Sometime in 1998-1999 I was sitting in my office in the basement of my first store when I heard the voice of Jimmy Collins, president of CFA. One of the best descriptions of Jimmy is one I heard another operator share. He said “If you heard Truett Cathy was going to visit your store, you may not sleep well the night before. If you heard Jimmy was going to visit your store, you may not sleep well the entire week before”. Jimmy was tough. He had very high expectations. But, he was also consistent.
So, the visit starts off exactly as I had heard from others. He would try the lemonade and the cole slaw. Then, if they were to his liking, he’d very sternly ask “Who made this?!” Marcella, who was a very bold Jamaican, wasn’t shy and immediately said “I did”. It was all good.
Eventually, Jimmy and I headed to the parking lot. We had probably cleaned it that morning but it wasn’t great. Lots of little stuff like cigarette butts and straw wrappers. Jimmy looks at me and asks “what are you going to do about this?” My simple reply was “I’ll get this cleaned up right away” but that wasn’t good enough. “No, what are you going to do to ensure this never happens again?” Guess, where the parking lot timer came from? It’s evolved from once a day to twice a day, to hourly, including blowing the lot daily every day, not just in the fall when leaves are coming down.
More importantly, the lesson was that anytime something isn’t just right, don’t only do the quick fix. Find a solution that prevents the problem. Don’t keep dealing with the same problem day in and day out. Solve it so you can go find the next problem/opportunity.
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