Article

Smooth sailing for Tropical Smoothie Cafe

New president works to improve communication with franchisees.

November 3, 2008

When Jim Valentino first joined Tropical Smoothie CafÃ© he had several goals, including improving franchisee communications and redefining how franchisees and employees alike thought about their roles.

Valentino, who joined the company as chief operating officer in May 2006, was named president of the company in September. Prior to joining Tropical Smoothie CafÃ©, Valentino served as vice president of franchisee relations at Cold Stone Creamery.

Tropical Smoothie CafÃ© began in 1993 as a smoothie shop in Destin, Fla. Eric and Delora Jenrich and their partner, David Walker, founded Tropical Smoothie Franchise Development Corp. in 1997, and the first franchised unit opened in Tallahassee, Fla., later that year. The partners decided to add food to the menu in 1999

There are currently 275 Tropical Smoothie CafÃ© locations in 34 states, and the company hopes to top 300 locations by the end of the year and book revenue in excess of $100 million. Despite the sluggish economy, Tropical Smoothie CafÃ© anticipates opening around 50 locations in 2009.

Valentino recently sat down with the editors of Fast Casual.

Franchisees in the restaurant business often have an adversarial relationship with the parent company. How do you avoid that? Going through and talking about the culture and making sure you have the right culture.

When I first got here I said there were three things I wanted to do: I wanted to focus on increasing brand awareness, growing same-store sales and contributing to our greater profitability. As I got more involved with the business I realized there was a fourth piece that needed to be added, and that was improving two-way communications for the benefit of all the stakeholders. That has now been integrated into our daily purpose of our "forecast our future" document and our strategic plan.

One of the first things we did is we started putting out weekly communications about things that are happening within the business. First, they go to the area developer, so they are well informed. The following week they go to franchisees so that if any of the franchisees have questions, the area developers are prepared to answer those questions.

The next thing we did is we set up bi-monthly conference calls with all the area developer teams. We let them know when the calls are coming, they send us topics they would like to talk about, and we have topics we would like to talk about. We record those conversations, type up notes and get those back out to those area developers.

On top of that, we integrated FranConnect, which is a closed-loop communication system for franchisees. So our franchisees can log on, there is a home page that has links to topics and has a library for anything new we've introduced or past research they need to have or recipe files, training materials and so forth.

I think the key really becomes talking to franchisees; asking questions about what is happening in their business, where they need help and what are their issues. If you respond to those questions, you are going to end up having better franchisee relations.

What do you look for in a potential franchisee?

From my perspective, the first thing is they have to fit the culture. The culture is one, taking care of the customer and two, following the system. The next piece is what your business acumen is and what your commitment to being successful is. What are you willing to do ethically to be successful?

You spent a long time at Cold Stone, and they have been in the news lately. What can you say about that? (Read Cold Stone franchisees cool to concept)

I have some fond memories of Cold Stone and there are a lot of franchisees I think about a lot. From my perspective, there were things we did really well and there were things that I didn't agree with. As I move forward here, I'm going to replicate the things that they did well and I'm going to make sure I don't make the same mistakes that I thought they might have been making at the time.

It's like anything else. You want to make sure you have a good franchisee qualification program and you want to make sure that you build out smartly. Right franchisees, right locations, and not too many of them.

It's up to the franchisee to execute it. Whether it's Cold Stone or its us, the ones who execute it consistently better are the ones who are going to be successful and the ones that don't are going to go away.

How is Tropical Smoothie CafÃ© dealing with the turbulent economy?

There are things that are under our control, and there are things that are out of our control. We can't change that, but the thing that we can do to protect ourselves is to take care of our customers.

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Last year, we launched this philosophy called the "customer-centric culture" around a program called "What do you get paid for?" If you were to go into a restaurant and talk with a waitperson or a bartender and ask them what they got paid for, more than likely they would tell you they get paid to do things such as make drinks or to wait on customers. That isn't it at all. The philosophy we've adopted says "I am paid to create an experience that makes for a very satisfied and loyal customer who comes back often and recommends us to others."

I tell franchisees that people can go anywhere and get a smoothie or a smoothie-type drink and they can go anywhere and get a salad, a sandwich or a wrap. The reason people come to you is because of the experience when they come into your store.

I don't like the words "customer service." I don't want to hear those words. Whenever I think of customer service, I think of customer service hotlines and that's when you have a problem. What we talk about is unparalleled hospitality. It is easy to wrap your head around. It's like this: You invite friends over, they knock on the door and what do you do? You say, "Hi, how you doing? Come on in!" Those are things that you as a franchisee or a crew member can understand very quickly. There is nothing nebulous about that.