Ken Rice is the Chief Operating Officer at Pickleman’s Franchising, a company specializing in upscale, fast-casual sandwich shops known for their fresh, high-quality food. Under his leadership, Pickleman’s has achieved 14.57% same-store year-over-year growth and expanded to 28 locations, with plans to add 20 to 25 additional units in the coming years. Ken is a US Army veteran honored with two Army Commendation Medals and is passionate about building strong franchisee-franchisor relationships through effective communication and strategic growth.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [01:49] How Ken Rice went from busboy to COO
- [04:45] Why Pickman’s Franchising is experiencing a rapid growth trajectory
- [08:15] The true value of business relationships
- [09:41] Why franchising appealed to Ken’s business instincts
- [10:53] The importance of listening to franchisee feedback
- [14:12] What makes Pickman’s sandwiches uniquely irresistible?
- [18:15] The key qualities sought in Pickman’s franchisees
- [21:14] How Pickman’s fosters a culture of respect and love
In this episode…
The restaurant industry offers diverse opportunities for entrepreneurs, from fast-casual concepts to upscale dining experiences. What insights can a seasoned executive provide about the franchising landscape in this sector?
According to Ken Rice, successful franchising requires a strong focus on communication and relationship-building between franchisors and franchisees. He emphasizes the importance of listening to franchisees’ concerns, providing them with the necessary tools and training, and fostering a collaborative environment where both parties work together to improve the brand. Ken also highlights the value of having franchisees participate in decision-making processes, such as marketing strategies, to ensure their voices are heard and their experiences are leveraged.
On this episode of the Top Business Leaders Show, Rise25’s Chad Franzen welcomes Ken Rice, COO of Pickleman’s Franchising, to chat about his journey in the restaurant industry, the importance of franchisee-franchisor relationships, and the unique positioning of Pickleman’s in the market. Ken shares insights on effective franchise management, the role of technology in operations, and what makes a successful franchisee in today’s competitive landscape.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Ken Rice in LinkedIn
- Pickleman’s Franchising
- Pickleman’s
- Doug Stritzel on LinkedIn
- Chad Franzen on LinkedIn
- SpotOn
- Rise25
Quotable moments:
- “I like being my own business owner without being in business by myself.”
- “We can give you, I’d say, the best gourmet.”
- “It’s the hardest job. Easy to understand the concept of it, but it’s hard to execute.”
- “If you give people respect, kindness, and love, you’ll get respect, kindness, and love back.”
- “If you need to tell your people to ‘put a smile on your face,’ you’re doing something wrong.”
Action Steps:
- Enhance communication with stakeholders: By establishing regular communication channels like monthly meetings, leaders can ensure that franchisees feel heard and valued, which fosters collaboration and growth.
- Invest in technological upgrades: Implementing a robust tech stack, including a reliable POS system and learning management tools, facilitates smoother operations and enhances productivity.
- Develop strong team culture: A positive culture resonates with customers, creating a welcoming atmosphere that enhances their experience and loyalty.
- Focus on people development: Invest in hiring, orientating, training, and treating employees well to build a skilled and stable workforce.
- Foster franchisee involvement: Encourage franchisees to actively participate in decision-making processes, such as serving on marketing boards or providing feedback on systems.
Sponsor for this episode
SpotOn:
Today’s episode is brought to you by SpotOn. SpotOn has transformed the merchant service industry by providing the tools and support your business deserves at a price that puts money back into your pocket!
SpotOn’s team wants to empower all of their merchants by merging payment processing with simple customer engagement tools, all in one easy-to-use platform. As a business owner, you are focused on managing your daily operations and engaging your customers. You don’t have the time, energy, or excess funds to devote to multiple complicated platforms! That’s why SpotOn is focused on helping you build long-lasting customer loyalty while saving you time and money through our all in one system.
Whether you are a merchant or a consumer, SpotOn wants to be more than an average payment processor. SpotOn aims to exceed your expectations by valuing simplicity, maintaining flexibility, and celebrating innovative collaboration. Let SpotOn help you do business the right way.
Partner with SpotOn today! Visit spoton.com today to schedule your free demo or to view SpotOn’s products. You can also call SpotOn at 877.814.4102 at any time. Let SpotOn help you make the difference with your business!
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Episode Transcript
Intro 00:03
Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show, powered by Rise25 Media. We feature top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world.
Chad Franzen 00:20
Hi Chad Franzen here, co-host for this show where we feature top restaurateurs, investors and business leaders. This episode is brought to you by SpotOn. SpotOn has the best-in-class payment platform for retail, and they have a flagship solution called SpotOn Restaurant, where they combine marketing software and payments all in one. They served everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and Subway to small mom and pop restaurants. To learn more, go to spoton.com.
It’s also brought to you by Rise25. We help B2B businesses to get ROI, clients, referrals and strategic partnerships through done-for-you podcast. If you have a B2B business and want to build great relationships with clients, referral partners, and thought leaders in your space, there’s no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more, go to rise25.com or email us at. Support@rise25.com.
My guest today is Ken Rice, chief operating officer at Pickleman’s Franchising. Pickleman’s is an upscale, fast-casual sandwich shop franchise committed to serving fresh, high quality food. Ken leads a team that is spearheading the expansion of the franchise, with nearly two thirds of its franchisees developing more stores. They expect 20 to 25 additional units over the next five years from internal growth. Pickleman’s has seen a 14.57% same store year over year growth.
Ken is also a US Army veteran who has served who has earned two Army Commendation Medals, the Army Achievement Medal, Presidential Unit Citation and the Good Conduct Medal for his service, which we definitely appreciate. Ken, I appreciate your service and your joining me today on the podcast. Thanks so much.
Ken Rice 01:55
It’s a pleasure, Chad. I’m glad to be here. Glad to be here.
Chad Franzen 01:58
Hey, tell me, how did you kind of get into this kind of franchising scene?
Ken Rice 02:06
So I guess I’d have to take a step back. How did I get into restaurants as a whole? I, I began when I was about 13 years old as a busboy at a restaurant in Long Island, New York, and sort of work my way up through the ranks, never thinking that I was going to be in restaurants by any means. But, you know, sort of through college and different things. I ended up in the restaurant industry.
I not too long ago, I was, you know, how I, how I ended up meeting Doug. Doug Stritzel who’s the founder and CEO, current CEO of Pickleman’s. I was hired at Wendy’s and started off as a general manager. Doug, Doug and I worked together. I became a district manager, became a director of operations.
Doug left about a year after I was there and opened up a little shop called Pickleman’s in Columbia, Missouri in 2005, and I took over his spot as the operating partner, and I became a franchisee with my partner there. And we had at the time, 12 Wendy’s and two Tim Hortons. I stayed with him for 15 years as a partner, built it up to ending up with 29 restaurants. We ended up with 14 Wendy’s and five Tim Hortons restaurants and and that’s what I did the franchising thing for a while. Then like, like sometimes some marriages just don’t work out.
Well, my partnership and his didn’t end up working out, so we broke up a little bit. At that point, after 15 years, I went over and became a regional director for a Hardee’s chains in South Carolina. And then I was left there and became a vice president of operations for a 45 unit Burger King chain. And one night. You know, this is about 20 years after Doug and I first met.
I get a call at about 11:00 at night that said, hey. And I’m like, is this Doug Stritzel? And he’s like, yeah. And I said, Doug, are you all right? It’s 11:00 at night.
He goes, yeah, yeah, I’m fine. He goes, I was just thinking about you and I really want to expand this brand and would love to have you come on board and be our chief operating officer for us. So about three years ago, it’ll be three years in January. I came on board with Pickmans. And, you know, so I spend a lot of time on the franchising franchisee and understand the needs of the franchisees, because I was one.
And, you know, if, you know, I’ve been working hard to, you know, meet the needs here for the franchisees. We have.
Chad Franzen 05:02
So you’re in charge of franchising now. But you’re a founder. You’re a founder of Pickleman’s?
Ken Rice 05:07
No I’m not the founder, I am not the founder. Doug. Doug Stritzel was the founder, okay? He founded Pickleman’s Clemens back in 2005. I’m the chief operating officer for him, so he and I got together after he founded this in 2005, in Columbia.
Chad Franzen 05:22
Oh, gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. So what’s your role, then as chief operating officer? What goes into that?
Ken Rice 05:30
My thing is, I’m sort of the conduit between the franchisees and the franchisor. I make sure that there’s good communication happening, that they have the tools and training, and we have the systems in place for them to be very successful, to run great Pickleman’s restaurants, and also to make a lot of money on their end. I also, you know, my, my team and me, we touch all parts of the whole thing from marketing to the, the, the construction, all the parts of it. And and again, we also foster the communication back and forth between the franchisees and the franchisor. When I first came on board three years ago.
We had two marching orders. I went and visited with each of the franchisees and visited all of our current locations, which was 24 at the time. And, you know, I just sat down and said, what are your pain points? What do you need help with? Number one, they didn’t like our they didn’t like our current POS system.
And they thought it was failing. And number two, they thought that we didn’t have a lot of say in how the Pickman’s was happening. So number one, the two things I said I needed to do is we need to fix the communication problem. And number two, we need a much better tech stack. So you had mentioned spot on, spot on.
I brought on SpotOn to be our POS provider, and as of the 12th of this month, we’ve been for anyone who’s turned over a POS system. It’s quite a heavy lift on everybody from the far end to our franchisees. But, you know, you know, about a year and a half later, we were able to move all of our franchisees from their current POS over the spot on system as of the 12th of this month. So pretty proud of that. And then the other thing we did is about a year ago, I started a thing called Pickle Time, which every month myself and the other C-suite team get together and all of us report on what’s going on in the brand, and then we allow them to have interaction once a month for an hour to talk about what’s going on, what’s coming up, and what are their concerns.
So that’s been a big help in trying to get the relationship. And then lastly on that, you know, I was instrumental in helping to get a couple of franchisees to sit on a marketing board where they help to have input into marketing decisions that we do so that. So every year we have a we’ll pick two franchisees that come in and give their, you know, their thoughts, and they represent the rest of the franchisees on our thing to let us know what we can do. You know, how they’re doing and some of their thoughts.
Chad Franzen 08:27
Okay, great. And we’re certainly hoping your experience with SpotOn has been good so far.
Ken Rice 08:32
It’s been great. You know, the interesting thing is it’s not been perfect. They’ve made mistakes and I but you know, it’s great because as I told them, I look for relationships and not partnerships. I’m looking for people that can that understand our business and want to grow with us. So when a mistake is made, though, I always see that’s the true test of a relationship, whether it’s a, you know, a business relationship or even a personal one, how do people respond in times of problems?
And I’ll tell you every time that there’s been a problem, which there hasn’t been a lot, but there was a couple of, you know, there was an outage at one point. And I’ll tell you one thing. SpotOn goes above and beyond in fixing the problem that they did, and then making sure that they really do a good diagnosis of what happened, why did it happen, and what they need to do to fix it going forward. And that’s all I can ever ask of anyone who’s, you know, that we’re in in a relationship with. So we look for people that we can partner with on the long term.
So nobody’s going to be perfect. We’re not perfect, but we want people that, you know, are transparent, that own their mistakes, make it right, and then learn from them.
Chad Franzen 09:45
You have a vast amount of franchising experience. You know, as a franchisee. You talked about it earlier. What is it about being a franchisee that was particularly appealing to you?
Ken Rice 09:58
I like being my own business owner without being in business by myself. You know, like Doug, you know, Doug had to come up with the concept. I mean, yes, he borrowed from some of his experiences in the past to create Pickleman’s. However, you know he had to create everything. Being a franchisee, there’s already a brand that is successful and they already have systems.
And you know, one of the things I’m very good at is learning how a system works, refining systems, and then most importantly, getting a good team that can execute. I think, you know, really when you have a good franchise brand that you get with, if the test at that point is can you execute it? And franchisees that do well know how to execute the brand and know the people’s piece. Franchisees that struggle tend to struggle with that.
Chad Franzen 10:56
You mentioned, you know, you talked to some franchisees and they voiced some concerns to you, and you listened to them and acted on what they had to say. How important is that when it comes to a company that deals with franchisees, I think.
Ken Rice 11:10
I think it’s the number one thing. If you don’t listen to the people who, you know, they’re, you know, they’re your investors, they’re your customers. So at the end of the day, but they’re also, you know, it’s a it’s a, it’s a unique relationship, the franchisee one, because you’re so embedded with each other because and one of the things, you know, sometimes there is a thought, hey, you know, hey why are you guys doing this? You know, you’re making it harder on us. Well, at no point did I have to make sure that I educated people, that it would not be in our interest to do things that are contrary to the franchisees, because at the end of the day, if they’re not successful, then they don’t want to build more restaurants.
And if they don’t build more restaurants, that doesn’t help us or doesn’t attract other people to want to build and join us. So we always want to. Now, do we always hit it on the mark? No we don’t. But, you know, I think one of the things I do, I truly believe, is we’re better together than we are apart.
And if you look at some even big franchise brands, you know, I won’t mention, but just lately you see the, you know, there’s an anti-antagonistic work between the two. They’re always fighting against each other and the brand always struggles because of that. Where brands really go well is when the franchisees and the franchisors really work together to make the brand great. And now are we always going to agree? No we’re not.
It’s just like a family. I mean, you know, I love my wife, but I don’t always agree with her. But I still love her and I still need her input. And I want, you know, we work together to make a great family. It’s the same thing in the business world.
When I was a franchisee, I had a number of people who worked with me, you know, and, you know, I always prided myself. And one of the things I like to do is I’d go in and talk to the guy who’s making the sandwiches at Wendy’s and say, you know, well, how do you think about this new product? How can you know? What could we do to make your job easier? What would be better for you?
You know, and so many times you find out the guys who are doing it can tell you a lot of stuff if you just want to listen. And it’s the same thing, it’s even more important or is just as important to go to your franchisees and listen to what they’re saying, because they’re the guys that, especially in our system where we only have that. When I first came here, we had no corporate restaurants. So all the operations were run by the franchisees. Now we have one corporate restaurant, and I think it’s good to have some corporate restaurants so we can get the same feel that they have.
But, you know, whether we have corporate restaurants or not, it’s important to get their opinions, listen to them. We don’t always have to agree, and we may not even act. But I think most people want to know that they’re being listened to and they’re being taken seriously. And when you do that, you know, they can be understanding that not everything that they suggest is going to happen, but they do want to know that you actually care about them and you care about what they have to say.
Chad Franzen 14:15
So beyond that, that personal type relationship where you’re definitely interested in working together with the franchisee, what makes a good, you know, choice among all the opportunities out there for franchising?
Ken Rice 14:29
Well, I’ll tell you, you know, you make a great point. People are, you know, there’s a million burger brands out there. There’s a million sandwich brands out there. There is. But you know, what Doug has created with Pickleman’s is a unique niche because, you know, and Doug has, you know, Doug’s background.
He started with Jimmy John’s and, you know, he was their first chief operating officer. So one of the things we have is and I like to say this, we have the speed and efficiency of a Jimmy John’s with the quality. And I would say, you know, I probably I’m biased, but I’d say some other people, you know, with the quality up there with the Panera Bread and nobody else really hits that sweet spot perfectly. They can be fast or they can be good, but we can do both. We can give you a great, you know, you know, I’d say the best gourmet.
And there’s a reason we call ourselves gourmet sandwiches. You know, if you’ve had the opportunity, have you ever have you ever tried one, Chad?
Chad Franzen 15:34
No I have not.
Ken Rice 15:35
You’re going to have to because you know, once you once you try one of our sandwiches, you’ll never want to turn back. When, when I used to work for Tim Hortons, they said, do they put something special in that coffee? Because, you know, people keep wanting to come back for that cup of Tim Hortons coffee. Well, that’s the same thing at Pickleman’s. When you eat a Pickleman sandwich, you want to come back because the quality’s so darn good.
Also, it’s a very easy system to implement. We have good tools, we show you how to do it. It’s very simple to do. We have some of the best AUVs in the business. You know, we beat out most of our competition when it comes to average unit volume.
And we have a good, solid flow, flow flow through when you’re executing at a, at a good, you know, when you’re executing the restaurants.