Qu - Restaurants Reinvented - Heather Leed Neary - Transcript
[00:00:00] Jenifer Kern: [00:00:00] Good morning, everyone and welcome to Restaurants Reinvented. I am Jen Kern, your host here, and I'm so excited to kick off season two, focusing on international women's month, or I should say in celebration of international women's month. And today I have here with me, a very well-known and acclaimed leader in the restaurant business,
[00:00:22] don't make a face, Heather Leed Neary. And Heather is joining from Kansas city. Is that right? So Heather I just have to do quick bio check on you. So 15 years at Auntie Anne's, rising from a marketing manager to the president of the company, which is so impressive. I know in 2019 you were on the NRN power list, which is awesome.
[00:00:49] And then last night I actually listened to a Penn State University, a little webinar where they were acknowledging you. I think you got like an alumni award and there's many other recognitions you've gotten. So [00:01:00] I really want to thank you for helping us kick off this new season and joining me. Yeah. It's really exciting. So let's go ahead and dig in. So we're all about Restaurants Reinvented as you know, and helping marketers really elevate their role and position with within the C-suite and within the organization overall. So give our listeners a little background on you in terms of your rise from marketing and really, let's actually start with, how did you get into the, into restaurants to begin with?
[00:01:30] Heather Neary: [00:01:30] Oh, gosh. I guess my first foray into restaurants was working at a Cheesesteak and subs shop in Pennsylvania when I was 14 or 15. Worked for a guy that owned a little sub shop on the corner in downtown Lancaster. And that was my first experience in the restaurant business. And I guess I was
[00:01:48] excited by it. It's a fast paced environment. I love the chaos of the restaurant business. I then, as many of us do, made my way through high school and college by working at restaurants, waitressing, [00:02:00] bartending, whatever I could do to make some money. It was a great way to meet new people and make some money on the side while going to school
[00:02:06] full-time. So that's the really early story of the restaurant business for me. I think after that I moved to California after I graduated from college. I took a job in marketing, actually not in marketing, in publishing and was bored to tears, bored beyond my wildest dreams, because it was a very predictable environment.
[00:02:25] So it was like, it was a monthly publication. So the first week of every month you'd do this. The second week of every month, you do this. The third week of the month, you do this. And I was like, "Wow, this is definitely publishing. That's the nature of the beast," 25 years ago, not today. But just needed something a little bit more exciting.
[00:02:42] So when my husband and I moved to New York in 2002, I decided to start my career over again. And I started in marketing then. So that was not my first marketing job, wasn't in the restaurant business, but my restaurant predates all of that from high school and college.
[00:02:59] Jenifer Kern: [00:02:59] Yeah. [00:03:00] And the other fun thing that we have in common is growing up in Pennsylvania. For listeners. We just have to let everyone know we're both from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So small world, fun small world stories, Heather and I actually went to the same high school as well. We didn't know each other before last week.
[00:03:15] And this is the fun
[00:03:16] Heather Neary: [00:03:16] know. We went to the same school until last week.
[00:03:19] Jenifer Kern: [00:03:19] I know. So what was it like for you growing up in Lancaster? It's a really small town. It's bigger now, but what were your formative growing up experiences as a young girl in Lancaster? And do you think any of it had anything to do with kind of your career growth and what you're doing today?
[00:03:37] Heather Neary: [00:03:37] Lancaster County is really known for its humble, humble background. It is a really hardworking community of a lot of really industrious people who I have a great strong work ethic. And I think I learned that from my parents. My mom was a teacher. My dad was a police officer. I learned about working hard growing up.
[00:03:54] My grandparents were both hardworking. My grandmother is actually 92. She still lives in [00:04:00] Lancaster and she just retired for the third time two years ago. Actually, no, it wasn't even two years ago. It was last March. She finally decided she was done working when the pandemic hit and she didn't want to be in public anymore. So I come from like a long line of people. Oh, multiple times. Yeah. Yeah. And so she finally stopped working. It was actually last March. It was in March of 2020. She finally stopped working and she was already, already over 90. But she just said, she's, "I don't like being home alone. It's boring. I like seeing people and being out in public."
[00:04:33] And so she kept working and it wasn't a ton of work, but that's where I learned my work ethic. My formative years were really spent. My parents were very gracious to have my brother and I involved in lots of sports and activities, and church events and that sort of thing. And as soon as we were able to work, we had to get jobs because, we wanted to drive a car.
[00:04:50] We had to help pay for that. So we both had part-time jobs in high school and went from there. College was an expectation, it wasn't an option. It wasn't a matter of, "Are you going to college?" It was, "What college are you [00:05:00] going to?" And here we are today. Wow. So it sounds like hard work was part of your DNA and your lineage. And what's gran-, what's grandma's name? Evelyn. Let's give Evelyn a shout out.
[00:05:14] Oh, I she's the best. She's she's this spunky lady. She's 92 going on 60. Nothing seems to frazzle her ever. She's very much a "You get mad, you get glad again", that's one of her common sayings. Like she always says that. And she just goes with the flow. She quilts. She's made literally like probably 35 quilts in the last year,
[00:05:32] 'cause she's bored being home. Her garden has never looked better because she's home all the time now. And then even during the pandemic, we had to take her car from her for a little while because she was out gallivanting a little too much. And so we had to put her on lockdown a little bit.
[00:05:47] That's so funny 'cause my grandmother too, we had to take, pull her license from her when she went through a red light and hit a cop car. We're like, "No more driving." She was, Oh, I love it. okay. [00:06:00] So yeah, you've got it. You've
[00:06:01] And she's still actually driving. We just took it from her, we just took it from her because she was going out too much during the pandemic. And we were like, "That's not a great idea." And so we took it from her for a few weeks and then we gave it back to her as long as she agreed to to cut back on her shopping.
[00:06:14] Jenifer Kern: [00:06:14] Yeah. Oh my gosh. That is so funny. Like I so much want to be that woman. That's what I want to grow into. I want to age gracefully.
[00:06:24] Heather Neary: [00:06:24] She's super healthy. Doesn't have a care in the world. She's an incredible, she's incredible seamstress. She made all kinds of things. She's like the resident seamstress for our whole family. She quilts, she b-, bakes, she cooks. She's like during the pandemic, she'd be bored. She's like, "Hey, I made a pot of soup today", and I'd come over and pick it up and to be like literally enough to feed 72 people.
[00:06:45] Jenifer Kern: [00:06:45] Wow. Wow. Quilt thing's big in Lancaster. Like a lot of people are quilters. I
[00:06:50] Heather Neary: [00:06:50] really.
[00:06:52] Jenifer Kern: [00:06:52] Yeah. My mom's a knitter. I never picked up quilting. I didn't need a point for a while, but, okay. So anyway, so from your humble roots in [00:07:00] Lancaster, Pennsylvania to I, you then said you were living in San Diego, in California for awhile, or was that after, was that before you?
[00:07:07] Heather Neary: [00:07:07] I was in San Diego after college.
[00:07:09] Jenifer Kern: [00:07:09] Okay.
[00:07:09] Heather Neary: [00:07:09] That was where I was working for a publishing company.
[00:07:11] Jenifer Kern: [00:07:11] Okay, publishing. And a lot of marketers have, I got my early start in journalism, like writing for a newspaper. A lot of us kind of start with a little publishing or newspaper journalism kind of background. And I think that's good cause that teaches us a different way to think about the content, and the audience, and who you're writing to.
[00:07:30] And then you eventually started at Auntie Anne's and today you are you did 15 years of Auntie Anne's and today you are at KPB Investments running the KBP sorry, Lord have mercy. Okay guys, fix that. And today here at K, I got to look at it, KBP it's almost like a tongue twister. You're at
[00:07:51] Heather Neary: [00:07:51] KBP it is a tongue twister.
[00:07:53] Jenifer Kern: [00:07:53] KBP Investments and you're running the Taco Bell franchises there.
[00:07:58] Is that correct? [00:08:00] Okay. Okay. So tell me about your role there today and really what you're focused on?
[00:08:05] Heather Neary: [00:08:05] Twenty-five days I started on March 2nd, so I'm brand new here. This franchisee owns close to a thousand KFC restaurants, I think 700 or 800, or I'm not, I don't know the exact number. And then they're also have begun to acquire Taco Bell restaurants as well. So I'll be running the Taco Bell side of the business.
[00:08:23] My role here is to run the business. So looking at operations, local marketing, the team staffing retention, loyalty programs, local marketing efforts, what else am I missing development, new acquisitions working with my team on all of those things, moving forward.
[00:08:38] Jenifer Kern: [00:08:38] Oh, that's so exciting. So you, in our pre-call you talked about how you're moving from the franchisor side of the business, to the franchisee side of the business. And can you give our listeners an idea of what that transition? I know you're very new into it, but you did a lot of franchisee work.
[00:08:52] I know also at Auntie Anne's. How is that different and what are you focusing on that's different from the other side?
[00:08:59] Heather Neary: [00:08:59] Yeah. So [00:09:00] I think, there's lots of similarities and that's one of the reasons why I thought this would be a fun opportunity. But the other thing that to think about is the fact that, the franchisor establishes the guidelines, establishes the ideal, and then the franchisee needs to execute on those ideals and those brand standards and those operational procedures and those new menu item executions. And I used to hear this from my franchisees , that what we imagined to be the reality,
[00:09:25] isn't always the reality in the restaurant business. And we dream up an idea or a new product or a marketing promotion. And it sounds great when we're sitting in our office, but actual execution at the store level is a different conversation. So I think for me, it's great for me to have that franchisor experience for 15 years and to now be able to apply that to the franchisee side to help run the business better, to also understand what the franchisor is thinking and to understand how to communicate with them, to make sure that it's a win for the franchisor and the franchisee,
[00:09:57] and ultimately most importantly, the [00:10:00] guests that come to our restaurant every day.
[00:10:03] Jenifer Kern: [00:10:03] And this has been a topic that's come up a lot on the podcast, which is marketers really need to understand the operation side of the business. If restaurant marketers and it's not just the operations, it's also the technology. But if we don't understand what's going on in the actual store with the actual customers, it's like boots on the street.
[00:10:22] It makes it much harder for the whole organization to be effective. So I know at Auntie Anne's, you started in marketing and then you ran operations, I believe for a little bit before you became the president. And so help our listeners understand the value of wearing those different hats and then the different things you learned along the way.
[00:10:42] Heather Neary: [00:10:42] Yeah, I think first of all, you're absolutely right. I think, one of the biggest challenges in our industry and the restaurant business is. Is the dynamic between the marketers and the operators. And I think the operators have a very pragmatic approach. The marketers have a very pie in the sky approach and somewhere in the middle is [00:11:00] the sweet spot.
[00:11:00] I think, at Auntie Anne's, I was very fortunate. Auntie Anne's has always been very focused on making sure every corporate employee understands the operations side of the business. So no matter what job you join at Auntie Anne's your first week or two, spend an operations training. You could be a receptionist.
[00:11:15] You could be in the supply chain team. You could be a marketer. You could, no matter what role you're in, your first week or two is spent learning the business, learning how to make a pretzel, learning how to get a store open, learning how to tear a store down at the end of the night, learning what's involved in the procedures we do, learning what's involved in the food safety practices that we have in place.
[00:11:35] Those are lays the foundation for your career at NTN. So I did have that background. At Auntie Anne's right when I joined the company in 2005, and I remember being in training with our awesome trainers at Auntie Anne's, who were very patient with those of us that hadn't spent as much time on the operation side as we maybe should have.
[00:11:52] And in 2009, our our head of operations had left the company. And I was talking with the CEO. I was the CML at the time. [00:12:00] And our CEO and I were talking about this open position and talking about what opportunities we had to make sure we made the right choice for hiring this position to fill. And he said, "We've got to get over this hump of, marketers and operators constantly butting heads." And I I don't know if it was intentional or not. I threw out a suggestion. I said, "Hey, what about me taking over both operations and marketing?" And he looked at me like I was crazy. And he was like, "That's not how this works."
[00:12:26] And I said, "But maybe if we're all part of the same team, maybe if we all create some synergies and have a better understanding of what makes each of us tick there'll be some different results in the end." He was like, "Let me think about that." He came back to me a couple of weeks later and he said, "I think you're crazy.
[00:12:40] Let's give it a try. I'm going to do this with you for six months and I'm not going to pay you anything more." Okay. I went from, a team of marketers and communications and PR and food development and food innovation to a team, like literally more than doubled in size overnight. And I'm supposed to be a six month [00:13:00] temporary thing to see how it worked out.
[00:13:01] And six years later I became president. I still had both of them under my responsibilities. But I think what I learned there was that helping both sides of the fence understand what drives the other is what was the key to our success. And I think we did a very basic things in terms of team building. We partnered every marketer with
[00:13:20] somebody on the operations team and that became their, like their go-to person.
[00:13:23] Marketing specialist had somebody that could always call an operation. Sally in marketing could always call Josie in operations and say, "Hey, here's what we're thinking, what's the wrong way or right way to go about doing this?" And that created a lot more synergies between the two sides of the fences.
[00:13:39] And then it also created a lot more credibility with our franchisees, who are generally operators. And when we acknowledged that we had an issue with what marketing was trying to implement and what operations really knew could happen. And we brought those two teams together, our franchisees really appreciated that
[00:13:56] we recognize that, and worked on fixing that. From my perspective, I [00:14:00] learned that there's this sweet spot, there's the pie in the sky and there's the pragmatic approach. And there's this sweet spot somewhere in the middle. I learned that feedback that we got from the operations team was really great.
[00:14:10] I learned that when the marketers spent more time in stores, they had a better understanding of what would and wouldn't work. So as time went on, there were fewer ideas that were way out in left field from a pie in the sky perspective, because they had a different filter they were working through. And I became president in 2015 and one of the things we did, my executive team and I, we spent time in the stores every quarter.
[00:14:31] Each one of us had one of our KPMs. One of our key performance metrics was to spend time in stores. And it wasn't, it wasn't like you had to go work for three weeks in a store while still doing your full-time job. But it was spend time there listening to what the customers are saying, listen to what the crew members are saying.
[00:14:46] Really listen, and then apply that to what you do in your role, whether you're in technology or development or real estate or operations or marketing, and put that filter on. And don't forget that at the end of the day, if our [00:15:00] franchisees aren't happy and if our customers aren't happy, we don't have a business.
[00:15:04] Jenifer Kern: [00:15:04] Yeah. Yeah. Wow. There's so much in there that you talked about. First of all, I love the whole pie in the sky, like marketers, like I relate to that, right. Pie in the sky and then pragmatic and find the middle ground, find that middle ground as you call the sweet spot there. But what I think is just a really great takeaway for our listeners is the pairing that you did.
[00:15:25] How better to see each other's worl-, worlds than to have the two working together like a team, right? Or just the way you said it, like pairing them together. I'm curious so we were talking from the marketing perspective and I'm curious how, first of all, you were received, as the head of operations, when you came as from CMO over to head of operations, how you were received by the folks on the ops team, but then also what did the operations team learn from
[00:15:52] not
[00:15:52] Heather Neary: [00:15:52] a good
[00:15:53] Jenifer Kern: [00:15:53] but you and your team? Yeah.
[00:15:54] Heather Neary: [00:15:54] Yeah. And I think probably at first, I don't know that anybody would admit this today because a lot of those folks are still good friends of mine. I think they were [00:16:00] pretty all skeptical. I don't know that they would tell you that today, but I'm sure they were. One of the things I did though is I spent the first, probably two to four weeks out in the field.
[00:16:08] I would travel with our franchise business consultants and they were like, "What do you mean you're gonna travel with us?" And I was like, "No, I'm going to follow beside you. I'm going to put on a uniform and I'm going to do whatever you do." And understanding what their job was and what the challenges they face in the field was eyeopening for me.
[00:16:22] It was interesting for me to hear, for me to hear how, some franchisees responded to things, some of the challenges that they were seeing. Again, marketer pie in the sky everything's perfect and rosy red and perfect and ideal and sunshine and unicorns. And the reality was, you could show up to a store to do a consulting visit where you're playing to discuss the P&L and labor metrics and all kinds of really important pithy business things. You could show up at that store,
[00:16:49] two people showed up and the other two people didn't show up. So now suddenly that operations consultant is putting on an apron, putting on her hat and she's gone to work rolling pretzels because that's what you have to do. And that was really [00:17:00] eyeopening for me. So I think, part of what helped me get some credibility was to really just roll up my sleeves and be one of the team members on the operations team.
[00:17:07] There's no better way to learn operations than to do it. So when I came here to KBP, one of the first things I wanted to do was attend Taco Bell operations training, because how can I make decisions about the organization and our efforts, if I don't understand what's driving those efforts. So I'm in, I just finished my second week of ops training.
[00:17:26] I have one more week to go. And while I won't have, I will by no means to be an expert, I at least understand some of the things we talk about. Some of the acronyms we use. Some of the things that are challenges. I I closed the store the other night I closed and it's way late for me because I go to bed a lot,
[00:17:40] I go to bed really early and I get up really early. So that was the challenge. One of the things I did was, we got there that night and there was a full staff scheduled. One gal called in sick, and one gal had to leave early because her child was ill. And suddenly we went from having a full staff, with me being the kind of newbie trainee, to having we're down two people,
[00:17:59] and there's me as the [00:18:00] newbie trainee. And you have to adapt and nobody else seemed the least bit flight hazed by it, which is why, our frontline operations folks are rockstars. Meanwhile, I was like, "Wait, how are we going to get through this night? Is this going to work?" And it worked just fine.
[00:18:12] It was a little bit more hectic and we all had to do a couple more things that we normally wouldn't have had to do. And that's fine. It is what it is. So I think being flexible, understanding, like I said, the reality versus the pie in the sky is really a critical piece for those folks coming from the marketing side to the operation side. I think the operators then, want you translate for them, what it means to be a marketer and what we're trying to accomplish, they began to maybe offer suggestions
[00:18:36] they wouldn't have thought of before, or they had those relationships develop and they would say, "Hey, I know you're trying to do this because you want to introduce a new product or a new line of products. Maybe that's not the right way to do it, but have you thought about trying it this way?" And so we ended up with some really strong programs that maybe wouldn't have been there,
[00:18:53] if those relationships hadn't been there and that open communication hadn't been there to share ideas back and forth and to [00:19:00] take one idea and to build upon it and build upon it until it was a winner in the system.
[00:19:04] Jenifer Kern: [00:19:04] Yeah. See, and that's just the best, right? When you can get the two teams working together and then you're getting ideas from outside of marketing. We've talked about this a little bit and I'm always a big proponent of this on my teams. Work really closely with sales, work really closely with operations.
[00:19:20] I'm in tech, so it's a little bit different, but still you need to work with the other cross-functional areas in the business and ask for suggestions and ideas. But they're not going to provide suggestions and ideas, if they're not actively engaged with you, and what you're working on. So you drove that active engagement and it wasn't so much, and obviously you're doing great leadership stuff. But getting the team involved, that's, he is getting the team involved and then they can start thinking and they're like, "Oh, I see why marketing
[00:19:46] it may be important or what they're trying to do." And "Hey, I have an idea." Of course they do, they're in the business every day. That's the best. That's the best. Can you give me an example of maybe some ideas that you've gotten in the
[00:19:58] Heather Neary: [00:19:58] Oh, gosh. I think just some of the things [00:20:00] around like throughput. So at Auntie Anne's, our store footprint was really small. We had to work within the confines of the store. And anytime you introduce a new product innovation, it comes with additional skews and additional pieces of equipment.
[00:20:12] And again, the marketers would develop these products and be like, "Oh, we can fit this piece, and this piece of equipment in there." The operations folks are going, "Time out. There's no more room for this stuff." But then when you bring everybody together, you're able to look at the situation and go, "Okay, you want to introduce a new line of products around hotdogs",
[00:20:30] for example. Auntie Anne's has a really great hot dog platform. "We don't want introduce a lot of new equipment. So what can we do to not slow down production to drag sales down, but actually increase sales by bringing new innovation to the consumer." And for example, we worked on that with them on, "Hey, maybe we can prep a bunch of these mini dogs,
[00:20:48] early in the morning. Hold them in the refrigerator. We went through the food safety standards and all those things, and then we can, we use them throughout the day." So those types of things are things that we were able to implement by creating these cross-functional [00:21:00] teams. We also did things as basic and as rudimentary as, whenever we were getting ready to launch a new marketing campaign, everybody in the company got involved in that launch.
[00:21:09] So whatever we were launching, whether it was, a peach frozen lemonade. We would have a peach frozen lemonade party in the office that day. So everybody that was in the office that day got to try the product. Got to understand why we were launching it. Got to look at all the pretty POP we were doing. Got to watch the commercials we were running on the TV screens.
[00:21:25] So you understand what's happening with source. So whether you're in accounting or finance or supply chain, you have a connection to what's happening in the stores every day. I think that's a really critical piece of the puzzle for everybody.
[00:21:35] Jenifer Kern: [00:21:35] Yeah. Yeah. That's so awesome. And so now you're at KBP Investments, which are, I want to have you give a quick overview of what the company does and your, as you said, you're, working with Taco Bell. And so anyway, just go ahead and let our listeners know a little bit about your company. Obviously it's a, it's a franchising portfolio company, and I know you work with Yom, but give us your quick elevator pitch on KBP.
[00:22:00] [00:22:00] Heather Neary: [00:22:00] Yeah. So it's an incredibly, it's an incredibly entrepreneurial organization, which is one of the things that attracted me to it. It reminds me a lot of Auntie Anne's in our younger days. They have done incredible things here by focusing on people. And at the end of the day, I think when you focus on people as your core mission and focusing on giving back in your communities as your core mission, the sales and the dollars and the profitability comes. I think when you lose focus of the people that's when you can create some issues and you don't have that same drive that you once had.
[00:22:28] So KBP has KFC restaurants predominantly all over the country, mostly East of the Mississippi. There's a few that are tackled across the rest of the parts of the country. But, our operators run incredible business. They are, they're typically figure, It's typically finished in the top 15%, 20% of the entire KFC system.
[00:22:45] And we've got incredible longevity. And in the restaurant business longevity at the store level can be a challenge. But there's folks that have worked here for 10, 15, 20 years and are just doing incredible things with the KFC brand. And I can only hope to do the same amazing [00:23:00] things on the Taco Bell side,
[00:23:00] now that I'm here too. But they're just a really strong people focused organization. They reward hard work. They really recognize, they do a lot of recognition programs, which I think is incredible. Again, a lot of things that when I first started talking to them, gosh, months ago, a lot of the things that we talked about reminded me of the things that made Auntie Anne's so special, which is what drew me here to begin with.
[00:23:23] Jenifer Kern: [00:23:23] Oh, that's fantastic. Congratulations on the new job. And one of the things that I think is pretty interesting that we talked about in our pre-call was you said you did not have a job when you made the decision to leave Auntie Anne's. So to me about that. What was that like? What w what was your thinking?
[00:23:41] I mean, that's a, cool, like confident power move in a way. Or really stupid.
[00:23:48] But being true to yourself too.
[00:23:49] Heather Neary: [00:23:49] Yeah. I think I'd been at Auntie Anne's, I left in December, which was just shy of 16 years for me actually I would have hit 16 years next month. And in January I been kinda thinking of what was next [00:24:00] for me. I was the president of the company. We're owned by private equity.
[00:24:03] And I was thinking about what's next for my career. I'm not somebody that wants to be stale. I'm not somebody that wants to be complacent. And not somebody that just goes through the motions. Been described as very high energy. I just who I am, but people that know me are like, "You're the Energizer Bunny."
[00:24:17] And I was looking for my next challenge. One of the things I did in 2019 to challenge myself was I set a goal. I set goals. I'm a big goal setter. So it was always goals involved and they're always written down. They're always, I've got this very crazy little scheme in my brain about how my goals work.
[00:24:32] But in 2019, I set a goal for myself to find a seat on a public board. But that was I wasn't quite done at Auntie Anne's, but I needed something else to challenge me to learn a new side of the business. And so I did that. I joined a public board in December of 2019. And then January 20,
[00:24:48] Jenifer Kern: [00:24:48] By the way? Tell me, yeah.
[00:24:51] Heather Neary: [00:24:51] I talked about it with some mentors of mine and they agreed
[00:24:53] that was probably a great career move for me. I talked about it with some of my, my peers and colleagues at [00:25:00] Focus Brands, which is who owned Auntie Anne's and they were like, "Yeah that's a great idea for you." And, once you start putting it out there and then you start reaching out to folks and say, "Hey, I'm interested in this.
[00:25:09] If you have anything, come your way, let me know." It didn't happen overnight. I talked to some recruiters early on, there was some things I looked at that weren't a good fit either for them or for me. And then in the fall of 2019, I had a company called me. It was a, for a real estate investment trust organization.
[00:25:23] And that's something that I am pretty familiar with based on my work at Auntie Anne's. I'm even more familiar with it here. Dealing with the real estate side of our business, because you have to also not just do the operations in the store, but you have to own the land that you're on or rent the land that you're on and build a building,
[00:25:36] and that sort of thing. Went through the interview process. And I joined EPRT in December 2019, January 2020. I'm not sure which month it was exactly. But then January 2020 rolled around, and I was like, "I think it's time for me to start thinking about my new job." I can, I actually remember writing down cause I very diligent about between Christmas and New Year's.
[00:25:55] I review my year, my prior year, I make notes about every single [00:26:00] month. Anything that happened that was remarkable. Career professional, personal, otherwise silly, a trip we took. And then I write down my goals for the following year. And one of the goals I wrote at the beginning of 2020 was find the new job.
[00:26:13] And it was just like that. I just wrote it down and thought it's time for me to clean up my resume. So I dug up my resume, which I really hadn't spent a lot of time on for a while and got that cleaned up. I actually use an outside source to make sure it was really pretty and whatever. And started reaching out to all those recruiters that had been calling me over the years where I'd always said, "No, I'm really happy at Auntie Anne's,
[00:26:33] I'm not looking for a career change." And had actually gone on the path of a couple of different opportunities in early 2020. And then as we all know, Mark to 2020, the pandemic hit. And I pulled back on my interest because I wasn't going to leave my team in the middle of what was, unprecedented, obviously that word has been overused in the last year, but truly unprecedented.
[00:26:53] And so I decided, okay, maybe this wasn't the right timing. I'll sit back and work through this with the team at Auntie Anne's and our [00:27:00] franchisees, especially who were just, this is a crazy year for us. Malls closed airports closed. That's where all of our venues are. We had no control over the situation in many regards.
[00:27:08] So things sort of, but anything's normalized because things aren't normal still, but roundabout mid summer, I was like, "Okay, I think you need to think about what's next." So my husband and I had been talking and I said, "I think my time at Auntie Anne's is over." And he said, he's like, "Okay, now you've telling me this for awhile."
[00:27:23] And I said, "I'd like to leave." And he said, "Okay." And I said, "But I don't really know what I want to do next. And I want to take some time off. I want to take some time to relax." I go a hundred miles an hour all the time. I'm like, "I just feel like I need to take a break. I need to take like a mental detox."
[00:27:37] And so I told Focus I was going to be leaving in September. I told them I would stay till the end of December. And shortly after that, I ramped up my efforts again with recruiters and started down that path again. And so I didn't have a job lined up. I'd already given my notice started working through the transition.
[00:27:54] I was very fortunate to be able to be involved in the hiring process of my replacement. She's an [00:28:00] incredible woman as well, and I'm super excited to see how she takes the brand to even higher levels. All the while thinking, "Okay, I'll take off six months and then hopefully by June, I'll be close to finding another job,
[00:28:10] doing something somewhere." And I got the call about KBP early in my new search and it was kind of like, "Yeah, I'm not really that interested yet in looking at anything serious." I'm just putting feelers out. "Hey, if you think of anything in the next few months, let me know." And I started talking to KBP and I was like, this is a really, I feel like this is a good match.
[00:28:28] And they agreed and went back and forth a few times and I ultimately got the job offer and told them I needed to wait until March to start because I definitely much, as I wanted to take six months off, I knew they weren't gonna wait for me for six months. So they were gracious enough to let me wait two months.
[00:28:43] And so I took January and February to read and did a little bit of traveling in a very pandemic safe way, and just relaxed and worked out like four hours a day, which was amazing. Made some great meals in my kitchen that I, have had for years and hadn't fully utilized and forever, cause I was always too busy.
[00:28:58] Just took some time off for [00:29:00] myself, which was really, it felt good. And I feel and I'm in a great place now and Oh, by the way, we moved from Pennsylvania to Kansas too.
[00:29:06] Jenifer Kern: [00:29:06] I was going to say, I think you probably were busy moving too. Yeah, pretty much.
[00:29:12] But at this point your kids are grown up.
[00:29:14] Heather Neary: [00:29:14] They are. Yeah. They're out of the house.
[00:29:16] Jenifer Kern: [00:29:16] Yeah. It's easier to move two people than four. I know that myself.
[00:29:19] Heather Neary: [00:29:19] Very much. Yes.
[00:29:21] Jenifer Kern: [00:29:21] Wow. How did, there's just so much good stuff in there, right? I love that mental detox, first of all. And just realizing you're at the end of life with where you are.
[00:29:31] And 15 years to stay at the same company. Number one, that's a long time. I've talked to other folks that have stayed in restaurants a long time, too. But 15 years is a long time and then five years in the same position. And in today's measure of, tenure that's a good amount of time, too.
[00:29:46] And in tech, we move around a lot more than restaurant. That just realizing like "I need a new challenge. I've done everything I can do here", and doing that in a way where you really are taking the reins of [00:30:00] yourself. You're not waiting for somebody else. I think there's a lot of people that often feel like at the whim of their employer, or the whim of their boss. And not necessarily in control of their career path. And so I love the way that you're laying that out. And I'm sure other people are going to really benefit from hearing that is, you laid it out in a way, that's "I am ready to do the next thing.
[00:30:20] I'm going to take a break for me, to reach, rest and recharge and unwind." I'm the same. I go a hundred miles an hour and then I'm like, "Okay, I need to stop, and just like breathe for five minutes if I can get that much time." And, but taking it, even just a couple months off, for someone that I can tell is hard work is ingrained in you through and through and taking that time off.
[00:30:39] And now I'm sure you, you probably feel more refreshed, starting, I can see it in you. I can see it. Being back, I love being back at work. We are, we're here in the office, which Focus Brands is still doing a mostly remote situation. But here we all have our own offices. So every single employee at this company has their own office, which was just a cool little detail that I thought was really interesting.
[00:30:57] Heather Neary: [00:30:57] And long before the pandemic, I thought that was a cool [00:31:00] detail that they had here. So we're back here in the office. Obviously, when we are in common spaces, we're all wearing masks, but it's just nice to get up and work out and then put on real clothes and go to work and then come home. And there's like a differentiation.
[00:31:12] And I, I didn't realize I missed it as much as I did until I started working here again. And I also love that I'm learning new things. Every day, I'm like, "What about this? What does this acronym mean? Who do I talk to find out this information?" ',Cause it's, 15 years at Auntie Anne's, I knew all my franchisees.
[00:31:26] I obviously knew all my employees. I knew how to figure out if something came up, whether regardless of the topic. I knew how to go about solving it. Which is great. But then also "Okay, what's next for me? What do I have to do for myself next?" And here, it's great. I'm learning all new things and getting to meet new people.
[00:31:42] I'm learning new different styles and learning new approaches to business. And I, I'm just, I'm having a lot of fun and I'm enjoying it so far. I can't wait to get out of an apartment into our house, but that's another story. Housing market right now is insane across the country,
[00:31:53] and Kansas is not removed from that by any stretch of the
[00:31:56] Jenifer Kern: [00:31:56] Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. So yeah, that's [00:32:00] "Pretzels to tacos." It's really fun. That's gotta be really fun.
[00:32:03] Heather Neary: [00:32:03] It's totally fun. And it's fun to work for a brand that people love. So one of the great parts about working for Auntie Anne's is that, you'd be traveling through an airport. People would see your logo on your shirt or on your suitcase, and they'd be like, "Oh, you work at Auntie Anne's?" And I'd be like, "Yeah, I work at Auntie Anne's." And nobody was ever like, "Oh, okay.
[00:32:18] That's cool." They'd be like, "Oh, I love Annie Anne's pretzels." There was like a really visceral reaction, like an emotional, "Oh my gosh, I love your pretzels." Like one of the things I used to always do is when I was flying, if we had a location near my gate, I would buy a huge bag of pretzels and take them to the flight crew.
[00:32:34] And they was, they were like, "Oh my God, you're the best. This is the best thing ever. We haven't eaten all day. We love pretzels." And so I loved working for a brand that consumers loved. And I loved working for a brand that people had memories of and could say, "Oh my mom and I used to always get those at the mall,
[00:32:47] when we were shopping together." Or "Every time I'm traveling, I always stop and get a pretzel, the Charlotte airport", or wherever they got their pretzel. And now working at Taco Bell and finding the same thing. I actually have been training the last couple of weeks and I was [00:33:00] wearing my shirt the other day in my hotel.
[00:33:02] And the guy's "You work at Taco Bell? I love Taco Bell." And it was so cool to like right away. I have that same awesome reaction from consumers who were like, "Oh, I love Taco Bell. That's awesome." So it's fun to get to work for a fun brand. It's fun to get to work for a brand that is super innovative, really technology forward and just doing cool things.
[00:33:22] Jenifer Kern: [00:33:22] Yeah, I can imagine. Talk about has really been a brand darling for quite some time with the, the fun advertising and promotions and hotels and, Oh my gosh, all this stuff they've been doing. I'd really love to understand, I know you're only 25 days in, so I don't wanna put you too much on the spot, but some of the ways that you're going to drive, financial and operational performance and improvements at a time when restaurants are very much, I we're smarting still from the pandemic, obviously.
[00:33:52] Hopefully starting to come out of it here, it feels very different recording this right now than last year recording. We're starting to see the light at the end of [00:34:00] the tunnel. I believe vaccinations are being distributed. Restaurants seem I've been watching the news restaurants,
[00:34:07] a lot of them seem to be picking up. What's going on with your franchisees as much as you know, so far? And what are some of the ideas you have given the climate that we're in today and maybe through the rest of the year for making some process improvements and adjusting to, I don't want to call it the new normal,
[00:34:26] I just like, like somebody overused terms, but it's the newest environment, right?
[00:34:33] Heather Neary: [00:34:33] Yeah. I think there's a lot, there's a lot of pieces to that question you just asked. So for us one of the first things I've tackled is opening up our lobbies again. We'd had lobby's closed for the past year. So drive through only, or you could walk in and order at the register, but you couldn't sit down and eat.
[00:34:48] And we talked about that really closely. We went and did a lot of market visits in the markets where we operate and looked at what our competitors were doing. What are their rush are their lobbies open? We just opened up our lobbies this week, actually.
[00:34:59] Jenifer Kern: [00:34:59] Oh,
[00:34:59] Heather Neary: [00:34:59] So [00:35:00] that's like a, that's a, it feels like a really big step forward.
[00:35:02] I was training at a store and a consumer came in and it was an elderly gentleman and he said, "Oh, I'm so glad to see your lobby open." He said, "I've been, I come here every day and it was just a part of my routine to come and sit and talk to people that as they came in and talked to you and your crew", and that made me feel good because I, you don't realize some people don't have a lot of other personal interactions at home.
[00:35:22] Some people are, they live by themselves, they're elderly. They don't have a lot of other human interaction. And so maybe going to Taco Bell for lunch twice a week was a big part of their week and that was gone for awhile. So bringing back those small pieces and small nuggets of joy, I think are really important.
[00:35:36] It also feels good for the crew. I, we asked the crew, we said, "How do you guys feel about opening up lobbies?" And they're like, "Yeah, let's do it." And there was no pushback from them. They were excited to be, again, have another step towards normalcy. The one big challenge for us is labor.
[00:35:48] It's a common issue across the country. minimum wage is a concern from a cost perspective, but we also wanna make sure that we're always doing the right thing for our crew members. And just finding people is always going to be a concern. It's just [00:36:00] making sure that you've got the right bodies there.
[00:36:01] So I think one of the things KBP does a great job of is creating a really compelling reason to want to work here. And they create a really great story. And we've got a lot of great longevity with our crew members. But it's always something you want to look at. Innovation is important. Technology is very important.
[00:36:17] Technology is not cheap. So it's a matter of "Hey, I need to stay ahead of the curve." And Taco Bells generally been ahead of the curve, "But how do I do that while making sure it's a compelling profitability model for the franchisee." So those are all little things that are going on out there.
[00:36:31] None of them are by any stretch of the imagination, insurmountable. They're all doable and you have be high sectored and piece depart.
[00:36:37] Jenifer Kern: [00:36:37] Yeah. The labor challenge is massive. I know that I won't say firsthand, I'll say second hand through my sons, who grew up working at Rita's Italian Ice. And my, my son, my younger son is 22. He's still working a retail job. And the amount of times he has to change his schedule, cause people call out,
[00:37:00] [00:37:00] is, is striking. And he's become one of the reliable ones. And even when they were in, high school working, working it at Rita's, they would get called in often because people call out and things come up. Like you said, "People have kids, they get sick" and that, so I know that's a big challenge today, particularly with the minimum wage things going on.
[00:37:18] Do you have some ways that you're planning on either re looking at using less labor, I know has been one of the things that, has been tossed around implementing technology so that you need less labor. What, where are you in that whole paradigm?
[00:37:32] Heather Neary: [00:37:32] Yeah, I think there's a lot of different ideas that are out there. I think it'd be premature for me to talk about that right now. I try, I'm trying very hard to learn the business before making any kind of decisions. So I think the biggest thing for me is listening to everybody, listening to crew, listening to shift leaders, listening to managers, listening to regional managers and just understanding what the challenges are and where they see opportunities, coupled with what our peers are doing and other franchises within the Taco Bell industry.
[00:37:58] And, talk about [00:38:00] family and just better understanding what our options are to make sure we're being really thoughtful about what that looks like. I don't necessarily have an answer for you yet on what that will be. I think we're looking at all options. But for us, it's about making sure that the crew member wants to come to work every day, and making sure that they're delivering great service to drive those sales.
[00:38:17] And that's, the winning the winning solution there for us. Yes.
[00:38:20] Jenifer Kern: [00:38:20] Yeah. And KBP, I know just through some of the research, I did, you have a very community oriented message and values, as you talked about earlier. How do you make sure that trickles down to the frontline staff?
[00:38:32] Heather Neary: [00:38:32] MEP has has their own 501c3 organization called KBP cares. Very similar to Auntie Anne's with Ted Auntie Anne's cares. It was ironically the same name. I think it's a great way to connect with younger workers. I think a lot of younger workers today are much more social minded than maybe you and I were,
[00:38:50] 30 some years ago. But I think that's a big piece of the puzzle and it's ingrained in who we are. It's a piece of who we are. And we all corporately down to [00:39:00] the field and across the operations of our entire organization, focus on how we can give back in the communities all the time. And I think it's just, it's become such a standard business practice for us that it's not a sound bite,
[00:39:11] it's just how we operate. And I'm seeing that. That's what I was told before I joined the company, and it's awesome to see that's actually the reality of what's happening. We're actually doing a virtual 5k tomorrow to raise money for the KBP cares. We had a hundred percent participation at the corporate office and, there's just a lot of things that are done here to make sure that piece of the culture, even as we grow is never lost.
[00:39:32] I think that's a critical piece of any organization as they grow is what made you strong to begin with what that foundation was, you can't lose sight of that even as you grow and become more sophisticated.
[00:39:43] Jenifer Kern: [00:39:43] Yeah. And marketing can help with that. I know a lot of times myself as a marketer, I've yeah, involved in helping with, fundraising and different community efforts. And so I think that's another important thing. I'm curious if you've integrated marketing into your teams, to help with community involvement and [00:40:00] maybe an example of that.
[00:40:03] Heather Neary: [00:40:03] I mean at Anne I can give you tons of examples. Auntie Anne's had a big organization called CARES or CARES committee, and that was a community action requires employee support. It was an acronym. And it was really the foundation upon which we were started and actually founded the company to be the funding for her husband's desire to provide counseling services to people in need. Counseling in the Amish and Mennonite community, which is where Anne and her husband had come from was not a common thing.
[00:40:29] And mental health was a big deal for them and they thought it was really important. They lost a child in a farming accident, very tragically. And they felt like counseling and therapy helped to save themselves and their marriage. And so they wanted to give back. In order to give back and allow Jonas and husband to provide those services for free in the community and had to go back to work.
[00:40:50] And that's actually how Auntie Anne's started. It was literally started as she bought a little farmer's market stand to raise money for her husband to be able to fund his [00:41:00] dream providing services to those in need. And that's been a big part of Auntie Anne's. It's how we've always operated.
[00:41:05] Auntie Anne's had a CARES committee and there were representatives from every department on that committee, including the marketing department. It was ingrained in everything we did. So when I mentioned earlier that we would do campaign kickoffs in the office where we would serve the latest peach lemonade. He chose lemonade or whatever the newest flavor was. That would also always be a charitable component of that. There would always be something we were doing to add to that. Auntie Anne's partnered with Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation many years ago, which is an incredible organization that funds pediatric cancer research. And everything
[00:41:37] we did had some tie back to Alex's. And so we would do we would do fundraising events throughout the year. We would hold silent auctions. We would do, our office happened to be in downtown Lancaster. We had a beautiful patio out back with the parking lot that was open. So once a summer we would host musical bands outside with, beer, garden and pretzels being sold and all the money would go to charity.
[00:41:59] We would [00:42:00] just, when it becomes part of who you are and it's not forced and it comes naturally, it becomes very organic, and how it, how it permeates the organization.
[00:42:09] Jenifer Kern: [00:42:09] Yeah, that's fantastic. So another great female leader to recognize.
[00:42:14] Heather Neary: [00:42:14] Awesome. She's incredible.
[00:42:16] Jenifer Kern: [00:42:16] I bet, I bet. I've read a little bit about her and obviously being from Lancaster. I know a little bit of the story that's fantastic. And I'd like to talk to you a little bit about, since we're commemorating, women's history month here have you in your career, have you felt like there's ever been a time when being a woman was made things harder for you?
[00:42:36] I know a lot of us, at least me and myself, I don't like to think of myself differently. I feel very strongly in the human experience versus "Let me see, how my experience is different from a man or someone else", but I think this is important topic. And I did hear you talk about like the importance of bringing other women along in our journey and in our career.
[00:42:53] And we have a lot of responsibilities sometimes as we, working moms and doing a lot of other things. But just in general, what [00:43:00] has your experience been Heather, have there been times when you struggled and felt like it was harder because you were a woman?
[00:43:08] Heather Neary: [00:43:08] Yeah, I follow along your lines of thinking. I think more about the human experience. Have there been times? Yeah, of course there have been. I think a lot of it is what you make of it. I have always been very involved in sports for example. So I'm a big golfer. I think there've been times where if I wasn't a golfer, I wouldn't have been invited to that event.
[00:43:25] It would have been four men instead of three men and me. That's one kind of silly example, but it's not silly because a lot of business happens outside of the four walls of an office. And so I think those small things are probably felt more by some than others. I feel like I, I try very hard to not find reasons to be offended, but find reasons to be included.
[00:43:45] And so I've stayed very involved in things. I try to be a good colleague and a good friend and a good coworker to everybody that I work with, regardless of whether they're male or female. I do try to coach the women I work with and provide mentoring tips [00:44:00] where I feel like it's appropriate.
[00:44:01] It's tough. And I also think it's important as a leader to be gracious to those who have young ones at home and might need a modification to their schedule and they hate to ask. And I feel like that is something that generally happens to women more than men. I'm making a generalization.
[00:44:15] It's not everybody. But recognizing that some women might need to work, seven to noon, and then they need to take a couple of hours off to take care of something for their children. And that's fine. I'm not, I've never been a time manager, a micromanager. And I think being flexible with your team allows for loyalty and allows for you to earn some credibility with them.
[00:44:33] And if they're a great worker, I don't care when you get your work done. it doesn't matter to me at all. So if that means that you need to leave every day at 3:00 PM, because you don't want me to get your kid off the bus, that's fine with me. As long as you're still getting your work done, like I'm not going to sit there and mind the hours and watch a clock.
[00:44:47] I think at Auntie Anne's we had a strong family culture. We all knew each other's families. We all knew to their situations. I feel that's happening here too at KBP people seem to all know each other really well, and I'm getting to know them all myself. But just [00:45:00] being, being flexible and being gracious is important as a leader.
[00:45:02] And I think that's been helpful at Auntie Anne's as we grow we had some men who "Hey, my son plays soccer in the fall and I want to make sure I get to his games." "Okay, so Tuesdays and Thursdays, you need to leave at four o'clock. Okay. That's fine. I'm not gonna watch the clock."
[00:45:15] You're a high performer. You're contributing to the business. Are there other subtle things probably that have happened? Of course there are. Could I dwell on them and be sour about them? I probably could. I am a perpetual optimist maybe to my detriment in some ways. But I find that it's easier to be positive about things and to assume good intent versus looking for ways to create negativity.
[00:45:37]Jenifer Kern: [00:45:37] Some really great advice in there. Any other recommendations you would give to young women, coming up in the workforce and looking to be, presidents of companies?
[00:45:47] Heather Neary: [00:45:47] Yeah, I think goal setting is a big deal. I had a leader that I worked for many moons ago, Russ Hoffenhour, he's like a Titan in the restaurant business. He was very focused on goal setting and he had some very specific tactics that he used that [00:46:00] are now part of my routine as well,
[00:46:01] and I've added to them cause we all make things our own. But I think setting your own goals is important and being vocal about what your goals are. I joined Auntie Anne's in 2005. I remember my first month at Auntie Anne's, I was sitting down with my boss who was the CMO at the time.
[00:46:15] And she said to me, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" And I said, "In your seat." Looking back, it was probably, I could have been a little bit more polished and how I answered her question. But she understood the sentiment. And when she left the company in 2008, she recommended me as her replacement.
[00:46:29] I think being vocal about what you want, is important. I had set a goal for myself. Again, my goal setting is notorious or infamous, whichever the case may be. And I wanted to become president of a company by the time I was 40. And I talked about lots of people, mentors that I have, and I, they said, "Yeah, here's what you need to do.
[00:46:46] Here's some suggestions we have for you." And I turned 40 in April of 2015 and I wasn't the president of Auntie Anne's and I thought, "Okay, maybe that was a little bit lofty." But just a few months later I was tapped on the shoulder to become president at Auntie Anne's. And so [00:47:00] I didn't quite hit my goal, but I was pretty close.
[00:47:02] I was in the, I was in the year of my 40th birthday.
[00:47:03] Jenifer Kern: [00:47:03] Yeah, it's pretty darn close. It's pretty good.
[00:47:06] Heather Neary: [00:47:06] I think, being vocal about it's important. And being willing to hear feedback, even if it's not what you want to hear. I worked for Kat Cole for a number of years. She's another incredible leader in the restaurant business and in business in general, she's
[00:47:18] crazy smart. And she said something before, "If somebody gives you criticism often enough, maybe you should think about it and believe it." I'm paraphrasing it, it's not the exact wording. But when you get feedback about how you're performing and things you can do to improve, you can put up a wall and find reasons why that's not true, or that was just that situation.
[00:47:38] Or you can say, "Huh, that's really interesting feedback. Let me think about what that really means and how I can apply that to become better." And I'm not perfect. I make mistakes every single day. And there's, there's things that I need to work on all the time, but I think being willing to continuously improve and continuously learn are strong reasons to continue to grow in your career.
[00:47:58] And I think finding [00:48:00] mentors is important, finding multiple mentors because each mentor brings something a little bit different to the table based on their own experiences. So for me, I probably have 10 or 12 people that I would consider a mentor to me, who I reach out to on a regular basis and who I reached out to last summer and last fall when I was making these decisions about my career.
[00:48:19] And all of them were supportive. All of them said, "Go for it." Not one person said "You can't quit your job until you have a new job." And I think, having different mentors to give you different perspectives is a critical piece of the puzzle too. And raising your hand and asking for help is important.
[00:48:32] I think I don't know if it's a women thing or a female thing or just a person thing in general, but I know we don't want to ask for help when I feel like we can do everything. And we don't know everything and we can't do everything. So ask for help because nobody's going to know you're struggling unless you raise your hand, speak up.
[00:48:49] Jenifer Kern: [00:48:49] Yeah. Oh, great advice. I love the goal setting and speaking into the goal, like not just having the goal, but then actively talking about the goal to making it, or making a reality, which is, it comes to you [00:49:00] and then trying not to be defensive about feedback. Yeah, we all bring our, historical baggage to the table when we get feedback.
[00:49:06] And it's I really liked how you talked about that and Ka-, Kat's little quote. That's awesome. And if you're getting that feedback over and over again, maybe there's some improvement thing in there for you to do. And yeah, and speaking up, I do hear a lot from women that's hard sometimes.
[00:49:21] And especially if you're surrounded constantly in a corporate environment with men. Like sometimes you just, "I'm not like, that sounds like you're not like that." Like you just have to get over that, whatever that fear is. And speak up and raise your hand, like you said, and admit that you don't know everything, ask for help.
[00:49:37] So those are all really great recommendations. I know. we're getting close on time here. I do want to ask you and I'd love to do a lightning round. If you have time, do you have time?
[00:49:45] Heather Neary: [00:49:45] Sure.
[00:49:46] Jenifer Kern: [00:49:46] Okay. So I want to start the lightning round with a little bit of a tough one. It's not tough, but what do you think is the most important part of how restaurants need to reinvent themselves today?
[00:49:58] Heather Neary: [00:49:58] Ooh, [00:50:00] that's a great question, Jen.
[00:50:02] Jenifer Kern: [00:50:02] I could ask it a different way. I could ask a little bit easier. Like obviously restaurants are in a time where they can't be sitting still right now. And there's a lot of ways that, re-invention, we've talked about them. There's a lot of things to do. But what do you think in 2021 for restaurants to stay relevant and incredibly successful and in front of their customers? How do they need to keep pushing the boundaries and reinventing and transforming.
[00:50:30] Heather Neary: [00:50:30] I think there's lots of ways to answer that question. I think the most important piece is to understand where your consumers are and how you can be there for them. Consumers are all about things being easy. We we accelerated the curve on online ordering and using third-party delivery services during the pandemic faster than anybody could have imagined.
[00:50:51] But what's the next iteration of that? What does that look like next? So customers, where are customers, where do they want to be and where do they want you to be in their lives? And making sure that you're [00:51:00] addressing that at a hundred percent, if you're going to do it, do it the whole way. Don't go halfway.
[00:51:05] Jenifer Kern: [00:51:05] What's the biggest trend right now in the restaurant space?
[00:51:09] Heather Neary: [00:51:09] Technology. The digital thing, the technology piece is so critical. Whether it's back of the house consumer facing all of the pieces of technology that are around today are, I think back to my early days in the restaurant world where I was writing an order on a little cheat sheet and then, order in to the cook and now it's like the server walks up to your table and she enters it into her little like toast pad and off it goes to the KDS system in the back of the house.
[00:51:34] And next thing it's coming out. I think technology is just a critical piece of it. The challenge for operators and for restaurant tours is to figure out what they need and what's the priority list of what they need. Because it's not cheap and the implementation comes with a learning curve as well.
[00:51:49] Jenifer Kern: [00:51:49] Absolutely. Absolutely. What is your favorite restaurant brand? Not including, you can't go with Taco Bell, KFC or Auntie Anne's brand. [00:52:00] Nope. The restaurant brand you love and admire the most outside of the ones that you worked for.
[00:52:04] Heather Neary: [00:52:04] Oh, my gosh. Oh wow. That's a tough one. Favorite restaurant to visit for me is Joe's Stone Crab in Florida. I love stone crabs. So from a experience perspective, I can eat the heck out of stone crabs. Think they're delicious. Any experience in a restaurant where I can be with my friends and family and have fun and enjoy good wine and good food and good company, I think is really important.
[00:52:27] And we've all been missing that so much this past year. People like I crave, I'm a people person. I'm extroverted, I get energy from other people. And so being at home with my husband, whom I love dearly is not necessarily meeting my need for the people. Anytime I can be in public with people and enjoy great food and great wine and great company is important.
[00:52:45] Jenifer Kern: [00:52:45] Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And easy one. What's your favorite menu item at Taco Bell?
[00:52:50] Heather Neary: [00:52:50] Oh gosh, I've been trying all of them. If I'm being healthy and super conscientious of my diet, which I try to be. I would go with the chicken power bowl which [00:53:00] is, it's like a, it's like a taco salad only. They've made it a little bit fancier. It's super healthy. It's super well-rounded. And I will say most of the things on Taco Bell menu are not as bad as you would imagine.
[00:53:09] I think everything's good in moderation. The other thing I like, and this is going to sound crazy, but I love the crunch wrap. The crunch wrap supreme is delicious. It's got all kinds of things happening with it. There's like a flour tortilla. There's some crunchy inside there's cheese. There's meat. how could that go
[00:53:23] Jenifer Kern: [00:53:23] Yum. Yeah, crunchy. I'm all about the crunch. Love the crunch and the guacamole love the guac. Yeah. What's the biggest opportunity for marketers today?
[00:53:33] Heather Neary: [00:53:33] Oh gosh. Stay nimble, stay flexible and stay dynamic. I think I think having a foundation in strong brand marketing is critical, but don't let that hold you back. I think the way that we marketed when I first started marketing in 2005 is a heck of a lot different than what it looks like today. And I think people who are able to blend the two blend, the, traditional classical marketing experience with where we are today are going to be the ones that really continue to get ahead.
[00:54:00] [00:54:00] Jenifer Kern: [00:54:00] Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today, Heather. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you and learning about you and your background and your fantastic new position at KPB, which we're so excited to see all the things you're going to do there. I know you're going to be fantastic because you've taken that time to recharge and I'm sure you're going to come up with lots of great ideas.
[00:54:18] So
[00:54:18] Heather Neary: [00:54:18] Ready to rock and roll.
[00:54:20] Jenifer Kern: [00:54:20] yeah, there you go out in Kansas city. Before we close, I'd like to get my guests a little infomercial spot. Like I know you've begun in community and involvement, but if there's anything you want to make a plug for KPB or Taco Bell or your team if you're hiring positions and you want to make that announcement, any infomercial you'd like here at the
[00:54:37] Heather Neary: [00:54:37] Awesome. I'm going to go, I'm going to do two, a two pronged approach.
[00:54:40] Jenifer Kern: [00:54:40] Go for it.
[00:54:41] Heather Neary: [00:54:41] One KBP is an incredible franchise or franchise organization to work for. So if you're looking for a great job, please go to our website, kbpinvestments.com. There's tons of opportunities all over the country for awesome roles.
[00:54:53] And it's an incredible company, truly. The second is so many charitable organizations were hit really hard in [00:55:00] 2020, when lots of events got canceled, people's purses got tightened. Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation is doing incredible work. I love the work they do. Little Alex was she passed away from cancer at the age of eight years old, but not before she raised a million dollars for pediatric cancer research.
[00:55:16] Her parents, Liz and Jay, who are dear friends of ours have continued that legacy of Alex's and continued to raise money for it. They've done an incredible job pivoting and being really dynamic during these last 12 months. And if you have a few spare dollars, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation is a great way to get your kids involved.
[00:55:33] Get yourself involved. There's lots of ways you can get involved beyond just writing a check. And they're just great people to work for. They're doing really meaningful work in the space of pediatric care.
[00:55:42] Jenifer Kern: [00:55:42] Gave me a little goosies. Ah, that's lovely. And Rhea supported them. I remember
[00:55:45] Heather Neary: [00:55:45] Yes they did.
[00:55:47] Jenifer Kern: [00:55:47] lemons on the wall. So that's fantastic. Alex's
[00:55:50] Heather Neary: [00:55:50] It's a national corporate sponsor. Yeah.
[00:55:52] Jenifer Kern: [00:55:52] Yeah. Alex's Lemonade Stand. Y'all go look it up. Give a couple of bucks to it if you can and support them however you can. That's [00:56:00] great. Heather, thank you so much for your time.
[00:56:02] All my best to you out in Kansas city with KPB and Taco Bell. And can't wait to watch you grow. Have a great day.
[00:56:09] Heather Neary: [00:56:09] Thanks for your time, Jen. I appreciate it. You too.
[00:56:11] Jenifer Kern: [00:56:11] Thank you.