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3 industry experts give advice on attracting Gen Z customers, helping the community, getting off the struggle bus

From capturing the hearts of an elusive Gen Z to connecting with your community and reaping financial visibility's rewards, this year's Three:15 session at the Fast Casual Executive Summit in Seattle, delivered invaluable lessons.

November 1, 2018

From capturing the hearts of an elusive Gen Z to connecting with your community and reaping the rewards of financial visibility, this year's Three:15 session at the Fast Casual Executive Summit in Seattle, delivered invaluable lessons from a trio of restaurant industry leaders on everything from demographic marketing to restaurant growth strategy. 

The rapid-fire session puts three top thinkers on the stage for 15 minutes each to deliver as much of their hard-won wisdom as can fit in a quarter-hour. This year's event included the following speakers and subject matter, all moderated by Qu CEO Amir Hudda: 

• FutureCast President Jeff Fromm on marketing to Gen Z.
• Anthony's Pizza & Pasta CEO John Lebel on giving back to the community you serve.
• Suzy's Swirl and Kathleen Wood Partners owner Kathleen Wood Partners on getting off the (restaurant) "struggle bus." 

Vive 'Z' difference

FutureCast President Jeff Fromm started off the hour with data about the world's youngest set of adults, Gen Z. And the bottom line on all that customer data? Well, let's just say these young men and women are definitely blazing their own trails through the restaurant universe. 

"Storytelling is coming to a close. Story-'living' is starting."                 

-FutureCast President Jeff Fromm 

"Today's young adults are distracted and addicted ... by all the things around them," Fromm said while simultaneously tossing a giant beach ball into the audience to achieve the kind of distracted attention he said fills all the snippets of silence in any young adult's life. 

Then, to connote what he meant by addiction, he used an equally interesting analogy. 

"So how many of you in the audience have a friend who sleeps with their phone on their nightstand just a couple of (inches) away?" he asked the audience to near unanimous applause. "Okay, now, if I had a friend who slept with an open bottle of 'Mad Dog' 2020 on his nightstand, would you say he had a drinking problem?"

The audience's responding laughter relayed their familiarity with that idea. But beyond that, Fromm made a point to tell the industry executives listening that they should pay heed because he said, Gen Z is not more of the familiar traits restaurateurs have come to know in the older millennials, who are typically enamored with all things new and different. Rather, he said, Gen Z-ers are "old souls in young bodies," who seem to have a similar viewpoint on life as those in the 55-plus age group. That, he says, means one very important thing for restaurant brands: 

"What you say is far less important than what you do," he said. 

By way of example, he said that although millennials have come to be known as the quintessential collaborators, Gen Z brings real-life competition back to restaurant workforces. And whereas he said millennials are generally a bit "naïve" and often don't fully understand the choices they make, Gen Z-ers understand very well — particularly relative to restaurant technologies and brands themselves — but this is one age group that rarely responds unless they trust a brand implicitly. 

As fascinating as some of the data findings were, Fromm said the real value in the data findings is what they say about marketing to the youngest consumers for restaurants. He said it's all about the emotional connection — a connection should be the basis of roughly one-fourth of a brand's marketing strategy (in addition to pricing and location strategies which make up the other 75 percent). 

Jeff Fromm, FutureCast

To establish a strong emotional connection, Fromm said restaurant brands must connect emotionally with Gen Z in innovative ways that evoke trust, add a sense that they're also doing "good" or somehow simplify their rushed lives. 

"It's not enough that they take a picture in your restaurant, but they have to want to share it," he said by way of example. "That is the difference between extraordinary and not ... (brands) that have an emotional connection, because only the remarkable experiences are amplified. ... 

"So, storytelling is coming to a close. Story-'living' is starting. ... and the two biggest drivers for that are purpose and innovation, and purpose-driven innovation will be one of the biggest winners." 

Making a difference

Many restaurateurs strive to give back to their communities as part of their daily work, but one Denver-based pizza brand has made the community and overall social responsibility part of its mission and brand DNA. And for Anthony's Pizza & Pasta CEO John Lebel much of the brand's success with its community-based work has come more easily because of the chain's relatively small size. 

"When you talk about how you can do this as a business, think accessibility and agility, Be able to move fast and make it so you're not just dismissing people. ... And as for the question, 'What's in it for you?' Well, nothing. And everything."                                                                                                                        - Anthony's Pizza & Pasta CEO John Lebel

With 23 outlets, Lebel said the brand is small and agile enough to allow franchisees to take up local causes in their own neighborhoods, along with the overall brand initiatives. Some of those include everything from sending youngsters with Downs Syndrome to cheerleading and football camps, to just plain old delivering pizzas to local schools to support their projects. 

On that last subject, Lebel shared some of his passion for community service when he relayed a story he said showed how every member of the brand's team shares in the excitement and rewards of sharing with the community. The story came to Lebel's wife from one employee who had just delivered pies to a local elementary.

"Just delivered (pizzas) to the elementary school," the delivery person relayed in a text message. "All the kids started chanting when I came in. I felt like I was the frickin' 'man'!"

But Lebel told the audience that much of the good things the brand is able to accomplish is responsive rather than strictly pro-active. He said in those cases, it is highly beneficial that Anthony's is still a relatively small chain. 

"We can be more agile than most," he said. "And we're accessible. Like I am reachable ...  and I know a lot of people. These are great ways to make a huge difference in your community...by being accessible and agile." 

As an example, he referred to a Denver incident involving a paramedic, who took her own life the night after she responded to a horrible accident involving a young girl and the city's light rail system. The brand's agility to respond quickly truly elevated the celebration of the paramedic's life two days later. It all resulted from a call from the mayor's office in the eleventh hour.  

"They (mayor's office) called and said, 'Can you please help? We have 1,000 people at the celebration of her life at lunchtime,'" Lebel said, concerning the call. "So I agreed. ... I hung up the phone and just felt terrible for this guy (at the mayor's office) because he was on the frontline, trying to get support for 1,000 people. ... I thought, 'I can't let this guy have to make more phone calls for this.'"

With that, the brand went into action, with leadership reaching out to franchisees and putting in place a plan that eventually had all the pieces in place with the city's paramedics actually delivering the pizzas to the event. 

"So when you talk about how you can do this as a business, think accessibility and agility," Lebel told the audience. "Be able to move fast and make it so you're not just dismissing people. ... And as for the question, 'What's in it for you?' Well, nothing. And everything."

Getting off the 'Struggle Bus'

The final presenter in the trio, Kathleen Wood, had a trio of her own tips for business leaders who struggle to stay in success mode with their brands. 

"We have the power to make a choice about the business we want to be," she said. "Will you let your business kick you in ass, or will you kick (the competition) in the ass?"                                                                  -Kathleen Wood, Suzy's Swirl

After all, 13 years after founding her business growth consultancy, she and her sister started another business, this one firmly planted in the restaurant industry — a froyo brand called Suzy's Swirl. And, as Wood put it, she knows all too well that sometimes it can feel like the business is actually the boss of the business owner. 

"I own a business. I run a business," she told the audience, "Sometimes, I feel like the dang business is running me over. ... So yes, the struggle is real when we try to grow, transition and transform our businesses, but that's not always a bad thing."

Suzy's Swirl co-owner Kathleen Wood.

Wood said through her years advising entrepreneurs, she's found that the best leaders tend to do three particular things to stop struggling and start thriving, beginning with the idea that complete "financial visibility" for leadership is the key.  

1. 100 percent financial visibility: Wood referred to that proverbial "Struggle bus" driver to relay why financial visibility works so well for business sustainability. She said driving a bus with a lot of disruptive activity in the back is similar to business leaders who lack clear and constant financial visibility for their ventures. They are both heading for a crash, she said. 

"The more financial visibility you have, the higher the chance you will succeed," she said. "So great leaders, when they find that 'back of the bus' is misbehaving, the first thing they do is own it."

From there, she said the best leaders fix the problems in the rear of the "vehicle" by what she called an accountability partner — someone who "makes me sweat" about finances she said. With that key player in place, she said the leadership team can vanquish the problems by investing the time needed to ultimately "like and trust" the financial results. 

2.  Clarity in leadership: This second need revolves around leadership's clear response to these questions:

• Why are you in business and can you articulate that purpose? 
• What's your vision or where do you want to be in 10 years
• How are you accomplishing that vision or what's your mission?
• What are the core values of the business and its leadership? 
• Are you living it through your culture?

Taken together, the answers to those questions can be life- and business-changing, or as Wood put it, "The clearer the leader, the clearer the team."

3.  Execution of the P&P: In this case, the Ps refer to the "plan" and the "people," beginning with just knowing and acknowledging whether your brand actually has a plan. 

As she put it, "Restaurateurs spend tons of time on the menu, but how much time have you invested in a plan. ... (By) writing the plan, your teams know where to go."

As for the people business leaders put in place to make all of the above actually happen, Wood said it is essential that leaders make sure the company is bringing on people whose characteristics, competency and cultural fit are in sync with what the brand is. How do you know that? Why, the plan again, of course! That, she said, is the leader's guidebook for hiring employees who align well with the company.   

"We have the power to make a choice about the business we want to be," she said. "Will you let your business kick you in ass, or will you kick (the competition) in the ass?"

Feature photo: iStock

Inset photos: Matthew Tilbury