Chris Schultz spent 15 years with the Starbucks management and leadership team before joining MOD Pizza, aka the MOD Squad in 2009. Schultz helped MOD Pizza go from 1 location to 100 locations in 2016 as Senior Vice President of Operations. Today, Chris serves Voodoo Doughnut as their CEO. You can see, Chris Schultz has developed a track recording of helping great brands scale. That's what we're here to talk about today: When You Know You're Ready To Scale.

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Favorite success quote or mantra:

Be authentic.

When You Know You're Ready To Scale:

• Business
  • Can you show a conservative growth period over the period: Month over Month: quarter over quarter
  • Don't be fooled by being on Main and Main
    • Location is a factor.
    • Your brand must be great to help manage cannibalization
• People
  • Do they understand the Mission?
  • Who are your culture carriers that can help lead and build the stores
  • Pick front line people with whom you'd share a foxhole.
    • have Confidence in leadership
    • Embrace growth and opportunity without fear
• Culture
  • Must have a solid culture to grow and employees want to grow-- "Growth mentality"
  • Failure is not an option -- not just words on a wall, but a feeling you have
  • "Growing big while staying small"
• Infrastructure
  • A realistic view of the brand - Is it actually scalable AND scalable *where* you want to scale?
  • When to hire in for growth VS "stretch" for growth to make it work
    • Failure can occur because of too much overhead or by burning out good employees.
  • Get utility players; they are vital to infrastructure-- find people who can wear different hats. Then empower them.
  • CEO's must be able to sacrifice their own opinions and play the role of the visionary.
    • Having leadership you trust to make decisions based on your vision.
• Why Growth?
  • Making money - nothing wrong with wanting to make more money; but, important to recognize the complexities that come with it.
  • Bringing the brand and experience to a larger consumer base.
  • Growth is not necessarily an indicator of success
  • Incremental growth
    • One to two is hard
    • Two to five is harder and the hardest
    • Five to 10 is impossible
    • After 10 it gets easier
• "Selling" Your Brand
  • It's okay to strategically utilize for growth
  • Why franchising works
  • Brand based companies are different
    • licensing and Licensees
    • Company Operated.
• Are you Ready as a Leader?

Contact info:

[email protected]

425-372-6556

Thanks for listening!

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Huge thanks to Chris Schultz for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time!

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