Tech + Mortar Episode 011, January 30, 2019
Chris Dull, Global Franchise Group
Talk Highlights
- The importance of understanding how policy and procedures that are put in place from
the office are executable in the field. How Chris spent time working in the store long after being an executive. - Is the customer always right?
- Don’t react to what is happening from a technology standpoint today, but where you see it tomorrow. Lessons he learned and what he might have done differently.
Speaker Bio
Chris Dull understands what it takes to build successful brands. After graduating from Baylor, Chris took a position with Marble Slab Creamery, Inc. and rose through the management ranks. In 2007, as Executive Vice President, he led the brand through a go-public sale to NexCen Brands for $21 million. Chris went on to become President of NexCen Franchise Management.
In 2010, NexCen was acquired by Global Franchise Group, and Chris set his sights on maximizing the potential of the company’s most promising concepts in the QSR space.
Today, Global Franchise Group has a portfolio of six brands – Great American Cookies®, Marble Slab Creamery/MaggieMoo’s®, Pretzelmaker®, Hot Dog on a Stick®, and Round Table Pizza®.
Chris is credited with vertically integrating the company’s manufacturing business. Plus adding a corporate store vertical to the GFG business with the 2014 acquisition of Hot Dog on a Stick® (which he led out of bankruptcy). As well as the acquisition of Round Table Pizza® in 2017.
Most recently, Chris championed the successful sale of Global Franchise Group from Levine Leichtman Capital Partners to Lion Capital LLP and Serruya Private Equity.
Chris’ has led the organization to $1 billion in system-wide sales and more than 1,500 stores worldwide. He understands all aspects of franchising and is an expert in maximizing value.
Chris is an avid family man, triathlon, and true leader!
Show Notes
- 1:26- How Chris went from going to Baylor University, to being a Marble Slab employee, to running on of the most successful businesses in the world
- 6:08- What was he wrong about?
- 8:17- Individuals that made a big impact on Chris
- 11:33- Some things that he looks at when he visits locations that others are not
- 14:27- Best experience in retail today?
- 16:07- Technology at your disposal
- 17:54- Technology advice. Where he wished he embraced technology more?
- 19:33- Where Chris sees technology heading
- 21:35- EVERY decision a brand makes should start with a conversation with the customer
- 22:45- The age old question. Is the customer always right?
- 23:31- Outsourcing or insourcing?
- 25:02- Rapid fire questions
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