Eat mor chikin; Virtuous Flywheel; Hire Culture; Covert Cows

A good name is to be more valued than great riches.
                                                Chick-fil-A referencing Proverbs 22:1

Culture is the soil from which great brands grow, but only if leaders cultivate the soil.
                                                Steve Robinson, former CMO Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A – YPO Southern 7 Family U
Last week I keynoted YPO Southern 7’s Family University. With over 700 in attendance, one of the highlights for me was former Chick-fil-A CMO Steve Robinson’s keynote and workshop. He held that role for 34 years and was responsible for the “eat mor chikin” campaign among other brilliant marketing and strategy moves. I learned so much about what makes Chick-fil-A so phenomenal from this amazing leader. Following are some of the key points – read and emulate!

Simple and Straightforward
It’s hard to be simple. There’s not a lot of fluff in what Chick-fil-A does. They’ve listened intently to the voice of the customer and have innovated a simply stated strategy in a straightforward and uncomplicated way. That’s the genius of their business model. Here are some examples.

Virtuous Flywheel
What great brands accomplish is getting people to come more often, pay full price, and tell other people. One key – rather than discount, they give away over 20 million sandwiches each year at events as a way of letting people sample the product.

Where Good Meets Gracious
Can you state your strategy simply? Chick-fil-A’s is “Where Good Meets Gracious.” Good reflects the technical quality of what they deliver, and Gracious reflects the style of service they provide. Notice they are not claiming to be great food. In turn, thanking the customer with “our pleasure”; making sure all tables have flowers; tables are cleaned without asking; drinks are refilled before requested; and people outside at drive-thru’s -- these are ways customers are treated graciously.

Who, What, How (Strata 2 of our 7 Strata of Strategy)
Whom we serve: For choosy people in a hurry.

What we give them: We are the premium fast-food restaurant that passionately serves America’s most loved chicken by people who really care.

The way we do it: In a way that is generous, uncomplicated, unexpectedly fun, innovative, and enthusiastic. In short, we aim to be “REMARK”able.

How Do They Maintain and Measure REMARKable?
They do massive amounts of mystery shopping in their stores to maintain a “consistent hospitality experience” -- consistency is key to a brand. Using the Net Promoter System (NPS), they’ve learned that customers that give them a 10 (on a scale of 0 to 10) account for 60% of their sales; 9s and 10s account for 80% of sales. Presently, 20% of customers give them a 10 – these are their customer ambassadors – raving fans. Impressive that they know this and manage to this precision. As Steve stated “all measurement is customer and store up” not corporate down.

They Hire Culture, They Don’t Train for It
Interviews of store owners/leaders can take months!! If chosen, you become wealthy. And no store owner has more than two stores – they want ownership to be onsite. Interestingly, Chick-fil-A owns the stores, land, etc. The local “owner” instead gets 50% of the profit. The other 50% goes to HQ and underpins a bonus structure at HQ that encourages everyone to help store owners become more profitable – everyone is rowing in the same direction. FYI, Chick-fil-A also gets 15% of the topline to support marketing, innovation, and operations. Your compensation design matters!!

Marketing Matters
I emphasize in Scaling Up that marketing is the key function for scaling. Chick-fil-A agrees. Every store has a marketing director – and most of the marketing spend is at the street and store level with decisions made locally by the store’s marketing director!!

Every Customer Contact Is a Brand Point
Steve’s team identified almost two dozen customer touch points – like the drive-thru experience. Each touch point has a cross-functional team (designer, engineer, finance, team lead, etc.) that is responsible for continually improving and innovating that specific brand point of contact with the customer. Insights and decisions are driven by constantly seeking the “voice of the customer.” In their case, focus groups work in addition to constantly measuring using NPS, phone calls, and mystery shoppers. Many of the innovative and improvement ideas come from the store level up.

Internal 10x Advantage
One key was studying Lexus’s approach to lean and moving from a 20% defect rate (inconsistency) to 2%. This was their internal 10x improvement – what we call the X Factor in Scaling Up.

Cannot slow things down!!!
And ALL decisions are measured against one final metric – it cannot slow things down!!! What is your Moneyball stat?

Product to Experience to Emotion
Overall, Steve helped move Chick-fil-A, thru the “eat mor chikin” campaign and other attributes, from being just a product to an experience to creating an emotional connection with the market. Whereas all other fast-food restaurants are advertising their food, offering discounts, etc. – the “eat mor chikin” billboards and commercials (with mor and chikin spelled wrong!) created an emotional connection with customers. How can you do the same in your market – the key to creating raving fans who “come more often, pay full price, and tell other people.”

Let us, at Scaling Up, help you accomplish the same
Our coaching partners were briefed last week on what I learned – and we continue to learn. Scaling Up has the most up-to-date 250+ educated coaching partners in the world. We’re continuing to learn and grow from the proven practices of others and ready to help you scale.

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