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The Perfect Barbecue

Necessity is a mother….

If you buy the premise that the perfect barbecue restaurant is a joint… a joint in a terrible neighborhood you normally would never consider driving through, has bars on the windows and just enough grease on the table to write your initials, I’ve found it: Fincher’s in Macon now 75 years old and likely the only joint whose fare has been savored in space. Astronaut Sonny Carter feted the shuttle’s crew with his hometown barbecue in space in 1989.

Several hundred miles south, there’s Brady’s Backyard Barbecue in Safe Harbor, Florida, not quite six years old.  Brady’s and Fincher’s are the subject of this business obsessed blogger’s ongoing pursuit of the perfect barbecue.

Jake Fincher and his family have been serving this most basic of all food groups since 1935; it is their business, a family business in a town particularly hard hit by the economy. Exiting I-75, you instinctively lock your car doors as you drive past boarded-up homes, cars on cement blocks , and t-shirted young men who, in better times, would be at work … and you can almost drive past before spotting the sign and the too many vacant stalls for what was a drive in restaurant.  The “car hop” on a stool near the corner of the building has his head burrowed in his chest and wakes non-too-pleased to see us headed for the front door.

The bars protect front plate glass windows in serious need of a washing. Inside Fincher’s, you’ll find a world class barbecue joint with food every bit as authentic.  Fincher’s ribs are, to quote a southern expression, enough to make you “want to slap your mama.” Ditto the pulled pork – moist, with enough fat left to capture the full flavor of the smoke, and hand cut, deep fat fried French fries. Life is good.

So what do Jake Fincher in Macon and Brady Fisher in Safe Harbor have in common besides being high on Chairman Carter’s list of great barbecue?  They’re businessmen and their ability to put butts in their seats (and bring them back time and time again – and have them order catering) is their livelihood.  In Jake’s case, that’s who he is, all he’s done – the business has been the family’s business for 75 years.  In Brady’s case, it’s a passion that became, of necessity, a profession.  

Brady Fisher’s successful Florida based title business virtually evaporated when the economy soured, so Brady, who, heretofore was one of that area’s more successful citizens had to start thinking about how he was going to pay the bills.  He’d cooked for friends for years, so he, his wife and family took the plunge renting a small house just of Main Street, sent out flyers, and cooked up “a mess of barbecue.”  Said Fisher, “I looked at my wife that first day, and asked what if nobody comes to eat this stuff.”

He need not have worried, not only did they come, they literally ordered, and ate them out of rented home and into a larger Main Street storefront around the corner and down the block.

President Harry Truman had a great business quote when he said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Now Fisher, like Fincher has opted for the risk/rewards of entrepreneurism and staked his family’s financial future on a narrow niche in the food service business: barbecue.  They have chosen a tough business, margins are thin, food costs average north of 30% and the competition is keen. Even the chains are trying their hand at barbecue, albeit doing a poor job.

One of the men is continuing a family legacy; the other is in the business as the result of a family necessity. And, take it from a guy who has spent a lifetime in pursuit of the perfect barbecue, both are serving up world class ‘cue.

Within 100 miles of Macon, find Fincher’s and enjoy. Near Tampa/Clearwater?  Make your way to Brady’s Backyard Barbecue, savor exceptional St. Louis cut ribs (your choice of three sauces – one a unique mango ‘cue concoction), or excellent pulled pork   and don’t forget to ask for their Cornbread pudding;  never had anything like it anywhere –and neither have you.

Barbecue, for most folks, is what they do on a weekend: fuel up the grill and toss something on it.  For Jake Fincher and Brady Fisher it is what they do for a living. It is my experience that the success of many businesses is tied not only to the quality of the product or service, but also to the focus and passion of its leader. That be true, Jake and Brad should be, pardon the pun, in Fat City.

Bud Carter

Chairman Vistage Atlanta

Author of the motivational business quotes book titled:  Chairman Carter’s Collection of Pithy Quotes

Pithy quote: Blah, blah, blah

Want to pay less?  Sometimes you don’t even have to ask. Sales Force Magazine claims 75% of sales people offer a lower price before it’s ever asked for.” 

“Most of us,” claims Florida consultant Jaynie Smith (www.smartadvantage.com), “will buy value if we know what it is.”  Value is defined in a company’s competitive advantage, its positioning. How the company values its difference with the competition. Their “unfair advantage.” 

Smith is one of Vistage International’s top speakers.  Another of that elite group, Kansascitian Jack Kaine lectures that “concessions made outside the sight of the other party are of no value in a negotiation. A salient snippet of sage wisdom applicable to insecure salesmen who believe they need to cut the price just to get through the door. 

Smith asks the CEOs who come to hear her, to identify their competitive advantage(s). Most, as was the case when she met with a group of my CEOs recently, suggest items such as “outstanding customer service,” “our people,” or “our quality.” 

Her response? “Blah, blah, blah.” Not quantifiable. 

The question she urges be answered is “why us?”  And she suggests that answer be crisp and quantifiable.  A magazine ad for Zurich insurance contends their  programs are as efficient as a well-run factory, citing “have achieved, on average, a 13% reduction in claims frequency and reduced costs by more than an average of 25%. Perhaps that explains why more than 60% of the manufacturers on the Fortune 1000 list are Zurich customers.”  Zurich has made clear what its competitive advantages are by quantifying them for the marketplace.  

The salty Smith suggests companies should look for “only statements” about their company –‘only,’ she contends, “provides a competitive advantage.” Examples she offers include, “We are the only company offering xxxx.”  Or, “we increased xxxx by  xx%” – whatever the Xs are.

“Ninety-five percent of employees lack agreement as to their company’s competitive edge,” she contends. Not sure? Then try this exercise:  Identify what you perceive your competitive advantage to be, and then ask your employees what they see it to be, and go a step further and get the viewpoint of your customers. Aligned? Not likely. “There is a sharp disparity,” the Florida consultant says, “between what management and their subordinates believe is important to their customers.”  A business quote worth remembering. 

Complicating matters, Smith contends, “prospects don’t value the same things as customers” and urges research, double blind studies, to find out from your customers and from those you would like to be your customers, what they value – and there will be differences never mind both have checkbooks. CEOs, of course, are resisting spending during this severe economic downturn. Smith suggests it’s all in the math and asks, “Would you spend 10 to 40 thousand dollars to get the information necessary to help you close 10% more business?” If so, it’s an investment, not a cost. 

“Most businesses today,” Jaynie Smith claims, “are playing chicken in the price game,”  leaving money on the table before the potential customer ever comes into the room. How about you?  What’s your competitive, your unfair advantage?

Bud Carter

Senior Vistage Chairman and Author of  “Pithy Quotes” The Ultimate Book of  Famous Motivational Quotes

It’s a fact:  Every day 14 Americans are killed in trucker related accidents – scores more injured.  Every day.

It’s also a fact that the average American trucker will not live long enough to collect social security.

What’s that all about and how does that relate to 18 wheelers in accidents?  The answer is sleep, or the lack thereof.  Truckers almost by definition either don’t get proper sleep or suffer a significant sleep disorder – sleep apnea, or both.

The profile of the greatest number of sleep apnea victims, poor diet, overweight, poor health habits, fit the profile of the stereotypical trucker who finds truck stop buffets a contest, and takes less time for sleep than those who aren’t paid by the mile.

National studies report that seven of 10 truck drivers clasify as obese.  One Midwest trucking company recently reported their situation to be worse than that.  Their CEO said he believes almost half of his drivers were classified as being ”morbidly obese.”

An advertisement by the Sleep4Safety.com group in the current issue of national trucking magazine Driver Health(circulation 100,000) proclaims that “death is not a form of retirement” and asks its truck driving readers, “did you know the average trucker will be dead before their 61st birthday?”  Sobering and certainly food for thought as you glance in the rear view mirror at the 18 wheeler closing fast behind y0u.

Sleep4Safety CEO Sigurjon Kristjannson contends an 18 wheel truck piloted by a sleep-deprived driver can be as deadly as a drunk driver going the wrong way on the interstate.  “Imagine,” he suggests, “that three of every 10 truckers you see on the highway today probably have the situational awareness equivalent to having .06 to .08 alcohol in their blood system.  They are, in a very real sense,” he says, “driving intoxicated – not an alcohol fueled intoxication, but one created by chronic sleep deprivation.  “Ask yourself,” he says, “how far and 18 wheeler, traveling 60 miles an hour, travels in that brief moment the driver nods off and what can happen during that time.”

Dr Jeffrey Durmer, Atlanta, identified by the publication as “Dr Sleep” and the Chief Medical Officer at Sleep4Safety urges sleep testing to identify those drivers with sleep apnea problems and then on-the-job treatment.  Driver Health publisher Andy Shefsky writes that his goal is to rise “the average truck driver life expectancy age from just shy of 61 to 77, in line with the average American life expectancy.”

Accomplishing that will require 18 wheel pilots to eat right, exercise, and check to make sure, as basic as it sounds, they’re getting enough good sleep.  And, if not, to accept non-intrusive treatment on the job.

The cost of failing to do so, goes far beyond the equipment repair and replacement to staggering medical bills, soaring insurance rates for the companies to the 14 people who, each day, lose their life in a trucking accident – one of each three being the trucker himself.

Sleep well – and hope that trucker coming up in back of you also did.

Pithy Quotes: “You never know when checkout time is.”  Val Dempsey, CEI, Atlanta

Bud Carter

Senior Chairman Vistage Atlanta

Publisher of the motivational quotes book entitled Chairman Carter’s Collection of Pithy Quotes (Quotes designed to improve your bottom line, or, at the least, your disposition).

Short quote: Big Message:
 
Frank Maguire is one of those folks who seems to have had a knack for being at the right place as history is made:  in the Kennedy White House; alongside the Fred Smith  when FedEx’s first plane landed, and with the Colonel when Kentucky Fried sold.
 
In fact, it was at one of the first meetings the new owner/CEO had with his staff that produced one of the shortest, but impactful, quotes I’ve heard.    The new head honcho was  talking about pending changes when Colonel Sanders took his seat at the boardroom table. “What’s he talking about, Frank,” asked the Colonel.  Maguire tried to avoid answering, but pressed, he quietly explained the new owners thought they could put close to a penny more per customer to the bottom line reformulating the gravy by substituting water for milk.
 
Col. Sanders bristled, and when the CEO finally asked, he answered as directly as a  80  year old with a bloated bankroll would.   The response from the head of the table was something along the line that the conglomerate now owned the company and changes benefiting profitability would be made.
 
At that point, Maguire says Colonel Sanders gathered up his papers, stuffed them unceremoniously in his briefcase, pushed away from the table, and with a laser glare told the new CEO, “Don’t f**k with the gravy.”
 
The temptation to mess with the gravy, regardless your business, is omnipresent, good times and bad.  As The Colonel said …

Bud Carter
Senior Chairman Vistage Atlanta
Publisher of the Business Quotes book entitled: Chairman Carter’s Collection of Pithy Quotes (Quotes designed to improve your bottom line, or, at the least, your disposition).

Part of the compensation in our profession working with CEOs, is the sense of pride experienced when a member or a member company wins recognition for something beyond profitability; or, in this economy, survival.

Three member companies in the same Atlanta Vistage group have been named as among the Top Places To Work in Atlanta.   McKenney’s, Inc. (member John McKenney) and DeKalb Office (member John Rasper) both finished 17th in their company size competition, while Wells Real Estate Funds (member Leo Wells) was named The Top Place to Work in Atlanta in the mid-size company category They have 400 employees. The awards, made annually by The Atlanta Business Chronicle, provide public recognition for local businesses who have created unique work environments, and also serves to create a strong sense of pride for team members as well as strengthening the critical areas of recruiting and retention.

McKenney’s (Mckenneys.com) had coffee mugs and bumper stickers made for their employees and tout their accomplishment on the welcoming screen in the lobby. Wells has posted their team’s accomplishment on their web page (wellsref.com), emailed the news to the thousands in the field who offer the Wells products and commented about his company’s unique workplace on his own web site: www.leowells.com.

Wells, since the newspaper award, won individual recognition when he was inducted into the Hall of Distinction by the Southeastern chapter of the Real Estate Investment Advisory Council and Georgia State University. He is only the fifth person to be so honored.

The award, REIAC Southeast’s highest honor, is presented “to recognize the people and commercial real estate projects that have made the most dramatic impact on Metro Atlanta.” REIAC is a national nonprofit trade association serving the commercial real estate industry.
 
Leo founded Wells Real Estate Funds in 1984 and was recently named a member of the Board of Governors of NAREIT®, the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts®, and a couple years ago was a national winner of a Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. He has been a member of Vistage group #150 for 15 years.

Speaker/consultant Bob Prosen once said, “Your choice as CEO is to work hard or hire smart.” McKenney, Rasper and Wells obviously do both – and very well.

Bud Carter
Senior Chairman Vistage Atlanta
Publisher of the Business Quotes book entitled: Chairman Carter’s Collection of Pithy Quotes (Quotes designed to improve your bottom line, or, at the least, your disposition).