“Service SUCKS!” That’s a lot of people’s sentiments regarding so many businesses, especially the ones providing common necessities. It’s not surprising because a lot of owners will leverage that “necessity” to cut down on costs and provide the least amount of work and effort. Because…why bother? “Customers WILL Come”, is what these business owners think until a legitimately awesome product/service provider comes along to rake in their business. Let’s hear it from Southern Steer Butcher’s Founder, Greg Snyder, how they leverage customer care as their cutting edge in order to become “THAT” [Trusted] Butcher, allowing them to STAND OUT from the rest, rightfully ensuring maximum Profitability and business Longevity. Greg came up with Southern Steer Butcher, a business franchise that provides TOP Quality meat products and homemade sausages, healthy side items, among other gourmet foods. Besides their awesome products, they’re WELL-KNOWN for Excellent Customer Care, and for providing GREAT shopping EXPERIENCE. Prior to starting Southern Steer, Greg spent his corporate career in the restaurant industry, including 20+ years with Bloomin’ Brands. He spent his final 7 years as a Managing Partner for Bonefish Grill; four of those being chosen as Partner-of-the-Year. During his tenure, he developed several employees to the same role. His corporate restaurant experience developed much of the framework and foundational disciplines needed to venture into his own business. What can probably top their meat expertise, customer care, and product quality is their business ethics. With Project 52, Greg steps it up a notch by giving back to the community. First and foremost, the idea is to simply help out, but surprisingly (or not), this effort comes with perks of “Free” marketing and increased reach + authority. Ultimately, it’s passion for hospitality and an undeniable desire to help that makes this franchise an incredible success worth emulating AND investing in! Tune in to our Podcast to learn more about everything you WANT and NEED on franchising, investment, financing processes and options. This is Eye On Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. https://www.facebook.com/lance.graulich https://ionfranchising.com/
“Service SUCKS!”
That’s a lot of people’s sentiments regarding so many businesses, especially the ones providing common necessities.
It’s not surprising because a lot of owners will leverage that “necessity” to cut down on costs and provide the least amount of work and effort. Because…why bother? “Customers WILL Come”, is what these business owners think until a legitimately awesome product/service provider comes along to rake in their business.
Let’s hear it from Southern Steer Butcher’s Founder, Greg Snyder, how they leverage customer care as their cutting edge in order to become “THAT” [Trusted] Butcher, allowing them to STAND OUT from the rest, rightfully ensuring maximum Profitability and business Longevity.
Greg came up with Southern Steer Butcher, a business franchise that provides TOP Quality meat products and homemade sausages, healthy side items, among other gourmet foods. Besides their awesome products, they’re WELL-KNOWN for Excellent Customer Care, and for providing GREAT shopping EXPERIENCE.
Prior to starting Southern Steer, Greg spent his corporate career in the restaurant industry, including 20+ years with Bloomin’ Brands. He spent his final 7 years as a Managing Partner for Bonefish Grill; four of those being chosen as Partner-of-the-Year. During his tenure, he developed several employees to the same role. His corporate restaurant experience developed much of the framework and foundational disciplines needed to venture into his own business.
What can probably top their meat expertise, customer care, and product quality is their business ethics. With Project 52, Greg steps it up a notch by giving back to the community. First and foremost, the idea is to simply help out, but surprisingly (or not), this effort comes with perks of “Free” marketing and increased reach + authority.
Ultimately, it’s passion for hospitality and an undeniable desire to help that makes this franchise an incredible success worth emulating AND investing in!
Tune in to our Podcast to learn more about everything you WANT and NEED on franchising, investment, financing processes and options.
This is Eye On Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future.
https://www.facebook.com/lance.graulich
[00:00:00] LANCE: Welcome to Eye on franchising. Are you looking for business opportunities? Well, you are in the right place. We represent over 650 franchises and business opportunities. We will help you find your perfect franchise for free. We even have a free assessment on our website that will help us determine what the best businesses for you based on your investment level mindset, skillset and life experiences this is Eye on franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. I'm your host, Lance Graulich each week, we will speak to fascinating folks from the world of franchising, franchise owners and founders, franchise, funders, and franchisees are you looking to find your perfect franchise or perhaps you are an independent business owner looking to grow and scale your business by setting up a franchise, either way, our team can help you. Eye on franchising where you will [00:01:00] learn the A to Z of franchising
[00:01:06] hello everyone. And welcome back to another fabulous episode of ion franchising. I'm your host, Lance Graulich. So today's special guest. We've all heard. The story, the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker. Well, in the world of franchising, it's pretty true to life that franchises, uh, I guess, originate due to a need. And today we are going to meet. Pun intended an amazing founder and hear his story. 27 year plus 25, 26, 27 year veteran in the restaurant industry. He launched the brand in 2013. He's in sunny, Florida, the sunshine state, and, uh, he's got three locations. Now we're going to hear it all. Welcome. Greg Snyder, the founder of Southern steer butcher.
[00:01:53] GREG: Thank you Lance appreciate you having me on the show today
[00:01:56] LANCE: Greg it's fantastic to have you. And, uh, I can't wait to [00:02:00] hear, can wait for everybody to hear your story here. So let's start off with that. Give us your, your story. How did Southern steer butchering franchise come about?
[00:02:09] GREG: Uh, well, the original concept came about when a couple of gentlemen who I knew in the Tampa bay area had mentioned this concept and a similar concepts that they grew up shopping at as kids, uh, in the Northeast, outside of box. Uh, they grew up in New Hampshire and this mom passed out. What's your shop existed in smaller communities that cook grill nearly as often as we could in Florida specialty, it was marinaded meats and high-end, uh, beets, chicken and pork that, you know, grocery stores weren't. Providing took the visit up there and looked around at the different concepts and said to myself, well, if there's not that many people living here and these concepts are SU are thriving in this environment, what could it do in a great demographic with a lot of traffic and a 12 year, 12 month grilling season. So I left a pretty decent [00:03:00] job and, uh, took a shot at, uh, entrepreneurship and opened up the first Southern steer in 2013.
[00:03:05] LANCE: I love it. You know, I just know my personal one. We grill all throughout the year. Now I'm in Vegas and Vegas is still pretty warm throughout the year, but I'm, I'm grilling inside these days. And with the invention of things like air fryers, it's, it's pretty amazing how many of my friends are kind of grilling or, uh, using that air fryer all year round in the house. You know,
[00:03:27] A favorite
[00:03:27] GREG: tool of mine.
[00:03:29] LANCE: Yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you, I could do some good things with the steak inside. It's pretty amazing when it comes to why you started with, you know, the, the original vision. I always love to ask the original vision. Obviously there's a need. It's not exactly like. Uh, authentic the original or O G type butchers out there. So what is it that you guys do that people are not really getting in a, in a grocery store or wherever they're buying their meats?
[00:03:56] GREG: Well, I think one of the things that we offer is convenience. The marinated [00:04:00] products that we sell, which go through a process and a vacuum, tumblr where they're ready to go. You just buy them from us and go throw them on the grill or bake the oven, whatever you want to do with this. So. It's a convenience set up the value bonus there because we're as competitive with our pricing as grocery stores are. And then, you know, we provide a line of beef, pork, and chicken, mainly that we know exactly where it's comes from. And if we can answer those questions and tell you all about the source ability and the treatment of the animals, you walk into a big box grocer and anyone that works there doesn't want to look at you. So it's different. It's a different way. From us because we have employees that want to engage with you and give you a shopping experience that you'll remember versus just walking into another, you know, insert big box, grocery store name here, you
[00:04:44] LANCE: know, Greg, you just hit on something huge, you know, in franchising in general, because that's been my industry for 30 plus years, customer service. Seems to be the hallmark of any fantastic [00:05:00] franchise. And I know that my one, my wife and I go to the grocery store and there's a few near us. We're between two major grocery stores. The service sucks, and we know we're going to, we want to go to the deli. Maybe once some bores had Turkey or we want to get some, some good steaks, some good choice steaks. We don't see what we want. Precut out there that's that's convenient grab and go sort of stuff. It's not there. And then there's a line or people are working inefficiently. So boy, you hit something. I grew up in New York and I remember the corner market that had an amazing book. And even my grandfather had, you know, supermarkets that felt like little tiny, you know, little butcher shops, you know? And, and you had the service, remember in the old days, you'd know the butcher was, it was the Brady bunch, Sam the butcher
[00:05:53] GREG: Yes Alice's, boyfriend
[00:05:55] LANCE: Allison's boyfriend. So really that's what this is.
[00:05:59] GREG: It is. [00:06:00] And I, I like, you know, my background in the restaurant business before I got to management was in bartending and essentially what we're doing there is we're bartending with meat it's a 10 minute experience. You're in, you're out. You're making a rapport. You're showing the guests a good time when they're in the building. And then when they leave, they feel good about their experience. And then they feel great about the product because we have something that you cannot get anywhere else
[00:06:24] LANCE: I love it. I love it. So it's, it's, that's part of the value, like you said, there's an experience where from, from what I described, there's virtually no experience ever. So that is fantastic. Let's now dive into franchise. What have you learned over the years in the restaurant business? You know, why franchising for you and start. Well, you were experienced. So overall is knowing about franchising in general. And then why, why was franchising perfect for Southern steer butcger
[00:06:54] GREG: I think the two main reasons that it's perfect for Southern steer is it gives an [00:07:00] entrepreneur the template of something successful just to follow and to be able to be hands-on with their business, or it allows somebody that wants to do multi-year. To train people to follow the model of what we do to run the business on a day-to-day basis to run into those locations for that. And, you know, maybe tie them into the profitability up as well so that they can share in the success. I think those are the, the two main reasons.
[00:07:27] LANCE: Yeah. So who are you looking for? I mean, this is always my favorite question and usually the answer is pretty broad, but who is it in a perfect world? As far as, you know, as of today with three locations, two of them. So far franchised, who are you looking for? Who do you think you're looking for at this point? It might change.
[00:07:47] GREG: I think somebody that understands the important hospitality through the food service industry is a prime candidate. And I might be a little biased on my part because that's where I come from. But I [00:08:00] do know the model is appealing to a lot of people in that industry. One, because it continues to have food service and it has the customer interaction that somebody from that industry enjoys. But the big thing it adds on to that as we're closing. You're not in the restaurant. So 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night or you're home and you're having dinner.
[00:08:21] LANCE: Yeah. So remind me the hours of the three locations. I know they might vary. So exactly, you know, roughly what are they? Seven days a week, right?
[00:08:29] GREG: 10 to seven, Monday to Saturday and ten to five on Sunday
[00:08:33] LANCE: nice, nice hours.
[00:08:35] GREG: Yeah, they're great.
[00:08:36] LANCE: Nothing late at all
[00:08:37] GREG: no, the only thing we do in a, in a later capacity are our food prep classes, and those are usually three or four of them a month, like seven to nine. So that'd be the latest. You get out a couple of times a month
[00:08:48] LANCE: and tell me what you're teaching people in the food prep classes.
[00:08:51] GREG: We basically, they come in and they assemble meals that they can take home and they get packed into a Ziploc freezer bags with the instructions on how to [00:09:00] cook them and they can pull them out of their freezers and they want them in a Crock-Pot turn on low and a few hours later they have dinner
[00:09:05] LANCE: I love it. So there you're showing them how to prep their own meals and they get to make the mess in your place. And
[00:09:12] GREG: that's perfect. Do we do all the cutting and portioning for them? All they gotta do is measure stuff in the bag of measuring cups finish the meals
[00:09:20] LANCE: I love it. Fantastic. So let's talk about the investment. What is a typical investment? What is the typical square footage of a Southern steer butcher shop
[00:09:28] GREG: Well the FDD we have is ranging anywhere from about three 50 to 700 for the typical investment square footage. I think the sweet spot is right around 2000 square feet.
[00:09:38] LANCE: And typically, what are you looking for? I would imagine a butcher shop you're looking for action, you know, is that, does that being near a uh, Starbucks or a Dunkin donuts or a lot of in and out,
[00:09:48] GREG: I think a thick commerce area is going to best suit one of our location and a high traffic highway. Maybe that it's right off of Clearwater is in a [00:10:00] Plaza with a home Depot was staples and a Joann fabrics, which draws in hundreds of thousands of cars a day. Uh, Sarasota's right off. One of the main arteries off by 75, it's three lanes in each direction, a smaller strip mall, ingress and egress. It's super easy. And then now Orlando's off of a major highway, highway 50, um, on the west side of Orlando, Orlando's off to a great start at both the other two locations do extremely well. So. There's a couple of different avenues you could go. And the Jacksonville, which is they found their location. It's going to be our first freestanding location. Oh, I love it is the highway. So that's going to be a nice new test to see what's the appeal of that.
[00:10:38] LANCE: And how big is that freestanding store?
[00:10:40] GREG: 2275.
[00:10:42] LANCE: Wonderful, fantastic. Congratulations on Jacksonville thank you. Thank you. So how did you find those franchisees? So far?
[00:10:49] GREG: Well the Sarasota store. They were already running the store for myself and a partner. I'd be sold that store to them, converted that to a franchisee. He came from Bloomington. Uh, was an employee with Out back [00:11:00] for years, Steve, who was the, a franchisee in Orlando, he and his brother were customers of our Sarasota store. And he liked the concept so much. He was like, I want to pull one in Orlando. He had just sold a business, um, hell a little bit of a nest egg to sit on, but he was antsy and he wanted to do something and he liked the idea concept. So he jumped in and then, uh, Jacksonville was a longtime friend of mine. I've known him since we actually worked at the Outback steakhouse in Gainesville together in 91, 92, 93. And he reached out to me out of the blue and said, Hey, your concept's franchising. I'm interested. So one thing led to the other and they signed their franchise agreement in November. And they've, uh, they've picked up their site off we go
[00:11:42] LANCE: southern steer butcher shop bloomin' due to bloomin' brands and there's nothing better, Greg. There's nothing better than when customers become franchisees as well, which I've seen evolve in my 30 years. I always tell people, once you hit a new area, [00:12:00] your customers get to start telling people how amazing you are. You know, they're going to have the experience. They're going to see the value. They're gonna understand it and get it. And then they'll tell friends, and then chances are friends in another city will contact you and say, Hey, I need this by me. And that's how franchising works. So. Yes. So let's, let's just briefly, uh, I always ask these questions. Like, can you make money with a franchise? Well, obviously can. So if I was going to interview your first couple of franchisees, uh, we call that in the franchise world. We call that validation. What is it that they would say? I mean, they're obviously happy. Uh, are they looking to do a second store? I know that's the goal with you in the long run, you know, you're looking for single unit operators, you're looking for multi unit operators.
[00:12:47] GREG: You know, I think our Sarasota. Franchisees, they liked the lifestyle. They get out of the one location. Um, but it supports, you know, they're all family on its own comfortably and they enjoy that. And I think [00:13:00] the freedoms of one location and the ease of accountability that they have with the manager they have in place for them. I think it's perfect for them to do the one. Um, You know, our, our, uh, franchisee and Orlando, I think he's got a bigger vision in mind. And I think he's the type of person that will find different operators to run the store successfully for him as he opens a second, the third and fourth empire builder. Yeah. That's I think that's more his forte. I think Jacksonville, you know, once he's comfortable with how's his stores running, he has the, uh, the. Doing another one within 18 months. And we've got a couple of other people in the pipeline that have been multi-unit restaurant operators. Don't want to do the 10, 11 o'clock at night anymore. They want to be home at night. And you know, they're at the end of their career in the restaurant business looking for another option. And these multiunit guys, that's what they're used to doing. So. Once they have one running well, they're going to get antsy and what I want to do the next one,
[00:13:55] LANCE: I love it. Let's talk about training. How difficult is it these days? You know, a lot of people talking about [00:14:00] labor shortages and what have you, let's talk about the training. How do you train the franchisees? How are you training the staff? Talk about, you know, laborn in general
[00:14:09] GREG: right. I think that the first step of the franchisees to get them understand how to be a great hourly when they know that role, then they can teach that role. Well, so people, they hired to do that role. Well, for that following, you know, the training schematics we have in place as a guy that comes from corporate restaurants, we put together training packages to properly train an hourly employee. So they know how to do their job clearly and do it well. And what a good job of this, you know, from our point of. Um, once that franchisee knows the hourly role, then we get them introduced to what the management functions are within the business. And coming from a corporate restaurant background, I pretty much took everything I learned from that page, those matrix and created formulas and templates and spreadsheets to just follow along on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. So that at the end of each month, you set yourself up for a profitable store. And, you know, we [00:15:00] teach them that after they understand what the concept is, the beginning a greay hourly employee
[00:15:04] LANCE: yeah. Training is so important and having the appropriate procedures and everything laid out because at the end of the day, I'm sure way back when, and you know, nine years ago, when you first launched, you know, there were mistakes. There has to be mistakes. There were things you did. And you're shaking your head. Like I don't ever want to give me one of those mistakes. I got to hear it. you bought a whole cow when you shouldn't have
[00:15:28] GREG: no, actually it was fresh seafood and this is actually, it goes to one of our company principles of innovation. We had a case that we had seafood at the beginning. You know, we weren't doing the volume and turn the seafood over fast enough. So a lot of it was in the garbage. One of my employees at the time said, Hey, let me take over that case. I got an idea So he put two types of sausage out and they sold out within a couple of days. So then he put a third and he put a fourth. And the next thing you know, the whole thing became our homemade sausage case. He now has a company that he started as a side gig. Some of the marinades that we use for our [00:16:00] vacuum tumbler, not only in bulk, but also retail, but he also packages all of our sausage seasonings that he sells to the stores as well. What was a mistake was seafood at first turned into a positive with this gentleman. Who's now got a side business it's just going to grow with the brand. So yeah, seafood was our biggest mistake. At first, I would probably say in the first month we probably threw away by $800,000 of fresh seafood
[00:16:22] LANCE: Oh geez.
[00:16:23] GREG: Well, I was a slow learner. It should only be a couple hundred bucks. Yeah,
[00:16:27] LANCE: well, but you know, you, you, you want to make sure you want to cross it off the list to make sure it really didn't work.
[00:16:33] GREG: Not doing that again. So a lot of franchisees have asked me, should we do seafood? I'm like, I'll let you try it, go for it. Here's what happened to us.
[00:16:42] LANCE: Obviously it's gotta be kept separately to some degree, you know, can smell funny even when it's fresh. So go through, you mentioned earlier beef, chicken, and pork. Right. That's it. So we're talking virtually every cut of steak, everything you already mentioned, the sausage and [00:17:00] pork loin and pork butt, whatever you want. Right. And you guys will trim. So if I want that pork butt for my air fryer, and I know the dimensions, you'll get it there for me. Right?
[00:17:12] GREG: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:17:13] LANCE: I can cut it myself. It's always a mess. Cutting that stuff at home. You know,
[00:17:18] GREG: we do that for you to get it ready. So all you gotta do is throw it in the air fryer when you get home
[00:17:22] LANCE: perfect. So let's talk about territory. So you're in Florida now Jacksonville's coming next. So you're heading up north in a perfect world. How do you intend to grow? If somebody calls you from, you know, uh, Vegas where I am, and I find you somebody, I mean, you're looking to come to the Vegas. So you're looking to stay pretty strict on your geographic integrity. As I call it,
[00:17:43] GREG: I'd like us to stay within a couple of four hour drive where I am right now for the first, probably two to three years. Just so all the kinks get ironed out and opening. One of those locations can be handled correctly. And with me and the [00:18:00] capacity that I have now to help, that's not to say that if you know the right candidate with the right background, after being vetted properly, Couldn't do this in a nother state and with the vision of multiunit out of the gate. But I do have, I do think it has to be the right candidate. I would, I don't think I would want somebody not in food service to take this venture on outside of the state initially.
[00:18:25] LANCE: So without giving away any secrets, one of the things I certainly know, being, you know, with my food experience is purchasing is a big deal uh, I would imagine you might've changed vendors here and there, uh, until you got to the system that you have now, and clearly your vendors are pretty darn happy with you, cause I'm sure you got a hell of a volume, with those first three locations is that the exact same vendors that you're using, I'm sure it's the same product, but is it, the exact same vendors you're able to use in all three locations,
[00:18:54] GREG: for the most part, I'd say about 80% of it's the same vendors, regionally different distributors. You know, the [00:19:00] same nationally distributed product, you know, Orlando has a different distributor beer that Clearwater does. Um, but they kind of hold the same products like as their baseline, like Budweiser products and then all the micros they carry, like our main meat supplier is based out of St. Petersburg. And it's independently out by a couple of brothers. I've been working with them for about eight and a half years. Now, about six months after we, opened clear water. And, uh, I actually called him last week and said, Hey, Jacksonville, just signed. Do you guys want to drive all the way to Jacksonville? Because he knows there's another supplier I can use. It does the same product. And he goes, we'll do Jacksonville. So I said, so that could mean a second Orlando store. At some point, I'm like, it's a big loop. He's like, I just send them out Wednesday morning at 6:00 AM. They'll get there at 10 o'clock and come back down to Orlando and I said, you've got the plan. I'll stick with you. Let's keep going
[00:19:49] LANCE: and how often did the stores get deliveries?
[00:19:51] GREG: I mean, you can get them Monday through Saturday with any of our suppliers. Uh, pretty much some are just Monday through Friday, but Clearwater because our vendors are so close, they can do, you [00:20:00] know, three, four days a week with the meat suppliers. Um, as we get further out from their warehouse, it's probably going to be weekly or maybe eventually biweekly, as long as, you know, the order justifies the truck.
[00:20:11] LANCE: Got it. So to sum up on the territories, ideally you want to be within a four hour drive or so at this point, however, If somebody pops up that has the experience that is, uh, several states away and wants to do a multiunit deal. It is possible with your vendors to be able to make that leap sooner rather than later.
[00:20:31] GREG: Absolutely. Because most of our main suppliers are nationally distributed through local champions. So those same suppliers, we just go to them and say, Hey, we've been using you guys with these, with this vendor for years who do you have in Charlotte? Or who do you have in Houston or wherever? Yeah, they, they can get, they can get it to on a regional level.
[00:20:49] LANCE: I still remember me being, uh, a Wingstop franchisee. I was president of the franchise advisory council. And I remember when we first did Idaho, the head of purchasing was working on. Purchasing [00:21:00] for Idaho and had the wings handled, but then all of a sudden, you know, the packaging issues, you know, the, the logo packaging was tricky. It's like, how are we going to get it there? You know? So in franchising, that's the beauty of being a franchisee corporate needs to figure this out, right? Yes. You're. You're in corporate, Greg congratulate.
[00:21:18] GREG: I've learned that
[00:21:19] LANCE: as you're expanding what we already talked about training, we talked about a little bit about procedures and systems. You know, let's talk about project 52. We didn't talk about that. I didn't even know about that. I was when I was reviewing your website before the podcast. Well, yesterday to be exact, I was like, wow, what is this? I didn't even know about this. Greg. Doesn't even talk about this so much. So tell me about project 52.
[00:21:42] GREG: Really it was born off of an idea of my partner from the Sarasota store, he's been pretty successful in business and said, you know, we've got to come up with a way to provide for the community. He said, this channel is something that, you know, this store could do here and can grow with you as you go. You know, we want it to come up with some type of concept that [00:22:00] it helped the community at large. Whatever way, shape or form we could. So first thing we did is we helped out local family and Sarasota gave them a pack of meals for father because the father was, was fighting pancreatic cancer, which, you know, we all know what typically happens there, but yeah, we gave them a pack of meals and we posted it on our Facebook page and launched project 52 Facebook page being 52 weeks in. So let's help somebody or something each week. And we posted it and within, I will, I want to say two, three hours, I had four or five other messages saying, Hey, would you be able to help this family, you know, this family? And it was like, The community needs our help. So we just started doing these meal backs and it's kind of grown into a variety of other things that we've done fundraisers for. Give back weekends for schools for PTA's for firefighters were injured to donating water, to local sports organizations so they can sell the water and their concession stands to raise money. We've taken it in a million [00:23:00] different directions. And it was really, it was born out of a belief that grace and gratitude is what we need to provide in our business to help out the local community
[00:23:07] LANCE: I love it. It's absolutely fantastic. So, uh, so the plans for that is whoever's a franchise. The next franchisee, they obviously have to understand that's part of it. It's obviously part of the mission of Southern steer
[00:23:20] GREG: yeah, absolutely. I love it. And, uh, you know, we're very lucky that the group in Orlando is fully on board with it, and they've done a lot for their community already in the past or other ventures and continuing on through us and something they're extremely excited to do
[00:23:34] LANCE: when it comes to passion and a business like this, because I always thought this my personal. While I was always passionate about the hospitality business or the restaurant business. And I'm sure it's the same thing in your world. I've always felt that there were people that were simply just passionate about working for themselves. Passionate about setting themselves up for success, you know, financial freedom, et cetera. What do you think, [00:24:00] passion? What kind of role does that play? It's on your website. It's talked about where do you think passion lies in this?
[00:24:07] GREG: And it's definitely a paramount trait that you have to have for yourself in order to be an entrepreneur, you have to believe in the products and the concepts that you're promoting and marketing and selling as an entrepreneur and a franchisee passion to serve customers has to be their passion for hospitality has to be there in a passion. And never compromising it. Now, those three main components you'd have to be passionate about to be success, really any industry or anything you do. I mean, you have to be passionate about it, whether you're an Olympic skier or a, you know, pro ball,
[00:24:41] LANCE: well in some people these days, I find. Are passionate about profit and they could, they could fall into a lot of different businesses. At the end of the day, they have to execute the plan accordingly and the industry sometimes will grow on them. I mean, I would imagine there'll be somebody someday that loves your business model, [00:25:00] sees the need and. You know, find somebody from the hospitality business to partner with and they become the investor. And that often happens in franchise, but still you have that hospitality person to your point with that passion, that's going to run the day to day
[00:25:15] GREG: and you add the passenger grade, a positive emotion and experienced by the shop, just like you would when they come in and die in a restaurant and it carries over and it makes them to remember, remember their experience and have some associated with
[00:25:28] LANCE: you. Can't fake that desire to serve people and help you. So let's talk about marketing. One of the big subjects that always comes up in franchising. So when it comes to marketing, when it comes to ramp up, ramping up a business, a lot of my clientele is a franchise broker ask well Lance how do I make my money back as quick as possible? What are some of those brands out there where I can really do well right out of the gate. So let's talk a little bit about, so when you open maybe Sarasota or, [00:26:00] you know, you're opening or Orlando's new, talk about how you assist as the franchisor and ramping up as quickly as possible. What kind of marketing are you giving away meat? No I'm just kidding.
[00:26:10] GREG: Well, the first thing we try to do is make sure the community understands the businesses there for them, not necessarily profits, um, and make sure they understand the project. 52 kind of comes with it. We also want to make sure that franchisee spreads through word of mouth, through all their networks, within their community. That they're the ones that are going to be independently owning and operating this business. So to stretch out to, you know, their friend network and acquaintance and business network, but this is what they're going to be doing. And then, you know, they'll balloon off from there. Um, we also internally we offer a rewards program for customers so that when they come in, not only see the great products, we'll be happy, but we also offer a value component that goes with it as part of the rewards program. And then we, we lay out a 90, 60, and 30 day marketing program that we've put together [00:27:00] to help launch the brand and communicate what the brand is about and when to look forward to our opening days, our opening date, once we have that locked down,
[00:27:08] LANCE: I love it. So what did I not cover today that you'd like to cover?
[00:27:12] GREG: Great question.
[00:27:14] LANCE: We got it all?
[00:27:15] GREG: We may have a God that would, I would definitely want to say that if somebody's been in the service industry, food service, the food service industry, any type of capacity, I think as long as they understand the hospitality that you can actually bring into a retail. To make it impactful for every shopping experience. You're the type of person we'll want to talk to as a franchisee.
[00:27:40] LANCE: Wonderful. You know, I was thinking of something, passion, purpose, and porterhouse.
[00:27:46] GREG: They all go together. The three P's of butchering
[00:27:51] LANCE: the three P's now. Um,
[00:27:53] GREG: but the other thing I'd probably say is if you've never cut meat before that's okay, we'll train you. I opened up Southern steer [00:28:00] butcher and I had to hire three meat cutters to start because I wasn't that good at it
[00:28:04] LANCE: we've talked a little bit about training earlier. So now I'm really curious. What do you find a meat cutter? You just find somebody that's got good manual Dexterity
[00:28:12] definitely
[00:28:13] GREG: helpful. The craft is not brutally difficult to teach. And one of the things we've been successful at doing at Clearwater is always having two or three people on that are able to cut me and having a couple of people on them. Want to learn if they're passionate about learning. You have another meat cutter within two to three months. It's again, it goes back to passion. It's having somebody that wants to learn the trade. And initially what's easy to find people who've worked for the big box grocery stores that are done, just taking meat out of a box and putting it in a case they actually want to use their craft. They've been taught from prior lives to cut me.
[00:28:49] LANCE: I've done it. I was never very good at it. But like you mentioned, playing with silver skin and all those things on tenderloins. And, but at the end of the day, franchising is really about learning. [00:29:00] All of the things that you need to know as a franchisee, you don't have to be the best, but there's certainly a technician aspect of it. And you just need to know what to look for, right? Yeah, absolutely. So last question, you know, when it comes to. All of the franchise options out there. We talked a little bit about your existing franchisees now that you have three of them, some up people listening that might be interested in you and Southern steer. You know, why Southern steer butcher shop versus. All the other 4,500 or so franchises.
[00:29:34] GREG: Well, I think the first is community presence. That's the first thing we want to make sure we're going to do in any market. We go into, you know, somebody wants to be a part of impacting the community in a positive way. We have everything in place from the site selection, lease negotiation, project management, marketing. Training to make it as turnkey as possible for you so that you can focus on what you need to do in order to make your business, make that impact community when you first [00:30:00] opened the door.
[00:30:00] LANCE: Perfect. I love it. Thanks. Final, last word for the day.
[00:30:04] GREG: Southern steer butcher is going to become your community household name over the next five to 10 years. And we can't wait for you guys to get here and try it
[00:30:13] LANCE: I love it. Greg Snyder. Thank you so much. Southern Sanger butcher shop. I appreciate it. And we'll, uh, see you next time.
[00:30:21] GREG: All right. Thanks.
[00:30:22] LANCE: Take care.
[00:30:23] Thank you very much for listening today, please like follow and subscribe so you don't miss anything here at Eye on franchising visit our website. Eye on franchising.com E Y E O N. franchising.com and complete our free assessments so we can assist with. Finding your perfect franchise this is Lance Graulich until next time.