Podcast appearances and mentions of jimmy johns

Join Brian and Mike Cohn as they unpack the five essential pillars that take Agile from “just the motions” to meaningful, measurable impact. Plus, get a behind-the-scenes look at their revamped course built for real team transformation. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian is joined by longtime collaborator and Agile thought leader Mike Cohn for a deep dive into what really makes Agile stick. They explore the five foundational pillars—mindset, practices, roles, teamwork, and support beyond the team—and share stories of what happens when teams get them wrong (like obsessing over story point math or demoing a copyright update in a sprint review). Along the way, they introduce the newly available Working on a Scrum Team public course and explain why it’s designed for entire teams, not just isolated roles. Whether you're new to Agile or knee-deep in transformation, this episode will help you rethink how to build an Agile approach that actually works. References and resources mentioned in the show: Mike Cohn #80: From Struggling to Success: Reviving Agile Teams with Mike Cohn Scrum Team Roles and Responsibilities Working on a Scrum Team Course Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Mike Cohn, CEO of Mountain Goat Software, is a passionate advocate for agile methodologies. Co-founder of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance, he thrives on helping companies succeed with Agile and witnessing its transformative impact on individuals' careers. Mike resides in Northern Idaho with his family, two Havanese dogs, and an impressive hot sauce collection. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:00) Welcome in, Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors podcast. Thanks for joining us. I'm with you, as always, Brian Milner. And today, I have the one and only Mike Cohn back with us. Welcome in, Mike. Mike (00:12) Thanks, Brian. Good to be here. Brian Milner (00:14) Always happy to have Mike on the show and really appreciate Mike making time to come on. Wanted to have Mike on because there's some things Mike's been talking about recently that are really interesting and people have been asking a little bit about this and I thought maybe it'd be just a good opportunity to talk through some of the stuff that Mike's been writing about. I know you spent, Mike, a lot of time helping teams to not just do Agile but to really get solid results from it. to see impact from it. And I know the topic you've been talking about recently is sort of these five pillars of supporting real agile improvements, the mindset, practices, roles, teamwork, and support beyond the team. So I thought maybe we could just dig in and drive through those and maybe learn a little bit about those as we go. Obviously also to talk a little bit about the exciting new course that's being launched here, the working on a Scrum team course, because I know that was originally just for private classes, right? And now it's being open to the public. Mike (01:23) Yeah, we've done working on a Scrum team as a private class for probably 20 plus years. It's been kind of our main offering to private clients. But we're hearing from a lot of people that they have one team and they can't really get a private class approved with the budget and such. So what we're doing is going ahead and making that course available as a public course. So two people from your company, five people from another company all in the same class the way we've done our certified courses for decades. And so we're going to start offering this as a public course. And the exciting thing there is that it's really meant to be a team-based class, where things like Scrum Master training, great class, but it's really meant for the Scrum Master, right? And working on a Scrum team is really designed, and you and I helped you and I design this course together, but it's designed to be something that is a whole team training, right? So good for anybody on a team. Brian Milner (02:16) Yeah, yeah, it's been really great teaching those in the private classes and I'm excited to think about the public being able to come in and take that now. Let's talk a little bit about these pillars and, I think people are gonna be really intrigued by the concept here. The first one is mindset, I think, and just wanna start there and say, what does it actually mean to... think Agile and what is the found, why is that kind of the foundation for successful transformations? Mike (02:43) Remember the kind of the early days of agile and there was a lot of conversation about could you be agile without understanding the principles, right? If you just did the practices, were you agile? Other people were saying, no, you have to start with the principles, right? And so do you start with principles? Do you start with practices? And I remember these early debates and they often devolved into a discussion of the karate kid movie, right? Remember that one, right? And, you know, can you just wax on? Brian Milner (03:12) Ha Mike (03:12) for long enough, just do the practices. And then all of a sudden, your karate instructor or your agile coach is, OK, you're agile. And it's like, wait, all I know how to do is wax a car, right? And so there were these discussions about practices versus principles. And I was kind of always on the side where you better understand the principles to do this. Just knowing the practices, waxing on all day, is kind of just going through the motions. And so you have to understand the principles. And the idea that I wanted was that if a team truly understood all of the principles underneath Agile, I don't just mean just the manifesto, but all the principles that are there from Lean, from Kanban, from everything, that if you really understood those, you'd kind of invent the practices, right? You do those and you go eventually to go, hey, we should probably meet every day. Or hey, if we tested first, that might be a really good thing. Brian Milner (03:57) Yeah. Mike (04:05) So you'd invent the practices if you really had that type of agile mindset. And so for me, when we're working with organizations to get them truly agile, and I don't mean like more agile than less agile, but agile in a way that's going to stick, you got to change mindsets, right? You've got to do more than just the wax on. So people have to get the mindset. Brian Milner (04:27) Yeah, I love that. I know that I've experienced some things in the course of working with people that's it's sort of like you, if you're not on the same page with the principles, then you start to talk through the practices and you run up against a problem. And really what you find out the core of it was, well, we weren't aligned on really the principle behind this. So why would I want the practices then, right? ⁓ Mike (04:49) Yeah. Well, that's where you also end up then with a lot of team debates about things, right? Because you're arguing about the practice. if you'll say you and I are arguing about the benefit of some practice, if we agree on the principle, we might just have different views on it. But deep down, we'll probably agree on some practice, or we might find an alternative one. But if you don't agree on the principles, you end up with a lot more of these kind of annoying. mean, team debates are great. I mean, I love. Brian Milner (04:54) Yeah. Mike (05:12) you know, having a team debate, arguing stuff like that, but not about pointless things, right? And not without some sort of foundation. They just kind of get in the way. It's just frustrating for everybody. Brian Milner (05:21) Yeah. Well, I'm kind of curious, what kind of signs or signals do you think teams should look out for to kind of clue in and let them know that what might actually be going on here is more of a mindset issue? Mike (05:36) think sometimes it's when you hear the appeal to authority, right? Somebody says, you know, well, we got to do it this way because the scrum guide says, right? Or the one that annoys me is we have to do it this way because Mike Cohn says, ⁓ you know, that was like, no, I, somewhere else also said, think, right? Don't just, you know, don't just, you know, blindly do story points or something. Cause I say they're a good thing. I want you to think too. Brian Milner (05:50) You You Mike (06:01) And so I think that kind of appeal to authority when teams are debating things. It's where we also see teams who think they're agile because they do a set of practices. We use a particular agile tool, so we must be agile. We do daily meetings. We must be agile. And those are not the things that make you agile. Those are artifacts of being agile. If you're agile, you're going to meet a lot. You're not going meet a lot, but you're going to talk a lot. Um, and so those are the artifacts of behaving in an agile way. And so I want to understand why we're doing those things. So I look for those kind of appeals to authority. Um, you know, emphasis on that type of stuff in an argument talking about how this is the right way saying there's only one right way to do something. Brian Milner (06:49) Yeah, yeah, that's great. How does working on the Scrum team deal with this? How does that address it? Mike (06:55) Well, one of the things we do, it was actually one of my favorite exercises. We do this exercise at the start of the class where we ask people to kind of map out how the organization talks about certain adsel principles and then how does the organization behave. And so for example, if a company says, people are our greatest asset, and then they treat people like dirt, we've got this kind of problem between what we say and what we do. And so I like to kind of map this out. And so we do this with the principles in the Agile Manifesto. And once we map those out and we start to see things that we say we value, but we don't behave that way, really helps us understand if we've really embraced that mindset. Or are we just doing things because an Agile coach told us to, or a boss told us to, or we did it that way in our prior company. Those are all bad reasons to do something. Brian Milner (07:48) Y eah. So this is great. So I agree. The mindset's really foundational. And there is this symbiotic relationship between mindset and practices, which came first and which comes first, as we talked about. I know a lot of teams get stuck doing Agile, though, in really only name only. So when we talk about practices, what makes the difference between going through the motions? Mike (08:00) Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (08:11) and actually doing things that work. Mike (08:13) Well, practices is kind of our second pillar, right? You have to have the mindset, right? But you also have to have the practices that come from having that mindset. so, again, I try to think of that team on a desert island, right? And they're isolated from the world. They've never talked to anybody, but they have an agile mindset. What practices are they going to invent, right? And I think those are kind of the core practices. We see a lot of problems with as an example, teams that misunderstand sprint planning. And I know when I first started teaching about sprint planning, I'd have a slide up there to have a picture of a sprint backlog. And the sprint backlog listed tasks like code this, design this, test this. And then there were estimates next to code this. It's going to take four hours testing. It's going to take three. And so we were able see all these numbers and think the point of a sprint planning was these numbers. And Even in the early days of this, I was always saying, no, it's not about those numbers. It's about deciding what product backlog items you can pick. if taking a, I don't even want to call it an estimate, but taking a wild guess about, it probably can take four hours to code. If that helps you decide how many backlog items you can commit to, great, put those numbers up there. But it was never about the numbers. And it's one of the most common problems that I see with teams in sprint planning is they get obsessed with How many hours did we bring in? How many points did we bring in? And I remember one team I worked with where we did sprint planning. Having those estimates were helpful for them on their sprint back. They were helping. And we finished the meeting. And we're using Google Sheets in a meeting to do this. We've got a row with the estimates in there. And as we start to wind down the meeting, I deleted that column that they'd spent so much time talking about. They're all kind of pissed off at me. Why'd you delete that? We spent all this time talking about it. I said, because we got the benefit, right? You got the benefit of those numbers. The benefit isn't a week from now remembering that you said five hours, because it's going to take what it takes. The benefit was the discussion that it led to of can we take more or are we already full? So I see teams get obsessed with that. This is one example, but that's one of the problems with sprint planning as a practice. Brian Milner (10:25) Yeah. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. And that's one of the things I know I've talked about with people going through the course is sort of understanding the purpose behind the things. Just going back to, know, harkening back to what you said about, don't just do it because someone told you, you know, understand why the purpose behind it. And, know, otherwise we, I'm sure we've all had that experience before where someone just tells you to do something and says, you know, why? Cause I told you so, you know, that, that doesn't, that's not very convincing. Mike (10:52) Thanks, Mom. Brian Milner (10:53) Right, right, thanks mom. Yeah, not very convincing, but it's much more convincing when they can tell you, well, no, you do this because this is what we're trying to do. And I think you're right, that makes all the difference there. ⁓ Mike (11:05) It just, don't know anybody that responds well to being told what to do, right? My instant reaction is no, right? mean, you it could be, you know, a really, you it could be a really good thing. Eat more vegetables, you spend more time outside. No, right? Don't tell me what to do. So. Brian Milner (11:09) Right. Right. Yeah. It's almost like our default response is no until you convince me. Are there other common practices? We talked about sprint planning. Are there other kind of practices you see teams struggle with? Mike (11:28) Yeah, yeah, for a lot of people. think a huge one is product backlog refinement. I don't know what a better word would be than refinement. refinement is about making the backlog better. It's not about making it perfect. And I see teams that get stuck on backlog refinement and feel like they have to resolve every open issue, that everything has to be tiny and answered and buttoned up before we can start a sprint. And that's not the case. For me, the goal in refinement is to make sure things are small enough and sufficiently well understood. I don't want to bring in a backlog that's bigger than my velocity. If our velocity is 25, I don't want bring in a 50-point story. how about the problems of a 50-point story anyway? But I don't want to bring in some massive epic like that into a sprint. And so refinement is about making it small, making sure it's sufficiently well understood. Sufficiently well understood, not perfectly. And so Brian Milner (12:18) Yeah. Mike (12:28) The problem is these teams, and I know you've seen this, but teams who get in there, want to resolve every open issue. It's like, no, we can resolve that during the sprint. If we think about the goal and planning to make sure we know what to bring into the sprint, not too much, not too little, we're fine just enough that you're at that point. Is the button blue or red? Who cares? If it's a log in story, we're going to lock people out after some number of failed attempts. Who cares how many? Figure that out during the sprint. If it's five or three or eight, who cares? Figure that out later. So I think refinements won. Another big one would be reviews, ⁓ where sometimes teams demo too much in a sprint review. And they feel like they have to justify their existence, show everything you did during the sprint. And the most egregious example of that was this was a handful of years ago. But I literally remember a team showing Brian Milner (12:58) Yeah. Yeah. Mike (13:18) how they had updated the copyright notice on the footer of the web page, know, copyright, you know, whatever year our company, right? And it's like, my God, you didn't need to show that to stakeholders, right? We all either know there's a copyright notice on the bottom of the web page or we've seen one before. I don't need you to bring it up and scroll down to it. Now only took 15 seconds of the meeting, but that was 15 seconds of people's lives. They were never going to get back. you know, show stuff that you need feedback on, right? If you'd... Brian Milner (13:41) Right. Mike (13:45) You fixed a bug and you fixed it only way it could be fixed. Mention it perhaps, but you don't need to show it, right? Brian Milner (13:51) Yeah, yeah, know teams I've been on often it's just it's suffice it to have a list sometimes and just say here's a list of things if you want to know more about these come talk to us but we're move on to the stuff you care about. Mike (14:02) Yeah, I always have like a will show, will not show list. you know, I often, if I'm writing the meetup present, that'll put that up on Zoom or, you know, show it on a screen if we're in person. And often somebody wants to see something that's on the will not show list. Or they just want me to describe what bug was that again? What was that? You know, and I'll explain it really quickly. But if nobody wants to see it, don't bother showing it. So. Brian Milner (14:26) Yeah, I know we talk about these scrum practices quite a bit in the working on the scrum team class, but if someone signed up to take this class, what can they expect to hear or what can they expect to learn about these practices in the course? Mike (14:39) Well, I think one of the things that you and I did together in creating the newest version of the course was to look at what do you actually need to practice doing, and it's feasible to practice doing in a classroom setting, versus what should you just kind of talk through. And not everything needs to be practiced to get the hang of it, right? Everybody in the world has taken something big and split it up into smaller things before, right? I need to make. spaghetti dinner tonight. What do need to buy? Right? OK. Well, that's that's that's test decomposition by noodles, by sauce, by tomatoes. Let's make it from scratch. Right. By some garlic. Right. So everybody in the world has done decomposition. We've broken a big thing into small things. And I remember, you know, iterating over I'm still on sprint planning, I guess. But I remember iterating over exercises in sprint planning and in courses over the decades by now. And I would have one where you're planning a party for your kid, break it down into tasks. It's like, nobody learns anything from this. And so that's one where I'd rather say, OK, this problem occurs in sprint planning. How could you solve it? Other things like, let's say, splitting user stories or splitting job stories, that's a skill worth practicing together, getting feedback on. And so those type of things we try to practice in the course. other things we just talk about. mean, I'm curious on your thoughts on that. What do you think about some things being worth practicing, some things worth being better talked about? Brian Milner (16:01) Yeah, I agree. I agree fully. it's, it's, you know, there's some things, it's kind of like what you said before, there's some things that's not worth spending the time on, and it's better to just have a discussion and move on. Mike (16:13) Yeah. Yeah. I guess that's one of the things we always talked about. We always talked about return on investment of the exercise. What's the return on the exercise? And if you're going to have a one hour exercise, cool. One hour exercise. But it better have a pretty healthy return because that's a lot of time in class. And so what's the return on exercise? Is this worth a practice? Is it worth just a discussion? And if we can discuss two hard problems and give people advice on two common problems, they're probably going to face. Brian Milner (16:21) Yeah. Mike (16:41) Might be better than spending 20 minutes practicing something that they've probably done before. Brian Milner (16:45) Yeah, I completely agree. Let's move to the third pillar then, because I know this is a big one, just thinking and talking about the roles. And just as far as communication issues are concerned, even outside of Scrum, I know that's part of the big problem with teams and organizations just not being clearly defined about who does what and who's responsible for each thing. So those misunderstandings are really common failure points. ⁓ Mike (17:09) Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (17:10) How do you see teams getting that wrong and how's that derailing a Scrum team? Mike (17:15) Well, think we see it all the time on Scrum teams between Scrum Master and Product Owner and even the development team, right? Who does what? I was responding to some comments on LinkedIn this morning on some post I'd made last week and somebody had some comments. And it had to do with whether the Scrum Master or Product Owner does something. And it was interesting because in the comments on that post, I... I don't remember which one it was, but I shared a certain perspective. I feel pretty strongly that I have it right. I mean, I this is how we do it. But there were other people saying the opposite, right? And so, you know, these are people that are probably fairly experienced with Scrum, if they're following me on LinkedIn and feel comfortable commenting on a post, probably feel comfortable with it. And so there's a lot of confusion about what role does what thing. And I don't think this is something where the Scrum guy is going to have the answers for you. I think it's, I mean, you can look at the Scrum guy, oh, this. Here's my starting point answer, but we always want to play to people's strengths, right? And if you've got a scrum master who's got a lot of skill in one area, maybe they shift a little work from the PO to themselves, right? With the PO's permission, right? And the opposite, right? Between maybe PO and team. So it's fine to have default starting positions on who does what, but you always want to play to people's strengths. So I think PO scrum master, I think we see it with project managers and scrum masters, roll confusion on those type of roles as well. Brian Milner (18:38) Yeah, completely agree. A lot of those roles that are not named Scrum team roles and how they interact with the team, that's often a source of confusion as well. What are maybe some signs or symptoms that teams might be having confusion or problems in this area that maybe they don't even recognize or realize they're having an issue with roles? Mike (18:59) Any sort of conflicts, right? You know, you and I arguing over which one of us should do something. The other one would be kind of the opposite, which would be like a dropped ball. I was watching some YouTube video. I love baseball. I was watching some YouTube video the other day of like missed catches or something like that. And some team hit a baseball way up in the air and it was landing near three players, right? Three players are all looking at it. Brian Milner (19:12) You Mike (19:23) One guy waves the other two off, he's going to catch the ball and he must have been blinded by the sun because he's like six feet from the ball when it lands on the ground, right? And, you know, if we have a responsibility to catch the ball, run this meeting, right, right the backlog, the kids dropped, right? And so I think either arguing over who does something, two of us trying to do the same thing or neither of us doing it. I don't mean trying to get out of the work, right? All three players have been happy to catch the ball, but I think you've got it. You think I've got it, right? Those type of things are pretty good signs. think getting clarity around these roles can really optimize how a team works. And I think a really key thing here is that it changes over time. So I'll go back to my example of maybe the Scrubmaster has some skills that can help the product owner early on. Because maybe the product owner is new to the company. The product owner doesn't know the product as well. So they might rely on the Scrubmaster for guidance on things. Well, a year from now, we might shift responsibilities a little bit because now the PO is the expert on all things related to the product. So it's not like we want to establish clarity on roles one time and leave it forever. It's going to change. We get a new tester on the team, things might change. Product owner moves. It's going to change again. So we need to realize these responsibilities are dynamic. Brian Milner (20:39) Yeah, that's a great point. Your point about baseball just made me think about how, when you watch any youth sport in the world, when you go watch your kids play a sport, what's the one thing you always hear people scream from the sideline? Talk to each other. Call the ball. Well, that too. That too. Ump your blind. Those kinds of things. Well, let's talk a little bit about Mike (20:52) I thought you were going say, put my kid in. Brian Milner (21:00) I know this course addresses the roles and how would you say this course really helps address that issue of role confusion? Mike (21:07) think a big part of it is that we designed it to be for everybody on the team, right? Suppose you send a scrum master to a class, and it's a great class. Scrum master is going to back to the certain set of impressions about their role. Product owner goes to an equally good class about the product. They might have different impressions. Even if they took the course from the same instructor, they're hearing it a little differently. They're hearing it through their filters, right? And so when they're in a course together, there's more opportunities to clarify their understanding about those things, especially in the classes designed as we did with this one to bring out some of those differences. So I think the course helps with that. we've also designed it to mention the rules we haven't talked about, like managers and things like that. Brian Milner (21:53) Yeah, yeah, I think those are so important. And there's a lot of great discussions that come out when we have those topics. ⁓ Let's talk about the fourth pillar then, teamwork, because this, I think, builds really well on what we just talked about. And the idea that there's actually, Scrum is a team sport. ⁓ So beyond just normal human personality conflict type issues, what do you see that gets in the way of teams actually Mike (21:58) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (22:18) working as a team. Mike (22:19) think ego is probably one, right? I can do everything better, just leave me alone. There's an old book that says basically, beware of a lone developer in a room, right? You know, it was referring to the developer who wants to close their door and say, I'll it done in a month, trust me, right? And one of the companies I worked with, and this one's going back like 15 years ago, but it was a really good story. Brian Milner (22:36) Yeah. Mike (22:43) is they would literally grab one unit of work. Each person on the team would grab a unit of work and take anywhere from three to 12 months to do the thing. So they were big things, but the person would do everything on it. They'd coded, tested everything. And the organization was putting out very little because of this. When they moved to Scrum in the first year, by their estimate, they said they delivered 540 % more work. over five times the amount of new features delivered. And that was through the collaboration, through the short iterations, those type of things. But it was about getting people to collaborate more. So I think there's huge opportunities to do that. One of the problems I see is when we don't overlap work. If we think about that organization I just described, you grab your thing, you're done in six months. I grab mine, I'm done in seven months. If we'd work together on those things, what's not make us any faster? No faster. But you and I could have worked on your one thing and been done in three months. OK, we're delivering value in three months, right? And so one of the things I look for a lot is how much teams are overlapping work, right? And if we're not overlapping work, there's huge opportunities to improve at that. I'll a little example of this. One of my favorite restaurants is, I don't know, barely call it a restaurant. It's a fast food deli. It's called Jimmy John's. Have you been to Jimmy John's, Yeah. Yeah, there's one near my house where I can go there and the wine will be out the door. Right. And you know, normally you see a wine out the door and it's like, crap, I'm going somewhere else. Right. These guys are so fast. They're so fast. When I get to the front, I place my order. I play this little game of can I fill up my cup? You know, I get an iced tea and they give me an empty cup and can I go fill up ice and put the tea in before they hand me my sandwich? And it's about 50-50. Right. It doesn't take long to fill up your iced tea. But the way they do that is the overlap work. As soon as I order my Italian club sandwich, somebody's already got the bread open, somebody's got a slab of meat they're ready to drop on there, somebody else has their hands over the vegetables and they're dropping the vegetables on there, and then a fourth person wraps it up. And so like four or five people touch my sandwich. Hopefully their hands are clean, but four or five people touch my sandwich as opposed to like most delis where I go and it's like you watch one person plod along making the sandwich, right? Overlap work is huge. Brian Milner (25:07) Yeah. Yeah, this episode sponsored by, no, just kidding. Use code Mike Cohn when you go to, no, just kidding. Yeah, I agree. And yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with Jimmy John's. Probably too familiar. ⁓ Yes, yeah, no, that's, I think that's part of their shtick is that they're, you know, they're known for being fast. So yeah. Mike (25:10) You Is yours just as fast? Yeah. Yeah. They call it Freaky Fast. They actually have a competition. I've seen YouTube videos of this where they get like the best teams at various restaurants race, right? And so they have like the Jimmy John sandwich making Olympics or something, but it's a skill. Brian Milner (25:36) wow, wow, yeah. You should pair that up with the hot dog eating challenge in some way and see if we could have a team sport going there. ⁓ Mike (25:48) Well, that's a good point because think about the hot dog eating. That's one guy, right? That's Joey Chesnett shoving hot dogs down. The Jimmy Johns is a team. They get the best crew at a restaurant and it's a team, right? How fast can the team go? Not how fast can one guy make a sandwich, right? Brian Milner (25:51) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. So what are some tips? What are some ways that you can really unite a team, especially those new teams? Because that's the fascination point for me is, how do you take this group of humans that really don't know each other and haven't worked together in the past and unite them together and have them gel as a team? How do you do that? Mike (26:21) I'll give you a couple. One, I think having really crisp sprint goals helps. So we all know exactly what we're trying to get done in the sprint. We don't lose sight of that because sometimes in the middle of a sprint, you lose sight of it. And you get myopic and you just focus on a list of tasks. And I'm going to say that it's probably similar to the team doing sprint planning and just getting them assessed with the numbers. It's not about the numbers. It's not about the tasks. It's about the backlog items that lead to some goal. So crisp sprint goals help. That's a hard phrase. Crisp Sprinkles helps. The other one I'd say is having a shared vision about where you're headed over a little bit longer term. Probably the biggest change to the Scrum Guide ever that I've liked is the inclusion of a product goal. And that was something I'd been talking about forever. mean, literally since I started doing Scrum was that sprinkles are great, but they're pretty short, right? You want to have something bigger. Brian Milner (26:52) It is. Mike (27:14) And so I like having product goals that are a few months out there. And one of the things I like doing for product goals is have teams do something like write a press release that describes their goal or create a vision in some way, write a review that you want to see come out on the App Store, Play Store, and a magazine. And one of my clients made software and they were reviewed by a major magazine and they were given an editor's choice runner up award. And they actually estimated that being runners up for that was probably worth about $10 million. First place, first time was worth about $10 million a year to them. And so they decided to get serious about this and they wrote a review. Their scrum master, she was actually combo scrum master product owner, Erin. She had the team write a review and she said, let's go earn this review. And I literally remember the email I got from her three months later. It was because it was Halloween night. I just like, you know, brought in the candy from outdoors. We're done trick or treating. And I checked my email. I a three word email from her from Erin. said we did it. And the magazine had let her know, hey, we're reviewing you. be out on, you know, like Tuesday's edition. And the review had quotes in there that were from their vision review, right? The things that they had wanted to achieve. Brian Milner (28:22) Ha ha. Mike (28:35) And that team had just really jelled around that and just became so much more productive and collaborated so much better because of that shared vision. Brian Milner (28:43) Yeah, that's amazing. getting back to the course then, I know in the course we're trying to kind of some of those collaboration muscles. What are some of the ways that the course helps to build that? Mike (28:56) think one of the key things that we're doing, and I'm excited about this, is that we're, you know, we of course use Zoom breakout rooms, right? You you go talk about this, we'll see you in eight minutes or something like that. And for this course, we're doing something where a group of three or more, when they register, can have a private breakout room. And this to me is exciting because people get the benefit of having a private breakout room. They can have sensitive discussions if they want. They can talk very specifically about. you know, what do we do about our jerk product owner? mean, whatever it is, right? You know, they can talk about their specific issues, yet have the context of a broader class. Because I think in one of the benefits of any public class is hearing how other teams are doing things. And sometimes that's because you get a good advice, you know, how did you solve that problem? We have that problem. Other times, it's just feeling that you're not alone in the world. they've got that problem too, right? And they don't have any solution for me, but I know I'm not alone in the world with this. And so I like these private breakout rooms for three or more. I think it's a novel thing we're doing with this class. And it's with the intent of combining the best of both worlds of private and public training for this. I'd the other thing is probably consistency, having everybody on the team hear the same message, having those discussions with an experienced instructor like you or me in the room to provide guidance when they have questions. know, go back to the role clarity, right? You know, they can talk about it and they're there. Then they're back in the main room with you or me and we can kind of answer questions. So I think that consistency will be huge as well. Brian Milner (30:25) Yeah, yeah, I love that idea of the private private breakout rooms that that's that's gonna be huge for a lot of people I know. ⁓ Mike (30:31) I'm excited to try it with this. This will be the first classes we do that for. I'm excited about it. Brian Milner (30:36) Yeah, yeah. Well, let's bring it home then and talk about the fifth pillar because the fifth pillar is really interesting as well. It talks about support beyond the team and teams can only do so much. Every team struggles when they're not supported well. And there's lots of studies that show leadership support is one of the biggest hurdles or obstacles to the adoption. Mike (30:46) Mm-hmm. Brian Milner (30:59) What does that support look like from outside the team and how can a team influence that? Mike (31:06) Yeah, if you're trying to be agile and your HR group has quarterly reviews of personnel that are all based on individual performance and has nothing to do about teamwork in there, it's going to be hard to focus on collaboration. So we have to kind of fix these issues. I think what we have to do here is to have team members educate those outside the organization. And we have information that we share about, you here's how to talk to a boss that's maybe mandating deadlines, things like that. And so we try to coach people through having some of those challenging conversations. And one of things I want teams to do is kind of become an example of what good agile looks like. And if you have a team that's excelling with agile and they're doing it from a kind of principles first, that mindset first approach. You're going to see other groups look at that and let's say the marketing group. They're going to look at that go, hey, that's an interesting way to work. I wonder how we could do that, right? And it's going look different for a marketing group than a tech team. the mindset is going to be the same. Principles will still be the same. And so when we get teams to do really well with this, other parts of the organization start to get interested. And then they stop being as much in our way. Brian Milner (32:20) Yeah. I know one of the most important aspects here and that we talk about is, is that you don't need to, to wait, right? If you're the team level, you don't have to just sit around and wait for the organization to make changes. you, you have opportunities to make changes as well. So how does that happen? How's the team change, you know, bring about those changes that, improve the agile process, the results. Mike (32:42) I think that's by being the example so that people see it. I think it's by having those conversations. You know, one of the things that we'll get is, you know, it's so common is the product owner that wants to change their mind all the time. I was reading something, I guess this is in our Agile mentors community, I think is where it was, but it was about the, you know, the product owner who said his favorite thing about Agile is that he can reprioritize every week. ⁓ And it's like, you can, you know. Brian Milner (33:05) Hmm. Yeah Mike (33:10) I'm not sure it's good. And I think about that, a team gets momentum, right? And you're working on a certain feature. Next sprint, it would be nice to work in that same area of this system, right? Your head's there. Just kind of keep going a little bit. And I've often described this as like, let's say you're working on three backlog items that are in a certain area of this system. Let's make it concrete. Let's say it's the spell checker in Microsoft Office, right? And you do three backlog items related to the spell checker this sprint. Next sprint, maybe your top priority is not more spell checker stuff, but maybe items, I don't know, 25, 26, and 27 on the backlog are still in the spell checker. You know what? It might be better to do those. There are probably two or three sprints away. Let's bring them into this sprint. Just get them done while my head's into spell checking. And so getting product owners or stakeholders to stop doing that, one of the ways that I like to talk about doing that is using an example of ordering a meal at a restaurant. I can order, let's say, the chicken entree. And then as the waiter is taking the orders around the table, I change from chicken, no, bring me the fish. Not a big deal. The waiter is going to cross off chicken and write down fish. If the waiter goes away, brings me back my salad, and I change my mind then, I say, hey, bring me the fish. Might not be a big deal. It's going to be a big deal if I've already taken three bites of the chicken. right? Or if he brings me the chicken. So yeah, we can change our mind, but there's a cost, right? And we want to educate stakeholders about that cost. They don't overdo it. Brian Milner (34:31) Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of the leaders and the organization, managers, leaders, do you think this course is appropriate for managers and leaders to attend as well? you feel like they might need to in order to really have this be an impact? Mike (34:55) Yeah, that's a good question. Is it appropriate? Yeah, I think it's appropriate. When we do this privately, we've had plenty of leaders and managers attend. I think it's great. I don't think that's required because they're not on the Scrum team. You said the name of the course is working on a Scrum team. And so they're not on the Scrum team. They benefit by knowing more how their Scrum team works. But I think what we found is that having just a key subset of people who hear the same message work through the training together, and then go back to the organization. That's enough to bring the passion, conviction, and skills that we want. So we don't truly need leaders. They're great. I would never talk a leader out of going, but I wouldn't. If I were a team and I could take the class this month or with my leader next month, I would just get the class done, right? And educate the leader afterwards. Brian Milner (35:41) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good plan. All right, well then we've made our way through the five pillars and for people who have come this far with us and are at this point, if they're listening and they're recognizing some of these problems we've been talking about, what would you recommend to them as next steps here? Mike (35:49) if Well, take a look at our website. If you go to mountaingoatsoftware.com. And then I think there's a courses link on the top. You can go up there and find the link to this course. It's an exciting one that we're doing. I've literally been teaching this, I think the first time I taught a class called Working on a Scrum Team was 2003 or 2004. it's a time tested course. You and I kind of redesigned it a couple of months ago to make it appropriate for public. or little better just in general and more appropriate for public. But it's a time-tested course that's now designed to be available for public settings instead of, you know, have to have 25 people or something. Brian Milner (36:36) Yeah, yeah, that's really exciting. I can't wait to see kind of how people are in, you know, react and interact in the course to some of these concepts and ideas. And we'll, we'll of course link to all these things that we've talked about in our show notes and make it easy for everyone to find the course listing and, and, you know, where the dates and everything that we're going to offer them. So make sure to check that out. Mike, thanks so much for coming on. This has been really enlightening and I appreciate you making time for it. Mike (37:01) Of course, thanks for having me, Brian. Always a pleasure.

August1, 2025 ~ Theresa Toia – Founder of Friends of Foster Kids, Amy Sheehan – Grant Writer at Friends of Foster Kids, Pamela Goff – Co-Founder of Life Yoga, Aimee Lalonde – Operations Consultant at Life Yoga join Kevin to talk about Yoga at Jimmy Johns Field.

Recorded: July 28th 2025 | This week on Bussin’ With The Boys, Will Compton and Taylor Lewan have on the legendary Theo Von! From deep thoughts to deep woods, Theo takes us on a ride through his fasting-fueled introspections, sketch comedy chaos, and SEC football hot takes. We kick things off with a fun intro discussing Dieon Sanders news, and the upcoming Bussin’ Bowl Live Show. After our electric intro, the Theo interview kicks off starting with Theo sharing about his current fast… yeah, he’s starving, but it’s got him thinking deep. He opens up about how not eating for days makes his mind sharper and his soul weirder, and how it’s even made him re-evaluate his dream guests on This Past Weekend. He hopes to have an episode with The Pope and Marilyn Monroe. Theo also drops a bombshell: he was approached to be in Adam Sandler’s ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ on Netflix but had to turn it down due to scheduling conflicts. The boys chop it up about Theo’s long-time friendship with Bobby Lee and the success of his True Friends podcast. He reflects on the early years of grinding in LA, podcasting before it was cool, and what it was like trying to find his voice while bouncing off other now-huge comics. The boys also talk about Theo’s viral “Digger” sketch with Shane Gillis and Druski, breaking down the behind-the-scenes chaos and what it’s like working with comedy heavyweights. Then things get outdoorsy as Theo talks about his fun camping trip with none other than Glenny Balls and the owner of Jimmy John’s Sandwiches. We even get a heartfelt moment as Theo opens up about his friendship with UFC star Dustin Poirier, sharing some behind-the-scenes stories and what it means to know a guy who's still as real as they come. And of course, it wouldn’t be a Bussin’ episode without some football talk. Theo, Will, and Taylor break down their bold predictions for the upcoming SEC season, roasting a few teams along the way and throwing out some sleeper picks you probably didn’t see coming. 0:00 Intro3:23 Bussin Bowl Live Show11:26 Taylor’s Bday Present16:31 Will’s Trip To Canada30:56 Madden 99 Club45:23 Lewan BBQ Party58:49 Happy Gilmore 2 Was A Hit1:11:26 Deion Sanders Health Issues1:18:51 NFLPA Drama 1:29:07 THEO VON INTERVIEW STARTS 1:29:09 The F Word Has Become More Popular1:31:23 Theo Lost His Smile1:33:11 Growing Up In Louisiana 1:34:57 Does He Feel That He Always NeedsTo Be Funny?1:37:05 This Past Weekend Podcast1:50:27 White Whale Guests1:54:51 The Diggers Movie?2:01:23 Glenny Balls & Theo Went Camping 2:10:01 Huge SEC Fan2:14:41 His Relationship With Bobby Lee And Andrew Santino2:18:09 Happy Gilmore 2 Approached Him?2:23:11 Vanderbilt & Diego Pavia Expectations2:34:50 Fear In Leaving Barstool?2:41:05 Those Who Suffer Before Necessary Suffer More Than Necessary 2:46:59 Breaking Away From Kast Media2:55:11 Going Early To UFC Fights3:04:26 Bud Light: What Would You Do Anything For?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Ken Coleman sits down with Jimmy John Liautaud, founder of Jimmy John's Sandwiches™. Find out how Jimmy John transformed a small, neighborhood sandwich shop into a billion-dollar empire, plus learn the hard truths about success and business that helped him along the way.    Next Steps: ·     

In today's episode, I sit down with Gregg Majewski, the former CEO of Jimmy John's and current founder of Craveworthy Brands, along with hospitality icon Jon Taffer. We talk about what it really takes to build and scale restaurant concepts with staying power—everything from team culture and real estate strategy to celebrity partnerships that actually work. Jon explains why he chose Craveworthy for his new concept, Taffer's Tavern, and how trust and hands-on involvement shaped the deal. Gregg shares the structure that allows him to run 19 brands at once, and how shared models, smart pivots, and the right people make all the difference.

This week the gang talks giant candy and ponders pickle slushies in the snews! Support this podcast at https://www.patreon.com/LetsTalkAboutSnacks     -- Snack News:   Blueberry Pie Oreos Are Back After 8-Year Hiatus: https://people.com/blueberry-pie-oreos-return-11761202 Now This Is a Big Dill! SONIC and Grillo's Pickles Drop a Pickle-Packed Meal with a Special Surprise: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250616082656/en/Now-This-Is-a-Big-Dill-SONIC-and-Grillos-Pickles-Drop-a-Pickle-Packed-Meal-with-a-Special-Surprise Olive Garden Dives Into Summer With Limited-Edition Launch: https://parade.com/food/olive-garden-dives-into-summer-with-limited-edition-launch-pool-floats  Jimmy John's taps Walton Goggins to narrate, bring spice to 'smut' audiobook: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2025/06/23/jimmy-johns-walton-goggins-smut-audiobook/84292170007/  Locate Lauren on Twitter (@rawrglicious) and Bluesky(@rawrglicious.bsky.social‬)! Find Conrad on Twitter (@ConradZimmerman) and peruse his other projects on this Linktree thing. Linda can be located on Instagram (@shoresofpluto)! Logo by Cosmignon! See more of her cool art at https://www.cosmignon.info/  Music by Michael "Skitch" Schiciano. Hear more of his work at https://skitch.bandcamp.com/ 

In this week's Fast Five Podcast, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and ClearDemand, our rapid-fire lightning round covers the week's quirkiest retail stories: Ollipop's 5-cent VIP boxes, Jimmy John's steamy romance novel promotion, Unilever acquiring Dr. Squatch, and Tombstone's wild French fry crust pizza experiment. Timestamps: 32:19 - Ollipop Amazon partnership 32:53 - Jimmy John romance audiobook 34:54 - Dr Squatch acquisition 35:34 - Tombstone French fry pizza Catch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/3lsaTBvBuMs #RetailNews #FoodInnovation #BrandMarketing #ConsumerTrends #LightningRound

June 27, 2025 ~ Joe Bellino, State Senator R- Monroe, joins Kevin before he is honored for a life-saving kidney donation at the Living Donor Awareness Night at Jimmy John's Field.

On this episode, Aries and Andy talk about Jimmy Johns, Los Angeles, and Ol Dirty Documentary. Social Media Instagram: @SpearsBergPod Twitter: @SpearsBergPod Facebook: SpearsBergPod Patreon: SpearsBergPod Youtube: SpearsBergPod  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dan Levy, host of the Barguments podcast, joins Bob Sirott to talk about which sub sandwich chain is the best between Subway, Jimmy John’s, and Jersey Mike’s. He also shares some of his favorite Chicago patios to visit this summer, like Bang Bang Pie & Biscuits, as well as some pet-friendly patios.

McDonald's had been teasing the return of its chicken Snack Wraps on social media, but Popeyes beat them to the punch with the launch of similar wraps of their own. That was the big menu news this week that was discussed by hosts Pat Cobe, senior menu editor of Restaurant Business, and Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation's Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality.Bret disdained the term “chicken wars” to describe the scenario: It's the sale of food to customers, which in no way resembles the horrors of war. Nonetheless, people do enjoy referring to the situation that wy, so there you have it.In other food news, several chains rolled out cookies this week, including a new lemon cookie from Jimmy John's, chocolate chip cookies enrobing Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Oreos from Great American Cookies and an Espresso Martini-inspired cookie at Chip City Cookies that was only available for the June 6-7 weekend. There were also several beverage introductions of note, particularly Starbucks' new Iced Horchata Oatmilk Shaken Espresso.Then the co-hosts discussed the trend of pizza regionalization, particularly Connecticut's push to attract New Yorkers to the suburbs to try that state's coal-fired pies. That led them to Pat's interview with Bret Lunsford, executive chef and culinary director of Sally's Apizza, a small chain based in Connecticut, who has expanded the menu with creative pizza toppings, salads, and more. Give a listen.

#163 Pat sits down with Dana Lytle, Founder and CEO, and Emily Steele, President, of Madison-based ad agency Planet Propaganda — a shop with a point of view and zero interest in coloring inside the traditional ad agency lines.   This agency has done incredible work for:    ✅ Duluth Trading Company   ✅ Jimmy John's Sandwiches    ✅ Jersey Mike's Subs   ✅ Pernod Ricard Smithworks Vodka   Highlights from the show:  Intro and Background of Planet Propaganda — 0:00:00 to 0:02:00 Dana on Starting Planet — 0:02:00 to 0:06:00 Emily's Journey to Planet — 0:06:00 to 0:08:00 Defining the Agency: Strategy + Creative — 0:08:00 to 0:13:00 Getting Clients into Strategy Mode — 0:13:00 to 0:17:00 Inside-Out Brand Building — 0:17:00 to 0:22:00 Consensus and 'Simplify Amplify' Process — 0:22:00 to 0:27:00 Jimmy John's 'Freaky Fast' Example — 0:27:00 to 0:31:00 What Brand Really Means — 0:31:00 to 0:35:00 Operationalizing Brand — 0:35:00 to 0:39:00 Client Trust and Long-Term Relationships — 0:39:00 to 0:42:00 Building Culture in a Hybrid World — 0:42:00 to 0:48:00 Connecting vs Culture Buzzword — 0:48:00 to 0:51:00 The State of Agencies in 2025 — 0:51:00 to 0:57:00 AI and the Creative Industry — 0:57:00 to 1:02:00 The Future of Agencies and Specialization — 1:02:00 to 1:08:00 Category Focus: Food and Apparel — 1:08:00 to 1:11:00 New Business: Relationships First — 1:11:00 to 1:15:00 Closing Thoughts and How to Reach Out — 1:15:00 to 1:17:00   Reach out to Dana and Emily here: https://www.planetpropaganda.com/info   Check ‘em out on LinkedIn here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-lytle-8269283/   Or here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-steele-58ba758/   Connect with Pat at: pmcgovern@ascedia.com   Before you go, please do us a favor. Take a minute and leave us a review. That's the energy that powers this supertanker!  Thanks, you're the best! Want more marketing insights? Take a look at our full lineup. This podcast is sponsored by Ascedia. A web development and digital strategy agency helping clients win in the digital space.   

Where is Thank Me Later? What's up with Feet Friday? And how did Kanye and pickle jokes end up on this podcast? Welcome to Episode 281 of the Upland Property Experts Podcast, where we deliver racing breakdowns, community chaos, and all the unfiltered banter you'd never expect from the Metaverse's #1 podcast.

CLIP- Klein's Jimmy Johns Beef full 455 Mon, 21 Apr 2025 15:31:36 +0000 ft8I703wXLahnYw1lcgva1wTnHwXEomb society & culture Klein/Ally Show: The Podcast society & culture CLIP- Klein's Jimmy Johns Beef Klein.Ally.Show on KROQ is more than just a "dynamic, irreverent morning radio show that mixes humor, pop culture, and unpredictable conversation with a heavy dose of realness." (but thanks for that quote anyway). Hosted by Klein, Ally, and a cast of weirdos (both on the team and from their audience), the show is known for its raw, offbeat style, offering a mix of sarcastic banter, candid interviews, and an unfiltered take on everything from culture to the chaos of everyday life. With a loyal, engaged fanbase and an addiction for pushing boundaries, the show delivers the perfect blend of humor and insight, all while keeping things fun, fresh, and sometimes a little bit illegal. 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture False https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed-link=https%3A%2F%2

In this power-packed in-person episode of Eye on  Franchising, I sit down with Chris Connor, Founder & CEO of FMS Franchise Marketing Systems, and one of the most respected names in the franchising world. We're live from a hotel room in Las Vegas (yes, really!), talking about entrepreneurship, global expansion, and why franchising is one of the best ways to build generational wealth.This is a masterclass in what it really takes to franchise your business, scale it right, and identify the “it” factor behind successful franchise brands. You'll also learn the truth about food service franchises vs. service-based businesses, and why being unsexy might just be the key to building a franchise empire.Timestamps: 00:00 – Intro: Why Chris Connor is a BIG deal in franchising01:30 – How Barbados hired Chris to teach franchising (and gave him a free trip!)04:15 – FMS: Building a one-stop franchise development agency06:30 – The first steps to franchising your business10:25 – How Chris helped European Wax Center, Jimmy John's & more12:10 – COVID, chaos, and record-breaking franchise sales13:50 – What makes a concept truly franchisable?17:35 – Restoration One vs. Super Restoration: David vs. Goliath20:45 – Culture, sacrifice, and winning the long game23:10 – Private equity magic: How franchising leads to massive exits26:45 – Best industries to franchise in 202528:30 – The sexy lie of restaurant franchises (and the truth about margins)32:40 – What makes a great franchise concept in today's market37:10 – The crucial role of the entrepreneur in franchise success40:20 – Systems, tech, marketing, and ops: The behind-the-scenes checklist43:00 – Selling your first 5-10 units: What really matters45:45 – Franchise success story: Blooming Blinds from 0 to 160+ units48:00 – Franchising vs. corporate life: The truth about freedom51:00 – The Gladiator Mentality: Are YOU cut out for franchising?54:15 – Step-by-step: How to franchise your business with FMS58:40 – Sales systems, onboarding, and closing deals the right way1:01:20 – Trends in franchising: Home services, boba, and niche riches1:03:15 – Final advice: Franchising is for everyone... if you're ready to go all in

The boys discuss Irish goodbyes, the legend of the Loveland Frog and mini candy

Pickles are moving from sidekick to main event on restaurant menus, as the Menu Talk co-hosts witnessed recently. Bret Thorn, senior food & beverage editor of Nation's Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, attended Popeyes' pickle reveal at the chain's flagship Times Square location in New York City. The restaurant was decked out in green from top to bottom, and Bret got to taste Popeyes new pickle menu, which included fried pickles, a tart pickle glazed chicken sandwich and pickle lemonade. Although not on the menu, servers also handed out Pickle Margaritas infused with pickle juice, and pickles with smoked salmon, caviar and crème fraiche, courtesy of NYC deli landmark, Zabar's.When Pat Cobe, senior editor of Restaurant Business, interviewed Popeyes chef Amy Alarcon following the event, she mentioned the hydrating properties of pickle juice, which is mixed into Popeyes' signature cane sugar-sweetened lemonade. Coffee chain Dutch Bros also introduced a pickle juice energy drink this month, the Pickleback Rebel. Moving on to non-pickle items, Pat talked about the inspiration behind Jack in the Box's culturally connected milkshakes. The latest is the Pink Pineapple Express that ties into 4/20, the unofficial “holiday” celebrating cannabis. Bret mentioned that Ike's Love and Sandwiches and Jimmy John's are both offering special munchies for 4/20 as well. Other food news of the week focused on the never-ending parade of ranch dressing variations and Subway's latest footlong snack—Doritos Footlong Nachos. Bill Nevruz of Shaw's Crab House | Photo courtesy of Lettuce Entertain You EnterprisesThen the two shared an interview with Bill Nevruz, an executive partner in Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises and the divisional president of Shaw's Crab House in Chicago. Shaw's is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month, and Nevruz described the festivities around that milestone, including a throwback menu that features items like sauteed frogs' legs, clams casino and crab-stuffed shrimp. Of course, signatures including oysters, sushi and king crab legs will also be on hand, along with two anniversary cocktails—an Old Fashioned and a Martini—both garnished with oysters and caviar. Listen as Nevruz relates Shaw's story and how the restaurant has earned its reputation as a premier seafood destination far from both coasts.

People typically get invited onto shows like this because they’re successful. So, it will come as no surprise to you that my two guests on Out to Lunch today have success stories. What might surprise you, is the magnitude of their success. Cathy Deano is the founder of Painting With a Twist. It’s a pretty simple concept: you get one or two friends together, you go to a Painting With A Twist studio, you get given a canvas and paints, and with the gentle guidance of the resident artist, you sip wine and paint a painting. Cathy lives in Mandeville and founded the company in 2007. When her local studios started getting popular, Cathy started franchising the concept. Today, there are over 230 Painting With A Twist franchises, in 38 states. Over 5 million people have created over 10 million paintings. 86% of Painting With A Twist customers have gone more than once, and 51% have visited 6 times or more. Painting With A Twist is a genuine franchise success story. And its corporate headquarters is still in Mandeville. Sami Khan is a graduate of Tulane Business School, and the creator of an online game called Atlas Earth. The world is divided into two kinds of people. Those who say, “Wow, Sami Khan is here?” And those who say, “What the heck is Atlas Earth?” If you fall into the latter category, Atlas Earth is the number-one ranked, top-grossing gaming app in its category in the United Sates - and in every other country where it has launched. It’s a digital re-creation of the real world in which players buy digital real estate that corresponds to real estate properties on earth. You can’t buy just anything though, you have to be in actual real-world proximity to what you’re buying. Players buy and sell properties using digital currency called “Atlas Bucks,” which they can also earn by buying real-world products at participating vendors like Sonic, Popeyes, and Jimmy Johns. Atlas Earth is a hybrid digital-real-world experience, like Mark Zuckerberg was envisaging when he launched Meta. Except Atlas Earth has over 850,000 monthly users, three times more than Meta’s Active Universe had at its peak. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Patreon preview. Unlock full episode at https://www.patreon.com/stavvysworld The boys are back checking in from The Dreamboat Tour!! Our camera operator Big D*** Saxon and tour health czar Straight George join the pod for the first volume of our illustrious new road series BUS BOYS to discuss Saxon being able to access running water thanks to this gig, George's mandate of making sure Stav doesn't gain weight on this tour go-around, the Jimmy John's CEO, Stav's bad roommate habits, Stav stealing George's dad's spoons and bowls, and much more. Saxon, George, Stav and Eldis help callers including a man who hates that his wife has held onto a portrait of her painted by her ex, and a newly single dude whose wifed-up buds don't invite him to anything since he broke up with his girl. Watch Surviving The Last Road Weekend, a short chronicle of Stav's final road weekend in 2023 that was camera operated by Saxon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXwPwAl4dco

Tim Murphy is the CEO of APX Operating Company LLC, dba Boomers Parks, owned by Cerberus Private Equity ($60B AUM). Boomers Parks operates six family entertainment centers and two water parks in California, Florida, and New Jersey. Since becoming CEO in 2020, Tim led Boomers Parks from bankruptcy to profitability within a year, amidst a global pandemic. Initially operating at a $10 million loss, he revamped the customer experience and introduced new revenue streams, resulting in a 180% revenue increase in 2021 and continued growth through today. Tim began his 35+ year career at Walt Disney World and has worked with over 150 entertainment, restaurant, and food & beverage brands at more than 10,000 locations in senior roles. He is also a Board Director at Coney Park & Happy City, part of The Carlyle Group ($426B AUM), which operates 100+ family entertainment centers in Latin America. Tim's expertise includes top brands like Disney, Darden Restaurants, Jimmy John's, Applebee's, and Sonny's. He has managed over 35 transactions involving 1,200+ locations, negotiating deals from $11 million to $350 million+. He is a member of IAAPA, CAPA, FAA, AAMA, NRA, CRA, WWA, ICSC, and IFA, and is a licensed commercial real estate broker in Florida. Tim holds a BS/BA in Accounting from the University of Central Florida and an MBA in Finance from Orlando College. Connect with Tim at Tim@BoomersParks.com and on LinkedIn at TimMurphyCEO.  

Boyle is profoundly jet-lagged and we get an FUF from the hallowed halls of Jimmy Johns.

9am- Klein's 5 Reasons, Jimmy Johns Hack and MORE full 1177 Tue, 11 Mar 2025 17:12:21 +0000 kaPwQa6USEPOiVBxqIFwuqv6X7eyi1QV society & culture Klein/Ally Show: The Podcast society & culture 9am- Klein's 5 Reasons, Jimmy Johns Hack and MORE Klein.Ally.Show on KROQ is more than just a "dynamic, irreverent morning radio show that mixes humor, pop culture, and unpredictable conversation with a heavy dose of realness." (but thanks for that quote anyway). Hosted by Klein, Ally, and a cast of weirdos (both on the team and from their audience), the show is known for its raw, offbeat style, offering a mix of sarcastic banter, candid interviews, and an unfiltered take on everything from culture to the chaos of everyday life. With a loyal, engaged fanbase and an addiction for pushing boundaries, the show delivers the perfect blend of humor and insight, all while keeping things fun, fresh, and sometimes a little bit illegal. 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Society & Culture False https://player.amperwavepodcasting.com?feed

SummaryIn this episode of the Restaurant Owners Uncorked podcast, Wil interviews Jerome and Marc, the owners of Premium Loavess, the second largest Jimmy John's franchisee. They discuss their early experiences in hospitality, the unique culture of Jimmy John's, the challenges of scaling a business while maintaining that culture, and their journey to ownership. The conversation also covers acquisition strategies, financing transactions, and the importance of training and execution in the restaurant industry. In this conversation, the speakers discuss their ambitious growth plans for their franchise business, aiming for 300 locations by 2030. They emphasize the importance of aligning new brand opportunities with their core values and the challenges of maintaining work-life balance while managing rapid growth. The discussion also touches on the need for strategic planning, learning from past experiences, and adapting to changing consumer habits, particularly with the introduction of new menu items like toasted sandwiches.Takeaways Mark started working at Jimmy John's at 16 years old. Jerome's first job was as a dishwasher in a local restaurant. The culture at Jimmy John's emphasizes fun and customer service. Maintaining company culture is challenging during growth. Marc became an operating partner at 22 years old. The group has grown from 20 to 89 locations in three years. They focus on acquiring stores from retiring franchisees. Financing includes bank loans and seller notes. Training is a key focus for their business success. The restaurant industry is evolving and requires adaptability. Setting clear, ambitious goals is crucial for growth. Aligning new brands with core values is essential. Learning from past experiences helps in future planning. Work-life balance is challenging in fast-paced environments. Adapting to consumer trends is vital for success. Strategic expansion requires careful market analysis. Maintaining a startup culture can motivate teams. Innovations in the menu can attract new customers. Leadership involves navigating chaos effectively. Building a strong team is key to sustainable growth.

Actor Gene Hackman, wife Betsy Arakawa, found dead in their New Mexico home Spanish Lake man arrested again for lewd acts on MetroLink Illicit spa owner named Soon Bang snagged in NJ prostitution bust: police Woman 'gives boyfriend electric shocks to his stomach for three hours so he can feel the pain of childbirth - leaving him needing emergency surgery on his intestines' In labour for 75 days! Triplets' mother spent it all lying upside down to save two babies 'Unhappy' customer spits at Jimmy John's employee, before getting punched the face, charges say Asteroid 2024 YR 4 no longer has chance of hitting Earth in 2032, says NASA How To Get Alexa Plus, Amazon's New AI-Powered Smart Assistant Denny's is the latest restaurant to add an egg surcharge amid bird flu shortage and soaring prices WHAT THE CLUCK Woman being fined $50 daily over backyard goes to war with HOA – she ‘had permission' but got stuck in ‘horrible' battle Why you shouldn't scratch an itchy rash: New study explains Restaurant owner stunned as woman walks in restroom and steals bathroom sink: ‘It's very unusual'     Follow us @RizzShow @MoonValjeanHere @KingScottRules @LernVsRadio @IamRafeWilliams - Check out King Scott's Linktr.ee/kingscottrules + band @FreeThe2SG and Check out Moon's bands GREEK FIRE @GreekFire GOLDFINGER @GoldfingerMusic THE TEENAGE DIRTBAGS @TheTeenageDbags and Lern's band @LaneNarrows http://www.1057thepoint.com/Rizz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Actor Gene Hackman, wife Betsy Arakawa, found dead in their New Mexico homeSpanish Lake man arrested again for lewd acts on MetroLinkIllicit spa owner named Soon Bang snagged in NJ prostitution bust: policeWoman 'gives boyfriend electric shocks to his stomach for three hours so he can feel the pain of childbirth - leaving him needing emergency surgery on his intestines'In labour for 75 days! Triplets' mother spent it all lying upside down to save two babies'Unhappy' customer spits at Jimmy John's employee, before getting punched the face, charges sayAsteroid 2024 YR 4 no longer has chance of hitting Earth in 2032, says NASAHow To Get Alexa Plus, Amazon's New AI-Powered Smart AssistantDenny's is the latest restaurant to add an egg surcharge amid bird flu shortage and soaring pricesWHAT THE CLUCK Woman being fined $50 daily over backyard goes to war with HOA – she ‘had permission' but got stuck in ‘horrible' battleWhy you shouldn't scratch an itchy rash: New study explainsRestaurant owner stunned as woman walks in restroom and steals bathroom sink: ‘It's very unusual'  Follow us @RizzShow @MoonValjeanHere @KingScottRules @LernVsRadio @IamRafeWilliams - Check out King Scott's Linktr.ee/kingscottrules + band @FreeThe2SG and Check out Moon's bands GREEK FIRE @GreekFire GOLDFINGER @GoldfingerMusic THE TEENAGE DIRTBAGS @TheTeenageDbags and Lern's band @LaneNarrows http://www.1057thepoint.com/Rizz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

FLORIDA FRIDAY - Florida woman attacked a man with garden hoe after plans to 'hang out' fell through. Floridaman biker gang member threw explosives into a Jimmy John's sandwich shop. Jewish man mistakes two Israeli tourists for Palestinians and opens fire on them in Miami. Drunk Florida man hits a pole and sits outside of 7-Eleven with no pants. // SUPPORT by joining the Weird AF News Patreon http://patreon.com/weirdafnews - OR buy Jonesy a coffee at http://buymeacoffee.com/funnyjones Buy MERCH: https://weirdafnews.merchmake.com/ - Check out the official website https://WeirdAFnews.com and FOLLOW host Jonesy at http://instagram.com/funnyjones

________dialtone tour patreon presale NOW _____public sale 2/21_____https://linktr.ee/perfectpersonliveArasha Lalani joins the show to take stunning calls about being bullied at Jimmy Johns, a nasty coworkers nickname, and moving in next to your cheating ex girlfriend's parents. Join The Patreon: https://bit.ly/PPPTRN -Weekly Bonus episodes every Friday & ad-free extended version of this episode)Watch on Youtube: https://bit.ly/PerfectPodYTWatch Miles' Main Channel Videos: https://bit.ly/MilesbonYTFollow On Insta To Call-In!: https://bit.ly/PPPodGramTell a friend about the show! Tweet it! Story it! Scream it!Advertise on Perfect Person via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Send us a textWhat happens when you invest emotionally in a poorly located restaurant, nearly flunk out of college, and then land a transformative career at Jimmy John's? Gregg Majewski, the visionary behind Craveworthy Brands, joins us to share his incredible journey and the tough lessons he's learned along the way. Gregg's story is a testament to the power of taking risks and believing in oneself, as he candidly recounts his path from near failure to a life-altering opportunity in the restaurant industry. Listen as we explore the art of building successful franchise teams and why betting on your own potential can unlock unforeseen opportunities.Gregg offers a treasure trove of insights into the dynamics of franchising, emphasizing the importance of hiring motivated individuals and nurturing franchisee relationships. Discover unique strategies that helped Jimmy John's stand out, including transitioning from single to multi-unit operations while maintaining brand integrity. We uncover the challenges of rapid growth and the pitfalls of unaligned advertising advice, revealing how thoughtful training and systems can drive consistent success. Gregg's innovative approaches, like acquiring a $43 million asset for just $1, highlight the bold moves that can lead to remarkable achievements.As we look towards the future, Gregg shares his ambitious plans to revolutionize the restaurant sector by 2025, focusing on technology, consumer packaged goods, real estate, and franchise development. Learn how Craveworthy has expanded to 225 restaurants across 15 brands since its inception in 2023, achieving $225 million in system-wide sales. Through tales of negotiation mastery and understanding self-value, Greg inspires us to seize opportunities aligned with our financial goals, ensuring that his team thrives along the way. Join us for an episode that promises to equip you with strategies for growth and transformation in the restaurant industry.To Learn more about Gregg Majewski: https://edwards.consulting/blog To Reach Jordan:Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/ Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call

On today's MJ Morning Show: A woman allergic to water Customized M&M's Morons in the news Auto parts manager berates customer Actors who've gone broke Delta Toronto crash Return of the Truth Booth Mad Honey poisoning Hooters girl avoids jail time for DUI Passenger sticks other passenger by her drunk husband Man expected a woman to bring his Uber Eats delivery, surprised by delivery man Explosion at Jimmy John's 20 minutes of exercise Wedding story 1: Bride's house burst into flames white at service Wedding story 2: Screaming baby at service Update: Gentle dentist attack at The Villages Crazy object left at donation box Man arrested on his birthday in St. Pete John Mulaney's murderers joke on SNL Brian Littrell's son to compete on American Idol

In a scene out of Hunter S. Thompson's book Hell's Angels, the Fort Walton Beach area witnessed what appears to be a battle in a biker gang war. Okaloosa County Sheriff's Deputies arrested an alleged member of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, Gregory Simonds. They charged him with a litany of crimes, including throwing a destructive explosive device, brandishing a weapon, and criminal mischief. Join us as we discuss!Please consider sponsoring the channel by signing up for our channel memberships. You can also support us by signing up for our podcast channel membership for $9.99 per month, where 100% of the membership price goes directly to us at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dragon-s-lair-motorcycle-chaos--3267493/support.  Follow us on:Instagram: BlackDragonBikerTV TikTok: BlackDragonBikertv Twitter: jbunchiiFacebook: BlackDragonBikerBuy Black Dragon Merchandise, Mugs, Hats, T-Shirts Books: https://blackdragonsgear.comDonate to our cause:Cashapp: $BikerPrezPayPal: jbunchii Zelle: jbunchii@aol.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BlackDragonNPSubscribe to our new discord server https://discord.gg/dshaTSTSubscribe to our online news magazine www.bikerliberty.comGet 20% off Gothic biker rings by using my special discount code: blackdragon go to http://gthic.com?aff=147 Join my News Letter to get the latest in MC protocol, biker club content, and my best picks for every day carry. https://johns-newsletter-43af29.beehiiv.com/subscribe   Get my Audio Book Prospect's Bible an Audible: https://adbl.co/3OBsfl5 Help us get to 30,000 subscribers on www.instagram.com/BlackDragonBikerTV on Instagram. Thank you!

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In this episode, Keith opens up about the rollercoaster ride of building and running his own landscaping business. You'll hear about why he now schedules all his landscaping quotes for Mondays. It's part of a strategy to bring more sanity into his hectic schedule and ensure that he's not just drowning in work but enjoying life. Keith dives into those early days of hardcore hustle when he was grinding seven days a week to keep things afloat. Whether you're in the landscaping business or any other venture, you probably know the strain it can put on your personal life — missing dinners with family and events with friends. That's where his newfound love for batching tasks comes in. By tackling quotes all in one day, he's improved efficiency and reclaimed some downtime. He also doesn't shy away from the challenges—like managing employees, dealing with unexpected problems, and the nerve-wracking task of raising prices. These are real-talk moments that many small business owners face, and Keith shares his journey with humor and honesty. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or starting, Keith's stories about figuring out how to make better money in less time and dealing with the daily chaos of running a business will resonate. He wraps it all up with a reminder to be grateful, stay committed, and always keep pushing forward. So, grab your headphones, get comfy, and enjoy this episode full of real-life insights and inspiration!     Check out these episode highlights: 00:00 - Adopting Batching for Efficiency and Balance 03:24 - Monday Quote-Only System Success 06:28 - "Struggles in Legalizing Small Businesses" 13:14 - "Seeking Rock Star Employees" 14:55 - Launching New Crew: Monday Rollout Plan 20:55 - Newlywed Arguments and Hurt Feelings 24:41- Prioritize Selfishness for Business Success 28:05 - Weekend Motivation and Mike Andes Recognition    Key Takeaways:  Efficient Batching: Discover how dedicating a single day to client quotes can enhance your time management, allowing for deeper focus and increased productivity throughout the week. Work-Life Balance: Transitioning quotes to a fixed schedule has helped reclaim personal time without sacrificing business success, marking a significant shift towards a healthier work-life balance. Growth through Challenges: Hear stories on navigating the complexities of scaling a business, from handling employee challenges to making tough pricing decisions while maintaining a committed and grateful mindset.   Resources and Websites:  Unstrapped Alliance -  https://www.keithkalfas.com/alliance

Gregg Majewski joins me on the podcast to discuss how to use technology to create better experiences as well as putting the consumer first in every aspect of your business. Creating craveworthy experiences for consumers in the restaurant business. Gregg Majewski is the Founder and CEO of Craveworthy Brands and the former CEO of Jimmy John's. With over 23 years of experience as a senior executive in the restaurant industry, he has implemented and restructured companywide operational standards while driving growth and innovation. As CEO of Jimmy John's, Majewski played a pivotal role in expanding the gourmet sandwich franchise from 33 to over 300 locations, implementing the widely known “freaky fast” delivery strategy. Since founding Craveworthy Brands in 2023, he has focused on revitalizing legacy brands, pioneering emerging concepts and building a growing portfolio of groundbreaking QSR and fast casual brands that align with his vision for the future of dining.  

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Most reliable cars. This is what women want for Valentine's Day. Jimmy John's brings back Kickin' Ranch. Taco Bell news. Talk to your tiny baby. Glickles. Weekend plans. Nutmobile drivers. City of College Station update. Weird hobbies. National Popcorn Day.

Apparently some of us have disposable income, Wendy's is getting nuts this Winter, Jimmy John's is trying to kill you and Dry January rolls on!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

News That Didn't Make the News: Coffee drinks live longer, Unusual 911 calls, and Jimmy John's has ranch again! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

News That Didn't Make the News: Coffee drinks live longer, Unusual 911 calls, and Jimmy John's has ranch again! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In hour two, Girl Scout cookie season has arrived which means Hoch has to remind Crowder about his take on the popular cookies. Hoch reveals the unbelievable experience he had ordering subs at Jimmy John's today - they delivered on their 'freakishly fast' promise. Plus, would Crowder gift Hoch, Solana or Jimmy money if he won the Mega Millions?

The Miami Heat pull off a bounce back performance vs the Warriors last night but Hoch and Crowder took issue with Terry Rozier's inexcusable move at the end of the game. Zion Williamson is officially back to takeover the league. Zach Gelb of the Infinity Sports Network dishes on the Dolphins keeping Chris Grier as their GM. Plus, Hoch can't believe how 'freakishly fast' Jimmy John's made his subs today and Rob Pizzola shares his picks for Wild Card weekend in the NFL playoffs. After, we review the highest and lowest rated Dolphins players of the 2024 season.

Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas: Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Republican Party Abraham George have started a tour of the state designed to intimidate GOP lawmakers into voting for Mansfield Rep. David Cook for Speaker next week: https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/paxton-issues-warning-to-texas-house-republicans-in-bitter-speaker-battle/ Elon Musk and Tesla want to hog as much as 8 million gallons of water PER DAY for their new lithium refinery near Corpus Christi - already a desperately dry part of Texas: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musk-massive-tesla-lithium-plant-110009148.html Texas Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Blacklock, of "Jimmy John and Jane" fame, has become the new Chief Justice of that body: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politics/lone-star-politics/gov-abbott-appoints-justice-jimmy-blacklock-as-texas-supreme-court-chief-justice/3734512/ ...The Texas Supreme Court, just as winter weather threatens, is also preparing to review thousands of lawsuits against Texas utility companies related to the power disaster during 2021's Winter Storm Uri: https://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-supreme-court-hearing-2021-winter-storm-lawsuits-could-signal-plan-change-ruling North Texas appears to be the primary target of the incoming polar vortex - monitor the Texas power grid here: https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/gridconditions The merch to match your progressive values awaits at our web store! Grab your goodies at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://store.progresstexas.org/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We're loving the troll-free environment at BlueSky! Follow us there at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@progresstexas.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thanks for listening! Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://progresstexas.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

On today's episode we talk to an ultra runner who started running over 20 years ago in middle school but because of a delivery job at Jimmy John's actually ended up getting away from running for a while and dove headfirst into the biking world. After bike racing for a year he decided he wanted to get back into running and tackled the challenge of completing his first marathon.  From there, we get into how this road eventually led to ultras and how the mental toughness aspect of running in ultras where the change can really happen in yourself.  To follow along with Cass on Instagram, find him at @dog_cog_stew!

Bennett Maxwell continues by explaining how, when you are starting out, it is critically important to invest time and win peoples hearts. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ASAP Commercial Doors Ad] Rick: Told you, Brian. Brian: Told me what? Rick: This is part two of last week's episode. Brian: Oh, yeah. And it was getting good. Rick: If you missed it, go back and listen to part one first. Take it away, fellas. Stephen Semple: It's very compelling. I could put my business hat on and go 500 square feet, one oven timed single employee can do this and if the product's really great, that's quite compelling. But you still got to pound the pavement to find those franchisees and you still got to have a pretty good pitch. So if I'm a potential franchisee, what's the pitch? A Dirty Dough franchise? Bennett Maxwell: I think I would kind of reiterate with just what you just told me as well. So it's hitting on the team first. We have a really experienced team. Now our CEO, Jill, who I mentioned is now our president and our CEO is Gregg Majewski, who was the CEO for Jimmy John's during all of their rapid growth and now he owns another X amount of brands. So okay, here's the team, but that's one thing. The other thing is cost. How much does it cost to open up us versus a competitor? And we're going more towards the how do you lower the barrier of entry to entrepreneurship by allowing new people to become entrepreneurs? Well, what does it take to become a business owner? You need time, money, and expertise. Well, we've taken away the expertise out of it because you don't need to be a baker. All you have to do is learn how to use an oven. Stephen Semple: Right. Bennett Maxwell: The time it takes to run a business is generally correlated pretty closely with the number of employees. Stephen Semple: Yes. Bennett Maxwell: If a competitor requires 50 employees before opening day and we require 15, which one is going to take more time? Stephen Semple: Correct. Bennett Maxwell: And then the money it requires, well if you only have a 500 square foot build out or even a thousand square foot build out in only one oven, you don't have to buy all the mixers, nor do you have to have all the storage for all your raw ingredients because I'm shipping you a finished product. Now you no longer have to have all of the same amount of capital. So it's less capital, less expertise, and less time required backed up by a really good product. Generally speaking, we get a little bit better reviews than anybody else. I mean a 4.8 star and some of the competitors are 4.6, but it's also more by unique product. Go try to make a three layer cookie at home or in Insomnia Cookies or Crumbl Cookies store by hand and you can't do it. So we corner the market on having a unique product and the barrier of entry to competing with us is you go spend a few million dollars like the idiot that I was before you even have a freaking franchise open. You know what I mean? It was a high risk, but now I think it's paying off because we've allowed our franchisees to sell a more unique product and nobody else has broken into that space yet, probably due to the cost. Stephen Semple: So what's the typical investment that somebody would require to open up one of your franchises? Bennett Maxwell: 250, 275 is average. If you get a good space that's a second gen and your construction cost is low, you can open it up for less than 200.

In this episode, Bennett Maxwell and Gregg Majewski deep dive into the history and vision of Craveworthy Brands, exploring the unique franchise model that emphasizes franchisee success, innovative co-branding strategies, and effective marketing techniques. Gregg shares his extensive experience in the food industry, particularly his journey with Jimmy John's, and how those lessons are being applied to create a supportive and profitable environment for franchisees at Craveworthy. The discussion highlights the importance of building a competitive culture and leveraging economies of scale to enhance profitability. In this conversation, Bennett Maxwell and Gregg Majewski discuss various aspects of franchising, marketing strategies, and community engagement. They explore how Craveworthy is leveraging innovative marketing techniques to enhance brand awareness and drive sales. The importance of purpose-driven business and community involvement is emphasized, showcasing how these elements resonate with franchisees. Additionally, they explain the potential of franchising as a means to achieve generational wealth. Website: Craveworthybrands.com/ Connect with Gregg: Instagram: instagram.com/greggmajewski/ Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/greggmajewski/ Connect with Bennett: Instagram: @bennettmaxwell35 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bennett-maxwell-703717126/ Subscribe to Deeper Than Dough Apple Podcasts: https://shorturl.at/bjozA Spotify: https://shorturl.at/klE37 Please like and subscribe to never miss a weekly episode! Drop a comment with your favorite takeaways, we would love to hear your thoughts!

We wouldn't be who we were if we didn't talk food! The picklewich, Chicken Big Macs, Taco Bell nostalgia and so much more!  Jimmy John's: https://www.foodbeast.com/news/jimmy-johns-ditches-the-bread-for-its-new-picklewich/ Taco Bell: https://www.foodbeast.com/news/taco-bells-new-decades-menu-is-a-tasty-trip-down-memory-lane/ Chick-fil-A:  https://www.foodbeast.com/news/chick-fil-a-fans-rejoice-you-can-now-order-through-apple-carplay/ Pickle Juice: https://www.foodbeast.com/news/claussen-pickles-previews-just-the-brine-concept-drink-inspired-by-dua-lipas-viral-creation/ Upcoming Shows: November 8-9 - Plano, TX https://www.planocomedyfestival.com November 14-16 - St. Louis https://www.flyovercomedyfest.com/tickets December 5 - Chattanooga, TN https://www.thecomedycatch.com/shows/277558

INTRO (00:00): Kathleen opens the show drinking a Chillsner With Lime from the Southern Growl Beer Company, and a “Durty Gurl” vodka Bloody Mary. She reviews her weekend in Spartanburg SC and Wilmington NC, eating Carolina BBQ (her favorite), enjoying Bloody Marys at Anne Bonny's river barge bar, and experiencing the coolest airport gas station outside of the RDU Airport. COURT NEWS (16:45): Kathleen shares news on Stevie Nicks' Rolling Stone interview, Chappell Roan scolds a red carpet photographer, Cher makes her endorsement prior to the 2024 Presidential election, and Taylor Swift closes out the New Orleans leg of her ERAs Tour. TASTING MENU (4:10): Kathleen samples Spicy Crayfish Korean Lay's chips, Keogh's Sour Cream & Shamrock chips, and Hampton Acres Carolina Crack Sauce. UPDATES (40:56): Kathleen shares updates on Jelly Roll's return to Twitter after a fun afternoon picking up the tab for an entire restaurant in Little Rock. “HOLY SHIT THEY FOUND IT”: Kathleen is amazed to read about the discovery of dozens of elusive brown dwarfs (strange objects larger than planets) beyond the Milky Way for the first time ever.FRONT PAGE PUB NEWS (45:40): Kathleen shares articles on the heartbreaking death of the oldest grizzly bear in Yellowstone, the “picklewich” rolls out at Jimmy Johns, a Springfield MO woman uses Apple airtags to find stolen election signs, the former Abercrombie CEO is charged with sex trafficking, a Wisconsin dad buys 14 tickets to see the wrong “Alabama,” the most popular Halloween candies by state are revealed, the Cleveland Browns announce plans to move to the suburbs, and American Airlines test boarding technology that shames line cutters. WHAT WE'RE WATCHING (38:20): Kathleen recommends watching “I'm Not A Monster” on HBO Max.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A huuuuge recap of our meet-up trip to New York City, a professor who embarrasses students when they fall asleep in class, spilling coffee on a plane, whether or not Will should go on this Backer golf trip next year, the Dwyane Wade statue, and the Jimmy John's picklewich. Enjoy a free one-week trial on Patreon for additional weekly episodes: www.patreon.com/circlingbackpodcast Watch all of our full episodes on our new YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/circlingback  Shop Washed Merch: www.washedmedia.shop  (0:00) Fun & Easy Banter (9:45) Recapping New York in Fun (42:00) Falling Asleep In Class (47:52) Should Will go on this Backer golf trip? (57:21) Will Plane Etiquette Story (1:07:40) Dwyane Wade Statue (1:12:34) Jimmy John's Picklewich Support This Episode's Sponsors Earlybird CBD: www.earlybirdcbd.com (CB20 for 20% off first order) Squarespace: www.squarespace.com/steam (STEAM for 10% off your purchase of a website or domain) ShipStation: www.shipstation.com/steam (60-day free trial) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on It's Happening: Joey's new puppy, Snooki's lost wallet, Jimmy John's Pickle Witch, and more! Subscribe and Watch on YouTube This episode is sponsored by: BetterHelp PrettyLitter Connect with It's Happening: Instagram | TikTok | Snooki and Joey on Cameo

Today, this is what's important: Diet Mountain Dew, billionaires, Happy Gilmore, legalese, Wendy's, bugs, dick sizes, drunk singing, Australia, awards, & more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.