66. Purpose Driven Culture

Intro: Duration: (02:13)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

This Human Capital Podcast is brought to you by GoalSpan, a performance management app that helps you set goals, get real time feedback, run reviews, and align your workforce around what's most important. With GoalSpan, you can integrate with all your favorite HR and payroll apps. To learn more, go to goalspan.com.

Welcome to the Human Capital Podcast. I'm Jeff Hunt. Sometimes in the marketplace, you find companies that are truly standouts in their class by an order of magnitude. Today I have the privilege of interviewing a former C-Suite executive from one of these companies. While he was leading this company, it consistently achieved about 10 times the annual average revenue per location than its competitors.

It boasted a 97% employee retention rate. My guest today is David Salyers, who was one of the original marketing executives at Chick-fil-A. Having retired from Chick-fil-A with tremendous achievements, David now uses his expertise to spark the growth of individuals, teams, and organizations. Ironically as he'll share with us.

David's success was achieved in part by learning to pay less attention to money and more attention to building a culture of service and compassion for others. While doing this, he ultimately crossed the divide between marketing and company culture. David now serves as a board member for numerous organizations.

He's helped launch several startups and nonprofits and co-authored a book titled Remarkable. David is known for his marketing mind, servant's heart, entrepreneurial spirit, and his ability to intuitively see what others and organizations could be rather than simply what they currently are. Welcome David.

David Salyers:

Jeff, what a joy to be with you, my friend. I think we're kindred spirits here in terms of wanting to see, you know, how business can be used as a platform to help people enrich their lives.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, David, I'm inspired by you both by what you've done at Chick-fil-A and the five years since you've left.

David Salyers:

Yeah. It's been a great five years for sure.

Topic 1. Who or what inspired you the most in your career? (02:14)

Jeff Hunt:

As you look back on your career, think about who inspired you most. Can you share, was there any one person or thing that really inspired you along the way?

David Salyers:

That, that's an easy question to answer for me. Jeff, you'll be glad to know, Jeff, that at age 21, I had all of life figured out.

Like most 21 year old, I had that answer to all the brick, but here's how I had it figured out. Essentially, I was a senior in college getting ready to graduate, and I said, here was my view of the world at that point in terms of the best future I could possibly imagine. Uh, I imagine that I would graduate from college.

Go out and make as much money as I could, as fast as I could to retire as early as I could. And I'd set my goal to retire age 35. I said, if I can just be retired, age 35, how could life be any better than that? And that's the best I had as a 21 year old. And the irony of that now is, and it was the best.

And I, I share that with 21 year olds now, and they're all shaking their head saying, yeah, that's the best thing to do. But fortunately, I went to work for a guy named Truit. Who had started an organization called Chick-fil-A and he was much older and wiser than me. And I tell you today, I'm so glad I didn't retire at age 35, uh, because by going to work for him and going to work for Chick-fil-A, I found something today.

I would say Jeff is a thousand times better than early retirement, something that age 21. If you had told me what I'm about to tell you, I wouldn't have believed you. I wouldn't have the thought, would've never crossed my mind. Uh, I think I would've been a, a little skeptical of what I'm about to tell you.

I would be too, had I not seen it, lived out in technicolor before my very eyes. And had I not seen it live out in my own life because instead of finding the job, I could retire from early. I found the job I wouldn't wanna retire from. See, that thought had never crossed my mind that there could be a job you wouldn't wanna retire from or should be a job.

I thought the whole point of work was to stop doing it. I just assumed because what culture teaches us that work is something you have to endure, and work is kind of a price we pay and a penalty I'd never considered that work could be a source of joy, satisfaction, contentment, enrichment, engagement, excitement in our lives.

I'd never considered that, but I saw in Truett Kathie's life. How he experienced business. And then that translated into the way I experienced business. And he used to say, if you love what you do, you'll never work another day in your life. So I feel like he never worked a day in his life. I never worked a day in my life, you know?

And we were able to, I was able to collect a paycheck, make some money. Anyway, it's a pretty good gig if you can get it. And it's funny, Jeff, I remember going into Truitt. Truitt became like a second father to me. 'cause your question was somebody who really influenced you. Truitt was by far and away the biggest single influence in my life.

And I remember going in his office when he was in his eighties and I said, Truitt, man, what are you still doing here? You're 4 0 1 k fully funded. It's like, why are you. And he would look at me and said, David, why would I stop doing something I love this much? He said, and if you love what you do, you'll never work another day in your life.

And so that's the way he experienced work. That's the way I've experienced work. But I think both of us are by far the exception than the norm. And I think what this podcast is all about, how do we create more jobs people wouldn't wanna retire from because they're enjoying them so much.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly, and so much of that doesn't it come from the cultures that we create in these organizations.

So, we have an obligation as leaders to not only find a career that is fulfilling to us. So, because we only have one life to be fulfilled with. So if we can find that career that we're truly fulfilled with along the way, and then create a culture where other people can make that happen, that's sort of the pathway to success, isn't it?

David Salyers:

That's the holy grail of business right there. No question about it. And, and the problem is, you know, we've been trained by culture to think something very different about that and therefore that's what we create, you know? But most businesses are probably not the job. I wouldn't want, most businesses probably created jobs I would wanna retire from because of the leadership, the culture, the rest.

So what's super encouraging to me about the Chick-fil-A story, if a business in the fast food business, Can create jobs people don't wanna retire from. Have a 97% retention rate. You know that you alluded to all the rest, then anyone can do it.

Topic 2. How to create a culture and achieve a 97% retention rate? (06:41)

Jeff Hunt:

How did you, you know that 97% retention is truly staggering. Tell us a little bit about how you went about creating that type of culture. Because even though you were a senior marketing exec, David, it, it feels like you were so intimately connected to the culture at Chick-fil-A, that that was what actually made the company so successful.

David Salyers:

There's no question about it. You know, it's interesting. One of the ways I think about it now is a lot of my job was to help build the brand of Chick-fil-A. In the end, that's what marketing is all about, is about building a brand. And if we had a hundred marketers on this podcast and asked every one of them for their definition of a brand, we probably get a hundred different definitions because a brand is so squishy.

So the way we thought about a brand, uh, based on Truit, primarily Truit, Kind of life perspective was a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. So he was much more focused on creating a good name than great riches. And we felt like great riches are the fruit of a good name and the fruit of building a good name.

And so our definition of a brand was we wanted Chick-fil-A to have a good name. So a lot of our marketing was all about how do we build a good name in the eyes of the customer. Well, interestingly, culture is another. Area that's a lot like brand. If we had a hundred HR people, you know, on the podcast Alam all for definition of culture, we might come up with a hundred different definitions.

'cause just like a brand, it's very squishy, very true. But I think what's similar between both of 'em and what connects both of 'em is that ultimately a brand, the greatest brands have the greatest stories associated with them. That people wanna be part of it. It's why if I took 20 cents worth of thread and added a Nike swoosh, To this, sure, this shirt just got $20 more expensive because of that swoosh.

But it's not really the swoosh, it's the story connected to that swoosh that now is supposed to say with me, well, if a great brand has a great story, a great culture is a story that employees wanna be part of. And so the greatest brands have the greatest stories for both customers and employees.

Customers wanna be part of the brand story. Employees want to be part of the culture story, but it's gotta be the same story. It's almost like two different portals looking at the same story, but from a different perspective. But when you get the strongest, brands typically have the strongest culture. I, I often say I've never seen a great brand birthed out of a terrible culture.

It's like the two go hand in hand. And so even though I technically worked in marketing my whole time, there's a sense in which I was working in culture because I understood the story. I helped create the story. I have appreciation and the same story that attracted customers, attracted employees.

Topic 3. Employee success = company success (09:29)

Jeff Hunt:

I love that. And it's almost like those stories, uh, perpetuate the success that's already there. So in other words, isn't it true that if you have a certain set of core values in an organization and you're living those out and you're able to tell your employees stories about how those are lived out, Then that perpetuates them living those core values out.

And it's true with your customers as well. And I love how you connected the dots between the stories for the customer and the stories for the employee. Because they are essentially, they can be one and the same, right?

David Salyers:

A hundred percent. I'll tell you one other connection that's super important that I think a lot of people get wrong.

I don't know of a C E O that doesn't wanna create great experiences for customers. They're all focused on the customer experience and creating these amazing, and they want the stickiness of the customer. They'd love a 97% retention rate with the customers, that kind of thing. But the reality is it's been my experience that the customers will never be more excited about your story than your own employees are.

So, the way get the customers more excited about the story is actually to get your own employees more excited and your own employees kind of set the lid on the level of passion, engagement, and excitement the customers can have. And so ironically, a great way to improve the customer experience is to improve the employee experience, and then it becomes contagious.

We used to say whatever's going on behind the counter is contagious over the counter. Mm. But we had to make sure what's going on behind the counter was an exciting, passionate, engaging experience because that will then translate into what customers experience.

Topic 4. Advice to improve organizational culture (11:04)

Jeff Hunt:

Employees that are struggling with a difficult culture or organizations that find themselves stuck in this place, what are your recommendations on the first things that they can do so they realize they have a problem?

David Salyers:

Now, a good starting point for me with some lessons I learned early in my career at Chick-fil-A, you were asking how do you build that culture? That is a 97% retention rate was pretty counterintuitive actually. Because as, as a 21 year old, I was looking to retire early. So the only question on my list for a petition employer is how much are you gonna pay me?

Well, it turns out that what we pay people is the commodity part of what we offer. People are gonna get a paycheck anywhere. So I challenge people now. I said, if you couldn't offer 'em more money, or better yet, now, this is what I'll tell you. If you had to offer them less money than they're currently making, What could you do?

They'd still wanna come work for you, and people look at you like, you've gotta be crazy. Well, lemme tell you, Jeff, for my first 10 years, a hundred percent of the people I hired at Chick-fil-A took a cut and pay to come. Wow. And that's a total culture story. It's like if, if it's, if they're not the reward in their paycheck, there's gotta be something beyond the paycheck.

But that was a great place to start. That was the starting point for our 97% retention rate was a. Attracting people who were attracted to the values, attracted to the mission, attracted to the other people they'd be working with. Truet used to remind me often that the real riches in life never found in a bank account anyway.

The real riches in life are found in the richness of relationships that we enjoy. They're found in the richness of experiences that we have. They're found in the richness of the mission that we're on. All these other things, the real riches in life are never in your bank account and never find show up in your paycheck.

We all want big paychecks. We all gotta pay our bills. I'm not suggesting people don't want that. I'm just suggest that's a terrible starting point. This language may not work for everybody, but missionaries and mercenaries, mercenaries are just there to be paid. It's all focused on money. I look at even what's going on right now in like Russia and Ukraine, right?

You know, and you a lot of mercenaries on the Russian side, but you got missionaries on the Ukraine side and Ukraine's done pretty well against a much more well positioned enemy because their, their lives are on the line and they believe in the mission and it's their homeland and all the rest. And I think that's the starting point for a business is how do we create missionaries instead of mercenaries?

If all we talk about is pay and how much more we're gonna pay you, that just fuels the mercenary side of things, so to speak. So I think what a great question for someone to ask themselves if they're looking to retool. If we couldn't pay more money to people, or we had to ask them to take a decrease in pay to come, what do we have that we're offering them?

Jeff Hunt:

That's a great starting point. And when you peel back that onion so that it doesn't include that financial piece, and you start talking about what is left, doesn't it include things like compassion and deep relationships and how we care for each other? How we're oriented as a team instead of a silo, we're individuals, right?

David Salyers:

A hundred percent. That's exactly what it is, and ultimately that's what everybody wants. Sometimes I think of culture as everything of value to you and your employee value proposition beyond your paycheck. All of us need to get a paycheck, but culture is everything of value beyond that because the paycheck is the commodity part.

I'm gonna get a paycheck wherever I go. To me, paychecks aren't the culture part. You know, everybody's cash looks the same, you know, everybody's, so it's the experiences and it's the, it's what you value beyond the paycheck. In, in is one way to think about a culture.

Jeff Hunt:

Don't you think it's true, David, that companies often will fall into the same trap? In other words, what I mean is their primary goal will be profitability. They look at profitability as the end point rather than the byproduct of excellent operating.

David Salyers:

A hundred percent. And ironically, that that is the way a lot of people approach it. And ironically, if you focus on profitability, you're likely to get a lot less of it.

Because in and we're all about creating a great value for customers. In fact, let me share a story with you that I think speaks to this, and this was a powerful lesson to me as well that kind of speaks to that very issue. So there was a chapter in Chick-fil-a's history in the early nineties when there was a little company up in Boston at that time is called Boston Chicken.

They had 13 locations up in the Northeast and they were a small company, but then all of a sudden, some venture capital came on board. They decided to go public, and it seemed like almost overnight over just two or three years, they became almost as big as Chick-fil-A in no time. Not only were they in the chicken business, they were in the high-end quality chicken business.

They later was named Boston Chicken at the time, later became Boston Market. Sure. Okay. And at that time they were on the cover of not only every restaurant magazine. They were cover on the cover of every business magazine. 'cause they'd gone public. They were on the cover of Newsweek, Businessweek, fortune, Forbes, all that stuff.

They were like the next big thing. They, they were the Apple or Amazon or Tesla of their day. Quite honestly, a lot of people at Chick-fil-A even were investing in them 'cause they were such a hot stock and they were growing like a weed. I mean, literally they went from 13 locations as big as Chick-fil-A, it seemed like in two years or something like that.

And they had set their, oh, this was the early nineties. They had set their goal to be a billion dollar business by the year 2000. So we were getting nervous at Chick-fil-A. 'cause here's this little upstart as big as, as there. Had to do a billion dollar. They're going after our same market, and so there was a lot of talk.

At that point, we started focusing on how could we get bigger, faster, and keep up with Boston Market, so to speak, to the point that Dan Kathie, the son of Truitt Ka, went to New York and explored all these different ways that we could grow faster. We looked at IPOs, we looked at venture capital, we looked at big loans, all that kind.

'cause we needed a big cash infusion so we could get bigger. So we could become more profitable, make more money. Create more revenue. And so I'll never forget this, Jeff. So Dan came back to report on his trip to New York. He. There was a group sitting in a, around a board table and Dan was kind of at that end of the room and Truitt was at this end of the room.

And I'm sitting down close to Truitt and Dan has got Fire and Broom Stone in his eyes. He's going on and on about all these, 'cause people were excited about helping Chick-Fil-A grow, you know, and that kind of, so at one point in the meeting, very uncharacteristic for Truitt, he kind of his fist on the table and he said, ladies and gentlemen, I am sick and tired of hearing you talk about getting bigger.

He said, we need to get better. Because if we'll get better customers will demand we get bigger. So as you might imagine, the whole conversation changed at that point. And we went from focusing on getting bigger to focusing on getting better, which is the, which is the customer value proposition, where we get customers don't care if you're bigger, they care if you're better.

So I say all that to say this. Fast forward to the year 2000 when Boston Market was gonna be a billion dollar business. Guess what was happening in the year 2000? Bankruptcy. Bankruptcy. Guess what happened? Chick-fil-A in the year 2000 probably exploded in growth billion dollars for the first time. The very goal that Boston Market had set we achieved by focusing on getting better.

There's so many lessons you can take from that, but one of the lessons I take from that is even though we think. That the investors in a business, they might be in the form of a venture capital or stockholders or whatever. And so we focus so much time and attention on stockholders because they're the ones investing into the business.

But what I learned through that episode is that I don't care how much money investors or banks throw at a business, if customers don't throw more money at the business. Exactly, you'll be out. So ultimately, it really is customers that fund our business. What that tells me is we ought to focus on the real shareholders, you know, the stakeholders, the customers are the ones funding our growth.

And interestingly, to this day, chick-fil-A is debt-free. So it's now a $20 billion debt-free business with one family that owns it all. So customers, we used to say, customers have funded our growth. And I think if you come to that conclusion, you understand that then focusing. On customers and the customer value proposition and customers getting, then all of a sudden profitability is the fruit.

If the object is to let them have a better experience and give them more value for the hard-earned money they're spending with us. If we just almost viewed customers the way a lot of businesses view shareholders and stockholders, all of a sudden we can have a great culture. We can have great profits, we can have great sales results, but we're focused on getting better, not bigger, because if we get better, Customers will demand we get bigger and customers will fund us getting bigger.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. That's such a incredible story and a great illustration for all business leaders out there. When you look at the numbers, and I mentioned this in the intro too as well, that I believe your average revenue per location was almost 10 times the average fast food restaurant location. Isn't that correct? I mean, that's just a remarkable number.

Topic 5. The secrets behind Chick-fil-A's extraordinary culture (20:28)

Jeff Hunt:

If you unpack that, David, if we get pragmatic for a minute, because there's some real operating differences Yes. That are all undergirded by culture of Chick-fil-A that allowed those extraordinary results to happen. But pragmatically, what were some of the things that were behind that?

David Salyers:

Yeah, that's such a great question and we could spend hours on it. Lemme just give you a few highlights, but there, there's a lot more to the story than obviously that I can tell you in just a couple minutes. But I, I think there are a couple macro-observations I would make. Many times we used to describe Chick-fil-A as the overnight success story, 40 years in the making.

So one of the things that you have to realize is it didn't happen overnight. There were a lot of sacrifices along just like we went 10 years that I, for 10 years I hired people, all took a cut and pay to come right. For 10 years. We had operators who, for my first 10 years on the job, roughly 40% of our operators were unprofitable in any given month, 10 years.

The way our operators get con, our operators are the people, the owner operator is the one that runs the, they own and operate an individual Chick-fil-A location. So they're not making money, they can't pay their bills. That's a tough place to be and we have to slug it, slug through it and fight through it, and.

Be missionaries during that time period for 10 years now, I don't think there's a Chick-fil-A in the country that's not profitable, but it took a while and we had to get through. So I think issue number one, you have to have a long-term perspective. Sure. Most of what made Chick-fil-A, what it is today are not overnight success stories.

It's not a silver bullet that pays off in 90 days. It's making decisions and trade off decisions that pay off in the long run. Not many times they cost you something in the short run, but they pay off in the long run. But what I used to say is I have to live in the long run. I'd rather have things that pay off in the long run 'cause I can get something place off in the short run, but then I'm not living in the short run I need will pay off for the long run.

So that's keeps you, number one is you have to have a long-term perspective. Issue number two is like our operator model. We have to have alignment. The operator model is super generous. Operators of a Chick-fil-A location today, they put up, I, I think today it's 10,000, maybe $15,000 of their own money to become a Chick-fil-A franchisee, where most of our competitors, that's several million dollars you gotta put up.

You only put up 10 or 15 and for many years it was $10,000, but it was refundable whenever you left. So it's really just a security deposit. It's mounted, I think now that, I think now that's no longer true, but it's still 10 or $15,000 you're put up to get an $8 million business. That's a pretty good deal.

It structured is a operator gets half the profits on a monthly basis, so they're for the profits and they run the the unit for a month. They, we run the p and l, take all the expenses out. Whatever's left is profit. They get half, we get half. So, but for most of our competitors, they can't imagine giving the person running or not even giving it.

They earn it, but allowing the person running the location to earn 50% of the profit in a given month. But what happened is over time that prophet has gotten gargantuan, but it's because we were generous with the operator and made it worth their while to do it. Again, it didn't happen overnight. We went through 10 years where 40% of our operators weren't making any profit in any given month, but we had to get to that point.

But now it's incredibly, and then one of the obvious ones closed on Sunday. Close Sunday is a really odd decision for a restaurant to make because if you just look at the numbers on a spreadsheet, that's like the single worst day to close. It's like for most restaurants, that's the single highest revenue day of the month, or excuse me, the day of the week.

Truett made the decision early on. He was working six days a week at that time. You know, he had a 24 hour a day restaurant. He just needed the rest, and he wanted time to pursue other things in life, like spending time with his family, like going to church, like all the rest. And so he just decided as an organization, as a culture, we want to communicate that we think there are things more important in your life than selling another chicken sandwich.

And we're not just gonna say that. We're gonna back it up. By closing one day a week to ensure you have a day off.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, and it's really a cultural decision as well, right? Yes. It adds to your culture. It's one more reason why employees would wanna work for you. Bingo. That's exactly. It's also ironic because I did an episode recently on the four day work week, and I had a researcher come on and she shared all of this evidence that.

Now there are some companies that are, that can, that are moving from a five day work week to a four day work week and are actually achieving the same or better productivity from their employees as a result. So that is also kind of a cultural decision.

David Salyers:

Yes, you're, if you're able to do that, but, and one, there's another way to think about a culture, 'cause I know culture is one of the central ideas for this whole podcast.

I think of culture as a magnet. Mm-hmm. A strong culture strongly attracts certain people. Who identify with that culture and those values. But at the same time, if you flip a magnet around what happens, it's the inverse.

Jeff Hunt:

It repels. Yeah. It's the inverse.

David Salyers:

It kinda repels. And so I think a strong culture has both of those.

If it's a really strong culture, some people will be highly attracted to it, but some people will not. And that's fine. That's the point. I think where you don't wanna be is neutral, where no one's really attracted and no one's repel, but it's just kind of neutral. I. Exactly. So another price to pay is to have a culture that has made decisions strong enough that people are strongly compelled to come, but others may choose that that's not really who they are or what they want, and that's fine because that's not a culture that's for them, and they're probably other cultures that would strongly attract them.

Good for them. Yeah. It's not a judgment of right or wrong or good or bad. It's chocolate and vanilla.

Jeff Hunt:

I'd like to pause the podcast for a second and talk about an event that David is speaking at in November. Of course, if you're listening to this podcast, you know better than anyone. That organizational culture has never been more important.

If you want to retain and attract top talent, develop strong and agile leaders and keep customers coming back, culture is where you have to start. So back to the event. It's a four day organizational culture masterclass called The Fellowship. The fellowship is being held from November 6th to ninth at the Four Seasons Rancho and Cando in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The lineup for this event includes next level speakers like the c e O of the Dallas Mavericks, St. Marshall, and the Director of Employee experience at LinkedIn, Noel Ry. But this isn't your typical conference Spots are limited to just 60 people so that you can rest, retreat, and actually retain what you're learning.

Learn more and register@experiencethefellowship.com. You had this incredible career at Chick-fil-A, but you've also done so many amazing things since. Talk to us for just a minute about what you're doing today. You've got Rome, you've got these other startups, you're involved with nonprofits, you're on the board of several companies. Talk to us about what you're doing today.

David Salyers:

Well, I've got seven different businesses I'm involved with right now and a lot of people say, wow, you must be busy. I said, well, I said, busy has this negative connotation. Busy has this sense of pressure and stress. I said, I don't think I'm busy. I said, life is full.

Mm-hmm. And it's full of all the right stuff. So at this stage, I, I, life is full and it's fulfilling because all the things I'm involved with charge my battery. They don't drain my battery and it, and it's exciting. But the thread that ties it all together, Jeff, is my final year at Chick-fil-A. What used to break my heart was LA the final year I was there, 80,000 people applied at Chick-fil-A.

Imagine that 80,000 people applied for a hundred openings. Oh my gosh. And the one hand, that's incredible, isn't it? Yeah, right. That you could get 80,000 people applying for a, but the flip side is what would break my heart is saying, what are the other 79,900 gonna do? Like they want what we have. They, they're attracted to this culture.

They wanna be part of this mission. They wanna be part of what we're doing. And I was thinking we'll never be big enough for everybody that wants to come. So I said I felt like the best way I could thank Truet Kathy who had passed away at that point. The best way I could thank him, the best way I could thank the Kathy family.

The best way I could say thank you to the Chick-fil-A organization. Would be to go ahead and leave. I took early retirement. They offered in early retirement to some of the pioneers of Chick-fil-A and I said, I think while it'd be great to hang out at Chick-fil-A and collect all the benefits of what we had created together, I said, I think I'd rather go out and recreate for other people.

The incredible experience that Chick-fil-A created for me. I kind of stumbled in to something I didn't deserve to be part of. You know, I said if I was gonna write a book about my life, it'd probably be stumbling into success. It's kinda like I just stumbled and bumbled my way into success by being around a guy like Truett Kathy.

But at this point, I'm very intentional. 'cause the thread that ties all seven businesses together is they're all trying to recreate a culture and a set of values and a set of results that mirror Chick-fil-A, just in the context of other businesses. So everything from on my way to this podcast, I was just on the phone.

With a young man. He and I have started a little technology business. It's two of us right now, him and I, but it's gonna be amazing. We're, we're making some real strides all the way up to earlier in the week or later in the week. I should say too. I'm on the board of a $50 billion bank and they first approached me about joining the boards publicly traded business.

It, well, this'll get, this will help your listeners too. Six years ago I joined that bank board and when they first approached me, I told him, I said, guys, you don't want me on your board. I don't know anything about the banking business. I can't help, uh, you know, I only wanna join your board if I can add value and I don't see how I'm gonna add value to a banking business.

I don't know anything. You guys could run rings around me. He said, David, we don't need your help with banking. We got that. He said, help us with culture and marketing said, okay, I know a little bit about those two things. Coin them. Six years ago, we were a $5 billion bank. Six years later, $50 billion bank.

Wow, that's incredible. C e o is highly, highly committed to recreating a Chick-fil-A like culture and recreating a culture where people value the culture as much as their paycheck and all around. So that's what we've been doing. We just did a, an engagement survey. And we really had to get a few years to get some traction going.

We just did a merger of equals, which is a really difficult thing from a culture standpoint. We did that two years ago, so our culture scores went down a little bit. In the midst of all that, we just got the results of our current engagement, 20 points better than last year. We're now in the top, we're setting of engagements, 20 point change in engagement in one year.

In the culture. And so anyway, that's a $50 billion business all the way down to a two person business. Probably my favorite business is the one I'm sitting in right now. It's called Rome, and it's this collaborative workspace. And we started with one location, uh, up in Alpharetta, Georgia. It's kind of an interesting story.

There were five guys from I B M, who 10 years ago during the last financial crisis had been asked to work from home. I B M was shutting down their Atlanta offices asking people to work from home. Become the original, you know, uh, remote workers. Remote workers, yeah. Only that time they didn't have Zoom and they didn't have all the other things.

They were just save money by reducing, you know, the expense of office space. So they found working from home, not to be the ideal experience. So they started working at a coffee shops and that was better, but it really wasn't ideal. So they came up with the idea. What about if we created a coffee shop designed for you to work there all day?

They started with a coffee shop and added some meeting rooms and different things, and, uh, had this little, uh, coworking space up in Alpharetta and got a year into it, and they had done $250,000 in business and had $500,000 in expenses. Oh boy. So, so Jeff, most of us would look at that business on paper and just look at numbers on paper and say, that's a terrible business.

I'm gonna stay away from that with a 10-foot pole. I looked at it through my Chick-fil-A training and I looked at it not for what it is, but I looked at it for what it could be and should be if they had a good culture, if they had the right values, if they had a different operating model.

So myself and another guy, Peyton Day, his dad is the one that started Dazing Hotel Chain. We decided to both jump in there with them and join forces, and I'm happy to report that, that that original location this year that was doing 10 or $50,000 will do well over a million. Highly profitable. Since that time, we've opened seven more locations, all all of which, well, the, the most recent one was just opened in Dallas.

That one is not profitable yet, but we think it will be soon, but it's only been open three months. But all of our existing locations are profitable. Doing great post Covid. Now, we took a hit in Covid, but, but what I'm really excited about is the culture at Rome. Reminds me of the Chick-fil-A culture. In the early days when I first joined, everyone who's coming to work for Rome is taking a pay cut.

We just did an engagement survey, 96. Well, first of all, a hundred percent of the people filled it out. A hundred percent of our employees filled it out. 96% engagement. Ray and every one of them could leave tomorrow and make more money, and no one wants to because they're getting all these other riches and they see, to the point we were talking about earlier, it's gonna pay off just not tomorrow.

It's gonna take a little while, but they see it coming. And so it's, you know, most people, I feel so lucky to have been able to be part of the Chick-Fil-A store. If I can only have one of those stories, I, I would consider myself one of the richest men on earth having been part of that. But if I can do it twice, it's like, wow.

And if I can recreate it for other people. Creative for me, I can't think of anything I'd be more excited about doing.

Topic 6. Culture as a tool to achieve profits (34:38)

Jeff Hunt:

Truly remarkable how culture is so transformative, not only in terms of fulfillment, but ultimately the connection to the organization's ability to achieve profits.

David Salyers:

And even more than that, Jeff, 'cause what I noticed at Chick-fil-A is true of the greatest brands.

They not only help you grow as a business person, they help you grow as a person. You know, filea was always interested in every aspect of my life. They wanted to invest in my health, they wanted to invest in my family. They wanted to invest in me as a professional. And I grew in every dimension of my life, not just my work life.

I'm a better fob. I'm a better husband. I'm a better friend. I'm a better community citizen. Better financially. They, they gave me financial instruction. We had people would help us personally, financially. All those things were investments they made in my life 'cause they wanted me to be successful in every dimension of life.

And I think some organizations miss that. They think I'm just gonna focus on them being successful in my business and I don't really care about rest. But if you focus on all aspects of their life, they'll focus on making you successful in all aspects of your business.

Topic 7. Lighting round questions (35:45)

Jeff Hunt:

It's truly the contrast of looking at a person as a producer or a whole person. Okay. David, are you ready to shift into some lightning-round questions? Why not? Let's do it. All right. My first one is, what are you most grateful for?

David Salyers:

You know, I, I think if I were to label it, the richness of relationships. Hmm. So my relationships with God, my relationships with my family, with my friends, my relationship with my coworkers. That's the real riches in life is the richness of relationship that I've gotten to experience in life.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

David Salyers:

Ooh, there's so many of them. Probably the hardest one many times is the long-term make, like having to to do a trade off that hurts you in the short run and accept that in order to get to a long-term, better future, and it's really hard.

And that that shows itself in many ways, including, even though we had a 97% retention rate, there were a couple times I had people that I had hired that were not working out at Chick-fil-A. It didn't happen often, but I had to take ownership of the fact I brought them into this organization. I had to realize that, you know what, by trying to.

Make them successful in a job they just weren't gonna be successful in it was actually robbing them of having genuine success somewhere else. And so mentally I had to make that leap that, you know what All I'm doing is robbing them of a good future where they could be incredibly successful by keeping 'em in a job where they're mediocre at best.

Jeff Hunt:

Who's one person you would interview if you could living or not?

David Salyers:

That's such a good question. I've always had a fascination with Abraham Lincoln, so I'm gonna go with Lincoln on. Walt Disney might be a close second on that one.

Jeff Hunt:

Do you have a book recommendation for our listeners?

David Salyers:

Yeah, I've got a lot of books I've read. Of course, I have to recommend Remarkable, uh, one that I wrote, but some of the ones that have had the most impact on me, probably if I had to make it a single book, it'd be Jim Collins. Good To Great. That was such, you know, profound and impactful book for, I mean, there are lots of others, but that one, if I had to get it down to one, that's probably the one.

Jeff Hunt:

That book truly withstands the test of time, like it was written a long time ago. And it's a hundred percent applicable today, isn't it? A hundred percent. Very much so. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

David Salyers:

The best piece of advice, probably because it ended up putting me on a trajectory to go to Chick-fil-A, which then impacted all these other aspects at age 21.

You know, I told you my goal was to make as much money as I could, as fast as I could, retire, as early as I could. You know, that's the best I had. I was struggling because I had some offers from other companies other than Chick-fil-A. That would've been twice or three times what Chick-fil-A was offering me.

And it was weird, Jeff, because on the one hand, I had no idea why I'd be interested in Chick-fil-A at all, because right now it's like just whoever's gonna offer me the most money, that's where I'm going. But, but I was torn for some reason. So I got with a mentor of mine, a guy who I'd worked for as a summer intern last few summers.

And I explained it all to him, and it didn't take him a nanosecond to figure it out. Like I explained to him, I got these great offers over here. I got this terrible offer over here. For some reason I'm struggling. And he said, ERs, he said, this is a simple decision. He said, you need to look for four things in your first job out of college.

He said, one, you need to find a leader to put yourself under that you want your life to look like. He said, basically, the leader you put yourself under is a picture of the future you. Do you like that picture? Truit said a little differently. Truitt used to say, you become like those you surround yourself with for better or worse.

So he said, first thing is, do you like the leader you're about to put yourself under? And, and I'll extend to the people around you because that's what your life is about to look like. Are you happy with that? He said, secondly, you need to find something you're uniquely gifted to do. It's not like what you can do.

'cause a lot of people can do a lot of things. It's what should you do to be at your very best, where your battery's being charged, where you're better than most people. All that kind. So he said a leader you love being under a job you'd love doing. He said third, find a company. Who you'd be proud to tell people you work for?

He said the first question you're gonna get when you go to a a party or whatever is, who do you work for? Are you gonna be proud of the name of the company that you work for? You know, Tru used to say a good name is rather to be chosen than Great, rich. Is it a good name, the company that you're going to work for.

And then he said, A leader, you wanna be more like a job you enjoy doing, a company you'd be proud to work for. And then finally, are you passionate about the work you'd be doing? Like is the work you'd be doing something you can't wait to go do, like it charges your battery versus drains your battery. He said, if you can find a job you're passionate about doing, you're good at doing with a leader, you wanna become more like with a company you're proud to work for.

He said, that's what you need to find. He says, if you find that money will never be your problem, that like, it's like the scales fell from my eyes at that point. I said, this one I'm struggling. Chick-fil-A is all four of those. None of these other jobs are. All the rest of 'em offer a big paycheck. For the most part, they might have offered paycheck, maybe one of the other things, but Chick-fil-A offered all four things, and he said, really, for your first job, you need to be positioning yourself for a brighter future.

Not worried about how much your money you're making. He said, because the other thing is you hadn't made a dime for a company yet, so why are you so worried about what they're gonna pay for you before you've created value for them? He said, if you create enough value for them, they'll pay you for that. If they're the kind of company that you'd be proud to work for.

That was like, that was the best advice. 'cause that made it real easy to go to Chick-fil-A and then that led to lots of other good decisions. That's how I met my wife, you know, it's how I met a lot of my friends. It's how, you know, all these other things came from that one decision. But I was this close to just going after the biggest paycheck I could find.

Jeff Hunt:

That piece of advice literally changed the trajectory of your life, didn't it? A hundred percent. Yeah. That's remarkable.

David Salyers:

Which actually makes a case for us to mentor and speak into the lives of others 'cause there's no way I could have figured that out at age 21.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, David, you've given us so much wisdom today. If you had to sort of distill this down into the two or three most important talking points, what do you wanna leave our listeners with?

David Salyers:

Yeah, let me give you one central organizing idea for all of this. One way to sum it all up. The central organizing idea is this. Most people start a business is what I would call a get rich scheme.

They start a business because they want to get rich, and if you're gonna get rich, you're gonna get rich at the expense of other people. You'll get rich at the expense of customers, you'll get rich at the expense of team members. You'll get rich at the expense of suppliers. You'll get rich at the expense of the community you serve, on and on.

It's a self enrichment scheme and it's, I get rich at the expense of others, and it's the way a lot of businesses get started as a self enrichment scheme. Get rich. I contrast that with what Truitt kind of role modeled for me, what Chick-Fil-A role modeled for me, what I'm trying to role model for other people now, not business as a get rich scheme, but business as a be rich scheme.

Now, see, they sound very different. I mean, excuse me, they sound very similar. Getting rich, being rich sound almost identical, but they're polar opposite. Business is a be rich scheme means how do I use my platform of business to be rich toward people? Not get rich from them. So how do I use my platform business to be rich toward my customers?

How do I use my platform business to be rich toward my employees, my team members? You know, my. How do I use my platform business to be rich toward my suppliers? This is one that really gets people, 'cause we're almost just trained to think, you know, it's a win-lose with our suppliers, but how do we make it win in with our suppliers?

And then how do we make our business a platform to be rich toward the community we serve? Because here's the thing, if you'll make business a be rich scheme and you'll be rich toward your customers, team members, suppliers, communities, guess who else guaranteed will get rich in the process yourself. Yeah, but they're not focused on that.

It's because we're focused. Sure. You say, if I help enough other people get what they want, I'll eventually get what I want. But I think the central organizing idea from a culture standpoint, from a business use business as a be rich scheme instead of a get rich scheme and amazing things will happen as a result.

Jeff Hunt:

David, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing all this incredible wisdom today.

David Salyers:

It's been my pleasure.

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Outro(44:10)

Closing music jingle/sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to Human Capital, if you like this show please tell your friends and also take the time to go rate and review us. Human Capital is a production of GoalSpan, your integrated source for performance management. Now go out and be the inspiration to other humans, and thank you for being human kind.