Our operating philosophy

People first, profits will follow…and scrutinize every line in the P&L

Through all of this, our belief that People Matter has been pulled forward from our long family legacy and reinforced by those who know our industry the best. We are passionate that this is true and a core guiding belief for how we operate.  In addition, we are deeply excited about outcomes. We love earning the highest marks. We love out-performing. It fuels us and excites our team.

We love refining a reliable and winning approach. We are constant learners and open to the ideas of others. While our business life is anchored in a long family tradition of extraordinary success, we are constantly looking ahead and adapting to the next best practices to ensure that we can continue to win today and tomorrow.

Our approach to leadership and management is a great example of this philosophy in practice. In 2011 as we were onboarding an Operations Leader, we learned about the power of delegation combined with clear accountability over micromanagement. Developing systems, processes, clearly articulated goals and then holding our teammates accountable for achieving those goals works so much better for all of us, than any one of us trying to micromanage another.

We have applied this lesson not only to how we onboard our teammates, including office staff, but also how we approach working with a new brand. We focus on learning every aspect of operations first, so we can establish great systems and processes. Once that is done, we build a “playbook” that includes clearly stated desired outcomes and goals. These playbooks provide the direction for every aspect of the business – from store level operations to HR and accounting – and ensures that we have an appropriate formula for success for each unique brand.