Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

Steve’s book is Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A; it’s available in hardback at https://amzn.to/460LnmQ, on Kindle at https://amzn.to/3RVXhZs, and as an audiobook at https://amzn.to/3xPjBgn.

You can learn more about Steve and his consulting services at https://srobinsonconsulting.com.

And, of course, there’s more about Chick-fil-A itself on the company’s website: https://www.chick-fil-a.com.

Chick-fil-A’s founder wrote several books, too. One that complements Steve’s conversation in this episode is Eat More Chikin – Inspire More People: Doing Business the Chick-fil-A Way. It’s in hardback (used) at https://amzn.to/4bv8KWs. 

Our host, Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8. Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4)
• Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5)
• Jilly Truit murder mysteries by Beverley McLachlin:
  • Full Disclosure – https://amzn.to/46TxW6Q (paperback) https://amzn.to/46VDL3Q (audiobook)
  • Denial – https://amzn.to/46YCbhs (paperback) https://amzn.to/3GJc0AA (audiobook)
• Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Sherylle J. Tan & Lisa DeFrank-Cole

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Steven A. Robinson is a consultant, author and speaker on organizational culture design & leadership, brand strategy development, marketing planning, and distinctive advertising principles.

He is the former Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Chick-fil-A, Inc., 1981-2015. Prior to joining the company, Steve was the director of marketing for Six Flags Over Georgia theme park in Atlanta, Georgia. This role was preceded by marketing positions at two other Six Flags properties and communications manager at Texas Instruments.

After beginning his career at Chick-fil-A as director of marketing, Steve went on to serve as vice president of the department before becoming chief marketing officer. In his most recent role, he was responsible for overseeing marketing, advertising, brand development, menu development, and hospitality strategies.

In addition to serving on Chick-fil-A’s board of directors from 2016-2018, Steve serves on several boards for organizations and ministries, including FamilyLife, Fellowship of Christian Athletes of Atlanta, Links Players International, Atlanta Hall Management & College Football Hall of Fame, and the National Football Foundation.

He holds an associate degree in business administration from Faulkner State Junior College, a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Auburn University, and a master’s in advertising from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Transcript
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00:00:00
This is innovating leadership, co creating our future. I’m your host, Maureen Metcalf, founder and CEO of Innovative Leadership Institute, where we help leaders be future ready. Helping us in this mission today is Steve Robinson, former executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Chick fil A. We’ll be talking about lessons learned, strategy, development and culture. Steve, thank you so much for joining us.

00:00:24
Maureen, it’s my pleasure. You were with Chick fil A for over 30 years. Can you tell us a little bit about that journey? That’s a long time to be with one company. Yeah.

00:00:35
And it wasn’t what I expected when I joined them. I was director of marketing Six Flags over Georgia in the seventies, and in summer of 1980, the COO called me. His name was Jimmy Collins. I’d met him previously, and he said, Steve, we don’t have a marketing department, and your name keeps coming up. I’m calling to see if you’d have an interest in interviewing for us.

00:00:59
Now, at the time, Maureen, Chick fil A was probably about 100 stores, sales of under 100 million, only in malls, mostly in the southeast states. And I actually had a really good job. I loved my job at Six Flags. And Six Flags was an organization where I was learning a lot about branding and marketing. But I was fascinated by Chick fil a because I knew enough about them.

00:01:20
They were private. I had met the owner. I was familiar with the restaurants, loved their food, and six flights were going through the process of a public ownership transaction. And I was a little concerned about where that would ultimately take that brand. So all that to say, I told Jimmy, yes, I love to interview.

00:01:37
And so to get to your question, the interview process started in August of 1980, and in December of 1980, I’m still interviewing. And early in December, I’m sitting in the founder’s office, Truett, Cathy, and I finally looked at Truitt, and I said, truett, I’m doing this stealth, getting a little cumbersome. Am I the guy you’re looking for to do this job? And Truett, who was about 60 at the time, said, I have absolutely no idea. All I know is, whatever it is, I don’t want to do it.

00:02:08
And that answer caught me a little off guard. And then he said, but if we decide we want you to come here, it’s going to be because we’re convinced that we’re going to have fun together. We can trust you. And at the end of the day, you’re not going to want to go anywhere else. He’d pause.

00:02:26
He said, because the most important decisions we make here is who we invite into the organization, and we take our time with that decision. As I was walking out his office, I noticed on his desk a Bible verse from proverbs 22, one which said, a good name is to be more valued than silver and gold. I said, truett, tell me the story about that verse. He said, well, that’s my favorite verse. I adopted that verse when I was a third grader, and I feel like it’s a pretty strong principle of how to also run a business.

00:02:58
At the time, I actually said to him, I said, truett, you know, that’s also what a great brand is. And I really think you have a making as a chickfila to do something incredible as a brand. The last words he’s told me were, I don’t know when we’re going to make this decision, but I. Joey will let you know. And I left two weeks later.

00:03:16
They invited me to join Chick fil A. Now, what I discovered in my almost 35 years, Maureen, was everything true told me in that interview, and I’ve obviously just hit high spots, was, in fact, true. He did not want to be heavily involved in what I was going to do. In fact, in my entire career, he never called me to his office one time to ask me, why did you do that? Or, I can’t believe you did that.

00:03:43
And there were some situations where he would have every right to call me to his office, but he never did. He never did anything to undermine my confidence that he had in me. And he gave me incredible freedom for innovation. He expected me to go through the same due diligence of selecting talent the way they had done in selecting me, and we did. In my 35 years there, I only had two direct reports that I had to ask to leave Chickfila.

00:04:10
Chick fil A’s turnover on the staff level is less than 3%, and the store leadership, it’s even less than that. So I stayed because I love the culture. I love the values. I will tell you that less than two years into my experience there, we had a major financial crisis. We went off site to figure out how we were going to deal with the cash flow implications of it, because it was not good.

00:04:34
It was desperate. I had actually contributed to the problem with a promotion that went $2 million over budget. And even then, Troy never called me to his office. In fact, I went to Jimmy, and I said, jimmy, I need to apologize. I was too aggressive.

00:04:47
I made decisions, really out of a lack of understanding about the business. And he said, well, don’t worry about it. He said, I was part of the decision. I approved it, and you’re never going to make that mistake again. And I said, well, should I go to true and apologize?

00:05:02
And he said, no, I don’t think you need to go up there right now, but don’t worry about it. That mistake, which contributed to the cash flow problem, also had a major influence on the marketing strategies that we adopted for Chick fil A. But that spirit of empowerment, confidence, there was an attitude and an environment of fun. He made it worth my while to stay, not just emotionally and in terms of my skill set growth, but he made it worth my while to stay financially. The business, over time, actually became an incredible platform for ministry, for Diane and I personally.

00:05:37
And within a few years into it, I never had thoughts of going anywhere else. What I experienced in that interview process and how it played out in my career, for the most part, and when I say the most part, well over 95% of the time is the same experience they’re trying to create for every staff member and every chick fil a operator that runs a chick fil a store. Turnover is low. Understanding of the culture is clear. People are empowered.

00:06:03
Institutional knowledge grows. And at the end of the day, what I told people when I was there, and I still tell them when I go back. Even though Truett has passed away, you still work for Truitt, Catherine, because the business represents what was important to him, and you still represent him in fulfilling that bible verse of a great reputation. I appreciate the depth of your answer and the underpinning philosophy, because every time I go into a chick fil a, I am surprised at the consistency of staff seeming upbeat. They are incredibly helpful.

00:06:40
Yep, they’re running around like crazy. Yes, they are. One of the things I’m curious about in an environment where for some people, fun means we’ve got ping pong tables or foosball tables or kegs in the kitchen or. How did Chick fil a define fun? Because some of the stuff I can’t imagine you would have supported.

00:07:04
Let’s define fun on the restaurant side first. The reason you experienced what you described at Chick fil a fundamentally is rooted in what they call the operator model, which is the leader of that restaurant. There’s an interesting story behind that. In 1967, True had opened his very first chick fil a restaurant in a mall in Atlanta. It was a booming success.

00:07:28
First year, he did $180,000 in sales. But in 1967, that’d be something like a million and a half today or more. He opened another one within a year in Savannah, same thing happened. The architect design consultant he was using was a guy by the name of Jimmy Collins, and Jimmy was helping him design two more stores up in North Carolina. Jimmy comes in after four or five versions of modifications to the store designs.

00:07:54
That’s true. I think we got it. And he says, let me unroll them for you. And True said, don’t even unroll them. I don’t want to build any more stores.

00:08:01
Jimmy was shocked, and he said, well, true. Now I’m paraphrasing, but the spirit of this story is totally true. True at what? Why do you not want to build any more stores? Because obviously it’s working, he said.

00:08:13
All these managers are calling me with questions and problems that I quite frankly, I don’t want to be bothered with it. I’m perfectly satisfied with the dwarf house, which was his original diner, and these first two stores. I’m not doing this to get rich. So if this turns out to be more hassle than it’s worth, I just don’t want to build any more stores. Now, Maureen, I don’t know the dynamics, but that led to the two of those guys.

00:08:37
And I’m sure Jimmy was catalytic in it, designing what I referred to as the operator model, which abandon the traditional fast food manager that you see in these other restaurants. Still to this day, I will just describe to the operator model. The one they just designed is exactly the same as it is today. Chick fil A finds a location for a restaurant, mall, street, airport, doesn’t matter. They design it, they build it, they equip it, they find an independent contractor.

00:09:05
They don’t have to have more than $10,000 to put down as earnest money, but they have to be someone who’s capable, attracting and keeping great people and running a business and living out the values in that business of Chick fil A. Today, they go through something like 10,000 candidates a year. For roughly 150 selections per year, the operator pays Chick fil A a percentage of gross sales right off the top. As for the brand, the use of the brand, all the support services, marketing, accounting, operations, supply chain, etcetera, after all the expenses flow through the p and L of that store, they split operating profit 5050. The operator’s income is half net.

00:09:47
So Chick fil A is getting revenue a percentage off the top, and they’re half net. And also in the p and L, Chick fil A is collecting rent on those assets that they built. So the operator is not a capital invested partner, but they’re an emotionally totally invested partner in the business. They have to operate, run and lead that restaurant. They cannot be a passive leader or passive investor.

00:10:12
When I joined Chick fil A, the average Chick fil A operator was making roughly $40,000 from their half net. This past year, the average Chick fil A operator made roughly $750,000. The deal has not changed at all. Now, remember what I said about an interview with Truett? That he said, one of the things I want to know is that we have fun together and we can trust each other.

00:10:35
The very fact that the operator deal has not changed was intentional to retain operator trust. If I grow my sales, half of every net profit dollar I gain, I get to take home. I can trust that deal. I can also trust chick fil A to take care of the assets, any investment, to keep those assets fresh, relevant to the customer. That money comes from Chick fil A incorporated.

00:11:00
So that is a rather long answer to your question. Why do you experience great people and a consistent experience of the restaurant? It’s because there’s a great leader in every chick fil a restaurant who is highly motivated to attract great talent in that restaurant, train them, develop them, keep them as long as possible. Many of those team members get put on as full time salary team members. As a result, the turnover in talent at a chick fil a restaurant is less than a third of the industry average.

00:11:31
You know the deal. When you have less turnover, you have more experience, you have more institutional knowledge, you have more cultural knowledge. People get better service and they have a better experience. But the fact that the boss is in the restaurant is the underpinning reason why you have a better experience at a chick fil a restaurant. True.

00:11:50
Here’s the headline. They manage. Figure out a way to recreate true in every restaurant, not just operationally, but what was important to him. That is captured in the vetting process for each manager. Absolutely.

00:12:03
And they’re, again, they’re not even called. They’re called operators. Legally, they are a franchisee. They’re just not an equity franchisee. So they’re protected by franchise laws.

00:12:13
You’re a serious candidate. You’re lately eligible to receive a disclosure document on the agreement as part of the interview process. Completely transparent. But they don’t have to come to the table with a lot of money. True was more interested in people’s talent, their character, their leadership potential, than whether they had $3 million in the bank.

00:12:34
Does that mean that a franchisee doesn’t have multiple franchises? That is a very good question for a long, long time that is exactly what it meant. It wasn’t until we started to expand and grow more stores out on the street that it meant that store trading area started to bump up against each other. And as that occurred, if an operator could demonstrate they had developed a deep bench of leadership in their restaurant, they were running good operational numbers, and when I say operational customer satisfaction numbers, they were running good p and l numbers. They were running consistent quality numbers, tangible quality measurements.

00:13:11
And as I said, that a talent bench deep enough they could divide and conquer into a second location, they could potentially be a candidate for a store that was going to cannibalize their existing restaurant. And that exception was made, I think, right now, less than 15% of operators in the Chickpea family have more than one restaurant. But as they continue to penetrate major markets, there’s going to be more of that. You were there 35 years. You saw exponential growth.

00:13:40
What do you attribute that growth to? Well, there’s no one thing I actually like to compare to the growth of the brand, and I like to compare the growth of the chick fil a brand to layers of an onion. In the early years of Chick fil A, we were in malls only, and even initially in the nineties, on the street, most of the focus was on the core of the core of the brand, and that was operational excellence. Get the food right, accuracy, speed, and just be trustworthy as a restaurant. That sounds simple, but the challenge at Chick fil A was every chick fil a restaurant was and still is a restaurant in the literal sense, that they all have a full kitchen.

00:14:23
They’re making food fresh on site, they’re not bringing in premade food. The average chick fil a store today, almost 60% of the footprint is the kitchen and the storage. So the early years of the brand was, how do you get the food right as you continue to add dozens and then hundreds of stores? We went through a process that actually the real point where we were starting to move towards what we call zero defects, and that is an operational strategy, of course. And we went and learned it from Lexus and Kentucky car company.

00:14:56
How do you deliver zero defects in a cardinal. And we took learnings from them, both from headquarters and on the factory floors, are how do we get really tight on specifications, improve training, improve measurement, both in the restaurant as well as measurement with customers, and get it down to where we have almost as little zero tolerance as possible against the perfect operational delivery every time. And quite frankly, it wasn’t until the mid nineties that we really started to get pretty good at that. The next major layer of the onion was, how do we grow the guest experience beyond just getting great food fast? And quite frankly, we were teed up for that by the owner, Gerard Cathy, who had had a great experience at the Ritz Carlton and came back repeatedly telling us and the operators, you know, when people say thank you in our restaurants, we need to tell them my pleasure.

00:15:48
Because I noticed when people in the hotel told me my pleasure, they smiled. There was eye contact. The whole environment was friendlier. People are engaging. And operators reaction to those early days of him asking that was, are you kidding me?

00:16:02
I’m trying to sell 501,000, 1500 customers a day. I don’t have time for warm, fuzzy stuff like that. Again, I’m paraphrasing. We went out on an experience that took seven years, a process of learning from not only Ritz Carlton, but people like Southwest Airlines in their heyday, Nordstrom, Apple, retail genius bar, some of the better food stores like whole foods, and tried to really understand how do they consistently deliver great hospitality and great service at the point of customer contact? Well, what we discover, kind of like with food, they have clear standards.

00:16:38
That standards are literally specced up, written up, trained, illustrated storytelling, measured with customers feedback to the restaurants, or in their case, feedback to the store, the retail locations. And we started developing all that for Chick fil A. Tested in a few stores, tested in 100 stores, tested in 200 stores, to the point where we can actually demonstrate the operators. In fact, if you follow this process, which we call second mile service, you will be more profitable than the stores who aren’t doing it. That added a year and a half to the test just to have the data to prove it.

00:17:17
But it did. Those 200 stores ultimately outperformed the rest of the chain on same store. Sales growth almost doubled. Wow. No traditional marketing.

00:17:26
Ramp up, hospitality ramp now. It completely changed the leadership model of the restaurant. Suddenly we had to have a hospitality leader in every restaurant who helped with attracting bedding, training talent around hospitality skills. We had to have customer measurements that made sure every time a customer came in, there were flowers on the table. We were refreshing dreams.

00:17:49
We were carrying large orders. We didn’t have umbrellas, people to the car when it was raining. We did carry large orders to the cars. We didn’t have a real person with an iPad capable of interfacing with a register to take orders personally, which was not only more personal, we actually found out it was faster. Those measurements became just as much a part of the operator feedback as the operational zero defect data did.

00:18:15
And those two measurements played into whether our operator could get a second location. So you could probably guess when. You have great operational data through mystery shoppers and through staff visits and customer data through phone calls and Internet surveys. All the performance in the restaurants went up because every operator wanted to be considered as a candidate for a second store. So we didn’t have to browbeat operators to raise the bar on operations or second mile service.

00:18:42
And by the way, the theme for second mile service came from Matthew five, verse 41, where Christ challenged his disciples. If a roman soldier asks you to carry this pack for a mile, I ask you to carry it for 2 miles. So at some point at the end of your trip, he’ll ask you why, and you get to tell them about me. Well, quite frankly, that was part of the motivation of chick fil a. Let’s have hospitality and service that’s so different.

00:19:09
We don’t talk about it. We just deliver it, that it creates customer conversation, feedback. Why do you do that? And the spin off benefit was that the culture and the restaurants got even better. We’re human beings.

00:19:22
We actually enjoyed interaction with other people. And when you start treating everyone that walks in a restaurant with honor, dignity, respect, regardless of any issues in the culture, might create separation. You treat people with outer dignity and respect, and people enjoy the environment, and they have more fun. At some point, I’ll talk about the third big layer of the onion, which was actually marketing. But as you probably just noticed, I didn’t lead with marketing.

00:19:49
I led with operational excellence and second mile certs. I have a question on treating everyone with respect, and this is from personal experience. So I lived downtown in Columbus, and I walked by a lot of homeless people going to work every day. There was a day that I offered to take someone to lunch rather than give him money, right? And he said, I’m not allowed to go into the restaurant.

00:20:13
It wasn’t a chick fil a. And I said, if you go in with me, you can go in the restaurant. There are people who feel unwelcome in a fast food restaurant. Right. It sounds like you’re saying if we had gone into a chick fil a, he would not have needed me to go in with him.

00:20:28
That would be my expectation. I think that would be true of Cathy and his family’s ownership expectation. I think it would be the expectation of every operator. And, in fact, if that person, even if they weren’t homeless, if somebody came to the counter, for example, made an order, and then they said, oh, my gosh, I just. I don’t have my wallet.

00:20:46
I don’t have my money or my credit cards. The standard response should rest the day. Don’t worry about it. So I would suggest to you if you took them, or even if you gave them a chick fil a, what we call a BR gift card that’s good for a free sandwich or good for a free meal. If they went in, they’re going to be served.

00:21:05
It’s not second mile service if we didn’t serve them. Agreed. And I understand the other side of panhandling in restaurants and creating an environment that’s safe. Yeah, we don’t want them lingering in the dining room, enjoy their meal, and leave like every other customer. And we don’t want them lingering out on the sidewalk or anything like that.

00:21:25
But if they want to come in and enjoy a meal, they’re going to get served. So now let’s go to marketing. And one of the stories I remember seeing was how you came to have the cow. We all loved the cow. Well, it wasn’t until the mid nineties that we had enough stores out on the street that we even had to consider being a conventional advertiser.

00:21:46
For years, the mall was the medium. And then when we first went out on the street, we just equipped the operators and their team to be what we called street fighters, be our guest card. Flyers, door hangers, carry free food, the football games and PTA meetings and soccer events and festivals and et cetera, et cetera. We didn’t coupon, which I unpack in my book, I explain why. It’s a whole nother story.

00:22:12
But we basically tried to leverage free food, either via a free food invitation or literally taking free food out of the community. And that’s how they built stores, store volumes for years. Wasn’t until the late nineties we had enough stores in about 20 markets that warranted to entertain advertising. We did an advertising agency search, started out with a big pool, got it down to three, got real deep with those three. And we selected an agency in Dallas, Texas, called the Richards Group.

00:22:40
And their real calling card was creative. They were the guys that came up with Tom Bodette, motel six, the beach campaign for corona beer, Home Depot, the fruit of the limb guys, some really good stuff. But the real kicker was Stan Richards, who was ill involved in the business as the owner. Kind of like Truett with Chick fil A. Told us, you won’t see any creep that I have not personally approved, okay.

00:23:05
We were never gonna be their biggest client. We knew we had to have great creator break through the clutter we gave them the business. Their first recommendation back to us was, you don’t have enough money to radio right, or tv, right. We think you ought to use billboards. The entire industry uses billboards to either tell people where to turn or to promote a promotion or a price.

00:23:24
We think we oughta use billboards to actually promote the brand and create some sort of point of difference. It’s the only thing you can afford 365 days out of the year. And they recommended 3D Creative. They gave us concepts, several of them we liked. The first one that we put up was a billboard in north Dallas, and it was a giant billboard with literally a 3d rubber chicken.

00:23:46
And there’s no headline and it’s up there for a month. And after a month they come back with an end line on the board and it simply says, if it’s not chick fil a, it’s a joke. It created so much chatter in the community, the operators actually printed that billboard on 5000 t shirts and sold them out in less than two weeks. So they did other creative using 3d technology, some really good funny rated stuff. And we made it very clear to them we did not want to have advertising that was serious and look like everybody else.

00:24:16
We don’t even want you to show food because I can show you a chicken sandwich and put three or four different logos on it and you’re not going to know the difference. About nine months into it they came to us with these two cows that had painted eat more chicken one’s up there on the back of the other one. We loved it. We put it up in Atlanta on one board, coming into the city of Atlanta from the airport side the summer of the 1996 Olympics. It was a huge success.

00:24:43
Created all kinds of chatter, stories, radio talk shows, interviews for me and some of my team members. And we decided, let’s put it up one board. Cause that’s all we can afford in our top 20 markets. We got the same reaction. They didn’t remember anything else Chickfila had ever done in advertising.

00:25:02
So we went back to them after a month, three months of those boards being up and we said, we think you got the idea here, an idea that’s bigger than one board. We’d like for you to develop a campaign around it. They did, they took 90 days. They came back with tv, billboards, in store, collateral for local marketing. We started running it in 1997 in our top 20 markets.

00:25:26
We changed the cow creative and the joke about every 90 days to keep it fresh and funny. I worked with them on that campaign for 23 years. It helped put the brand on the map. And then when we launched into college football, also in 1997, and then eventually moved into ESPN and CB’s, and we had more creative, more exposure for the creative, the cow campaign. There’s no question it was a big part of the third layer, the marketing layer, that put chick fil A on the map.

00:25:59
But it also added to the fun of the brand, both outside as well as inside the stores. We gave away millions of plus cow toys. In fact, true Cathy never traveled anywhere without two big plastic shopping bags full of plus cows. And wherever you went, he was giving them away, throwing them out into the audience when he gave a speech. I have to tell you a funny story about the cow campaign.

00:26:23
When it first started in Atlanta, I get a phone call from Truett, one of the few times he calls me, can you come from my office? Sure. He never did it. So I go up there and there’s a guy sitting in his office. He said, Steve, I’ll make up my name.

00:26:35
This is Joe Smith. He’s president of the Georgia Cattlemen’s association. You may know, Steve, I’m a member of the association because as a hobby, I raise Angus cattle on my ranch south of Atlanta. He wants you to take that billboard down. And he said, what do you think?

00:26:51
Well, I looked at Joe Smith, I said, joe, I’ll do whatever true tells me, but I think he hired me to help him sell more chicken. The cows appear to be helping us do that. So as long as he wants me to help him sell more chicken, I think he probably is going to want me to keep those cows up. And true looked across his desk at Joe Smith and he said, I agree with Steve. I think we’ll keep using the cows.

00:27:12
That literally was the beginning of the cow campaign. When one guy comes to you and says, this is a threat to the beef industry, bingo. That’s exactly what we want to be. And you still are. Still are.

00:27:26
There’s no question about that. Yeah. My last year there, sales hit almost seven b store count was about 2300, 2200 something. This past year, I can’t be precise. I know they’ve approaching 3200 stores, and this past year their sales hit 22 billion.

00:27:46
Average same store growth has consistently been anywhere from, gosh, anywhere from eight to 15%, which is unheard of in the fast food business. And I’m the first to admit that even though the cow campaign, I think, was a big contributor to the success of the brand, I think those kind of same store sales growth is primarily due to the experience that operators on their team members are giving people on the restaurants and the way they serve them in their community. It does seem like it’s a both. Yes, it’s a both. But again, the cap campaign was really just kind of gas on this thing that Truett had created in the operator model with those independent contractors out there dedicated to every guest the way they are, therefore every team member the way they are.

00:28:31
Chick fil A has a very unique and powerful position in the market. I think last year, the average same store sales was about $9 million, and those operators are running big enterprises. Average Chick fil A operation employs about 150 people. So every new Chick fil a restaurant, 150 to 200 new jobs. Interesting.

00:28:51
Chick fil A has grown significantly over your duration and post. We are now living in a world where we’re going to see massive change. What would leaders take away from your experience at Chick fil A that would help them lead in times of change planned and turmoil unplanned? That’s a great question. I’m going to answer by giving you what I think is the fourth big layer of the onion for the brand.

00:29:21
And that’s technology. Before I left, we had developed the Chick fil A app with heavy involvement with test customers and small groups, as well as test stores. We decided intentionally to derive a very personal experience through the app, and we tried to design it. So no matter how you wanted to interact with Chick fil A, you could make a choice, but you would have an interactive, personal experience with a real person. So if you choose to go to the counter, you’re going to still deal with a real person at Chick fil A.

00:29:52
Now, you can choose to pre order, and when you arrive, your order is waiting on you, but a real person is going to get your order for you and hand it to you. And we’re going to know who you are when you come in because your iPhone is gps connected to that app. But we know when you hit the parking lot, I’m going to pick it up through the drive through, same thing. We’re going to know your order. You can choose to prepay, you hit the line, we’re going to know you’re there, they’re going to deliver your order, and they’re going to know exactly what you ordered and it’s waiting on.

00:30:20
Or you can come through the drive thru and order from scratch with that personal interaction. You can pay with your chick fil a app, or you can pay with money or credit card or whatever. But the point is, every interaction is a real person. You want delivery, we’re going to deliver it. Now, are they using third party delivery services?

00:30:37
Yes, but if it’s a large order, if it’s a catering order, this is an event order. Chick fil A team members are going to deliver that order and they’re going to actually stay in service that order. The point is Chick fil a intentionally designed technology to support maintaining personal interaction with the brand. And if Chick fil A can go into the community and help support a school or church or fire station or police department or a major event, they’re going to show up with real food, their people, they’re not going to deliver it and walk away. So you’re going to have some taste of the Chick fil a second mile service experience, no matter what the interactive experience is that you chose.

00:31:23
So my point to your question is I don’t think technology replaces, and we didn’t, we went into it this way. I don’t think technology replaces people. It complements people. Now, that doesn’t work if you don’t attract great people. But if you can attract and vet and keep great people and complement them with great experiences, including the technology experience, it just makes the brand stronger because it makes people more loyal.

00:31:51
I mean, I kind of like walking over the counter because I preordered somebody using my name. They know who I am before I grabbed the bag or they know me in the drive through lane. So people appreciate that at the volume they’re experiencing. It’s amazing how many of these team members at the drive threads actually get to know their customers personally because they care. We want to have a brand that shows that honor, dignity, respect does not have to be squeezed out of a fast food experience.

00:32:17
It can still be real and authentic. Steve, thank you. This has been a brilliant conversation. You’re welcome, Maureen. How would listeners find out more about your book?

00:32:28
Well, my book cover cows and Chick fil A, how Faith cows and chicken created a iconic brand. That’s the name of the book. It’s on Amazon. It’s available in hardback, softback and also audio. Personally, I have a website, srobinsonconsulting.com.

00:32:46
i do speeches, and on my site there’s a reference to a speaker’s bureau that I use to help represent me. And I’m on LinkedIn. That’s another place. And again, I’m linked there. I’m LinkedIn under S.

00:32:58
Robinson and slowly. So thanks for asking. Thank you, Steve. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us and learning more about Chick fil A’s underlying philosophy and how they executed it. And the cows.

00:33:12
You bet. My pleasure. It was a great being with you. Thank you. Likewise.