We've always had a crisis management plan.

I need to be able to manage any and all circumstances, including, in this case, a pandemic.

So on Monday morning, we called a meeting and we said, hey, look, every restaurant concept, every employee worldwide is swimming in the same pool.

We're going to turn this into an opportunity.

That's what we focused on every day and said, hey, we are going to support our franchisees.

And the only issue that we're going to have is the fear of the unknown.

And we're going to try to do our best to manage it.

Otherwise, we're going to get after it.

And 2020 and 2021 were two of our highest comping years on record.

Wow.

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That's Benleads.com schedule.

Welcome back to lead the team with number one bestselling author and in demand corporate trainer, Ben Fanning.

On this podcast, the world's most innovative senior leaders share their top success strategies to motivate your direct reports, cultivate your top leaders, and accelerate your career.

Let's get started.

Here's Ben.

Hey there.

Welcome back to lay the team.

I've got a good coming your way today with Lance Vaught, who is president of Penn Station East Coast Subs.

And if you're not familiar with them, well, you should be because they're a regional sandwich chain based out of Cincinnati, Ohio, and they turn 40 years old coming up in 2025.

They operate in 14 states throughout the midwest and they have 323 locations.

And even cooler, they rank in the top 50% of the top 400 most profitable franchises in the nation.

And there's a lot to learn here.

Lance has got an incredible journey that includes going from intern to president, and you're about to hear all about it.

Lance, welcome to lead the team.

Ben, it's great to see you.

I appreciate being on today.

Big fan of your work.

I'm just hoping that I can match the level of your former guests because it's, it's high level.

So I'm here today.

You are in a good company and just getting better with you in it.

So we got to start out asking you, why sandwiches first and then two, why franchises?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So for me personally, as you had mentioned earlier, started as an intern and became president.

But the story begins a couple of years prior to that.

Jeff Osterfeld, our founder and CEO, he built a golf course.

True entrepreneur in ever sense of the word.

Unbelievably talented, just a really special, even better person than businessman, but unbelievably successful businessman in many different, in many different segments.

But I had a relationship with Jeff.

My family builds golf courses, and so he was building one here on the east side of Cincinnati.

And in the summertimes, I would go and work for the family business.

And Ben, as you know, when you work for your father, you get the worst jobs, like the absolute worst jobs.

But it was a really rewarding summer as I met a pretty special guy in the process.

And Jeff and I struck a relationship, and he asked what I was going to do when I got out of school.

I said, jeff, I think I want to get into investment banking.

And he said, why do you want to get into investment banking?

I said, I love the whole cycle of business, from the idea to the growth stages to execution and then exiting.

I'm somewhat fascinated by that process.

And everything that happens in between just seems like a lot of fun.

And investment banking exposes you to all of that.

And he said, it sounds like you really want to get into franchise.

I said, what's franchising?

Because I didn't know much about franchising.

Franchising today is very different than it was 20 years ago.

And so Jeff explained to me that it was an opportunity for small business owners to get involved in a brand and have all of the support necessary in order to launch a successful business and most importantly, scale it and have a predictable exit.

Well, he was right.

It's a lot like what you're doing when you get into investment banking and you're looking to make investments.

So sandwiches.

Jeff chose sandwiches in particular.

He started early on, and it was with bagels.

And if you look at my wall here, I've got kind of our life cycle, so that way everybody walks in our office could see it.

And he started out with Jeffrey's bagel and deli restaurant.

And then that led into sandwiches over the course of a couple of years and began franchising Penn Station steak and subs.

Wow.

So it's interesting.

So the people thinking about franchises, well, hey, they're thinking about, oh, I want to have a mom and pop business.

I want predictable income.

But you're saying, wait, wait, wait.

There's a bigger picture to keep in mind.

People that really want to think about growing a business, selling a business, having a sort of a higher level business perspective, the franchise model can be a good fit.

Absolutely.

Is there a.

We don't spend the whole time talking about franchises here, but I think I've always been told, well, to really make money as a franchise owner, you need to own multiple because then you can better utilize your talent, you can better utilize your resources and all that.

Is that something too that people should be keeping in mind?

Like, hey, it's going to be that kind of game.

Route to own multiple, or is one often enough to make an impact there?

Yeah, it's a great question.

So we've got single unit operators that do very, very well.

But you're right, today's franchise game is more about multi unit and scaling.

So if you're looking to start your own business and be 100% in control behind that counter franchising is perfect for you.

If you're looking to scale the business in order to exit at a higher multiple, then the multi unit path is the route that you're going to want to take.

But you're right, it gives you the advantage that there's a playbook for you to follow.

But maybe most importantly and sometimes overlooked, is there's others that are walking a mile in your moccasins.

Your fellow franchisees are going to provide you with immense support and they've done what you're doing.

They likely did it before you and you'll likely follow that same path because of the brand standards that are in place.

So you're right.

It's kind of Steve and Covey's begin with the end in mind.

Right?

So number two, have it.

Number two, that's really what you want to think about when you're getting into a franchise is, what do I want out of this in the end?

And the right franchisees for, for our brand anyways, they want to exit at the highest multiple possible.

And everything they do in those 20 years or 30 years prior to that leads up to that moment.

So thinking about your background, you know, with golf and then making this, this early relationship, you could have gone like, it was interesting.

Like you said, hey, I'm going to go into banking.

And he said, no, no, I, from what you're telling me, franchises make sense.

Sandwich happened to be first.

But do you see yourself as like a business leader?

Like, hey, I would, I would thrive in any franchise specific environment.

Or you're like, hey, the future is sandwiches and restaurants, and that's where I'm going to hang my hat.

Well, everybody's going to have to eat, Ben, so it's pretty safe.

It's not recession proof.

It's not recession proof.

However, things do slow down.

But, you know, it's a great question.

I think the principles that you put in place in the way that you manage a franchise business, you could apply it to whether you were doing service industry or dry cleaning or whatever franchise model.

However, for me, I like restaurants.

They're fast paced.

We're open 361 days a year.

We close for a few holidays.

But more importantly, it's the franchisee that you attract.

I've met some of the most incredible business leaders.

We've had franchisees that were former presidents, and we've had franchisees, and my favorite ones that put every penny into their business.

Those are the guys that really have my heart.

We've got several that have went from one location to as many as 20 locations.

Within our system is they embody kind of the american spirit.

You know, start with very little, and some of them do really well, and they can end to have quite a business that they've built and everything in between.

I've never worked in food and beverage or in the restaurant world specifically.

Everything I hear is that, hey, the hours are brutal.

Like, you're going to put in tons of time.

I'm assuming, like, if you're starting a franchise, you're the person to work in the counter.

Yes.

You can hire a bunch of people, but I'm assuming out of the gate, that's not part of the playbook.

Right.

You're doing it yourself.

You're there on the weekends and evenings.

Is it that kind of lifestyle?

It can be if you allow it.

Right.

So most of what we talk about on your show is leadership, and oftentimes funnels into just management in general.

Right.

And you're not wrong.

You're going to put in the time if you want to be successful, but that time should be spent developing your future leaders of your business.

So right out of the gate, that's what we're discussing, which is we've got a.

Our training program has been ranked by a training magazine on their annual apex award in the top 100 worldwide the last eight years.

And we've applied nine years, so we've had a heck of a track record there.

But from day one, you need to be thinking about developing the next leaders within your organization.

I oftentimes say a guy that works 80 hours a week may be the most inefficient person that I.

That I know doesn't mean it's a 40 hours work week, but you shouldn't have to be 80 hours every hour that you're open and operating because you're not developing the leaders underneath you, which is probably your big first mistake, rather thinking, day one, who's gonna lead this business?

So I get to my second and my third and my fourth risk.

Yeah, nice.

Great thing to think about.

So have the investment banker mindset with beginning with the end in mind, but the end of mine is not you working the counter, right?

It's creating a business and then having an eye for attracting, retaining, and developing the dang talent.

And it sounds like you guys have got a great playbook for that.

Now, I want to ask you a Tom, when your metal was tested, because this global pandemic that we got through just absolutely crushed a lot of restaurants and they didn't make it through.

You guys obviously did hear.

What was it like for you going through that?

Yeah, no, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss it.

Business is always going to go through cycles and challenges.

And so we lived through the great recession in 20080 nine.

Right.

And that was purely financial.

You can always figure out the different angles to try to improve your profit circumstance.

What was different about the pandemic is this one hit home, literally, right?

Where you had franchisees, customers, vendors, our team here at PSI, where you were worried about your family and your health, there was no playbook for that.

But I'll tell you, Ben.

So state of Ohio was one of the first to close down dining rooms.

And that's when the pandemic became.

Became real from a business perspective.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and we were getting calls from franchisees looking at us, hey, what are we going to do?

And for the first, that's your job, right?

They're like, hey, I'm the franchise owner.

You're supposed to have the instructions on the right way to handle this.

And you're like, well, it's a global pandemic.

There was no college course that explained how to manage through a pandemic.

But what we relied on was, we've always had a crisis management plan.

We review it annually with our team here at PSI.

And so we had a starting point, which I think is important and oftentimes leaders overlook, which is, I need to be able to manage any and all circumstances, including, in this case, a pandemic.

And so we reviewed our plan as a senior team, and it was about 12 hours of kind of being down and out.

And then after that, it was, let's turn the switch on.

So on Monday morning, we called a meeting and we said, hey, look, we're all swimming in the same pool.

Every restaurant concept, every employee worldwide is swimming in the same pool.

We're going to turn this into an opportunity.

And really, from that moment on, Ben, we said, let's get after it.

Let's do this.

This might be the greatest opportunity from a business perspective, not personal, but from a business perspective, for little Penn station to try to grab market share.

And that's what we focused on every day.

I mean, we still do today, but at least for that first six months, is you're friends with Craig Dunaway, our COO.

Not yet, I think had our CEO on your show, but you should because it's a great story, too.

But we sat in our conference room for six months, 1012, 13, 14 hours a day, and said, hey, we are going to support our franchisees and the only issue that we're going to have is the fear of the unknown and we're going to try to do our best to manage it.

Otherwise, we're going to get after it.

And 2020 and 2021 were two of our highest comping years on record.

Wow.

We were fortunate and blessed.

The opportunity mindset.

And it sounds like the three of you or your executive group, you all were able to shift your mindset from how do we get out of this business to how do we grow, how do we thrive?

And it paid off.

That's right.

We, from a cultural perspective, in our brand, there are no threats, there's only opportunities.

So we didn't view it as a threat to our business.

We viewed as an opportunity and the need to pivot.

And aside from, like I said, the personal side of being locked in and the shutdown, et cetera, from a business perspective, the learning was great over that 18 month period, and it's really propelled the brand forward to know what we can handle.

And it's really had us change our strategic plan and framework from let's grow at a three to 5% clip, which is kind of traditional to saying, hey, what would it be like if we wanted to double in size over the next eight years?

So we're working on an eight year plan to try to double in size.

And a lot of that was born out of the success we had during the pandemic to say, hey, let's take the training wheels off and, and let's give this a shot.

Let's take the governor off and pick up speed.

So you're there.

Sandwiches.

Like your business, it is a competitive marketplace.

I mean, you have that, that, like the whole subway thing, and you have.

I mean, it is.

And you guys are just continuing to grow.

What are you, what's your secret?

Sauce.

No pun intended.

Or pun intended to continue to grow against titans of sandwiches out there who were dumping so much money in tv marketing, and they're just so aggressive out there in the marketplace.

Steven.

Yeah, it is highly competitive.

I think that brings out the best in all of us.

We don't shy away from that.

We're a privately held company.

We're conservative by nature.

Our purpose is to help franchisees maximize the return on investment, because at the end of the day, that's what we're selling.

Whether it's tires or widgets or sandwiches, we're selling return on investment.

And so you're right, we don't have the dollars behind us to go out and really ratchet it up and grow.

But our philosophy has always been the next franchise group that comes on help them make money.

We respect their capital as if it were our own.

In fact, we'd probably be a little bit more aggressive if it were our capital.

That's how much we value, you know, what the franchisees got on the line here.

But the reason why we do this is to try to help franchisees reach their goals.

And if that's to become a five unit operator, 15 unit operator, 20 unit operator, we will get our take at the end, and we feel like we'll continue to grow at a decent clip.

And we're going to wake up one morning, Ben, and we'll be in the same ilk as some of the top competitors in our chain, and we'll feel really good about how we got there.

Yeah, it's not.

So what I'm hearing is, hey, Mandy, in our business, it's about profitability, not just sheer scale and size, and run a bunch of fancy ads and Super bowl ads.

And I think that's the business leader mindset.

I think people listening in our audience appreciate that.

That's right.

Well, I think good things come to those who wait.

And so it's important that we don't get out of character and that we don't try to change our culture.

Culture just at the risk of, you know, or the benefit, I guess, of growing to only close restaurants.

There's nothing worse than a closure.

They're unavoidable.

They're going to happen because as a franchisor, you can't control all aspects of the business.

You lose a little bit of control on franchising that you would certainly have if you were all company owned units.

But our goal is to make sure that we're continuing to propel forward and avoid as many closures as possible.

Yeah.

The constraints are usually our friends in business because it allows us to focus versus, hey, I've got this great idea for a sandwich restaurant.

I'm just going to open it up and see what happens.

It's like, wow, that is like.

Like having.

It's scary to look out in the abyss, like, man, this is just a big blue ocean.

I'm going to do it.

And you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

You guys have got this dialed in on the profitability side.

Now, going back to your background, I mean, intern to CEO, you could have jumped ship, right?

You could have taken your skills, gone somewhere else.

You stuck it out there.

Specifically, what were reflecting back on your journey?

What were some of the keys to success, and what were some of the moments where you maybe said, hey, this is a sign that I need to stay and stick it out and grow with the business versus go somewhere else.

Jeff?

Yeah.

Hey, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity because more recently here, I spoke at a couple local universities, and the landscape has changed a little bit in the last 20 years.

But oftentimes I get asked by younger professionals.

20 years in the same place, is that a mistake?

For me, it wasn't.

When I got out of school, I wanted to be someplace that I saw a path forward, but more importantly, because I don't have a crystal ball, I just wanted to be around guys that I really respected.

Jeff Ostenfeld, our founder, and Craig Dunaway and Mike Partouche and Mark Partouche, all these senior leaders.

At the time, I just felt like they were good guys.

They did business the right way, and that meant a lot to me.

The way that they wanted to grow.

The Penn Station brand I identified with, and I got to see firsthand the impact that it had on franchisees.

But my first interview, when Jeff walked me around the office and he was introduced to me, I heard a lot of, I've been here 20 years.

I've been here 25 years.

I've been here 30 years.

And that was so impressive to me.

In a small business was a better fit.

I think oftentimes in college and the business schools, you've got all these Fortune 500 companies that are coming after you, and it's like, well, do I really want to jump into a pool where I'm competing against, I don't know, 500 students that they've hired, that everybody graduated with honors and everybody's got this great story to tell.

Or am I better off to get in kind of a mid sized company where I can stand out a little bit sooner, where hard work and dedication and commitment is valued and, you know, so then I started out, first day cleaning toilets.

I mean, the very first day, first task, cleaning toilets.

And if you've ever cleaned.

I went to college for this, you.

Know, but I understood that it was about policy and procedure and needed to understand every facet of, because that's what we're selling.

At the end of the day, you're selling when to do what to do and why you're doing it and what return you should expect from it.

And so to me, it was everything that I studied and so much more.

And I've been fortunate to hold every position in the ops and training departments.

And I've got a ton of great stories over a beer that I could share with you.

But more recently, I jumped into the president's position in 2022.

And it's been the right move for me because it's really allowing me to kind of get back that begin with the end in mind.

The reason why I thought investment banking would be great was because you got to see the entire cycle of business.

And now sitting behind this desk, I'm getting to see that at a whole other level.

And it couldn't be more sense.

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Go to benleads.com, apply to fill out a quick form where you can let us know a little bit about yourself.

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There's something powerful in, I mean, some of the layers of that story, but one is this idea of speaking to people early in their career or people with kids that are in college now to think about.

There is this siren to go jump on a big brand, get into a company that everybody knows that, but like you say, you're, it's.

You may feel like a cog in a wheel over there, like you don't have relationships with the executives, you don't get to do a lot.

You don't like to see parts of the business you're kind of kept in your little role in the organization, and I think a very proactive person can work their way through that and out of that.

But why not?

Yeah, consider a mid, sort of midsize company or a small company and just get thrown into the weeds, scrub a toilet or two, do the operations, see the whole business, because that's a very, that's a foundation that you can use throughout your entire career.

Absolutely.

It's the grad school experience in the first five years.

Right.

So it's interesting when you're asked that, like, hey, you know, how come you didn't go to grad school?

Well, because from my peers I had a lot more experience.

I think education is great.

Don't get me wrong.

I think it's necessary.

Everybody needs time to develop.

But, yeah, you get into that small midsize company where there's no place to hide.

You either going to stand out as a star or you're going to get pushed out real quick because it's highly competitive and there's no place to hide.

And for me anyways, I felt like that was the perfect mix of, hey, if this works out, I could see myself being here long term, and if it doesn't work out, then I've gained so much that wherever I head to next, I'm going to be more successful and very appreciative for the experience.

Yeah, I love that.

That's another positive thing to think about.

Even if you're not earlier career or maybe you're considering like a mid career jump.

It's not always about the brand of the company or the compensation.

It's what are the relationships?

And you mentioned those relationships that you evaluate early on and what you're going to learn, because those and of themselves are actually a form of compensation.

And I think people totally miss that sometimes.

You're right.

I like to say, hey, I think your career is treated like it's an investment.

You're going to get a lot better return.

I mean, when have you ever had.

Maybe on occasion.

But when do you ever make an investment?

It hits early on.

It takes time.

Right?

That's the whole idea.

And if you give that time and that patience, that dedication to your career, you know, there's going to be senior leaders that retire, there's going to be guys that get recruited away.

And, you know, I know it's a little cliche, but if you're on the other side of the door when opportunity knocks, kick that bad boy in.

And that's the route I took.

You know, hey, I'll kick that door in all day if the opportunity is there but want to do it the right way.

What's the worst leadership advice that you can remember that you've heard?

Yeah.

So without mentioning names, we had a leader within the organization that would say things like, it is what it is.

And when I was early on, I'm like, I don't even understand what that means.

Like, what it is, what it is.

It's never what it is.

It's what you want it to be.

Right.

And that was always so deflating.

I mean, interesting enough that that team member ended up working their way out of our organization and on good terms, but that was probably the worst advice I ever got.

The whole idea of status quo, it is what it is.

You can't change it.

Not true.

You can change it all.

Fear of failure, I think, paralyzes a lot of leaders.

The what if.

Well, we'll deal with it, but not dealing with it is way worse than dealing with it and having to make a few tweaks.

That's probably the most deflating advice that I got early on in Microsoft.

Yeah.

It's like, don't mess with that.

It is what it is.

I've heard that advice plenty.

Yeah, it does try.

I was thinking the word status quo, too, and some people really just latch onto that because they've been there and they haven't seen a change and they think it can't.

And as long as that belief stands, very little will change.

I agree.

So what advice would you give your younger self looking back over the years or an action that you tell that person to take?

Yeah, so I was given advice.

My dad used to say, hey, the smartest person in the room is the one who's asking all the questions and listening.

And I've always taken that to heart.

I ask a ton of questions today.

You get to ask the questions, but maybe next time I'll get to ask the questions.

But you learn so much, and.

But there was really no follow up to that.

And that follow up would be, when you think you've got the answer, speak up.

Right.

Because everybody's searching for the right leaders within the organization are searched for it.

So it doesn't matter if it's the first day rookie or, you know, the 30 year veteran.

And so there were times that I would, I describe it kind of sitting on my hands because I didn't feel like I had earned, you know, a seat at the table just yet in order to come up with that idea.

And maybe, you know, early on, like I mentioned, I respected our senior team, immensely talented.

I mean, these guys are like legends in the franchise.

Business that I find myself saying, just don't think I'm ready to make that leap and to put that out there.

And I probably could have made a lot of really good changes.

So I wish I would have said, hey, look, now I push our youngest guys, look at any and all ideas.

There's no bad ideas.

The only bad ones, the one you don't share and really push them.

And I hear a lot of bad ones.

But every so often, there's a nugget in there that really helps us, you know, kind of reshape an idea or potential initiative that pay off big time.

So I would have told my younger self or any young person, hey, don't be, don't be afraid to step up and speak out immediately because the right leader is going to see that as advantageous.

They're not going to see that as you're trying to overstep your bounds.

I love the one two punch there.

Ask the questions, be curious to, but also speak up.

So it's like, have consideration for the people around you.

Maybe don't assume you know everything as a leader or even new in the organization because you went to some school or whatnot.

I've asked the questions, but then have the courage to speak up.

And, man, does it take courage, especially when you're talking to people higher up in the organization.

And it sounds like, to me, you acknowledge that, like, hey, it takes courage to speak up.

And that's the expectation around here.

Right?

Is there any, any specific sandwich ideas or restaurant ideas come up in those moments where from, from new ideas, from rising leaders inside the organization come to mind?

Boy, we do.

We do, right?

So we've got a full scale of sandwiches, right?

Jeff Osterfeld has an unbelievable palate.

And so we have as diverse of a menu offering as any brand in the segment, but some of our LTO ideas.

So we're launching next week a ghost pepper cheesesteak.

So the cheese has ghost pepper in it, but it is phenomenal.

We're really looking forward to putting it out in the market and getting some feedback from customers.

But you're right, those sessions lead to a lot of good ideas.

And whether it be just menu ideas or different ways to go about from a training perspective or even just this morning, we had a review of last month's p and L and just a few ideas where we're looking at hundreds of percentage points of why something went up, why it went down.

And those sessions lead to a lot of really good ideas of what we can do in order to continue to try to get those pennies to flow to the bottom.

When you review your p and L, are you reviewing it with all the employees or the majority of them?

Or how does that conversation go?

Or just the executives?

Yeah, great question.

So it's everybody within the corporate office.

So we do a one thing that came out of COVID is we really took to heart that everybody just wanted to be in the know.

So even if something didn't impact them, just the confidence that they were in the know went a long way.

So this may sound crazy for a midsize company like Penn Station, but we've got a call every day at 08:00 so we start our day at 730 and every day at 08:00 and we've got five topics that we discussed.

It lasts 20 minutes, but it sets the whole day been the amount of sidebar conversations that cut out in useless meetings.

I'm not a meeting fan.

It's not my management style.

We have a meeting.

It's purposeful.

And keep the sidebar conversations away.

I don't want everybody in this office until 08:00 every night by wasting time.

And so that's what we do.

One of those meetings that we have is to review our p and L, and we break it down by our top.

The cohorts are bottom 10%, bottom 25%, middle 50, top 25, top ten.

And we cover every cohort because I want every team member at Penn Station to appreciate the franchisee that they have on the other line.

I want them to know what's currently going on in their business so we can better help them and get them out of their current cohort and into the next one and continue to progress forward.

So we cover it with everyone and we feel really good about doing it.

And it doesn't matter if you're in marketing or finance or operations or, in truth, our administrative team, that they really don't get too involved with franchisees when it comes to financial decisions or performance behind the counter.

But it's important that they know, you know, what direction the brand's going in as a whole.

Yeah, love that.

Too many leaders just have, like an executive call, I think, in the organization, and then they leave it up to those leaders to figure out how to best communicate that out to everybody else.

And a lot of times it, it's, it's like the telephone game, right, where lots, all these people, they're supposed to tell them, he tells them, and the message is completely different.

And getting that kind of alignment every day is absolutely huge.

And through my days of Honeywell, we were really big on that, too.

And, man, it was.

We had a 15 minutes call, and pretty much unless you had a major issue, you were on there.

Yeah.

You were on there to hear what was going on.

And it was weird how it built day to day.

It's like if you just jumped on there randomly one day out of the week, you may not understand what's happening because you miss yesterday.

So it's like a.

We used to joke it was like a.

Like a television series, and, like, it's every day for 15 minutes, and you've got to be on there to hear what's going on.

But it created such alignment, and I love the transparency that you're offering at multiple levels of the organization, because from the very beginning, right, you guys are talking about profitability and running a business and what a great gift that you're giving people at lower levels of the organization to understand what that's really all about.

That's right.

We're like olympic rings.

We describe it, you know, marketing touches, finance, such as operations, etcetera.

And how we keep those strong is by open communication and purposeful communication.

Right.

I mean, there's no really talking shop, and there's some benefit to that.

But I think on that particular call, it needs to be really dialed in to where everybody understands this is mission critical topics.

And then you break down in your individual departments and you tackle personnel related matters and those sort of things.

But it's been great for us.

And, you know, anyone who I think isn't that small and mid size, if you're a Fortune 500 company at Honeywell, I really.

I think that's spectacular.

It may become more difficult to do, but definitely in a small mid size, it's not difficult.

And there's a great return on in this.

So.

Starting to wind this up.

Lance, what books, podcast, or music do you recommend for someone who's in the C suite or is aspiring to get there one day?

Sure.

Well, I think they should listen to the Ben Fanning podcast.

I think that would be the first stop.

That was.

That's a good one.

You know, from.

From different publications and different books, you know, big Stephen Covey fan.

Part of me says that should be collegiate required reading.

It doesn't matter how old those books get.

The lessons within them will guide basic business principles.

You know, for us in the restaurant industry, Jim Sullivan is the guy.

I have a multi unit leadership book that has the pages so tattered in it, it looks like it's 100 years old.

Jim is Jim Sullivan.

Jim SuLlivan yeah, he is the thought leader when it comes to multi unit restaurant leadership.

And the research that the man does is incredible.

And he can turn something really complex into a rather simple teaching.

We push it big within our organization, but, you know, I think everybody's some degree getting into podcasts, getting into short stories, et cetera.

You know, I really like Ted talks.

I think it's important for me.

Anyways, I need to step out of the restaurant segment sometimes and learn about just other business entities and different thoughts and ideas.

So that way it can challenge kind of our conventional wisdom.

When you're swimming in the stream day in and day out, just in your particular industry, I think it puts blinders on.

And so a lot of times on the free time, the Saturday morning jogs and the Sunday after church, for me, it's, I'm listening to something that's completely unrelated to restaurants or franchising, but business related or leadership related.

You know, I really like listening to different podcasts that relate to military.

I think it's the most interesting organization in the world.

I like listening to a lot of how the universities today and how they're trying to go about managing and providing a, a value in education when, let's face it, guys like yourself are providing great education to the business leadership.

A lot of options these days.

Yep, that's right.

Space is changing.

Very much so.

And I think that's fascinating and interesting and how they're trying to attract no different than we're trying to attract franchisees or try to attract students.

So I say those are the two big ones that I find.

Wow, I can really apply this in the way that they're thinking.

And a thought leadership is valuable.

So you mentioned military.

Are there any specific shows or thought leaders or maybe it's military leaders from the past that you specifically draw inspiration from.

Yeah, there's been a few that Colin Powell's put out recently, you know, through Twitter.

And I think aside from being just an unbelievable person, I think that transition that he managed through was critical.

And a lot of the kind of the principles, I think that the, well, I didn't serve in the military.

I really value the principles that they teach because from building teams in situations that are far from ideal, I think leaders can learn a lot from that.

But it's also a shifting organization, too.

Right?

Times have really changed and who they're recruiting is different today.

And so a lot of my leads, I come off of x and you click on that link and next thing you know, you're down a rabbit hole and you're finding a lot of value from it.

Yeah.

One of my favorite books on the military is written by a non military person, but a big TEDx, or Simon Sinek wrote leaders eat last, Ethan.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's spectacular, man.

I love that book and that look on the military.

And the principle, of course, is that the highest ranked military leaders, they're literally eating last in the mess.

In his segment on.

On identifying, you know, who would be a Navy SeAL and who wouldn't.

So he's got the section on, you know, it's not always the biggest, fastest, strongest.

And to me, it's the same in business.

Right?

Like, you know, you come across these people.

They're incredibly intelligent, they're bright, but they won't listen to anything.

Right?

Then you come across the guys that were.

It's like you're so smart, you will listen to anything.

Then you come across these guys that were C students, but they're detailed and they're organized, and they value the opinions of others, and, you know, they really just want to be part of the process.

And these guys go on to manage fortune 500 companies, and they barely got through, you know, high school or college.

It's a little bit of the same when he describes the SEAL team and the different metrics with respect to.

It's not always the biggest, fastest, strongest guy that is a member.

Yeah.

So cool for people to check out.

He got a lot of access inside the military during his research for that.

And one thing I remember, he was either being interviewed or it's in the book where they were like, well, how did you get in there and talk to these military leaders?

They have such a big ego.

So he's like, oh, yeah.

He's like, some of the biggest, you know, highest ranking military officials that I met had huge egos, but they listened.

But they listened to the people around them.

The big difference in big ego, not listening versus big o.

Big ego and listening.

That's right.

And you strike me.

You strike me as a leader who listens.

I'm not evaluating your ego, though.

I like to think.

No ego.

Check that.

Check that.

The door.

Confidence, no doubt, but ego, no.

I tell you, we surround ourselves with so many talented people.

You know, I'm sure most come on this show and say, hey, I try to hire people that are a lot brighter than me.

I try to hire people that are a lot brighter than I am.

My goal is just to keep giving them the tools they need in order to pull out their best.

And if we do that, we're going to have a lot of success.

What's your party thought for our listeners today?

Lance?

Take anywhere.

Hey, you know what I think, well, I appreciate the opportunity, Ben.

We discussed in the opening that I think franchising is a great path, you know, today, whether it be your dentist, your lawn care, your insurance salesman, the entrepreneurial spirit is really strong in this country right now and I think there's a lot of opportunity for those.

So I would just encourage everybody if they're interested in franchising and do your research, find what the right fit is for you and do your own thing.

Start your own business.

There's a ton of value to that.

And again, with the end in mind, I think you'll end up having a pretty good return to thanks for coming.

On the shitty, Lance.

Thanks for having me.

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