Jim Mizes, former CEO of Blaze Pizza

Daniel Blaser (00:06):

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 am clocking in with Jim Mises. Jim's impressive career includes contributing to Taco Bell's expansion in the late eighties and early nineties, serving as VP of operations at Jamba Juice and spending six plus years at the helm of Blaze Pizza. Jim and I talk about what he's learned in his 30 plus year career, specifically in regards to the hourly workforce. We also discuss the importance of building efficient systems for hiring and training employees and some of his predictions for the future. Enjoy. Jim, thank you so much for being on the clock today.

Jim Mizes (00:51):

I'm glad to be here. Good to meet you, Daniel.

Daniel Blaser (00:54):

To start off, I'd love to hear just an overview of your impressive background and your experience.

Jim Mizes (01:00):

So I really think I'm going to go all the way back about 50 years to being a high school Allstate lineman, offensive lineman, which is going to coat a lot about how I see the world and how I see business and working with people. So went to Dartmouth for undergrad and played some ball there and then went to UCLA for graduate school with a master's in finance and accounting. And I had the typical finance and accounting mergers and acquisitions and financial planning roles for a couple companies. True story, I was in line to become the CFO, but I had to go through an accounting track. And even though that's my degree, I didn't care for accounting. And a wise man said to me, well Jim, you don't want to be a 40 something year old financial analyst or financial planning person, but you're so good with people, why don't you move into operations and we'll help you learn the operating role.

(01:55):

And so I said, that's a great deal. And so I did that and was quite successful in building teams and growing the business in a couple of different smaller restaurant chains. And lo and behold, taco Bell asked me to come join their advanced management recruit program. Lucky enough to work with some great people who are still my mentors today, helped Taco Bell launch 59 79 99 run for the border way back in 1989. And it changed the face of fast food and it changed my career because I was seen as someone who could take something that was unique and different and drive it. And actually we built sales by 60% in one year, six zero. And that enabled me to be promoted a couple times. But the long story short is in the PepsiCo world, if you're good, you get promoted and you got to move a lot.

(02:47):

And I had some young kids and decided that that wasn't the career track for me. So I was lucky enough to go start to work with a founder at Noah's Bagels. And what I saw was big companies give you all the tools and systems. Some of them aren't so great as they get older, but you need tools and systems to grow a brand. And so I was lucky enough to be able to build those at Noah's as we grew from eight to 108 restaurants in three years, and then a Jamba Juice from 40 to 450 in six years. And so I put together a pattern of tools, systems, programs, learning and development and leveraging technology that would enable us to grow. And I did a side detour working in a couple of health club companies. And anyway, ended up back at Blaze Pizza back in 2013 when there were just two restaurants. And I retired in August of 2019 when we had 341 restaurants.

Daniel Blaser (03:48):

That's very cool. Definitely the nineties. I feel like that Taco Bell was one of the biggest fast food brands at least growing up around in that time.

Jim Mizes (03:56):

And it was nothing in the late eighties. Alright. And we changed the face of fast food by taking on McDonald's and competing on price value. And of course today I think Taco Bell's the most innovative brand out there in the world of fast food.

Daniel Blaser (04:10):

Let's jump over to your experience at Blaze. As you mentioned you were there during a period of considerable growth. Can you talk just about that experience a little bit and then some of the key learnings specifically being with Blaze Pizza during that time?

Jim Mizes (04:25):

Now, blaze is primarily a franchise organization. Some of the other companies I've built were company owned restaurants, but I've worked in both arenas, company and franchise owned. And as I said, the key to growth is consistent, high quality growth. And so you have to break it down into what are those components. In the case of Blaze, it starts with finding the very best franchisees who are experienced restaurant operators. But even then, once you have that, you have to then develop the learning and training and development systems so that you can scale and grow quickly. And the feedback mechanisms, all of these really require an investment in technology. And so getting your tech stack right is important, but also investing in the right technology so that you can replicate and grow. And so that leads into everything from your learning and training and development systems to how you open a restaurant, the ongoing training, the feedback mechanisms from customer feedback both via platforms like Google and Yelp, to what other measuring tools you use to compliance systems so that you can measure this incredibly fast growth and make sure when someone is off track that you provide for them the support that you need.

(05:43):

In company operations, it's the exact same thing. You just have more control and more influence over what goes on day to day versus working through franchisees, but when you have the right franchisees, it's actually better faster to grow through them.

Daniel Blaser (05:59):

What did your experience at Blaze teach you about the hourly workforce specifically and hiring and retaining for that workforce?

Jim Mizes (06:07):

Well, it's not only Blaze, it's everywhere I've been. It starts, starts at the restaurant level with the people that you bring into your brand and how you bring them in. And workstream is an example of how you can be more efficient in doing that. But when all is said and done as I wanted to start out with, as I said, I was an offensive lineman in high school and college, look, nobody knows what an offensive lineman does, right? Because everybody wants to look at the quarterback or the running back are the wide receivers, but none of that happens without an offensive line who gives the quarterback time or creates a hole for the running backs to run. And so I built my whole career on the foundation that our job as leaders is to clear the path for the hiring manager at the, and usually that's the general manager, assistant general manager, to do what they really are supposed to do, which is hire people and train them and serve guests.

(07:03):

And all the other administration that is put upon a restaurant general manager is secondary to task number one, hire the right people, find the right people, hire them and train them. And task number two, serve your guest. Everything else falls way beyond that. And a lot of organizations and a lot of leaders forget that. And so my interest in work stream from the very beginning when I met Desmond was simply he had found a way to simplify that process, to smooth that process, to eliminate all the bumps and challenges of setting someone up for an interview and getting them interviewed and screening them. And when you can make it as simple as possible so that task is done efficiently and effectively, well then you've made the life of that restaurant general manager who really is the running back or the star quarterback of the restaurant. You've made it easier. And so to me, it fits in with everything that I've been about.

Daniel Blaser (08:02):

I love how you kind of simplify it down a little bit. The essence of the thing is to build up a good team and serve the guests. It really, I mean it's simple, but it's obviously not simple. It takes a lot of work. But I do like how you kind of distilled it down into that.

Jim Mizes (08:19):

Well, as soon as you realize who's the star of the show and the star are the team members who are led by the general manager. And so I have to make the general manager's job as simple as possible, clear the way for them to be successful, which is what a lineman does. So the others can be successful. It's analogous. And a restaurant, look, the most important people are the people in the restaurant who are doing the work. They really are. And there are many different tasks. And the other thing that you have to realize, just as on a team or even in an orchestra if you want to use that, you would never ask a violin player to play the tuba. You just wouldn't. Well, there are people in the restaurant who, like at Blaze, who are dough makers, very exacting work. Well, they're probably not going to be the very best cashier or the dining room person. So it's knowing and figuring out what are the tasks and experiences and skill sets required hiring to those training and developing to those. And then of course creating the opportunity for advancement and growth for those people. Everyone wants to grow in advance and that's what a great coach does.

Daniel Blaser (09:31):

What should people look for as far as, maybe someone doesn't have the skills right now that you're looking for, but how do you kind of identify the potential in them to be able to be trained and to be able to take on those roles eventually?

Jim Mizes (09:46):

Yeah, well they're good interview questions that can help you sort that. So as an example, alright, in talking to someone who you want to hire for an open dough maker position, well, I'm going to ask questions about maybe what games they like to play because they wouldn't need to be exacting and thinking ahead like chess or checkers or they love doing certain things where metrics and measuring are involved. For a cashier, the only skill required for a cashier as an example is someone who's really friendly and outgoing. And by the way, I have two kids, one who's an extrovert and one who's less of an extrovert. Well, there's one that would be better on the cashier role than the other one. They're both great kids. I love 'em equally. But we all have our strengths. And I think what great leaders do at the restaurant level and everywhere else in business is they find what people's strengths are and they let them apply them, right? Versus it's not so important to really build up your weaknesses, it's to play your strengths.

(10:48):

I learned that early in my career that sometimes businesses and people want to support you by rounding you out, and in some cases that's important, but in most cases, no. What it is is I am very good at these things and if you ask me to, I'm a terrible artist. If you ask me to spend all day drawing, I'm not going to be happy. It might develop the creative side of my brain, but I'm going to develop that in a different way. And art is not it. And I think you can find that in people all the time where we try and change them and adapt them a little bit versus you're really good at something and let's go forward with that.

Daniel Blaser (11:24):

You moved on from Blaze Pizza a few years ago, and since then it seems like you've been really involved in kind of the consulting and advising side of things with specifically businesses that are in the restaurant space still. Can you just talk a little bit more about what that experience has been like and maybe what you've learned in the last few years in being involved there?

Jim Mizes (11:46):

So today I focus in two different areas. One is actually consulting and advising growing restaurant brands. So I am helping out the team at Dave's Hot Chicken, which is growing even faster than what Blaze did. And a lot of the team from Blaze is over at Dave's, but I love being a part of how they think about growth and adding my nickels worth of advice, what I can. And I'm also helping a couple other franchisees who are in growth mode to grow as well. And so that lets me stay connected to the restaurant business. I have always prided myself on being primarily on the leading edge once or twice on the bleeding edge of technology, like to be leading, not bleeding. And so today I advise a number of software organizations that impact restaurants. So one is inside analytics, one is an applicant tracking systems like Workstream where I like to help the team as much as I can and others are learning and development. Again, all tied to how do I help the individual be more successful. At least two out of those three are all about helping the hourly worker or the general manager run the very best restaurant they possibly can because once again, when that happens, the brand can flourish, the brand can grow, and it's just a beautiful thing to see a restaurant that's working well together.

Daniel Blaser (13:19):

How do you think that technology will impact maybe the future of the hourly workforce specifically? It already has obviously, but maybe looking forward 2, 3, 4 years, how do you see technology continuing to play a role? There

Jim Mizes (13:34):

Are employees already who everything takes place through their phone, their schedules, et cetera. Look, I think AI is going to play a bigger role in restaurants, and so scheduling is going to be even more important to the team member. Learning and training is all going to take place through your phone. It already is transitioning to that, of course it's going to still be done on company time. You can't ask someone to look at their phone for company business when they're off the clock. But yeah, it's all, look, the days of binders and the days of any kind of going to a tablet I think are quickly moving to the wayside. And your communication is going to be through your phone, through quizzes and fun ways to engage through social networks on the phone. And that's how employees are going to get everything. And really the final training or sign off is going to take place in the restaurant and it'll take place in moments, not minutes, moments.

(14:36):

And because all of it is ready to be on your phone and in some cases it already is on your phone. And I love the day where here's what's going to happen. That employee who is a part-time employee comes in on Friday because they go to school Monday through Friday, come in Friday afternoon, whatever was rolled out on Thursday or Wednesday earlier that week, the manager's going to go, Hey Daniel, can you open up your phone, go to this whatever application and look up the introduction of this new product. It'll take you five minutes to read it or punch in on the clock, go read this, then meet me over here at wherever that we're talking about and let's either make the product or here's where you're going to find it on the register. And you're trained that to the way I was trained, right? I had to go sit down in the back office, read something, watch a video that was as boring as could be, come on out, and maybe if the manager had a moment to show me, otherwise they just threw you on the line and said, good luck.

Daniel Blaser (15:33):

I mean, that's a pretty promising kind of picture of the future. And I feel like will have implications for a better customer experience, a better employee experience, retention, that it seems like a small thing, but that can really affect the entire top to bottom of a restaurant.

Jim Mizes (15:51):

Well, when you think about restaurants that spend so much time, money, and effort to roll out a limited time only product, and then to have a team that is not informed or trained really do a poor job with it, well you've minimized its impact. And the whole idea of that product was to drive top line sales, create a better guest experience, et cetera, and you fall short. And then people go, I wonder why that product didn't work. And so the investment upfront in people in training, in getting the right people through the screening process, that work stream and then turning them properly is just so important.

Daniel Blaser (16:26):

Now, I kind of mentioned this, but the audience for this podcast, it's people that are involved in hiring and retaining hourly employees. For my last question, I just wanted to give you the chance to maybe leave final word of advice or recommendation or something to our podcast audience.

Jim Mizes (16:41):

First off, the most important role for someone who is hiring in the restaurant is to make sure you make the time to hire. Right? There is nothing more important in a restaurant than hiring the right people. And obviously workstream can help streamline that process. I'm a big believer in it, but making the time, not delegating that unless it's the right time for someone to learn that skillset like an assistant not delegating that is really important because who you choose is going to ultimately determine your success, number one. And then number two, I would always say I can hire for attitude and at least in the restaurant business and in most hourly, I can train that skill. So I have to hire for the attitude. And so I'd say to the person doing the hiring, what are you looking for? Be very clear and then develop the questions that can help you screen for that.

(17:34):

Alright, that are behavior-based questions much more so than other questions and values-based questions can work as well, especially for an hourly worker. And then put them in a place where they can succeed, which means that you're playing their strengths and that you give them the training and the onboarding, et cetera for them to be successful. Because when that happens, the great news about a restaurant business or other places where hourly workers are there, it's like a trade school. There's such an opportunity for advancement. And when you find the right person who sees that there's an opportunity for them and they like their work, well, it just creates a year's worth of opportunity for them to grow. And by the way, as an hourly or as a manager, the best thing you can do is demonstrate that you can hire, train, and develop people. And whether they stay with you or they go work for another restaurant within your brand because they're now ready to be their own gm, you know what? That reflects on you so much more than any bottom line result.

Daniel Blaser (18:40):

Great advice, great perspectives. I think everyone listening to this is really going to connect with that.

Jim Mizes (18:45):

I'm happy to do so. It's really my joy today. It's really helping people become their best selves is what it's all about after a 40 plus year career.

Daniel Blaser (19:02):

Thank you for listening to On the Clock. For more info, visit workstream us slash podcast. I've also included a link in the show notes to connect with Jim. Until next time, we're clocking out.