SHIT YEAH! SHOW Episode 11

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Shit. Yeah. So this is mystery episode. Probably gonna be 11. Might be another one we'll tweak that. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Could be 26 if needed. [00:00:09] Speaker A: This is gonna be something a little different than we've done in the past. I think in the beginning we did an interview where it was like an interview of me. Cause we didn't, I think, have anybody. And it was like, well, guess what we're doing. It's kind of that again. And so it's a chance for me to kind of talk more, dive into why we do things. So we'll talk about that. We spend so much time together packaging what we're doing to try to get the communication out to our fans, to our team, all stakeholders. So there you go. Little intro into what we have. This is the shit. Yeah show. I'm Chris Smith, founder, CEO of Zunzies Enterprises, which encompasses Zunzies, Zunzibar, the 26 Club. A bunch of different things and shit. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm Dahlia Simpson. [00:00:54] Speaker A: Perfect. [00:00:54] Speaker B: I'm art director of brand and also podcast co host. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Hey. We're going to do, you know, as this grows, I have a vision which we'll talk about. Yes, right. And you hear all of the crazy ideas and then we filter those out along with some other people. But what we're going to do is we're going to deep dive into the culture of the business. And every business has a culture, whether they like it or not. Right. Usually it starts off with a product or an idea, and it's like there's an idea to make money. Right. First off, it's like, you always start a business to make money, and then over time, it evolves into, well, we gotta inspire people and we gotta have a story, and then it evolves. For me, with Zunzies, that was certainly my road. In the restaurant business, there was five guys as a franchisee for 10 years. I saw very quickly, even with one of the best franchises of all time, one of the fastest growing, that, you know, the restaurant business sucks. It sucks for all stakeholders at various times. And then when I bought Zunzies from Johnny and Gabby at the end of 2014, it's 10 years. It'll be 20 years total business for Zunzies. But 10 years now that I'll have owned Zunzies, which is crazy. [00:02:08] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's nuts. I can't believe it's been 10 years. And, man, I've learned so much. And I've learned more about how the restaurant business sucks than most. But in that process, I knew culture. I Knew all of these things had to happen. And really with five guys, they have a culture, but it's really about the product. It's serve the best burgers and fries in a reasonable price point and provide a great experience. And that's kind of it. It's like burger fries or burger fries or die. It's like that's really what it is. They added milkshakes and they're really good. But that was that. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Is that what the menu says? You can choose Burger fries or die. [00:02:48] Speaker A: No, no, they've let us wraps that healthier. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Burger fries die or lettuce wrap. [00:02:53] Speaker A: There you go. Five guys. Amazing franchise. That taught me a lot and it really set me up a lot for the success that we have now and ongoing. But I saw that there was a culture that they had. Right. And I think every company as they grow, struggles to define that culture. And if they don't define it will be defined by the people that are in the business. And then it, it's a moving target. And then as the company grows, it gets lost. And also as the company goes from being a founder led company to a leader led company, if you don't have that well defined, it doesn't transition to the leader. Look at Chipotle Meteoric rise. Steve L's founder, right? Monty Moran, the coo. They came together, created an amazing company. It's gone through these ebbs and flows. Now the CEO has left from there and now he's going to Starbucks. Right. There's been changes, you know, to that business for sure. Good, bad or ugly. I'll let you guys fill in the blank of what you think of what's going on there. Every company has its ups and downs. How do you keep coming back to center when things happen? It's your culture and how that's defined. And it needs to be simple. And I believe it has to connect with all six stakeholders that are touching the business. So to touch on that, what are the six stakeholders in the business? And we talk about it. Number one. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Well, number one, team. [00:04:21] Speaker A: Team number one. So let's, let's just chat about that right away. Yeah. You're part of the team, right? [00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been different parts of the team as well. [00:04:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I love that. Like as the company grows, we're going to be bringing in different people that are pros in what they do. But there's also gonna be opportunities in the company as it grows for you to move in a different position. So previous podcast we talked about it, but you came in as I Think a server. You bartended. You know, we aligned. [00:04:49] Speaker B: I attempted to bartend. [00:04:50] Speaker A: You know, you, you were, you know, you were a shit. Yeah. Person where it was like you had the energy, you wanted to do more, you were hungry. Can't teach that. Right. And we, we got along well. You had that background. I was like, awesome. Social media, let's go ahead and enhance that. And that's the cool part of the restaurant business. As we grow, we create those opportunities. But number one, we are here to serve our team. Right. So to make them say shit. Yeah. And that's our brand promise. So we'll talk about that with our six stakeholders. You've got vision, mission, promise and values. I think those are things if you want in a company. Right. Let's really focus on what those are. So team is number, you know, the first stakeholder in our business. Number two is going to be our franchisees. Right. So you've got them. For a long time we didn't have them, but we did build them into our stakeholder model. [00:05:40] Speaker B: So they were already there before they were a part of the plan. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Correct. And there's a reason why we want to be a franchise company. Franchise businesses have a black eye a lot of times. But I've been a franchisee before. Kevin, our chief operating officer, was the largest franchisee of multiple brands at, you know, an operating partner and done amazing things. Usually franchise locations perform better than corporate locations. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:06:09] Speaker A: The reason why is because they have local relationships. [00:06:13] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:06:14] Speaker A: So as a company grows, who's the local guy operating the local Chipotle? Well, it's the GM and there's there. But it's a big corporate structure versus maybe the most franchisee who lives there, who's in the community, going to church, has kids in school. There's a connection there. It's relationships. Franchisees can have a better relationship. And that's one of the things that we're focusing on as a company as we really roll into 2025. 2026 is going to be our big year. Go figure. Of course, with that, the franchisees. So they were already baked into it. We were always mindful, hey, would this work for our franchisees? Three is our fans. So, you know, you say, well, your customers, your fans are third on the list. That sounds kind of crazy, but, man, it takes making your team say, shit, yeah. It takes your fans, you know, your franchisees, the two of them, they gotta be on board with what we're doing. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah. We wouldn't have a product for the fans. [00:07:11] Speaker A: No. [00:07:11] Speaker B: If the team and franchisees weren't on board in the first place. [00:07:14] Speaker A: You wouldn't. So then you say, you know, what do they want? That's a moving target. Things move wildly fast nowadays. So that's why we created the 26 Club for them to where we can have instant feedback. We want engagement. Engagement, engagement, engagement. Most businesses are scared of that. We want more of that. We believe engagement really equals profit. It equals growth. It equals an enhanced relationship. You think about that. Next in that list, you've got the communities we operate in. Once again, talked about franchisees in those communities, but being local, the better. You can have great relationships and you can support those. I think that's key. And, you know, there's communities everywhere we go. Right. And once again, they are the driving force that, you know, can either embrace a business or can just, you know, let it. Let it die on the vine. And unfortunately, that happens after that, you've got your vendors. Vendors are so critical to the business. Yeah. [00:08:12] Speaker B: Again, you need a product. [00:08:14] Speaker A: The supply chain, I don't believe will ever go back to what it was, you know, with globalization. You know, pre Covid, it was so dialed in. And now we've gotten used to being out of stock of different things. Right. You go to restaurants and they're out of stock of this. That, you know, the. What is it? The sriracha that, like hung Foy Sriracha, I just totally butchered that. But it's like they're no longer producing it. Right. And so, you know, you look at these things, multiple of our vendors went out of business. [00:08:42] Speaker B: I mean, when working in the store, I remember weeks and weeks and weeks where we would have to run down the street to get forks like our. There were no vendors that had plastic forks. You could not buy plastic forks anywhere. [00:08:59] Speaker A: And it's funny to see the change of focus of all the stakeholders too, because I remember us just getting hammered on like, hey, you don't have disposable forks that are like, green. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:13] Speaker A: And then all of a sudden, Covid was like, no one cared about it. It was just, eat green. What? [00:09:18] Speaker B: Eat with your hands. [00:09:19] Speaker A: Well, it was just no one cared. It was, let's everything go in the trash. You know, if you could get forks, knives, disposables, that was great. You know, we were worried about being on brand, and then it was just whatever you could get. And it's still impacting the people. Forget that Covid is still impacting restaurants and really all businesses from a supply chain standpoint and just how fast things move, it's really never going to be the same. Because the world is not the same. The relationships aren't the same. So you got your vendors and then you have investors, right? And so these are all of the pieces that you have of, of the business, of the key relationships that are there. And you know, we're talking about what goes into just a general business that's required. Certainly in the restaurant business it takes all of those. You might be the investor as the owner of your own business. Right. It's just, that's that stakeholder. You have family, friends, right? Whatever size business you are, you're answering to somebody even if it's just yourself. So you've got that. And really for us, we want to exceed expectations. So those are the six relationships that we have in our business that really tie then to. I led with that to then talk about what's the vision of the company, what's the mission of the company, what's our promise, right? Like what are we actually trying to do in this business and then what are the values that as we grow, right. That go from founder led, where I'm in one of the weirdest and most awkward positions I've ever been in the company of. Now I'm not involved in every decision. It's like I'm seeing stuff go out. I'm like, that's amazing, right? That that went out and they made that decision without me being involved. It's like we have a growing company now. We have like they're using these things that I'm talking about right now to make decisions. Had a two hour call this morning with our vice president of beverage and Kevin, our COO about this of how do we, how do you guys make decisions that you could say, check that box. So it really is going back to this. So the vision of the company, the restaurant business sucks. We're here to change it. [00:11:25] Speaker B: That it does. [00:11:27] Speaker A: That's it. That's. The restaurant business sucks. The bar business sucks in general. If you look at every business, you could think of things that suck for sure in regards to it, but this is one because there's all of these relationships. There's so many customers, there's so many team members that it takes, there's so many moving parts that it really is the one that people say sucks the most. You're here to change it. Who are you changing it for? That's the big thing is in order, who does it suck for the most and what is also the engine of the business? To me it's the team. [00:11:59] Speaker B: I agree. [00:12:00] Speaker A: It's the Team. And that's why we have this. And we talk about of. Of what sucks with all of our guests that come on the Shit yeah. Show. I wanted to lead, by the way. We were on. This is episode 11. Ish. Right. Maybe that's it. In general, almost everybody that we've had involved in the business has been somebody that is in the company or has been. You know, I think there was one. One guest that we had. Right, Rev? Yeah, they, you know, from. From New York. Marketing expert came on board. But it's really. I wanted to focus on our team and showcase them of like, hey, this is why we're doing this. This is what it is. But really, to me, the restaurant business sucks. Number one for them. And then you go up the list. Franchise business is terrible. I'm gonna write a book someday called Don't Buy an Effing Franchise. But if you do, right? And I'm selling franchises right now, and I'm saying that, but it's because. [00:12:58] Speaker B: Sell them first before you write the book. [00:13:00] Speaker A: There you go. But it's gonna be a success story of what we do because we're gonna do it different. That's what Kevin and I talk about all the time. He was part of a company that went from 8 to 1200, I think, or 1600 locations. Right. Largest franchisee of Five Guys who open every single location. [00:13:17] Speaker B: That's wild to think of. [00:13:18] Speaker A: You see the good of the bad and the ugly of that. But how many times does a franchise system or a restaurant group get bought and then it completely changes, Right? And it doesn't change for the better, usually. [00:13:29] Speaker B: Usually. [00:13:29] Speaker A: Right. It's like someone buys it for a lot of money, and then they have to make money off of what they bought it for. And then it starts going downhill. They start cutting labor, cutting portions, cutting corners, and doing all of that. And I think it's because they don't have. Now it's about the money, and it's not about the vision, the mission, the promise. The values aren't there. Someone else comes in. Big companies, that happens when a new CEO comes in, right? And now they drop in their values. Hopefully they're good, but that's really it. So vision, right? If you were starting a company and even in your life, you need to have a vision for your own life. But, man, what is the vision that you're actually trying to do? And then what does it look like to make it wildly successful? I would say, what does it look like when we actually change the restaurant business? [00:14:13] Speaker B: That's a good question. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Actually, for us, I know what that looks like. It means we have to get to a certain size of growth as a company by doing it different. If we grow, doing it the same way as everybody else, you don't change your restaurant business. You're just another success story of doing the same thing. Right. So if you're a fan of us, you're watching this, expect us to do crazy stuff. We're going to do things different. [00:14:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. [00:14:41] Speaker A: That's why I waited so long. It's been 10 years. Because I wanted to have the creative opportunity to get all these pieces before we handed the ball off so we could keep the vision but have the bones together. And then it'll enhance as you bring great people in, it will enhance mission. The mission of the company is to inspire you, you, you, you, everybody. [00:15:02] Speaker B: To live your dream. [00:15:03] Speaker A: To live your dream. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:05] Speaker A: So that is whatever you want in life, right. Is like, I'm not gonna be in this company forever. If I am, then I don't have a company. Right. At some point, like, you know, the bird has gotta fly, right? And there's like a company should be able to live without the founder living and dying in that business over and over again. Should be able to grow and evolve and you know the shit. Yeah. Target is gonna constantly be changing as. As that happens. But the mission is just like we had with our, our last episode with, with Tyler. He said it was the best day of his life to be able to create some content. That's living the dream. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:42] Speaker A: We've got Scott, Scott Case on Tybee. Right. He's wanting to do photography forever. He's going to end up doing, it looks like the photography for all of our locations. Doing some really cool stuff with our umbrella and beach scenes and all of that. [00:15:54] Speaker B: That's so exciting. [00:15:55] Speaker A: And he's sending me texts in the 26x text club of like, he's literally living the dream. Like, if we keep doing this, we have a really good company. That's different when we get to do this with people changing lives. Right. And as people's lives change, right. It changes. We're in the sandwich shop, we got beach bars. That's a pretty cool. You know, if you're going to be in the restaurant business, if you're interested in growing the franchise, I'm going to do a franchise. Don't buy a franchise. But if you do beach bar franchises, might as well be on a beach or in an environment doing that. I've done the, the old Target shopping cent that will turn To a big lot someday, and then we'll, you know, have shootings in the back, right? Yeah, don't do that. [00:16:39] Speaker B: We prefer buildings with no shootings. [00:16:41] Speaker A: Nothing against target, big lots, a lot against shooting. We don't want to have that. Not kiddos. All right, so vision, mission, promise. Most businesses that are successful have a guarantee, right? They have a guarantee where it's like, money back guarantee, whatever it is. Like, if you're not fully satisfied. Restaurants don't really do that. They don't really put out there, like, hey, if you're not happy, let us know. We'll make it. Right. The big restaurants do. I know at Publix, they've got a big, big one. Like, if you don't feel pleasure upon leaving, right? I'm always, like, a little weird. But if you're not, like, I don't think it says if you're not pleasured. [00:17:21] Speaker B: By the experience, it definitely doesn't say. [00:17:23] Speaker A: That shopping is their pleasure. Shopping wasn't taking your pleasure. Shopping wasn't your pleasure. I guess you get your. They'll pay for your. Your bags or something, right? [00:17:33] Speaker B: If shopping wasn't your pleasure, we'll pay for your bags. That's what it says. [00:17:38] Speaker A: That's what it says. All right. [00:17:40] Speaker B: Something similar. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Something similar. Well, you need to have a guarantee for your business, because what you're doing is. It's a transaction, and there has to be a relationship of, like, hey, if we mess up, like, your money is good here. [00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:52] Speaker A: And that's really not. I think every time I go to a restaurant or order, Every single time I order a takeout, it's. Something's wrong, and there's no recourse. There's, like, no recourse. You call them up, and there's, like, almost no way you can get. It's like, you know, we had it on. We got barbecue, like, two months ago with, like, a family gathering, and they gave us a completely wrong bag. Completely wrong. And back. They've been going there for 10 years. Okay, right. Fill in the blank. Barbecue place. And they were like, no, we didn't. We didn't give you, like, yes, you did. No, you didn't. It was like this back and forth, and we brought it there. But it's like they all said they're never going back because it was a party of, like, 15 people, right? And it was their air, and it was this argument, and who knows who was there or what it was. But that's company culture, that somehow that's acceptable. And even just from, like, a Human to human. [00:18:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:54] Speaker A: Like, dude, if you're saying the food's wrong, right. And you're eating it, nothing sucks more than when you, like, go to a restaurant, especially takeout. And it's wrong. [00:19:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:03] Speaker A: Right. And that's why we have our guarantee. It's the shit. Yeah. Promise. And we actually, there's a reason we charge you for it. It's not because we want to make money on it. It's. We know that if we charge you 2.6% on every check and we mess up, it's gonna piss you off. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:19] Speaker A: So we get. Usually, very rarely, when they're pissed off, it's like. And you charge me. It's like, actually the reason you let us know that you had a bad experience is because we charged you. If you didn't, you would just go off into the abyss and just never go back. Say it was a fine experience and never go back. And then you're like, now we have no way. And we look at those experiences like that's how we can completely win you over. And so our guarantee. The shit. Yeah. Promise is that if you have any experience that you don't leave saying shit. Yeah. We'll refund your entire order, no questions asked, and send you a gift card for the same value. Because our refund. We wasted your time, we wasted your experience. Don't know why you could have been there. Could it be an important business lunch? Could be. You know, we've done private events where we've given it away. Right. Because it's important to that person. And it's a long term business philosophy that's there. And it's, it's certainly serving us well in regards to it. And it lets me sleep at night. As we grow that our team has that guarantee that, that can be the really, the cornerstone of what really differentiates us. [00:20:23] Speaker B: Which is huge for the team. Because teams in other restaurants, I think, feel like they. Well, often they don't have the power to make that decision. So they let the customers down because they don't want to be punished. [00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it's really simple. It's. They're. They're going to the manager who's probably overworked. You can never pay somebody in the restaurant business enough is one of my, My things is like you have to give them other things. You have to give them quality of life. You have to give them, you know, good compensation. You have to give them personal growth and company growth. And everybody's in some sort of, as Kevin says, amoeba. Right. He Always graduated. He says it. But you're in some sort of area of, like, company growth is more important than money right now because you want to grow in your career, whatever that is. Right. But you have to give them these different things. And. And so this is one of those things that I believe it. It just. It solves one of the hardest problems. It's when we mess up, what do you do? It just makes it the easiest thing. Right. And it also. It allows us to actually know how much we mess up because we're tracking it very, very closely. So that's our brand promise, values. So this is one that I actually waited a long time to figure out. Our values. It didn't come until last year, where we were putting together a strategic playbook for 2024, where it's like, hey, let's really define, like, what are we now? And then, how do we make decisions as a company? And who are we? And so we've got six values that are there. One of them is probably no surprise if you've been watching the Shit. Yeah. Show for a while is live with passion. [00:22:08] Speaker B: No surprise. [00:22:09] Speaker A: There you go. Live with passion. High fives and shit. Yeah. Living with passion, I think, is something that, man, you know, sales for one in business is a transfer of energy, Right. So if you're not passionate, you're gonna struggle in your business. You have to be passionate about it. The restaurant business will suppress passion. If you don't know why you're in it, you don't have a vision for what you're doing. You don't have a mission. Right. Like, all of these things super, super important. So figuring out why you're in business will drive that passion and push you forward. And usually to have ongoing passion. Usually not about yourself. Right. When it's about other people. Right. About other people living their dream, that allows me to live my dream. [00:22:53] Speaker B: That makes the biggest difference. [00:22:55] Speaker A: I agree. It really does. Another one is grow to give. So why are you growing your business? Right. If you're growing it just for yourself, there's gonna be a time where you get to a certain level of success where you're like, I don't need any more. Well, guess what? It wasn't about you the whole time. Right. If your number is two locations. Right. Well, cool. Now what are you doing? Well, there's a whole army of people that have their own goals, and they're. And, Right. And if you stop growing, they're gonna outgrow you. Your people are your greatest asset. Right. Those relationships are so critical. You have the best location, you have no people in it, right? Wait for the robots. Like five more years. [00:23:37] Speaker B: Just a building. [00:23:38] Speaker A: It's just a building. So grow to give, right? So that's really. It is. We're growing so we can give to really all the stakeholders and it's really give opportunities for our team. So as they grow and they move up in the org chart and they learn, you know, there's personal growth, they're doing better. If we don't create opportunities, they're gonna go somewhere else. And that sucks, of course. Right? Let's see. Dream bigger. One of my favorites is a lot of people say dream big. No, you like. There's a 10x philosophy in business where it's like pick your goal and then 10 exit. Right? Because the way of solving a problem or any goal that you have is it's the same whether I gotta solve a $10 problem or a million dollar problem. It's the same steps to actually do it. Well, we say 26 exit. Let's just totally blow it out of the water. Dream bigger. Because you only get one life and it's like you are supposed to be the main character of your life, right? As long as it's not. It's like you've got to be that main character so you can serve other people. [00:24:42] Speaker B: Who else is going to be? [00:24:43] Speaker A: There you go. Let's get weird. [00:24:45] Speaker B: We're good at that. [00:24:46] Speaker A: What we do is weird. It is definitely different from what the world does in the restaurant business. We talk about these things. Maybe these untouchable things. Maybe other people don't do it because it's so hard. The business is so hard. It's like, how do you have time to do this? Well, it's a key part of what we do. We're making the investment to do it. But for me, let's get weird. What that means is that everybody has a gift. I believe that's kind of the thing that makes them different. Call it weird. So if you can embrace your gift and as a company, you can put people in positions where their gift can shine. Man, they're gonna be so happy in regards to that. If you can pull that gift out of people, inspire them, then they're gonna be really happy in their business. So I think that's one that is one of my favorites. Just be different. Be the purple cow in a world of black and white cows. My favorite books. Purple Cow St. So that's a little insight of what we've got with our company, our vision. The restaurant business sucks. We're here to change it. The mission is to inspire you to live your dream. Our promise. The shit. Yeah. Promise. When you have such a great experience you leave saying shit. [00:25:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:51] Speaker A: And then our six values. So I know that was a lot. [00:25:55] Speaker B: Were you taking notes? [00:25:56] Speaker A: It was rapid fire culture. But want to share of like that's what we're doing every day. And as we grow man that's my role is to make sure that that's what we're doing in every location. And it gets me excited as the. [00:26:10] Speaker B: Protector of the promise. [00:26:11] Speaker A: Protector of the shit. Yeah. Promise. [00:26:12] Speaker B: I think we have one more thing to do. [00:26:15] Speaker A: It was a little let's get weird. This segment was a bit weirder than normal shit. Yeah. [00:26:22] Speaker B: Okay. [00:26:23] Speaker A: And this one changes colors. What? Yeah. It's the curry blossoms. The blooms. Yeah. There you go. [00:26:31] Speaker B: Let's get weird. [00:26:32] Speaker A: Let's get weird. Thank. Is that's really good. [00:26:40] Speaker B: It's really good. It just needs food. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Yeah. The sauces need food. Yeah. Yeah. Or sauces. Like sauces food. Yeah.