back, whether or not someone actually thinks that it’s not worth their time.
But it’s like, “I don’t have time for another thing, I don’t have room for another thing to care about, and so it’s –
[0:47:50.5] Mike McFall: I feel that way.
[0:47:51.7] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:47:52.2] Mike McFall: I get called to participate in things or invited to things and I’m just like, “It’s an automatic no.”
[0:47:56.8] Laura Eich: It’s we just have to make it easy. We have to make it so easy that it’s not even a yes or no, it’s just part of the day and the experience and the BIGGBY COFFEE person somehow.
[0:48:06.6] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:48:07.1] Laura Eich: That’s a worthy challenge I think that we will sort out but yeah, I think Alisha’s passion for people is so infectious, I think if she could just travel around BIGGBY Nation and just like talk to baristas and be their big sis for any amount of time, she would, she would love to do that. It might not be super scalable but I think [crosstalk 0:48:25.7]
[0:48:27.4] Mike McFall: It might not fit the business model but it will be great.
[0:48:29.7] Laura Eich: It would be great, it would be super fun.
[0:48:32.1] Mike McFall: Yeah, I thought that her comments about her first experiences with at BIGGBY and what it felt like, like that was really cool.
[0:48:39.5] Laura Eich: Yeah. Yes, so fun, and the people she mentioned, I didn’t review this when we were talking but Dave and Lindsay and Kelly, these were all people that eventually also worked for the home office and it’s just so fun, the connections, the human connections, the power of those connections, which we talked about as part of the workshops too. Human connection is a really powerful force and I just think –
[0:49:01.0] Mike McFall: Kind of everything, it’s kind of everything.
[0:49:02.6] Laura Eich: It’s kind of everywhere and that we think of all the time.
[0:49:04.8] Mike McFall: Yeah, if you want to get stuff down the road, it’s pretty much about the relationship you have with others.
[0:49:08.6] Laura Eich: Yeah, no big deal.
[0:49:10.7] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:49:11.4] Laura Eich: Any other lingering thoughts from our conversation?
[0:49:14.4] Mike McFall: Yeah, I’m good. I thought it was great.
[0:49:16.0] Laura Eich: Awesome, agreed, amazing, and dear listener, just 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 or review. To follow along with Mike and I as we explore the world, follow us on our social channels @lifeyoulovelab and @mikejmcfall.
If you have an idea for a guest do you think we should connect with, please email lifelab@BIGGBY.com and to learn more about BIGGBY COFFEE’s purpose of supporting you in building a life you love, please check out BIGGBY.com. We love you for who you are, we’ll see you next time and I wanted to say, love you, Mike.
[0:49:54.1] Mike McFall: Love you too, Laura.
[0:49:55.5] Laura Eich: And we love you too, listeners. We’ll see you next time.
[END]