Unlocking Growth Through Team-First Leadership

(03:35) Gen Z employees value feeling wanted and appreciated. They thrive in environments where they know their contributions matter and feel desired as part of the team.

(05:01) Leadership development involves nurturing the individual, not just their work skills. Personal growth leads to professional excellence and long-term loyalty.

(12:01) Leadership development is critical in multi-unit management to ensure every leader embodies the company’s values and implements consistent practices.

(13:19) Systems and culture work hand in hand to drive effective management. Strong systems provide structure, while culture ensures teams remain aligned with the vision.

(16:08) Consistency in tools like digital checklists and training systems ensures employees perform effectively and helps streamline operations across locations.

(20:34) Tools like the book “Atomic Habits” and DISC empower employees to better understand themselves, communicate effectively and achieve personal and professional goals.

(23:14) Collecting mentors and collaborating with successful peers is a key strategy for growth. Learning from others’ experiences accelerates success.

(26:03) Proven franchise systems allow owners to focus on scaling and strategy instead of operational minutiae, ensuring sustained growth.

(30:37) Maintaining a slight overstaffing cushion ensures operational stability, prevents disruptions and allows for seamless handling of unexpected challenges.

• "Atomic Habits" by James Clear
• "The Power of Positive Leadership" by Jon Gordon
• "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" by John C. Maxwell
• Homebase
• Vantage Circle

Evan Melick: Hey y'all, welcome back to Wise Tales. Today we are joined by the illustrious Daniel Acuña. He's the Managing Partner of the JM Valley Group, which owns and operates 24 Jersey Mike's locations in Southern California and South Florida. He's been recognized as a Top Gun, a top 25 operator, and a multi unit top 30 franchisee. 

He was nominated for Franchisee of the Year in 2023 and served on the National Advisory Council for Jersey Mikes from 2020 to 2022. Additionally, like we need any additions to that, Daniel is a franchisee of Dave's Hot Chicken, with one store open and eight store development agreement in Broward County, Florida.

JM Valley Group emphasizes a culture first approach, focusing on leadership development, unit stability, and internal growth opportunities. Before entering franchising, Daniel held executive roles in entertainment marketing at Disney ABC Television Group, Fremantle, And Psycho, where he managed brand partnerships for shows including American Idol, America's Got Talent, and Shark Tank.

Daniel is married to his high school sweetheart, Bethany, and they reside in Los Angeles with their three children. They're active members and leaders at Rocky Peak Church, contributing to their local community. I'm going to ask, was there anything we missed in that bio? Because it's a long and tenured story.

Daniel Acuña: Yeah. And clearly I need to cut it down. So.

Evan Melick: It's a nice elevator pitch.

Daniel Acuña: Yeah. there you go.

Ryan Kramer: Daniel. So conversation that I, it feels like I've had for quite a few years with other leaders and other people is around how much the expectations have changed for a lot of employees and especially expectations around how they want to be led, how they like being led.

It's different in a lot of ways in the way that we were maybe led by the generation before us, so I'm sure you've seen a ton of this in your experience since opening your first restaurant and working with some of the people that were coming in at that point in time, but I was just curious to pick your brain on how you've adapted to this, what your approach has been, especially when we start talking about the newer generation, like that Gen Z. 

Daniel Acuña: Yeah, that's um, honestly, that's the million dollar question. That's constantly asked. And for us, you know, we started operating in 2013 and it's changed in the last 11 years, from the employees we had then to the employees we have now. I call them team members and I think that
with this generation, what we've learned is the things that are most important to them is one feeling desired and wanted, like we want them to work with us. I want you to be in my store. I'm excited to have you on this team.

And, you know, we've been arduous interview process. We see a lot of applicants and I think that is important and speaks volumes as well. You know, they don't just do one interview and get the blue apron. That day, they're going to interview with their general manager, their district manager, and, and oftentimes potentially a third person.

But they're going to have a few different rounds of interviews. They're going to be on Zoom. They're definitely going to be in person. We're going to walk them around the store and show them the store and have them interact a little bit with some of the team members. And, you know, we're a culture first organization.

And so when we're offering them the job, we've explained to them, you know, what the job entails and how we're a culture first organization and that they get it. They have to be a person that fits with that, and you know, we explain our culture, which is we want people who, love people, both their co workers and their customers, that, you know, like to work hard, that find satisfaction in making food and have a servant's heart. And you don't have to be an extrovert, you don't have to be you know, or an introvert.  You just need to have those qualities. And so then when we offer them the job, you know, we've made it clear that we think, you fit our culture and we're very proud of it.

So we want you to be here. You know, secondly, after, you know, letting them know that we want them on the team. It's important for them to continue to grow as people. So we try to make sure that we're providing them lots of opportunities and like life skills and coaching. And so, we want to develop the person.

We don't just want to teach them, Hey, here's how you make a sandwich, you know, as quickly as possible. It's hey, here's how you can be a great team member. Here's how you can work well on the team. Here's the opportunity to grow with us. You know, if you can do X, Y, and Z, our expectations are laid out clearly and in writing. Here's how you can get promoted. Here's how you can become bonus eligible. You know, we have a core four in each store. So our ship leads, our assistant managers and our managers, they're all bonus eligible and they take on management responsibilities. We're really big on building our building, our bench.

We talk about our core values, and one of our core values is adaptability and willingness to change, because there's always new laws coming out of California, new procedures, and just because we do something this way doesn't mean that next year we'll be doing it that way.

You know, we're Jersey Mike's, we're doing new limited, limited time off for sandwiches now, pastrami, et cetera, and I think, you know, we take them through things like, we take them through book clubs, Enneagram, we do budget planning, life planning, we do manager retreats, and I think as long as they continue to develop as a person, one, they feel wanted, and then when, of course, we have competitive pay, you know, then I think they feel that's how you really get in with Gen Z.

And so, obviously, the competitive pay is a no brainer, but, you know, they can make the same amount of money at another restaurant, or managers can make the same amount of money in another industry in that same position. But if they, if you're checking those other two boxes, then they really enjoy being with you and they stay.

Evan Melick: So I'm really curious. You talk a little bit about that retention piece, right? They stay with you. But we also know the restaurant industry has a notoriously high turnover, right? There's just a lot of churn, especially in those younger people, oftentimes first jobs or part time jobs as they're finishing school, things like that.

Do you see how you approach leadership development as not only retention, but just an opportunity to benefit the people you work with?

Daniel Acuña: Yeah, absolutely. As a faith based organization as well, just my wife and my company, JM Valley Group. And so we see our business as a ministry. And you know, not every Jersey Mike's franchisee is faith based, of course. So, you know, that's our view on it. But either way, you know, Jersey Mike's has taught us, you know, I'm very thankful that's the organization that we started with in franchising.

And they taught us from the get go, you know, the Jersey Mike's slogan is "give to give". And our founder, Peter Cancro, he lives that and he exemplifies it. And he shows that to us franchisees and managers and everybody. He's the most generous man with his time, money and efforts. And so it's something that we've learned.

And so to your point, you know, when I first became a franchisee, I honestly just was doing it to make some money and to be my own boss. And I thought, hey, you know, I was working in entertainment and I thought if I can open up a few stores, you know, maybe I can retire early. Maybe I can retire at 55 or 60 instead of 65.

And then just fell in love with Jersey Mike's and fell in love with the business and then learned that it was so much more. That for us, it checked all the boxes. It's a business that I own on my own, which is a goal that I always had since I was a kid. It's food, which I love. It's sandwiches, which I've always been a big sandwich eater.

But to your point, I mean, there's just so much satisfaction in what we do. I'm proud to wear the logo and I'm proud to go in my stores. I love my team members. And absolutely, beyond just retention. I mean, you get the retention and that's a nice after fact. But at the same time, this generation, it may be all generations, but this generation as well, then definitely knows if you're full of it and knows if you're just trying to get something out of them.

So we do hear our team members often tell us that it's the best organization they've ever worked for,  Jersey Mike's is special. Team members really know that there's something special in the juice and Jersey Mike's does a good job of Finding franchisees who are willing to do all of that because that's really what we stand for.

So, yeah, I think you're spot on, in how fulfilling it is to do that and obviously, the older I get, they feel like my kids. I have a 23 year old and so that's probably the average age of my team members. So, I definitely feel, we feel a good sense, you know, and a lot of them, not, you know, a lot of them are college graduates as well, but a lot of them are not.

A lot of them haven't gone to college. A lot of them are in college and then they made the first of their generation to go to college, the first in their family, member to go to college. You know, they don't have a lot of, you know, you'd be surprised a lot of them don't know how to sweep. They were never taught, right?

So, you know, you're teaching them, like, simple life skills. You're teaching them to make food. And we explain to them, like, these are great skills. You're going to take wherever you go. We want to make sure that no matter what, when they leave us, they're going to succeed, you know, for the rest of their life.

And they're going to be, you know, it's too much for us to, we want to make sure when they leave us, that they're going to succeed in their next role and that they're going to leave us a better person and team member than they were before. And that they're going to work well in another organization.

They're going to learn about teamwork. They're going to learn about working hard and yeah, that's my answer.

Evan Melick: It sounds like with the Enneagram and some of those book club activities that you mentioned earlier, not only are they going to be great team members in whatever they decide to do, or stay with Jersey Mike's, but also they know more about themselves, right? And so we've heard a lot about bringing your whole person to work.

And I think that came about oftentimes because the move to hybrid work or remote work environments, you're in an industry that is notoriously bricks and mortar, right? But you still have to recognize that the whole person comes to the store every single day.

Daniel Acuña: Yeah. And they don't teach leadership in high school or college. At least they didn't when I was there, you know, now at least there are podcasts and tons of opportunity for people to learn, but we're teaching them things that are very rewarding. They get that aha moment, and they learn more about themselves. They, you know, things that they never knew. Like, we took the whole manager team, last year through Atomic Habits. You know, James Greer, amazing book. And to see, like, serious life changes that a lot of them made, like, we didn't think it was going to have that much of an impact, but saw guys lose a lot of weight, beat alcohol problems, wake up earlier. With the Atomic Habits, you know, the stuff that it teaches. Another one that we really love is DISC, the communication platform, and same thing, a big light bulb goes off when you explain to them, hey, when you're talking to somebody, whether it's your co worker or somebody that reports to you, they probably have a different communication style than you, according to this D.I.S.C.

And so you can't meet them with yours. And if you're a manager and you have 21 employees, they're going to have one of the four, you're going to have all four of the spectrums on your team. So you need to approach each of them in a different way that makes them communicate better with their families, with their kids, everywhere.

So it's awesome to see them, them develop and real confidence come in them. They start to understand, not only how to function better on the team, but they really learn way more about themselves. Their confidence grows and yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Ryan Kramer: I think that, I love what you had to say about more of the personal development, and that kind of seems to be like the big focus, and I think that also lends itself well to, I think some of the best leaders are people that have a good sense of self, a good understanding. And so I did want to just take time and discuss this a little bit, but I want to take it a little bit of a step forward and talk about why the leadership development specifically is important as well.

Daniel Acuña: Yeah, I think that, well, the leadership development is important because, as a multi unit company that we are, Bethany and I can't be in every store. We had one store we were in every day. We were the, we were the leaders, you know, and then you go to two stores to five stores to ten stores and you start to grow, there's a little bit of that 80/20 rule. We have to spend, you know, the top 80 percent of your time on the top 20%, but it's because it cascades down to the rest of the organization. So. if we're not in our stores every day, it's important that the leaders in our stores are a reflection of us, that they have the same values, you know, we share our core values, that they are implementing the game plan that we've put together as far as systems and culture go. I think that's one of my favorite sayings as far as multi unit management. it's all about, if you want to have a lot of restaurants or multiple units, it's systems and culture. So when you walk into every single store, they got to have the same systems, right? Everybody's got to be using the same checklists. The same procedures. This manager can't be doing something one way and another manager be doing something another way because then, you nothing's in order. And so, after the systems comes the culture, like, you know, it's got to breed what the owners are bestowing on the company. And that starts with Jersey Mike's, you know, they set the table, but, leadership development, if we're not doing that, and if we're not helping these, you know, all of our managers come, almost all of our managers have been grown from within.

They came to us as, you know, as minimum wage employees who, you know, got the blue apron because they fit our culture and they started making sandwiches and, you know, we always make sure that we're looking for talents, you know, because we're a company of growth, you know, our managers are required to have a core four.

They have to have an assistant manager and 2 shift leads. They have to be delegating duties. They have to be delegating inventory and ordering and schedule making. And those types of things, because we can't have a one man show, you know, what happens then if the manager is sick or is out or leaves, then, you know, the whole store is in disarray. So, to develop leaders, and they need to understand all that, right? You can't just tell them, well, hey, you know, we go back to Gen Z. You know, I used to play football and coach told you to do something, you just did it right. You didn't ask. If you asked a question, it was, you know, it was take a lap.

So that doesn't work. You know, actually when we first started in 2013, 2014, came in, to be honest with that kind of, coaching style, because it's what I was used to, but you need to explain things to them. I mean, so being honestly, this journey has made me a far better parent, a better person, you know, I wish I would have started it sooner.

And so I think they're getting a head start on life here. With that, but if you don't take the time do the leadership developments, you know, besides the fact that you're doing something great, that you're helping people, your business will severely suffer. So when you hear restaurants, You know, during COVID that they can't staff. We have to close it because we don't have enough staff. Dude, we were fine. We thrived in COVID. We were overstaffed. That's a culture problem. But people don't want to work for you because, for a lot of different reasons. But, yeah, that'd be my answer.

Evan Melick: So that's really interesting that you say systems, and if, correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard you say systems first and then the culture follows. What types of systems have you found to be the most beneficial in either accelerating that culture development, or is it just a timing thing that it takes, a period of time that you can't accelerate.

Daniel Acuña: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, to clarify, I would say it's both. I would say systems and culture. I wouldn't say are more important.I think it's the two combination. That's a 50 50. So the system, I think it's important when you start with systems, you just start with scheduling as far as like Monday reporting.

Everybody does their review of the previous week's success on Monday mornings. How did we do? Let's count our inventory. What, did we hit our labor goals? Did we hit our food goals? Let's get our ordering done for the week. Planning out, right? And that's a business best practice in general.
You'll hear a lot of business guys say Monday, you plan your week, score your week before and plan your week. Thursday's schedules are due to the district managers. By Thursday, they gotta have that done. Friday's, the district managers post a schedule. You know, seems like it's not that big of a deal.

Oh, you know, something came up and I'm gonna have my schedule in on Friday, or I like to do mine on, Saturdays because, it matters. It really does. You know, people need consistency, and so we owe it to our team members to walk into work, clock in, and know exactly what is expected of them. They do much better.

They thrive when there's clear expectations. So, beyond that scheduling, then, you know, then it goes on to training systems, right? And so we have, you know, our training modules. I think you need to have electronic training modules. We're lucky that Jersey Mike's has a proprietary one that they use, you know, with videos and you need a training schedule and regiments. And then other, systems that we like is, digital checklists, you know, so there's like Jolt and there's Zemput that are great digital checklist systems. You would require a picture if one of your closers is struggling with a clean soda fountain at the end of the night. You can require that photo specifically, you know, on those platforms, engagement with employees.

And so you need a great communication tools. So there's good ones like Homebase is our favorite. Perry is very good as well. then you need a really good reporting system because, you know, now me sitting here at the office, I need to know if something's going wrong in a store. So we use a company called Vantage Points that they can pull from every single partner we have, via, let's see, the APIs, and, I can see in real time all of my store's labor, food costs, I can see if cheese is over at this store and straws is over at this store, and I don't need to wait for my monthly P&L, I can see it on a Wednesday if I want to. What other systems do we use? You know, leadership development systems, every manager has to go through the first time manager. Book, and then the Power of Positive Leadership by John Gordon, and then they go through 21 Laws of Leadership, and the other tests that we described and rotating through there. We have a few other digital partners as well, that we use, you know, HR and onboarding. It's really important. We're with Race Restaurant HR Group. There's a lot of good ones, like that. Again, I think that, I think you owe it to the employee to not just be winging things and to not be, and to give them consistency.

You know, all kids do better with that same way, you know, your kids do too. They got to know what's expected of them. They need good tools that they'd like to use. They like digital tools, you know, the old paper checklist don't really resonate with them well anymore. And, yeah, they can rate their shifts. They can attest to their breaks. You know, you need a good timekeeping system, especially here. In California to make sure that you're compliant. 

Evan Melick: And so it sounds like, and going back to one of the core values we talked about a little bit earlier around that adaptability, and also tying it back to the 80/20 rule, right? If you can have systems account for sort of that 80%, that 20% really allows you to be adaptable and flexible and you maintain order when chaos sort of ensues, because we know it does.

Daniel Acuña: 100%.

Ryan Kramer: So we have the electronic systems and in some cases you can get a lot of content out. I mean, granted your franchise locations are kind of, spread out a little bit, right? 

Daniel Acuña: We go from Santa Barbara down to Burbank and then to South Florida.

Ryan Kramer: Oh, yeah, so a little bit far apart from each other. What has been your philosophy, especially on the going back to the leadership development side, are you doing that through electronic means?

Is there a hybrid approach that you're taking in terms of, maybe some in person sessions? It feels to me like this is more developed within your purview rather than being something that's coming down from or being provided through the franchise.

Daniel Acuña: Yeah, definitely. You know, we used to be able to do them all in person, with everybody. And then as we grew, we'll do some on Zoom, my wife, who's my operating partner and I'm the visionary, she's the integrator. You know, she loves everything in person. You know, I'm a super Zoom guy, but this is her department, you know, I got to give her all the credit she's developed all of this and leads all of this.

And so we do it by region now, so we'll have, you know, we have our district managers and they've been with us long enough and gone through these long enough. And some of them even have certifications that they can lead it. So we're still a part of it. And Bethany still leads it with our leadership team. But so it's a combination, but it's mostly in person. And, we've developed something, kind of a book club style questionnaires, right? So you go through, two chapters, you meet every other week, and you discuss two chapters, and there's homework questions that are reflection, we meet for an hour, they get paid for their time, they get paid for their time when they're reading the book, they get paid for their time at the meeting, and we go around, You know, in a circle around Robin and answer questions and have discussion, it's another great way for the team to get to know each other for them to share open.

And honestly, it brings provides a level of vulnerability, which, you know, ties any team much closer to each other. Um, and again, it just makes some better leaders, but yeah, so it's primarily in person and developed by us. And I think. You know, again, like when we did Atomic Habits, that was just, Hey, let's do something new.

We haven't done a new book in a while. It's let's do that. And anytime new stuff comes out, we like, we'll test it out with our leadership team first, and then we'll roll it out. Like something I'm really excited about right now is the Primal Questions by Mike Foster, the new book. And so everybody has one of seven primal questions.

And so I did it. And, mine, like probably a lot of entrepreneurs is, am I successful? And so you develop your primal question during your life. And so what one naturally tends to do is whatever they can to get the answer back to a yes. And so if they get a no, they're in a scramble mode, and they need to do whatever they can to get that answer back to a yes.

And so when you recognize that, What your primal question is can also become your superpower. And then one of the way it really relates with the team is it's important just like discs to know what is your primal question. So like Ryan, if I was managing you, I would need to know I could get some real currency with you. If I understood what your primal question was, I recognize that I gave you a yes to that, and then I would, it would show you that I understand you could trust me more. And again, it's not like a tool to use your team. I mean, it's, it's personal relationships.

Evan Melick: And going back to the very top of this conversation, right, it's about knowing your team members. It is about knowing what intrinsically drives them every single day. I do have a quick question for you. So not every organization, and a lot of our listeners are franchise organizations, are franchisees, are looking to grow and scale.

Not everyone has a Bethany though. And so I'm really curious, and my guess is you didn't start out with this entire robust system either. How do you go about incorporating this, organic delivery of materials and leadership development? And what would you recommend for maybe a single unit operator to start with?

Daniel Acuña: That's a great question. Honestly, I have the simplest answer ever, which is just, you gotta knock on doors and you gotta ask people who are doing it right, who have been doing it longer than you, and be a mentor collector. I've naturally been a mentor collector my entire life, and been a long road. You know, it's been the greatest part of my personal success. So I think, Bethany, you know, a lot of that was intuitive for sure. And, she had done book clubs on her own and saw personal benefits with it. And so the first time she said, hey, I'm going to do a book club with a couple of our managers.

This was, years ago. And she saw how well that did with them. And she knew it would because it had an impact on her life. And so it impacted them. And so then we started implementing it into our culture. As far as all the other stuff goes, and we're not the only ones who do book clubs.

There's a few others, but there's a couple of guys in New York, John Helm and Matt Catania. They've won franchisee of the year, not just been nominated. And, 45 Jersey Mike's and they've been doing it longer. And like, I bug those guys all the time. I feel bad. I'm like, I need to send you guys a Christmas gift, but they've been my mentors forever, and I have a lot of those mentors. And so, knock on doors, find successful multi unit franchisees or, you know, whatever field you're in. People who not only are doing it right and successful and are winning awards, but who are people that you respect and you want to be like, right? So, I respect the heck out of those guys. Yeah, so, you know, hit me up on my LinkedIn, email me, and I can refer you to other people. I have a ton of mentors, and you just gotta go and ask people. And the thing I've noticed, too, about all the mentors that I have, and so, is that they were asking questions as well, right? So, it keeps cascading down. When you've been lucky enough to experience success and had good mentors, you feel an obligation to pay it forward and to spend some time with people. So people are really happy to share, you know, information with you, especially if you're persistent, you follow up, you send follow up emails, you give them a call, you tell them, Hey, can I come to you?

I'll bring you coffee. Can I fly out and spend a day with you in your stores? You know, whatever. So we've done that for a long time. I would say, you know, I say we're the biggest plagiarizers in Jersey Mike's. Because we've spent so much time with other franchisees, and, you know, Peter does a good job of getting us, our founder, he gets us all together.

We just had a multi unit meeting in Dana Point. He takes us all to the Ritz Carlton, he pays for everything, and there's roundtable sessions. And so I used to be the guy at those meetings years ago who was just grabbing phone numbers and writing as much down as I could. And I still obviously have a lot to learn, but I've been in it a long time now and I'm the one who, there's the other newer franchises, they only have one or two stores and they're asking for my phone number and we're giving them tips and tools. So yeah, that's what you got to do.

Evan Melick: So, two things. We've had quite a few podcast episodes at this point, and this is the first time I've heard mentor collector, and I'm going to scroll that one away because I think that's fantastic. Also, stand on the shoulders of giants, right? And I think we under leverage our network, we under leverage our network's network, and it's a huge spiderweb, right?

And we all just, hopefully, build on the successes that other people have experienced, and just, everyone can learn from everyone. And I think that's a great mantra and thank you for sharing that.

Daniel Acuña: Yeah. It's not wise not to ... why would you want to go and reinvent the wheel? That somebody is already doing better than you. You know, unless you're an extreme creative. And honestly, running a business, especially the franchise model, it's the antithesis of being creative, right? You're buying into a franchise to run a playbook, that works. It's a proven model.

Evan Melick: Yeah, for sure.

Ryan Kramer: I like that because there isn't one book or one experience that's going to give you all the leadership advice you need for the rest of your life. Believe me, I've looked through Amazon.

Daniel Acuña: Multi unit management by Jim Sullivan might be the closest to it as far as
multi unit operations goes. But, yeah.

Evan Melick: This has been a really, really great conversation, for sure. I do have one question. When we think about Gen Z and you talked about we don't get taught, and quite honestly, I'm a solid Gen Xer, right? And we weren't taught this in Gen X either. We think a lot about managing down, right?

We think about leadership development and managing teams, direct reports, managing, you know, leading through influence, things like that. One thing we don't talk a lot about is managing up. And I think, you know, in organizations that can be a huge miss because we need to give team members and managers, quite honestly, the opportunity to flex that muscle a little bit. What do you all do given your very robust sort of leadership, focus? How do you coach into that?

Daniel Acuña: It's a really good question, and that's something, honestly, that we were focusing on more these last couple of years. I definitely realized that's, that was something that was a little bit of a, maybe, potentially a bit of a gap for us at some point. It's just something that we could have focused on more. I love that you highlighted that. it's really important, right? Because we said they come in and some of them don't know how to sweep, they definitely don't know how to manage up, right? And they're used to dealing with their parent, this or that. So, I mean, honestly, one of our core values, we only have a few, is being coachable. So, you have to find coachable kids. And if they come in and they're a sponge, and they are willing to learn, then they learn how to manage fairly quickly. I think it goes back to systems, having clear expectations. you know, our orientation process is long. You don't just get thrown in on your day one and say good luck, like the manager spends the week with you. You know, we have a training packet that is line item by line item, each position. [00:28:00] And included in the training packet is all of that stuff. We go over the core values. We explain why it's important to be on time. Why is it important to, you know, to work quickly? You know, how are you a part of a team and what does that mean?

What is your role on this team? So I think it's a lot of explanation and never assuming that anybody knows anything. And when they do that, they start to fit in to a team. They start to manage up well, you know, we have a lot of shift leads. The manager is obviously not in the store at all times. The manager, you know, of the 14 lunch, of the 14 busiest rushes, you know, lunch and dinner, they might be in a store for seven of them. So that means there's another seven rushes. That there's no manager in the store. So these team members also need, you know, know that on any given day, they're reporting to one of potentially four people, the manager, the assistant manager, or one of the shift leads.

And so they need to be adaptable. And so, it really starts with finding kids who have a good attitude and are coachable and they are out there, they are everywhere. You know, Gen Z kids, they're great. They're loved. so as long as you show them respect and. You know, you get what you give, then they learn how to manage up.

And I think, you know, with the managers and they report to their district managers, I think it's really important to empower your leaders, right? So after you develop so much into your leaders, it's to empower them and to not micromanage, right? So if a manager has a question for me, it might, if they're a newer manager, it might take some training.

They call me like, hey, Let's talk to you. Let's catch up on. That's a question for your district manager. So go ahead and reach out to David. Talk to him. I'm sure he can solve this for you. And then I might give David a heads up. Hey, so and so reached out to me. I told him, of course, I told him to reach out to you. You know, let me know how it goes. Let me know if you have any questions. But honestly, you know, at this point, you know, David, for example, knows how to handle that better than I do and can teach me more about that. So, yeah. 

Evan Melick: So it sounds like part of the prerequisite to having this capability to coach into managing up is really having that trust built, right? And that goes back to that culture first mentality and organizational ethos.

Daniel Acuña: Yeah, you know 21 laws of leadership? It's my personal favorite leadership book, the law of buy in, right? You have to get them to buy in. So, and again, it starts with the interview process. How much respect is a team member going to have if they come in with an application and say, hey, are you guys hiring?

Actually, we are. Yeah. Can I see that? Yeah. You know, can you start tonight? Actually, I need to fill a shift tonight. They're already not taking the job seriously, right? And so, you know, we have our stability charts and we want to be overstaffed by two at all times, just in case somebody needs to leave either way, because they need to quit or we need to promote them to being a customer. you know, you never want to be behind the eight ball. If you're not overstaffed by two, you're understaffed. And, yeah, so it starts from the jump and just continues on.

Evan Melick: Sort of like the old, if you're not early, you're late sort of thing.

I like it. So, we do like to end every one of these conversations by asking a little bit of a personal question. And hopefully this is a little fun. So, if you could design your own custom bumper sticker, what would it say and why?

Daniel Acuña: That's a good one. Well, maybe I should, maybe I should have it say mentor collector now, since that phrase was so, that phrase resonated so well today, and honestly, that's been the biggest, key to my success. It really has been. I didn't go to school. For business, I wanted to. The degree took too long, though there was a waiting list for classes.

It was a six year degree at my school, so I did communication studies. I just wanted to get out of it quickly, so I've just been a sponge my whole life. So I would say mentor collector. If it was something different, it would be, if it wasn't work related, it would probably be rad dad. Rad dad, because, I'm trying to be, that's always my goal.

So not that I've arrived in that regard, but, being a dad is probably my favorite thing. And, my younger two kids are eleven and nine. And so, it's awesome that I am a franchisee. I get to make my own hours. So I wake up early part of the 5 a.m. club, but then I can wrap up by three o'clock on days that there's practices and games I can go coach. And so I, you know, because I had my 23 year old when I was younger and I was working in entertainment, I missed all of his sporting events because I was punching the clock. I was, which was great. but I missed him. So this time around, I'm not missing anything. So I'm always trying to be the rad dad.

And it's a good, I have it. It was, I have it as a sticker on, on, on my little journal. And it's a good reminder as I wake up and if I'm not in a bad mood or if the kids aren't being great, like, hey, what's my goal? What's my purpose here? So mentor collector or rad dad?

Evan Melick: So it sounds like both of those really align with what you have tried to embody within your organization, within all of your multiple stores across the U.S. for sure. Highlighting that necessity of creating those goals, right? And I think that is such a compelling story. Daniel, it was really, really great to be able to talk with you today and truly appreciate your willingness to, to speak with us.

And I think I, for one, learned a lot. Not only do I have a lot of books to read at this point, but I have to really hone my mentor collector skills. 

Daniel Acuña: All right. Good. It was such a pleasure too. I definitely need to cut down my bio. Thank you for teaching me that by having to sit there and listen to that essay, but it was awesome. Obviously, as you can tell, I'm really passionate about what we do and about Jersey Mikes and I could talk leadership and talk this up all day long.

So thank you so much for having me on and thinking of me and it was a blast.

Ryan Kramer: Thanks a lot, Daniel.