Ben Little, owner of the top Zaxby's locations in the country

Daniel Blaser (00:00):

<Silence> Hello, and welcome to On the Clock, presented by Workstream. If you care about hiring and retaining hourly employees, you're in the right place. I'm Daniel Blazer, and today I'm clocking in with Ben Little. Ben is the owner of 14 Zaxby's locations in the Southeast us, including some of the top performing stores in the country. We discussed the importance of maintaining consistency while scaling, why you should always invest back into your business, how to identify potential leaders within your organization and much more. Enjoy. How have you maintained like a consistency as far as like both hiring, but then also like the customer service that you offer as you've opened more locations? Because I've heard from other customers that, that that can be a challenge, obviously.

Ben Little (00:51):

Yeah, it, it definitely is. I have a, a unique advantage, I guess, in my operational structure is that in every restaurant I have an operating partner. So, you know, they get paid a salary plus a percent of the net profits, and you know, just really goes a long ways and aligning the incentive and making, you know, the operating partner that's in the store day to day, week to week you know, actually serving the guest, making sure that their incentives are aligned in the same way that us, the licensees are. And then the other thing is, you know, just having just really high standards and, and holding people accountable when they need to be account held accountable. You know, that's one of my favorite Tony Robbins things is, is, you know, if you're getting a result that you don't like, then raise your standards and, and, you know, it sounds so painfully simple and obvious, but you know, when you sit there and, and think about it for a second, you know, if you're, if you're getting a result that you don't like, it's because your standards are low enough to allow for that result to happen.

(02:01):

So, you know, if you have high enough standards, then you know you're gonna start getting the results that you want.

Daniel Blaser (02:07):

So maybe kind of a related, and maybe it's a similar ants or, you know, someone say, someone's watching this, and they, they own one store or two stores, and they're like, one day I wanna have a dozen, two dozen, whatever it is. What recommendations, advice would you give them?

Ben Little (02:23):

Oh, man, <laugh>, we, we could do a week long podcast on that. But, you know, I'd I'd say just invest back into the business. I mean, that's, that's really the secret sauce. I mean you know, we've, we've got the, the number one, number three and, and a bunch of other top 20 and top 50 locations in the entire Zaxby's system out of 920 locations. And I mean, the, the whole secret is just invest back into the business. You know, I mean, yes, you know, live your life. Take, take a little money out to, you know, <laugh>, put food on the table for the wife and kids, and do some fun things along the way. But you know, as much as you can invest back into the business and, and especially invest back into the people and you know, developing the leaders and future leaders.

(03:14):

And, and you know, the other things just align the incentives, you know, I mean, I'll, I will say it until I'm until I'm dead, is, is, you know, I, I greatly don't believe in the traditional, you know, gm DM area manager model, just 'cause it, it doesn't align the incentives, you know, I mean, you're, you're gonna give them most likely some arbitrary goals that may or may not drive long-term business growth and success. Whereas, you know, when you tie everything you know, to both the bottom line and the top line sales growth and those are really the only two things that matter. Well, how do you get to that? We, you take care of the guests, you serve really hot food. You serve people quickly and in a timely manner. You have really good guest service. You keep the restaurant clean. You know, I mean, that, that's the only way <laugh> you reach those two objectives is you do all those things and you do them consistently every day for a really long time. You know, especially in the restaurant business there, there is no such thing as overnight success. It's, it's doing a bunch of little things really well for really long periods of time. And that I, I know a lot of people don't wanna hear that <laugh>, but that's, that is the secret.

Daniel Blaser (04:33):

That's really interesting how you talk about you know, creating a structure that aligns those incentives. That, I mean, that sounds, it makes a, a ton of sense. But that's something that I haven't really heard before. So that's interesting. You did mention like how you are able to find people that can then make it up to like a managerial level. How do you approach that? Like how do you identify people that are, are ready for those opportunities, and then how do you kind of work to promote them internally to give them more responsibilities?

Ben Little (05:06):

Yeah, I mean that's, that's always a struggle in our industry specifically just, just because of, you know, the aforementioned turnover that, that we usually experience year over year. But, but you know, I mean, you know, going back to what I just said, I mean, that's if you want to keep growing and, you know, grow your top line and your bottom line the, there's no way to do that without investing back in into your people and putting the time and money and effort into you know, showing them how you do all those things. And yeah, I mean, there, there's a number of roads and routes to get there. But, but you know, I mean, there's, there's usually a pretty common set of things that we look for and see in people when we think they're ready to take the next step or, you know, if they're ready to be an operating partner.

(06:05):

And you, you know, I mean, far and away number one is you have to think and act like an owner before you're actually the owner. You know, if you're not doing that, like that's, that's a really hard mindset shift that has to take place if they're not doing it before they become the owner or the operating partner or the GM or whatever. I would say that, and this is probably slightly unpopular, but they need to be a capitalist. You know, at the end of the day, this is, we we're not in a nonprofit and it's not a charity. And, you know, a lot of times that means making really hard decisions with both, you know, people and, and just the business in general. But there, there's a distinction though there, there's the short-term capitalists and then there's a long-term capitalist.

(07:01):

And the kind of people we want are the long-term capitalists, and they're, you know, I call it being long-term greedy. 'cause You know, the, the people that are short-term greedy, you know, they're gonna be more likely to, to cut corners and, you know, maybe not provide as good a guest service and probably run the labor a little too tight so they can make a little more money this month or this quarter. And, you know, they're gonna serve old shitty food that they probably should have thrown away so they don't have high food cost and, you know, they're, they're not gonna keep the building clean because that requires more labor and more repair and maintenance spend. You know, those are the things we don't want. 'cause That's short term greedy, you know, long-term greedy does all of the opposite of that. With, with the end goal being, you know, just building transactions and transactions and transactions because, you know, and in the restaurant business and in my business, you know, that's ultimately how we judge if we're growing or not.

(07:59):

It, it is not, even if the sales are growing is, is are our transactions growing? Is our guest count growing? Because everything else is a, a bs metric of growth. You know, if if you don't have more people coming into the restaurant every day and every week and every month, then then you're not growing. And you know, I would say, you know, go by the same thing. They have to have really high standards and you know, they have to again, be able to hold themselves accountable and hold others accountable and, and, you know, do it in a way to where, you know, you don't come off as an a-hole and you know, I mean, people that are interested in growing and doing better and becoming something more, you know, they want to be held accountable, believe it or not, you know, they, they don't want to just be able to do whatever they want and, and, you know, not you know, not be held accountable if they do something that they should not be doing.

(08:55):

And, and, you know, setting good aggressive goals and, and putting a plan behind it. You're not just saying, I wanna sell $10 million in chicken this year. Okay, well that's great. Well, how are you gonna do it? You know, having plans behind the goals and, you know, people that are ready to take that next step, they, they have a plan for how they want to do it. And, and, you know, then the last thing I would say would probably just, just be obsessive about operations. And, you know, again, just going back to, you know, in the restaurant business, <laugh>, if you're not serving really good hot food, you know, that's kind of one a then people aren't gonna come back. You know, that, that sounds like common sense, but I can assure you it is not common practice. And, and, you know, just going fast, good customer service, keeping the restaurant clean, you know, seeing labor as an investment in the guest and not just a line item to manage. It's all those little things. And, and again, just doing it consistently for a very long time.

Daniel Blaser (10:05):

A lot of great great knowledge. And, and what you just said, one question that we get a lot from workstream customers, non-customers is like, do you have any ideas for sourcing and hiring that are maybe out of the box, right? The, there's the standard stuff everyone tries. What have you seen that, you know, out of the box efforts for sourcing hiring that has been surprisingly successful?

Ben Little (10:29):

There's a couple things. You know, one, I would say kind of the ancillary benefits that you can offer people outside of just, you know, the standard pay, PTO health insurance, whatever you know, things like offering scholarships to, you know, either juniors and seniors in high school or kids that are already in college, you know, talking for, for my industry specifically you, we have been playing around with offering a daycare program for working moms. You know, we have a lot of single working moms that work in our restaurants. So you know, once you get one of them in there and get 'em on the daycare program, and they're gonna be extremely loyal to you. And then the other thing is, is posting job ads and, and posters and yard signs that are in Spanish.

(11:35):

I would say of my 850 employees, I probably have 150 to 200 that are native Spanish speakers. And, and a lot of times, you know, they're, they're just intimidated from the language barrier and, you know, the vast majority of 'em speak some English. But that can be really intimidating for them to come in and, you know, like ask for a job or ask for an interview if English is not their first language. But, you know, if you have yard signs up and, and job postings that are in Spanish, they're much more, they, they're obviously <laugh> gonna apply at a much higher rate 'cause they have the confidence that that, you know, someone will be able to communicate with them. And you know, we try to have at least one hiring manager in every restaurant that is fluent in Spanish. And and I mean, you'd be amazed.

(12:29):

I mean, I know it's kind of a, a stereotype, but I mean, the, the folks from Central and South America, I mean, they're some of the, the hardest working just best people, just super loyal, you know, will go above and beyond. I mean, they, and you know, if you just give them an opportunity they will generally reward you greatly. And, and, and, you know, a lot of times we will pay for them to get English speaking classes so they can, you know, become more confident and, you know, hopefully grow into roles where they can be customer facing as well. And, and you know, kind of a sidebar of that, that, I didn't know this till we started doing the scholarship programs, but if, if their parents are first generation and, and the child is born here in the United States, so it's obviously they're, they're a US citizen, but they have to pay outstate tuition. So you can imagine how unaffordable college education is to those families. So, you know, again, that's kind of another benefit. And and attraction to, to those folks is, is, you know, you, you can get school and college paid for if you come and work for our group.

Daniel Blaser (13:43):

That's really cool. Those are some awesome benefits. You know, you mentioned the daycare program, the scholarship program. I'd love to hear anything else as far as like, what have you done to increase retention or kind of invest in those employees to keep them around longer term?

Ben Little (14:03):

I think it, it mostly just goes back to just, you know, treating 'em really well. You know, I mean, we're, we're, we're still not immune to managers having lapses and judgment and, you know, not treating them like they would like to be treated. But I mean, I think by and large, you know, I mean it's, you know, it's that old cliche if people don't quit jobs, they quit managers. And, and I mean, it's, it's definitely true. You know, if you, if you don't have the right people in leadership positions and in your restaurants, then you know you are going to hemorrhage turnover and, and you, I guess I would say that's kind of a, a secondary benefit of, of work stream is, you know, turnover is not a line item in a p and l statement, but I can assure you it's in there and it is a big line item, you know, but would you get down into the nitty gritty of, you know, the cost to recruit, the cost to hire, the cost to onboard the cost to get 'em trained uniforms, you know, the list goes on and on.

(15:10):

I, we did the math last year, I wanna say for an hourly team member, it cost us like $2,000 for every person that turns over. And then, you know, that that only goes up with pay rate. So, you know, that's kind of where workstream can can help out is, you know, you can know all those benefits upfront and you know, just kind of goes to help communicate with the team members better, what to expect. And, and, you know, the job postings are really easy to change and adjust if you need to. And you know, it's a big cost and, you know, anything you can do to minimize it you know, is is, is a nice secondary benefit.

Daniel Blaser (15:58):

I think I have one more question left for you, which is, you know, you mentioned that it's possibly been the hardest job market maybe in history the last 18 months or whatever it's been. Do you think we're gonna see a shift in that towards, you know, a little bit easier hiring for hourly workers? Like what, what do you kind of, if you have to put on your predict the future hat, you know, what, what do you kind of anticipate over the next, you know, year or something?

Ben Little (16:28):

It's definitely getting easier. But you know, we're, we're starting from the frame of reference of we're coming off the worst of all times. So <laugh>, you know, anything that's not the worst of all time is easier. You know, we, we have seen applications continue to increase and I mean, you know, knock on wood you know, we're, we're finally to the point of where, you know, we're actually turning people away and, and, you know, limiting our availability on the, the scheduler and work stream, just 'cause we, we don't really need anyone right now. And I, I think it's gonna continue to trend that way, at least for the next three or four months. You know, as you see unemployment trickle up and especially on the backside of Christmas when a lot of those part-time jobs go away you know, with UPS or Amazon or, you know, those kind of jobs I see especially January to March should be easier.

(17:31):

I don't think it's ever gonna go back to the way it was, you know, in 2019 or earlier. But it's, it's getting better. But again, I don't think it's ever gonna go back to the way it was. And, you know, if you don't have good competitive edges, you know, like using, you know, work or doing, you know, any of the other things we've already talked about you, you're just gonna be at a big disadvantage. And, and, you know, ultimately our business, it's a people business and, you know, if you don't have good people running your restaurants, then oh, it's an uphill battle <laugh>.

Daniel Blaser (18:07):

Those are some great points. And hopefully, you know, as, as maybe you continue to get more applicants coming in, like you said, you're having to actually kind of set some limits now. Maybe you have the opportunity to increase the, the quality of candidates or a little bit more and kind, you know, now you have your, your pick of, of the candidate pool.

Ben Little (18:30):

Yeah. It's, it is, no, we're no longer in can you fog a mirror? Okay. Your hired stages, you know, we, we've moved on to other requirements now.

Daniel Blaser (18:43):

Thank you for listening to On the Clock. For show notes and more info, visit workstream.us/podcast. I've included that link as well as some links to connect with Ben and see what he's up to in the show notes. Until next time, we're clocking out.