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The Big Biscuit lovingly bakes more than 2 million biscuits every year — and counting. The Big Biscuit President Chad Offerdahl joins us on the podcast to talk about their 27 locations in 4 states, and the very intentional culture he’s built to drive success well into the future. In our marketing tip, we challenge you to take the “I” out of judging your creative.
Transcript:
Jeff Randolph:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast. I’m Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG Advertising and Marketing. We’re going to talk about marketing and we’re also here to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing news and advice that business owners can use to keep moving forward. And this week we sit down with Chad Offerdahl. He’s the president of The Big Biscuit. But first, we’ve got another small business marketing tip to talk about. For today’s marketing tip, let’s take a look at judging creative work. We’re presented with some kind of creative work from our marketing department or our agency.
Graphic design is in the eye of the beholder. A lot of people judge good graphic design by whether they like the look or not. As a result, judging creative work gets filled with a lot of I statements. “I like that logo. I don’t like blue.” But will it be attractive to your customers? Good agencies and good designers leave the ego at the door. They let your brand voice lead the way. Every color, texture, shape, font and image plays a part in conveying your brand message. Good designers and good agencies lean into that. Creativity is very collaborative. It’s a collaborative process. And yes, there are best practices that good designers will follow to make good creative work.
But when reviewing that creative, take the I out of it. Challenge yourself not to say, “I don’t like blue.” Instead, focus on questions like, “Will my customers like this? Will my customers see my brand voice come through in this?” Then you can judge good graphic design and you’ll be happy because it’s good strategic graphic design for your brand. And that’s the marketing tip for today. Welcome back to the podcast. I’m sitting down with Chad Offerdahl. He is president of The Big Biscuit. Chad, welcome to the show.
Chad Offerdahl:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited.
Jeff Randolph:
Absolutely. Let’s get into The Big Biscuit. You have 27 Big Biscuit locations in four states and over 2 million biscuits baked per year, which is an accomplishment. Give us the origin story of The Big Biscuit.
Chad Offerdahl:
It’s been a wild ride. When you say it like that and you put those stats out there, it’s still kind of crazy to think. But yeah, we’ve been at this for a while now. We’ve been doing Big Biscuit for about 14 years.
Big Biscuit originally got its start in Independence, Missouri right here in Kansas City, and it’s in an old farmhouse. For those of you that have eaten there, you know what I’m talking about. You can tell it’s an original, and operated there for about five years. And then the founder, his name was Dan, opened up a second location in Blue Springs five years later and operated that for quite a while. And then just by chance, ended up eating in his restaurants around 2010 and just thought, “Man, this is awesome. People are really enjoying this. The food is good, it’s got great bones. We need to learn more.” So, asked to meet with Dan and just find out, “What are your plans with this thing?” And he basically said, “Look, I don’t have any plans for Big Biscuit. I’m happy with these two.” So we got into conversations with him and said, “Hey, we think this has some bones. We want to take this somewhere.”
And so long story short, we made a deal with him and bought the company lock stock & barrel and said, “Okay, we’re going to do this thing.”
Jeff Randolph:
It’s happening. It’s happening now.
Chad Offerdahl:
“You know, we’re going to do this.” So we about a year later, opened up the next location in Shawnee, Kansas. Shawnee, Mission Parkway, and started refining the brand. Really just focused on optimizing our procedures, our policies, doing a bit of menu refinement, decor, physical plant, all that kind of stuff. And from there we just very deliberately and systematically started growing the brand one store a year for a while. And then once we got a little more comfortable with that and felt like we had a better grasp, maybe two stores a year. And I’m excited to say that this year so far we’ve opened four locations and we think we’re going to get at least another one or two this year.
Jeff Randolph:
Right, you’ve moved into Arkansas as well?
Chad Offerdahl:
Our first Arkansas location will be opening later this year.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s right. Man, this is exciting. I mean, I’ll throw out that Independence Big Biscuit was my hometown Big Biscuit. I’ve been there. Oh, I’ve been there.
Chad Offerdahl:
So you know. I mean, you’ve probably eaten in the sun room and seen all old decor.
Jeff Randolph:
100%. You get to enjoy all of the texture on the walls and everything, all of that.
Chad Offerdahl:
Yeah, we love it. It’s like you can still go visit the original McDonalds.
Jeff Randolph:
Yes, it does feel like that.
Chad Offerdahl:
Yeah, we’re proud of that location. We’re going to keep it as is because that’s where we started.
Jeff Randolph:
It’s good, it’s good. Well, and you had franchising on your agenda from day one of acquisition. What’s the most challenging part about deciding to franchise a great restaurant concept? Because you walked in and you had a great concept already. When you start thinking about franchising, what are those challenges?
Chad Offerdahl:
Oh man, where do I start? Just the quick answer is it’s a completely different business, and it was very humbling to get into franchising. We did have that vision from day one of what we want to use franchising as a part of our growth strategy. But until you get into it, franchising, being a franchisor for the first time, like I said, it’s very humbling. You may understand your business. We understood Big Biscuit business and restaurant business and hospitality, but franchising is a completely different business. Your product is no longer service or food or things like that. Your product is now the business itself, and the learning curve was massive. I mean hell, I’m still learning a lot about it day by day even with existing franchisees and we’re growing. It’s a fun business. I love it. But it definitely on the outset was very humbling to say, “Okay, I got to go back to school here and learn a new business.”
Jeff Randolph:
Right. And how much of that new business is really the consistency portion? Because if I walk into a Big Biscuit in one state, I want to know what to expect in another. I don’t want to go, “Oh wow, that’s an entirely different kind of cuisine.”
Chad Offerdahl:
Well if you don’t have consistency, you don’t have a franchise.
Jeff Randolph:
You don’t have a franchise.
Chad Offerdahl:
It’s like you can go to any McDonald’s in the world and get the same Big Mac, right? If you don’t have consistency, you don’t have a franchise or at least one worth investing. It’s you want to be able to go anywhere and get the same Jim’s Platter at any Big Biscuit you visit regardless of the state. And that creates simplicity not only for our team and people that are running our restaurants, but it creates that reliability and comfort for our guest.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, absolutely. I want to talk about the corporate culture even still because it’s the other part that goes along with the franchise. It’s very intentional. I’m reading into it from the outside, but I’m seeing everything from being intentional about who you want as a franchisor partner, so people who understand being a brand ambassador and having that kind of conservative capital structure to Big Biscuit headquarters book club where you bond as a company while you’re diving into management and growth and even personal relationship kind of issues. How do you describe the importance of that culture and that very intentional building of that culture?
Chad Offerdahl:
Well, I think it’s everything. You hear so many companies or most companies these days talking about their culture, right?
Jeff Randolph:
It’s a throwaway.
Chad Offerdahl:
It’s very in, right? And the part that I struggle with when I hear that is a lot or many people say it, but not many deliver on it. And that makes it hard for our company. And I recognize I’m biased, but we really do have an incredible culture and group of people. And when we go and we talk about it, I know that it’s not met with a full understanding because so many people claim that.
But the fact is culture, whether it’s intentional or not, your company has a culture, right? Whether the one you intend or if you don’t intend on a culture, you still have one. And that’s where you see companies that have very poor cultures. But as far as the breakdown of what makes a great culture, it’s treat people the way you want to be treated, the golden rule. I mean I don’t want to oversimplify it, but culture is very simple. If you just treat people well and give them latitude to make mistakes, I mean, that’s one of the biggest things that I push with our people all the time is this is a safe space. We’re on the same team. We’re trying to accomplish the same objectives.
If you’re going to make a mistake, make it quickly, learn from it, move on. It’s how many of us have worked in companies where you are terrified to make a mistake because of whatever retribution or punishment or outcasting you’re going to get from that. We don’t have time or space for that in our company. We have too much we’re trying to accomplish. We’re growing too quickly, and we’re just capable of so much more. And we recognize that we’re human. You look at companies, companies are simply a gathering of humans trying to accomplish the same thing. So we’re going to make mistakes. Let’s just make them quick and move on.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. There are a lot of marketing cases in innovation where if you feel too afraid to innovate because of whatever consequence, because you’re not going to be treated like you are human and you’re afraid of getting fired, well, you don’t innovate. You don’t push boundaries. You don’t try. You don’t open up to new opportunities. So, amazing stuff that you’re doing in the culture.
Chad Offerdahl:
Yeah, it’s one of the most important things that I focus on is just making our company not only a place people want to visit and frequent, but a place that people want to work at and interact with. And when you have that high level of comfort and you build these bonds inside the company, it’s key. I mean, especially in the restaurant industry, but any company, adaptability is vital to your survival. I mean, the restaurant industry just went through the worst event that has arguably ever been experienced by the restaurant industry, and we saw tremendous success. We opened three restaurants in the first 12 months of Covid-
Jeff Randolph:
Of 2020.
Chad Offerdahl:
… and we’re proud of that. And I say it is solely because we had a team that was brought in. I mean, I’m not going to say it was easy because it was not easy. But we had a team that just is so brought in, they said, “All right, we got to figure this out. What do we need to do?” We came together, we fought through it, and we kept going. And that’s what separated us from a lot of our competition and other companies is that we had the team, we had the bonds, we had the trust. And that means everything.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, absolutely. If you’re looking back and you’re looking at first year entrepreneur you, what advice would you give to that guy?
Chad Offerdahl:
Oh, so much.
Jeff Randolph:
I’ve learned so much. I’ve learned so much.
Chad Offerdahl:
You look back on it and go, “Man, I don’t even know how we did it.” I would say probably the first thing that comes to mind is controlling your time. Especially early on in a business, you can be pulled a million different directions. The number of hats you’re wearing is massive.
Jeff Randolph:
Significant, yeah.
Chad Offerdahl:
So you’ve got to be very intentional about your time. If I was talking to myself, it would be intentional about your time, control your calendar or your calendar will control you, and it’s okay to say no to things. You’ve got to prioritize. I’m a big Jocko guy. He talks about prioritize and execute. It’s vital, especially when you’re in a leadership role or you own a business or whatever it is, you’ve got to prioritize how your time is being spent. Focus on the right things and then execute. And I know that’s something I could have used early on is you know what, you’ve got to say no to some opportunities and you’ve got to control your time. Plan in advance and make it meaningful because there’s too many things we’ve got to do.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, 100%. Yeah.
Chad Offerdahl:
Probably another thing would be knowing your numbers. And this is a Tilman Fertitta quote, if you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business. And that’s definitely something early on I know I didn’t focus on enough. It was I got to take care of the guest, I got to make sure there’s food in the building, everything’s clean. All the things that have to be done, but didn’t focus enough on knowing the numbers to better understand the business. And so that would be an important one I would advise myself on is you’ve got to know it. You’ve got to understand it so that you can make better decisions, be more adaptable, and see around the corner.
Jeff Randolph:
And so you’ve given that advice to your first year entrepreneur self. Are you in a good place with those things now? Do you feel like, “I’ve got that under control.” Or do you still struggle with that and it’s still something you continually work on?
Chad Offerdahl:
Well, I don’t ever feel like I’ve arrived at a destination. I’m very much a it’s not a destination, it’s a journey kind of person. I definitely have a very strong understanding of the business now with the numbers, but I always try to learn more every day. And I spend a lot of time even getting the advice from some of my higher employees, my executives of, “Help me with some metrics that you’re seeing.” And seeking advice constantly. But there can be analysis paralysis of where you can just take it too far.
I don’t necessarily need to know how many forks are used in a given restaurant on a given day. That’s not going to help make the business better. But there’s a lot of good data out there that will help us make better decisions, and it’s important that we’re watching it. Not only just from a financial perspective, but also what our guests are saying, what they’re wanting, how our employees are feeling about the company. There’s a lot of important data out there that if we don’t pay attention to it, it’s happening whether or not we see it. So we might as well be aware of it so we can take action on it.
Jeff Randolph:
Gotcha. Great, solid answer. That’s good advice to give to yourself and come back.
Chad Offerdahl:
Thank you.
Jeff Randolph:
I think it’s time for the lightning round. Are you ready to go into the lightning round?
Chad Offerdahl:
Oh boy, I’m nervous. All right.
Jeff Randolph:
Nothing to it, nothing to it.
Chad Offerdahl:
Let’s go.
Jeff Randolph:
There are no rules in the lightning round. If I hand you a Big Biscuit menu this morning, what’s your order going to be?
Chad Offerdahl:
Oh, it’d probably have to be a ranchero. It’s got our steak on it. It’s an omelet with potatoes, and I would probably order it instead of with toast, with fruit.
Jeff Randolph:
With fruit? Well, because you’re on a journey today. We’re trying to stay fit.
Chad Offerdahl:
Clean it up a little bit, yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s right, just a little bit. There’s so many ways you can make good choices there. Early in your career, you were also a cook. That’s 100% a skill with a difficulty level that most people don’t appreciate. Are there ways that you’d say that that experience behind the line kind of helps you with the entrepreneur work that you do today?
Chad Offerdahl:
Undoubtedly. Not only just working as a cook in The Big Biscuit so that it allows me to better run this business, understanding it all the way through. But yeah. I mean, that’s a tough job. I mean, you’re working over a hot grill all day, spilling things on yourself. And if you can work through difficult times like that, it hardens you and makes you more resilient for sure.
Jeff Randolph:
Right. You’re focused on quality, you’re working at pace. Do you get that sense of creativity and accomplishment out of cooking anything today?
Chad Offerdahl:
Well, I do love to cook, so I would say yes. Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely a creative outlet. One of my favorite things we do right now is when it comes to menu development. I don’t know when this is going to air, but we’re pretty close to rolling out a very fun new beverage menu.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, exciting.
Chad Offerdahl:
So that’ll be out here pretty soon. But we’re very excited about trying new things and getting feedback from our guests and seeing how we can develop and curate a menu that excites people. I mean, it’s one of my favorite things I do.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. I feel like I have to cook everything when I get home because that is my creative outlet. That’s the opportunity for me to do exactly what you’re saying. Was there a teacher or coach in your past that gave you some advice or taught some intangible lesson that you keep with you today?
Chad Offerdahl:
There is one I can think of. One of my elementary school teachers. Actually fifth grade, Ms. Putnam was her name.
Jeff Randolph:
See, I like the shout out. Shout out to Ms. Putnam.
Chad Offerdahl:
I will never forget I was very unorganized with pretty much everything in my life whether it was school or sports or anything like that. And she sat me down one day. I was young so I don’t know clearly, but I don’t know if it was out of frustration or just out of like, “I’m going to help this kid.” But she took the time to devote to giving me tools on how to better be organized with not only my schoolwork and my time and everything, but just how I prioritize things in my personal life and whatnot of what I’m doing in the mornings. And for some reason, that just sticks with me. And it was a long time ago. I mean, it was fifth grade elementary school. But I remember it to this day that it was just a transformative thing for me of you know how important it is to be intentional with how I use my time and how I organize and things like that.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, spectacular lesson. Thanks Ms. Putnam, appreciate you. You’re a second generation entrepreneur and restaurateur. Your dad was in a fairly large Sonic franchise with 36 or 37 locations. So you had a role model for both restaurant management and entrepreneurship. What impact did that have on your mindset going into this adventure?
Chad Offerdahl:
Watching him do the Sonic business growing up, I was always so fascinated. And I knew probably going into high school about that time, I want to do the restaurant business. I love the idea of taking care of people and getting to be a part of a big team, working hard to provide a great service. And he was able to teach me so much, and he still teaches me a lot to this day. I mean, we learned a lot from each other. But it was great to see what the potential was for that business, but also the hard work that goes in behind it. A lot of people like to romanticize specifically the restaurant business. I mean, how many times have we heard of, “I want to start a restaurant.”
Like yeah, it’s fun. I won’t lie. The restaurant business is fun, but it’s not easy. And having that role model was great because it gave a lot of perspective of knowing, “Okay, I understand what I’m biting off here.” And that’s why I briefly went to MU for business and hotel management. I was committed like, “This is what I’m going to do.” And so I’m very grateful that I had him as a role model to see that.
Jeff Randolph:
And how about as you turn that mirror around and look at your own children, do you hope that they become a own a restaurant, or become an entrepreneur or none of those things?
Chad Offerdahl:
I would love if one of my children took interest in the business. If they don’t, I’m not going to be heartbroken. But I would love to be able to share that. And if nothing else, even if they don’t take an interest in the business, I’d love for them to learn more and know about it just to understand what their dad did before they were around or when they were very young children just to get an idea of how things work and what it takes to accomplish big things.
Jeff Randolph:
They can watch you manage your calendar and say no appropriately.
Chad Offerdahl:
Oh, you know they’re going to get calendar management schooling for me.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s appropriate. That’s a great life skill. Good foundational stuff. How do you celebrate a big win, whether that’s a new franchise opening or something personal, a family achievement, some goal that you’ve hit. How do you celebrate that?
Chad Offerdahl:
We do a number of different things. Specifically when we open a franchise location, something we’ve started doing now is when we’re on site opening the store, the night before we’re going to do our grand opening I take the team out and we get a big sushi dinner.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, nice.
Chad Offerdahl:
It happened by accident. We started that probably five or six stores ago now. We just so happened the night before, “Hey, let’s go out and get some dinner and celebrate, get some sushi.” And it kind of just stuck.
Jeff Randolph:
Now it’s a thing.
Chad Offerdahl:
Oh yeah. Now it’s like, “We cannot miss. It’s sushi before the grand opening day.” And other things we’ll do, like with our office crew here in Kansas City or our Kansas City based restaurants of when we have wins, we celebrate those publicly. If someone achieves an anniversary or we just recently celebrated a retirement, someone who’s been with us for 15 years, we get together and we take the time to have non-work-related just celebration. Whether that’s going out to eat or we go to a Royals game or we love doing Chicken N Pickle, shout out to them. I mean, we do a lot of different things. I mean, that’s part of culture. I mean, it’d be so easy just to glaze over that and say, “Man, we’re busy.” But you got to take the time. I mean, we focus so much in our business on what we can be doing better and what’s not going perfect, you’ve got to slow down sometimes and focus on the wins so that you don’t just get so bogged down with all of the opportunities.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, of the opportunities. And what a great way to phrase it too. Instead of saying all of the challenges that I faced, it’s the opportunities. Well done. So nice to hear about the culture and it’s very intentional. I love what you guys are doing. You’ve survived the lightning round. That’s it.
Chad Offerdahl:
Oh, thank you.
Jeff Randolph:
Consider this a big win you can celebrate with a pre-meal sushi. So tell people where they can find you, whether that’s franchise information or you personally, or where they can find a menu. Where do you want people to go to learn more?
Chad Offerdahl:
Yeah, so anybody who wants to learn more about Big Biscuit or visit one of our restaurants, bigbiscuit.com. We’ve got 17 locations here in Kansas City, and we’re starting to grow our footprint down in Oklahoma and soon Arkansas. But then for more information on me, I’m on LinkedIn, Chad Offerdahl. You’ll find me. I’m pretty sure The Big Biscuit logo is right behind my head.
Jeff Randolph:
Probably, yep.
Chad Offerdahl:
And I think that’s it.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s it. Nice. Nicely done. Chad Offerdahl, president at Big Biscuit. Thanks for being with us today.
Chad Offerdahl:
Thank you. I really enjoyed it.
Jeff Randolph:
And that is our show thanks to our guest, Chad Offerdahl from The Big Biscuit. And thank you for listening to the Small Business Miracles podcast. Remember to subscribe. Leave us a five star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website at eagadv.com if you have any thoughts. Until then, we’ll be out here helping entrepreneurs with another Small Business Miracle.