The Retail Journey
Welcome to the Retail Journey where we will cover important topics, interview industry stakeholders, and address emerging trends as we journey through our mission of helping our listeners thrive in retail. Your hosts for this show are CEO James Harris and CGO Charles Greathouse.
The Retail Journey
Serving More Than Bagels: The Fords’ Mission-Driven Journey
Ever wonder what happens when purpose drives a business more than profit? In this captivating conversation, Bill and Sheila Ford, founders of Ozark Mountain Bagel Company, reveal how a chance question – "Hey, you want to open a bagel shop?" – transformed their lives and the Northwest Arkansas food scene.
The Fords share their remarkable journey from careers in oil refining and education to becoming beloved bagel entrepreneurs. After running a successful bagel shop in Oklahoma for eight years, they relocated to Northwest Arkansas in 2017, seeking a new adventure where they could continue their mission of "spreading joy, love, and cream cheese." What they discovered was a business community unlike any they'd experienced – collaborative rather than competitive, where even potential rivals reached out to offer help.
At the heart of their story is a leadership philosophy that treats employees as partners rather than subordinates. With roughly 75% of their workforce being teenagers in their first jobs, Bill and Sheila focus on developing future leaders, challenging them to think beyond themselves and find purpose in their work. This approach has created a culture where employees feel valued and customers experience genuine warmth with every visit.
The Fords' business acumen shines through as they discuss their growth from a single location to six stores across Northwest Arkansas, including one in Walmart's new food hall. Their expansion strategy balances opportunity with purpose – they're developing a franchise model but emphasize finding the right people who align with their values rather than growing for growth's sake.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner, or simply someone who appreciates authentic leadership, this conversation offers valuable insights about building a business with heart. Subscribe now to hear more inspiring stories from local entrepreneurs who are shaping Northwest Arkansas and beyond.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Retail Journey podcast. I'm one of your hosts, charles Greathouse.
Speaker 2:And I am James Harris, and today we're talking to Bill and Sheila Ford. Bill and Sheila are the founders of the Ozark Mountain Bagel Company, located in towns all throughout Northwest Arkansas, and I can personally vouch for the bagels because I had my weekly dose yesterday and it's amazing. Welcome to the retail journey.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you for having us, it's exciting.
Speaker 1:Thanks for traveling all this way.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's a beautiful day From your central kitchen.
Speaker 4:You're warming me out. Yeah we are.
Speaker 2:For those that aren't aware of our location, we're right next door to each other and how we kind of got to know each other how I at least got to know Bill, Tell us a little bit of your story. We talk a lot about retail here, but we also talk about Northwest Arkansas. Everybody loves a good founder story. Wherever you want to start, let's dig in.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, james, we grew up in north central Oklahoma. I was a horrible, horrible college student I can relate and basically went to college one year. My parents insisted they they had raised themselves kind of out of poverty by by education, and so they insisted I go. And so I had to go and prove that I shouldn't be there, and which I did well I did very well.
Speaker 1:well, I bet you could succeed in that. That's great.
Speaker 3:But this was early 80s in Stillwater, oklahoma, and there was a bagel shop there and it was guys from Brooklyn. You could go in and you'd have this magnificent bagel but you'd have, you know, just the banter back and forth. They, you know some good East Coast people that would just snap at you and I love that. And so we had children, really young, and so I went to work, but kind of always had a dream that I'd like to do something that interacted, you know, with the community.
Speaker 3:And so I worked in an oil and gas refinery for 30 years and somewhere maybe in Oklahoma, yes, north central Oklahoma and somewhere Gosh, I've been doing the oil gas for 20 years. Been doing the oil gas for 20 years and just out of the blue, someone speaking to Sheila said hey, would you guys like to open a bagel shop.
Speaker 1:How'd you know Exactly that sounds?
Speaker 3:a little providential Well. They had been in Stillwater around the same time. She was a grade school principal and her husband worked in the same time. She was a grade school principal and her husband worked in the refinery and she actually, you know, kind of bridged the idea to Sheila and you can kind of expand on that.
Speaker 4:Well, so I was a teacher and Shelly was her name, my principal good friend, and we were just out on a run and she's like hey, you want to open a bagel shop with me, principal good friend. And we were just out on a run and she's like hey, you want to open a bagel shop with me and I said no, not at all.
Speaker 4:She said no, really, there's this new bagel shop in Oklahoma City by my parents and I want to talk to them about bringing bagels back to Stillwater, because the bagel shop that he's speaking of when we were in college was no longer there. It was New York Bagel and they had sold out and so there was no bagel shop in Stillwater. So I said, well, when we get back to the house, ask Bill. He's always wanted he's talked about open restaurant before just you know, wanted to do something in the service industry. So I said ask him, you know. And so when we got back, he had just gotten up off of working nights at the refinery and we walked in and she's like, hey, you want to open a bagel shop with me. And he goes like, yeah, sure, and she's like, no, really, there's this new bagel shop, blah, blah. And he's like, no, I'd love to. She's like, no, I'm serious, I want to go talk to these guys. And it's like all of them, what don't you understand about?
Speaker 3:yes, that's three yeses.
Speaker 1:When you get the yes, stop talking, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:They called them and, I think, went down the next day and those guys were like well, you come work for a week, let's see if this is something you really want to do. So Bill and Shelly went down there and worked a week, did literally every part of the bagel business, stayed up all night, learned how to bake bagels, and that was, I think, in February. And in August we opened Old School Bagel in Stillwater, oklahoma, so that was in 2009. So, that was our first bageling, and then we've bageled ever since then.
Speaker 3:We had it open in 2009 and then sold it in 2017. And I was kind of on the end of my 30 years in the refinery and we were thinking, gosh, what do we want to do?
Speaker 4:What do we want to do? We'd always lived in north central oklahoma and just thought we wanted to move somewhere.
Speaker 3:New start, a new adventure in our lives as we were retiring and I still have buddies that will text me from the refinery and say so, you're still working a lot more hours for a whole lot less money. Yes, yes, I am so we had looked.
Speaker 4:I mean we had both written down like places we thought would be cool. We love to run trails and so we were like looking in Oregon, north Carolina, and he did Arkansas Traveler, which is a 100-mile race down Around Little Rock, yeah, and met some people from here and that was.
Speaker 1:It's a race like in a car.
Speaker 4:No, no, that's running 100 miles. Yeah, it's running 100 feet, yeah.
Speaker 1:Golly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah Again. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Speaker 1:Well, you know how to work. Yeah, I do that.
Speaker 3:I do miles.
Speaker 4:Come on, that I do, yeah, but anyway, they, you know, we're talking about all the trails that were being built around here, and so we started coming over from stillwater over here and just fell in love with it. And we moved over in january of 2017 and thought, well, we already know how to do bagels, we'll just do bagels again.
Speaker 1:So we opened our first location may of 2017, here there wasn't much of a bagel presence here which we were really surprised by um, and it was the one off a rainbow curve yes, sir, right, yes I lived in cave springs when you guys opened yeah and so I was a frequent uh visitor at that stage nice I remember like a thing maybe you don't think about when you're opening a new place is like, uh, the new, new smells of the things oh right, right that you, you use. Um, I just remember that like, wow, I guess some got a lot of plastic totes here, don't you guys?
Speaker 2:Yes, like yeah, yeah, and they're all new yeah.
Speaker 1:But I remember that and it was a cool spot and you guys are doing a lot of things consistently. I feel like it's from a place of purpose. Is that assumption right? Is this wrong? What drives you to do all the things that you do?
Speaker 4:Well, we've always said mission over money and we've always had a mission and that is to serve people and love on people and bagels were kind of just the vehicle that let us do that. I love it. We're from Oklahoma. It's not like we had this passion for bagels and so that is like our driving force. Yeah, and of course we want to have good bagels. We want to have I mean, you got to have good food too, but I got to feel loved.
Speaker 1:It's your bagels, right.
Speaker 4:Terrible. Good bagels we want to have.
Speaker 1:I mean, you got to have good food too, but you're not gonna feel loved if your bagels right, they're even mediocre. Great time it was horrible, yeah, yeah they sure were nice but, you know if you've been to ozark mountain bagel, if you're in northwest arkansas, and you've been there, I don't think it.
Speaker 2:Uh, that's held uh quite consistently yeah, I've been in the your original one maybe only two or three times. It wasn't near where I lived or worked, but since moving in here like I said, I'm a weekly. I'm a type 1 diabetic. I probably shouldn't have more than one bagel a week.
Speaker 2:Gotcha but something I've noticed from the first visit to the last and all the ones in between. You're always met with a smile and a verbal hello how are you doing? And then after that there's some intangible Are you the guy next door or have you been in here before? There's a conversation thing that happens, which is nice. And then I notice on your napkins you always have like an inspirational quote of some sort, and I love those things.
Speaker 2:Oh, I do too when I was a lot younger, I would scour. You know, different people that I knew were like gk chesterton, cs, lewis, winston churchill, ronald break all the different people that were really good at making one to three sentence things that stuck impactful, yeah, yeah. So what? What's your? What? What's your story there? Like, what do you what? What cause? That's a unique element that you all bring.
Speaker 3:You know I've always loved quotes and I've had some great mentors through through my career that also just had some, some things that they love to share. Had a gentleman that John Maxwell. He loved John Maxwell and John Maxwell had like the 19 rules of leadership and he was just passionate about sowing into other people and so that kind of stirred my love of quotes and they've just always meant something to me and I thought, you know, if we can just put something out there, then it just, you know, can kind of somebody slow down and just Makes you think.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She contemplated a little bit I like Yogi Berra too.
Speaker 3:Well, some of his are so incredibly funny that they're they're brilliant. They're brilliant. You know so, but uh, uh. So we started collecting quotes and try to change them out. We have customers that will give us suggestions and love that as well. When you know for quotes.
Speaker 2:What are some other elements that you all have intentionally incorporated that are? This is just kind of part of who we are, our ethos, Got any ideas.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, we've been so fortunate to have amazing employees and we try to tell them they don't work for us, they work with us. And then try to translate any good review we have, we take it to them and say this is about you.
Speaker 4:You're making a difference, right, and I would say something else, because he actually helped lead leadership training for philip 66, the oil and gas company he worked for, and it's amazing, the leadership skills that he used and taught in the refinery translates to anything, and so it's been wonderful because we, you know, probably 75% of our workforce, their first job 16, you know, even 15 year olds, and just the leadership qualities that he's been able to impart, you know, to them.
Speaker 2:And that's a great experience for them. You rarely get that in your first job, your first five jobs maybe.
Speaker 4:Right, and we know they're not going to bagel forever. Obviously, you know this is a short term job, but it's amazing how many of the parents come back to us and, just, you know, say yes and how. I mean it is stuff that will translate no matter what they do. So and I feel like that's, you know, has always been part of our mission as well. You know, what can we do um help grow these young kids?
Speaker 3:you know you know one thing, um, for us, just all of this is eventually rust and dust. Yeah, it really doesn't matter, it's the relationships that matter. And again, we've been so fortunate with our employees and one of our first young men amazing, amazing. He was an all-state football player at Bentonville, like second or third in his class, and we told him don't care that you have these great scholarships to go away to school. You got to find your replacement before you can go. And he really set the standard of taking it really seriously. And so we challenge all of our kids. You know, think beyond you. Who could we grow? Who could you see could grow into this? And so it's been really fun.
Speaker 4:I love that.
Speaker 3:And the kids are amazing.
Speaker 2:They're amazing. You made the comment about relationships and I'm just in my mid-40s, but it feels like when I was a lot younger it was the things I wanted to do, right, the things I wanted to achieve. And the older I get, it's I want about 10 people and then I want to. You know, that's my core, that's the thing that I feed into them, they feed into me, and then it's those sometimes random even relationships that you have with the person that gives you coffee or whatever, that you can be some kind of a light.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and that that when it when I've started trying to think more about that life is about that versus the things I'm doing or the things I have to do, the obligations kind of makes the obligation stuff a lot more fun and easy to do.
Speaker 3:It does, it absolutely does. And our wifi password is do, does, it absolutely does. And our Wi-Fi password is do today. Well, yeah, just because you know, if you go squandering away today and tomorrow, you just squander away your life. Just try to make every day spectacular in one way or another. And unfortunately, in the refinery I had a fatality under my watch that just so changed, kind of, my perspective Amazing, great young man that lost his life through no fault of his own. Somebody else made a mistake and in the end it was really truly a failure of leadership because we let a bad employee be a bad employee, hoping they would change, and it was a failure of leadership because we allowed it to happen So-.
Speaker 1:In that entrepreneurial journey, even especially restaurants, there's a lot of courage necessary to go from not starting to starting, let alone in a new town, which is pretty incredible. 2017, pretty big year. What would you have to share from that experience that you'd want, you know, our listeners to learn from?
Speaker 4:listeners to learn from. Well, one thing I can say and this may be a little unique to Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas, but having done the exact same thing in Stillwater first and we loved Stillwater Great college town you know it was fun. But coming here, the community has been so impactful in our lives and we didn't have that there. I mean they were supportive, it wasn't like that. But just the way I mean just people in the community, both our customers, but also just other business owners how much they I feel like have fed into us, has been amazing. People and businesses that you would think are competitive. You know those are your competitors. I mean, I feel like from the get-go they have just reached out. How can we help? How can you know?
Speaker 3:just it's so much more cooperative and it's very unique yeah, stillwater is a very transitional town, just by the nature of the college, um, so that was, that was certainly different, but but she's so right and um, you know, when covid happened, um, there were, we had so many people buy gift certificates that they never used, wow, and I mean it was amazing. It was amazing and I always say, I always feel like we receive more than we give, and just it's amazing. The people here and the community so it's amazing. The people here and the community, so it's been wonderful.
Speaker 2:So there are a lot of restaurants start and a lot of restaurants fail. Very high failure rate, right. What are some pieces of advice to some young or middle-aged or older entrepreneur that wants to start a restaurant retail? We didn't plan any of these questions so I'm putting you on the spot.
Speaker 3:You know, understand you can't do it by yourself. You have to have a good team. I think you have to listen to people's ideas about doing things, maybe a little different too, being adaptable. And I think a good leader is almost like a chameleon that can change a little bit. But I think it takes determination and hard work. But I think it takes determination and hard work. For me it takes an unbelievable partner that you know I'm a very. Let's leap out of the plane.
Speaker 1:We'll figure out the parachute on the way down. We heard the story for the first bagel shop, yeah, which was I don't know. No, if you want a yes I know a guy, yeah, go ask Phil.
Speaker 3:And. I'm back there packing the parachute, while I'm hearing him say yes, we're going, okay, it's going to be good.
Speaker 1:I love that. It's going to be good. That's your line. I say it's going to be great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I always say that somehow I break all these things and she makes beautiful stained glass windows out of them. Yeah, and surround yourself with people different than you. That's one thing I often love to do on a super busy Saturday to have those high school kids at the end of the day just say look around you, these are not necessarily who you'd hang out with at school. Around you, the, these are not necessarily who you'd hang out with at school, but coming together, you guys did so great. Yeah, and surround yourself with people different than you, you know, and so um, but it takes a lot of hard work and determination and adaptability, and finding a niche too is kind of key. That's key, yeah.
Speaker 2:There is a temptation, when you start something, especially when it's small, to think you want a bunch of you's. Right, right Because you know what has made you what you think you are right. So you're like if I could just clone and there isn't another you right. Everybody's different. The key is to make them the best they can be right and to give them what they need, and it might be something you didn't need. You needed something. That's right.
Speaker 2:Study the people around you, if you're a leader, to figure out what it is they need from you. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Absolutely To figure out what it is they need from you Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Can we talk about customers, absolutely Understanding customers? You know we're in retail. You're in retail. Retail's a little different, although I do hear there's some Walmart campus maybe stuff going on. I'm not sure if that's out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do have a location in the new food hall at the Walmart.
Speaker 1:Which is so exciting. Yes, that wasn't my original question. I got distracted by myself. I look forward to hopefully getting to visit that with some friends that are associates. But when you think about understanding customers, what advice would you have for folks? You know I worked at Walmart for a long time and you know the customer is king. You're who's number one? The customer always huh. Have you heard the cheer?
Speaker 3:You haven't heard the cheer.
Speaker 1:Probably, as we're walking through, maybe We'll work through. You're going to hear the cheer. Yeah, at eighth and plate, that's going to happen. But, you know customers what the focus is and, with the scale and size of Walmart, customer understanding tends to happen with data, Because you can't talk to 130 million people every week that are in a Walmart. You guys have the benefit of being pretty close, but no longer just one location, so there is this sort of understanding of customer that has to expand.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear your thoughts on early days feedback. How important was that and how has that evolved? The journey of Ozark Mountain Bagel.
Speaker 3:I kind of think from the word go. I mean, the customer is always right. We never really bought into that. Right is always right. So we would do all we could to try to please a customer. But we're not going to do wrong to make someone happy. And I've said that some people, if you gave them a bag of money, they'd complain it's too heavy. Some people just, you know, I don't know what it is, they're just not going to be happy. But we did. We got great feedback from people, suggestions, and you know, I think you have to have your core lane, but I think you can sway a little bit and change your course a little bit. And most of our customers have been wonderful, right, wonderful, wonderful. I can, you know, probably name on one hand people that are memorable in a poor way.
Speaker 1:Do you have their pictures up somewhere?
Speaker 2:I'd rather not say yeah, I did a lot of restaurant work and and you know, as a kid and then in college age and things like that, and I enjoyed it. I love the rush, I love the challenge of like making it happen and then feeling good about it when you when you got it done. But in in those environments, in any kind of retail, you're often meeting people at kind of a bad time. No, not all the time, but sometimes somebody's having just they're having the worst day and you're the intersection that they're angry at something else and now they're talking to you and that's a I mean.
Speaker 2:And for a teenage kid, it's one thing for an adult to kind of see that I've had those days, like you can relate a little bit for your teenage kids. How do you talk to them at all about that, about you know what may be a difficult or an angry customer.
Speaker 4:Well, we always say. You have to remember, though, the way you react to someone says more about you than it does about them. So if no matter how they're treating you, it's how you treat them back, and it's I mean, it's hard.
Speaker 3:We've all been in those situations, and we like to ask them okay, the next person that comes in, can you tell me what's going on in their world? And they're like well, no, you're exactly right, you just don't know. You just don't know, because everybody's struggling with something, everybody is battling something. They just may hide it very well, or not, or not?
Speaker 1:yeah or not?
Speaker 3:Another thing we try to really reinforce with them is on those Saturdays that the line goes all the way to the door. Never look at the back of the line. There is absolutely nothing you can do to help somebody that's at the back of the line. There is absolutely nothing you can do to help somebody that's at the back of the line. The back of the line will eventually be there. You just focus on that person in front of you, engage them well and that'll all come around and then try to turn it to life that sometimes in life we worry about things we can't control instead of worry about the things we can. And they're so receptive and again, it's just almost generational with the kids to sow into the next group, and Sheila came up with just some kind of leadership things where they'll will, as you know, elevate someone to a shift lead, give them some more responsibility. That they'll, you know, really work with the, with the newbies, and and really make a difference and teach them responsibility and and so it's been really fun.
Speaker 2:I mean my daughter works at a cookie shop and she recently got the supervised supervised, the shift supervisor, so we have to drop her car off to get some stuff done. I'm going to give her a ride and she goes. I got to be there 10 minutes early because I'm a shift lead and I want to be ready.
Speaker 3:Love it To the right person you know, brings them up to have a little bit more responsibility. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So how many locations do we now have To the right person? You know it brings them up to have a little bit more responsibility Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:So how many locations do we now have? Ozark Mountain, bagel.
Speaker 4:So four of our locations and then two that are license agreements basically franchise type. So that's the downtown Rogers one type. So that's the downtown Rogers one. And that one is owned by the Dobson family who, um, Nicole Dobson, was our manager at the square for four years, so I mean someone who totally buys into our mission. Um, and two of her kids worked for us as well. So, um, and then we have the Walmart location at eighth and plate. Yeah, Is it open? Now? It is open.
Speaker 1:And then we have the Walmart location at 8th and Plate yeah.
Speaker 4:Is it open?
Speaker 1:now it is open, and that's just for like it's behind the curtain, so to speak.
Speaker 3:It is, it is there will be a public-facing.
Speaker 1:There'll be several public-facing places to go.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, yes, yes. This is just right now part of the food hall. That's just employees.
Speaker 1:And then the other four are downtown Bentonville, technically Northwest, 11th Street. Right, we call North Walton, which is North Walton Boulevard, which is, you know, James said earlier, we're right next door. We're in the same building. That's how next door. So, our starting address is the same. Our suite number is different than your suite number, which is pretty great, if you really love carbs.
Speaker 4:We do get each other's mail and packages 100%. Got a package for you today.
Speaker 1:Thank you. You guys are the best, but yeah, so if you love carbs and analyzing data and helping brands grow at Walmart, you can work here at High Impact. Or if you really just prefer the bagels and just want to be near people who love data, you can work at Ozark Mountain Bagel. So those two, and then Rainbow Curve, which is the OG original location, and the fourth Johnson Mill. Johnson Mill. Okay, great yeah, there's a.
Speaker 4:Down by Pizzeria Ruby and Pale Mellow. Yes, okay, we're just at the other corner of the building.
Speaker 1:Awesome, a culinary destination.
Speaker 4:That's right, there you go, there you go, breakfast, lunch and whatever.
Speaker 1:All right. And then from a trend standpoint, because I love trends, what's the tried true faithful? This bagel, everybody loves this bagel. And what's the this one's? We're starting to see it take off.
Speaker 4:Well, the everything bagel is definitely the most popular bagel flavor, no doubt.
Speaker 3:How about that?
Speaker 4:Trending, I would say the rosemary salt, which is a new flavor for us.
Speaker 3:Introduced by Sheila yeah.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 3:All right, yes.
Speaker 1:And the consumption's more than Sheila Other people. You said trending, I wasn't sure if this is like.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I might be Sheila's trending. She's hoping that the trend got to sway Rosemary salt.
Speaker 1:Rosemary salt.
Speaker 2:I like that. I'll try it. You haven't tried it.
Speaker 4:You should try it.
Speaker 1:Have you tried our new gluten-free bagels? I have, yeah, I tried it the first round and probably the best gluten-free bagel that I've had which, if you don't get to have gluten, which is me right now bagels aren't really my primary destination Right. Understandable, but as a gluten-free bagel.
Speaker 3:That was the best one, for sure yeah, that's matt, uh, he's, I guess his. Is it his daughter? That's gluten-free yes okay, yep, and so she. She's become a big fan of the gluten-free bagels, so I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah I remember he walked by the other day carrying a bag. So Matt's our chief operating officer here and as neighbors do. I think he got a whole bag of those. That's right, that's right, which is awesome. Yeah, I guess when you run you know you got to have some good source of carbs, and he's got some runners in his family.
Speaker 3:Nice, nice, nice.
Speaker 1:And you do a little running.
Speaker 3:I do, I do. I'd like to get back to much more of it, but business takes a little time.
Speaker 4:3 am. Wake-up call doesn't allow much running in the morning.
Speaker 1:Yes, is it night running? When does it transition from night to morning?
Speaker 3:I don't know, sometimes my watch says good evening instead of good morning. When we get up yeah, good evening. I worked rotating shift work for 28 years, so I switched days to nights. So I've always kind of a strange bird.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite things in business is vision. I love to think about the future and I like to kind of have an idea of where we're going and kind of where I'd like to land. And you may not be able or want to talk about it, but what's the vision for Ozark Mountain, Bagel?
Speaker 3:Well, I think kind of our saying too is spreading joy, love and cream cheese. You know, we'd love the opportunity to grow, but we want to be purposeful about that and not just grow for the sake of growing. We'd eventually we're working on kind of a franchise package for so it'd just be a cut and paste for new franchisees, but really work on vetting them hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. Just so the feel is the same, that you could go in and just… it's just cream cheese and you don't have joy and love.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just….
Speaker 2:Chick-fil-A has been very successful with that model making sure they have the right person come in to lead a store model, making sure they have the right person come in to lead a store.
Speaker 4:We want it to be a blessing to that family. That you know person too who's opening it, because it I mean it can be a burden, and we don't. You know, we don't want to do that because we know how hard it is. So it's not just vetting them, as far as you know, are they right for Ozark Mountain Bagel, but we want to make sure Ozark Mountain Bagel is right for them as well. But that's kind of our growth model. We are done opening. Get that please. We are done opening ourselves, um ourselves. We would like to, uh, actually retire at some point in our lives because we are getting old.
Speaker 3:Yes, so um Retire.
Speaker 2:Retire to just run hundred mile races.
Speaker 3:That's what I would like to do. That's what I would like to do Be a different kind of tired yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 4:So that's kind of the gross model. Right now we're really working on this franchise model. You know, we know there's so many more places in even just northwest Arkansas that I mean 30-something people a day settle here, right, amazing, amazing growth, yeah, and so many areas are growing. You know, pea Ridge, centerton.
Speaker 3:Farmington yeah, there's just so many. Yeston yeah, there's just so many.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, that's kind of what we're working on right now.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, that's awesome. Well, thank you. You want to go to lightning?
Speaker 2:Let's do it All right.
Speaker 1:Lightning round. Hold on, we have some zingers.
Speaker 2:You know, we try to have a culture here where it's okay to make a mistake and, in fact, if you're not making mistakes, you're probably not pushing real hard.
Speaker 3:If you can't make a mistake.
Speaker 4:You can't make a mistake.
Speaker 2:Fail fast frequently. So what's a big failure in your business or previous business or whatever that you learned a lot from, and it's kind of something you've incorporated, that learning, into how you operate today.
Speaker 3:Probably trying to be a leader that micromanaged everything initially, and one of my favorite quotes is the legacy of the leader is the leaders they leave behind. And yeah, again, I had some great mentors and one lady one day came down and we were having problems in the refinery and she said, okay, tell me what we're doing. I said, well, we did this. We hope that helps, we're doing this. We hope that did it, we're doing this. She said hope's not a plan. Make me a plan. And I was like, wow, that's a punch in the gut, but it was it just allowing people to do their job and grow and thank them for what they do, you know, and tell them that you truly appreciate them, and I think that's kind of. I thought I had to be too gruff and be something I wasn't, and so that was a big learning for me. You got a zinger for that.
Speaker 4:Oh, I would say for me, I get really wrapped up in details and I'm very introverted and I would be more than happy just to be in the back of the house working on my to-do list. This is where the us together is good, because he's very extroverted and he's out there talking to people. I've lost my to-do list. It says to-do.
Speaker 2:And that's as far as you got.
Speaker 4:And so it's kind of been a learning experience for me having to be out there talking to people, and I thoroughly enjoy it, but it's uncomfortable and so, yeah, just being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I've just had to learn how to do that. I guess what about you all.
Speaker 1:Failure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, we'll be asking the question.
Speaker 2:No, I, um, I. I was the hub of this thing for far too long. When you start a business that's just one person and then kind of goes to three, four, five people, there's a period of time when I had about seven or eight people that you know. If you picture a wheel and a hubcap, and I was the hubcap and everything had to come to me before it went out and I became the log jam. I became the reason we couldn't grow.
Speaker 3:But it was with good intentions that you were doing that Sure good intentions can take you to heaven or to hell. Oh right, right, right, oh, well said, well said.
Speaker 2:So it was making that transition to I need to do more leading than doing, which was kind of the first phase, and then eventually I need to just delegate, elevate and lead.
Speaker 3:Well, that's kind of three years before I started doing the leadership training for Phillips 66. I had someone that put me on a performance improvement plan and gave me real honest feedback and they told me feedback is a gift and you know if they're being accurate it's going to sting a little bit and you know the same stones can either be stumbling blocks or building blocks and it was great. You know it hurt. And it was great.
Speaker 3:You know it hurt and it was completely accurate and I needed to make yeah come on, I thought I was perfect, but it was really good for me to hear that I was not as good as I perceived I was and be willing to change. So and then, three years later, I'm asked to be part of a team that designed this training and and led the training for all of field. Oh, it was, it was, it was, and, but it was other people that that, again, were the stepping stones for me to get, get where I needed to be.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, well, I guess I can answer uh, a failure. I think probably the most recent um would be I. I get pretty passionate. Uh, you know, I think you've. You've got a lot of passion in you there's. I get excited about different things, I've got ideas. Sometimes my brain's pretty nonlinear and a failure to recognize that that enthusiasm, when it turns into talking over someone, does nothing but just make them feel talked down to, disregarded, not listened to. Disregarded, not listened to. And I'm blissfully ignorant of that impact on anybody around me, just grateful that we're moving and we're shaking and we're getting somewhere and so I've gotten that feedback. And the failure is the fact that it has happened and I do that and I'm so grateful for feedback. It is a gift.
Speaker 1:Does it feel good to realize like, oh no, I made you feel that way, like, oh darn, yeah, yeah yeah, I wasn't trying to do that um and I think you know they knew that, but um, that's been a a most recent, like uh, point of failure that's been brought to my attention and really what it does is it makes me want to sit back and be like what is someone not telling me so that I make sure that I'm actually creating the space for feedback and doing that in a way that's going to be productive for them and everybody feels safe to do that.
Speaker 3:Again. One of my mentors said you know, on the feedback as a gift to people, you say I want your feedback, please give me your feedback. It does a couple of things. One, it gives them permission to give you that, but it also kind of changes your attitude that you're prepared to get that feedback, and so you're receptive to it, and you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, super grateful for it.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Frankly.
Speaker 2:My example was in business. I have some real humdingers in the personal life, oh nice, go from zingers to humdingers.
Speaker 3:We're going to be rhyming all afternoon. I love it, okay.
Speaker 2:All right. And lastly, all our attentional people. You like quotes. What are you reading, listening to, kind of taking in right now, and it can be for fun, it can be for something else.
Speaker 3:Do you have something?
Speaker 2:Do you even have time between the business and the running?
Speaker 3:No, we sit and do devos every morning and hers are deeper than mine, but I love, like Bob Goff and just some of his simple um things that he, that he you see in life, that he can somehow transform into a great lesson Um, and I love that.
Speaker 1:That's love. Does right, yes, love does.
Speaker 3:And then I, I have one that's a um, just a every day.
Speaker 1:Oh cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just every day through the year and just some of the things that he says, it just really strikes home with me.
Speaker 4:So what about?
Speaker 3:you.
Speaker 4:Oh, besides that I mean we're doing reading through the Bible and Bible recap we're not really doing anything.
Speaker 1:What are you in right now?
Speaker 4:Well, we did the old Testament last year and started the new Testament and then just kind of quit, and so we're started over with the new Testament this year yeah. We're in Luke right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Cause it's a chronological, so you do some jumping around're in Luke right now. Yeah, because it's chronological, so you do some jumping around, all right, which?
Speaker 3:is pretty interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Do you all have any suggestions of some great reads?
Speaker 1:I mean love, does it's such a good one? I say we, I read a book. I say we, I read a book. It was actually given by one of our other you know, suite mates here called the Go-Giver.
Speaker 4:That's just about.
Speaker 1:you know it's a play on go-getter. You know we've got a lot of drive to go accomplish things and what's it look like to, instead of going and trying to get, look intentionally to go to give, and it seems like your ethos is exactly that. It's a short read. That's a great question. I have read it.
Speaker 4:I've read it multiple times.
Speaker 2:And it's written by a great author. It's one of the books that we give all of our new employees when they join us.
Speaker 3:Love that.
Speaker 1:That's why I said we, because James has read it and lots of the team have, and it's just that mindset mission over money. There's a deep irony. The motivation is for the impact on the individual, but the reality is you have an impact on someone, then they're happy to return again and so it ends up making a great business. And it's like if you miss the point and you went to go get, you're not going to have deep loyalty and relationships that are authentic. But if you have authentic relationships, then you do the right thing, because you're focused on the right thing. Then it will naturally create a lot of benefit.
Speaker 3:I love that. The go-getter, the go-giver, go-giver. I got it, she's got it. Yeah, you got to have a Sheila in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, oh, man, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most recent one. For me that kind of stood out. I do a lot of fiction, so I won't go into that. It's a book called the Four Agreements and if somebody recommended it I probably wouldn't have read it otherwise. But you ever, like you, find yourself where, like things just aren't clicking, you're not connecting with people the way you want, you're more frustrated, aggravated, you know, it's just that it's not gelling. And this book says there's four agreements that if you make them with yourself, you kind of fall out of those situations of expecting things from other people, of expecting them to serve you in some way in a relationship. And it was useful for me. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us Such a pleasure. A great deal, I really appreciate it. And nice to learn more about you all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we should chat more over bagel sometime and some some good coffee.
Speaker 4:That sounds great. I love it yes.
Speaker 2:And thank you all, as always, for listening. You can check out any of our podcasts on our website, high impact analyticscom video audio, as well as on YouTube and anywhere you download your podcasts. Thank you very much for joining us.
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