This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Robert Pyles, a pastor and McDonald’s franchisee in Milwaukee. McDonald’s reported its slowest US sales growth in over a year in its quarterly earnings report last month. Pyles said sales at his seven restaurants are growing. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I bought my first McDonald’s in 1998.
I was in the military for 15 years and started working part-time at McDonald’s during that time as a crew member, later becoming a shift manager. Then I had the opportunity to get into the owner-operator program.
I had to go through all the courses, attend Hamburger University, and pass other tests to make sure you’re ready, because it’s a large investment and a lot of time. They want to make sure that they have the right person. You learn scheduling, inventory, shift control — a lot of things I knew from working there. When you’re done with this training, you’ll know everything from top to bottom.
After I opened my first store in Milwaukee, we had rapid growth. We had 23 locations and over a thousand employees at one time. Right now, we have seven McDonald’s, which is the right size for our organization.
I love McDonald’s. I loved it then; I love it now. I never thought I could be an owner before I did it. It’s been a great ride. For my stores, sales are up double digits since last year. In addition to having a good location, here’s what I think makes stores successful.
Create good systems and stick to them
I’m 60 now, and we’re doing things a lot differently than when I started. When you’re young, you can just go off of energy. Now we are really leaning on systems.
We do everything the same way in each store. We have systems for meetings, hiring, training, food costs, service, and more. There’s a step-by-step process for each system, so even if employees change, the process remains in place.
Any time something goes wrong, the first thing we ask is, “What system was broken? Did we follow the system?” Because the system should be there to catch it.
If you have more than a few stores, you can’t be at each one as often as you should be. You’ve got to rely on the systems and communication even more. We also tweak our systems when we need to.
Hire well and take care of your employees
There are some things I can train an employee on, and there are some things I cannot. I can’t train you to be nice. I can’t train you to smile. You want to hire people who are nice in the interview.
McDonald’s customers expect quick service, so we’ve got to be fast. We can train you on our systems, which are built for speed. The speed is going to come. You also have to constantly train. We do training every week. You’ve got to keep investing in that training to keep the people motivated.
You’ve got to make sure employees are entering an environment where they can be successful. You have to make them feel good about coming to work. A lot of our employees have been around 15 or 20 years, since they were 17 or 18.
We encourage employees to seek promotions and growth. We don’t do longevity raises; we do performance raises. You could be here for three or four months and make more than a person who’s been here for four years. It’s by responsibility and ownership you want to take. The sky’s the limit.
We’ve started programs to support our employees, too. I noticed some managers didn’t have cars. I started a program to help finance cars for our managers. City rents are so high. I bought property so I could rent out nice, affordable housing to my employees.
I’ve had the ability to change people’s economic status and help develop them. The exciting part for me is seeing folks come in, grow, and go out to start their own businesses. Some have become nurses or doctors. Seeing that has been so rewarding. When I see employees go from minimum wage to owning their own home, that’s when I cry.
Owners have to be close to their stores
You have to be hands-on. I go into the stores pretty much every day. I’m in one of them every day, and normally two or three. They’re all close together.
You have to know what’s going on in your stores. You might think one thing is going on, and it’s actually a totally different thing. That’s something that I experience just by walking in. I don’t have to look at the numbers. I can look at how the store’s moving to see what condition it’s in.
With the right systems in place, stores can run well, but your presence and input help polish them. For employees, there’s nothing like knowing they’ve got your support. The stores run at a different level when I walk in. My employees like showing off their work and what they’ve done.
I don’t believe you can run a McDonald’s without being personally involved. It doesn’t work.
What I’ve learned is that I need to be better today than I was yesterday. I’m my only competition. It also takes pressure off my employees. Just get five seconds better.
If we get better every day, then three months down the road, you’ll see the difference. If you ask me what the secret sauce is, it’s just getting better every day.
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