Latest / The Action Catalyst / Rise and Grind, with Mike McFall (Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Career, Employment, Coffee)
Transcript
- 0:00Intro: Today's guest is Mike McFall, co CEO of Big B Coffee, the third largest coffee franchise in the United States.
- 0:07Mike is also the founder of Global Orange Development, as well as the Author of Grind, a book which focuses on early stage businesses and how to establish positive cash flow.
- 0:18Mike is guided by a simple business philosophy of be brave, be humble, be thoughtful, be aware of others, and be.
- 0:27We hope you enjoy.
- 0:30Dan Moore: Well, everybody, welcome to the Action Catalyst, where our guest today is Mike McFall.
- 0:34If you know not from the Midwest, you might not be familiar with Big B Coffee, but one day you will be.
- 0:38Mike, we're so glad you're with us today.
- 0:40Welcome to the Action Catalyst.
- 0:41Mike McFall: Thank you, sir.
- 0:42It's great to be here.
- 0:43Dan Moore: My, uh, son and daughter-in-law got married near Depot in Ypsilanti, and I've had Big B coffee there.
- 0:48Oh, nice.
- 0:49Yeah, so very, very cool to to meet you here on the show.
- 0:52You know, Mike, you've had such an interesting.
- 0:54I know you didn't start off as an entrepreneurial mindset at all.
- 0:57You're more involved in golf, I think, in your college days.
- 0:59Could you maybe share with us some of the most important pivot points that kinda led you from, from that point, sort of to this point, heading up such an important company with such a great philosophy?
- 1:09Mike McFall: Thanks.
- 1:09You know, I, I, uh, I think one of the things that really launched me into my, into my, my career, my life, uh, I put the two of those, they're, they're synonymous, right?
- 1:18My career, my life, it's all the same thing.
- 1:20And you know, one of the things that I, I was really for.
- 1:23To, uh, take advantage of when I was young was I sailed around the world when I was 16.
- 1:27That was, uh, on a, on a square rig tall ship.
- 1:30And I'll tell you, that set me off on an expectation around life being an adventure . And, and so I, I started with that and I, I just, you know, Really my philosophy and everything I do, everything I approach is I just wanna do interesting things.
- 1:46You know, I wanna wake up in the morning and I wanna have interesting things to do today.
- 1:50I wanna, I wanna be involved in, in new concepts, uh, that intrigue me and that are interesting.
- 1:55And, and so yeah, I went through, uh, my, my early, uh, my academic career.
- 2:01I went to a.
- 2:02Liberal arts private college here in Michigan.
- 2:04Yeah, I played golf, uh, for, for that group.
- 2:06And then I, I left college, um, after a, a, you know, a, a pretty moderate career.
- 2:11You know, I didn't set any, any, uh, any, uh, records, uh, with my academic performance.
- 2:16But I ended up going to Houston, Texas and working as a straight commission sales rep.
- 2:21And, and I've always said that if anybody wants to train to be an entrepreneur, take a job as a straight commission sales.
- 2:29Because the concepts are very, very similar.
- 2:32Uh, you wake up in the morning, you sell something, uh, you generate revenue, or you wake up in the morning and you don't sell something and you don't generate revenue.
- 2:41And, and to me, there's so much truth in the concept of waking up in the morning as an entrepreneur focusing on.
- 2:47Selling something today, selling more today.
- 2:50And, and to me it's the backbone of success, of, of, of entrepreneurship.
- 2:54And, you know, my company, uh, big B Coffee, that's my business partner and I, our mantra, uh, for over 20 years was we were gonna wake up tomorrow and sell one more cup of coffee tomorrow than we did today.
- 3:05Period.
- 3:05That's what we did, and that's what we've been doing.
- 3:07And we've been focused on that every single day.
- 3:09Right?
- 3:09So, so when I started in the business, I, I started as a barista in our first store.
- 3:13I didn't actually start the very first store.
- 3:15I started working for my now partner, uh, in that first store.
- 3:19We were selling under 300 cups of coffee a day.
- 3:21Uh, when I started in that one coffee shop.
- 3:24And, uh, today we're selling over a hundred thousand a day.
- 3:27You know, that was our focus, was just let's sell more coffee.
- 3:30Right?
- 3:30That's all we did every day.
- 3:32You referenced a really big pivot point, uh, for my business partner and I, uh, we were 15, 17 years into the development of the business and we really started to lose our, our inspiration around it.
- 3:45Uh, we were materially successful.
- 3:47Uh, the business was growing, the brand was, was quite successful, but we were, we were lacking some passion.
- 3:53Around, uh, what the heck it meant to wake up every day and try to sell more cup of coffee.
- 3:57And, you know, it, it, it came to like, what's the point?
- 4:00Why are we doing this?
- 4:01What, you know, and, and, you know, for so many years at the beginning it's just survive.
- 4:06Just build and survive.
- 4:08Build and survive.
- 4:08And, and then we had probably had this ongoing conversation for a.
- 4:13Couple of years around, boy, it's just not feeling great anymore.
- 4:17And then I, I, we had this, I had this shaman in the woods moment, uh, where, uh, I was camping with my son and my brother at a very remote, uh, place here in Michigan.
- 4:28And I ended up meeting a gentleman completely by happenstance who was very involved in something referred to as conscious capitalism.
- 4:36I got to know him very, very well.
- 4:38From that moment for forward, we hired him as a, as a consultant and.
- 4:43The end result is, is we still work with him.
- 4:45Uh, he's still an advisor of ours.
- 4:47Uh, and that conversation started with him and went all the way through to helping us determine and find the purpose of our organization, which is now what gets me up every morning.
- 4:58And I'm entirely fired up to go to work and do what I do now.
- 5:01What did become your reason for getting in the morning?
- 5:04Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that my partner and I have always loved about our business and our business model is that we're a, we're a franchise company, and so what we do is we support people in developing their businesses and developing assets that they can use and, and leverage to build their perfect lives.
- 5:25The business itself is, is a tool or a mechanism to support them in, in fulfilling their dreams and, and living, you know, the life that they wanna live.
- 5:33And so, um, that was the beginning of a conversation where it was like, well, why don't we do that with everyone we touch?
- 5:41Not just the franchise owners, but why don't we make our purpose supporting you in building a life you love whoever you are in relation to, you know, however you come into contact with us.
- 5:53So that would be employees at the store level, that would be customers, that would be vendors, that would be employees of our corporation, whoever it is that, that we engage.
- 6:02Our purpose is to support you in building a life that you love.
- 6:05We don't wanna define what your goals in life are.
- 6:08We just wanna support you in getting.
- 6:11You be you, and we'll support that.
- 6:12Right?
- 6:13Dan Moore: I think that's absolutely wonderful.
- 6:15Now, now, Mike, I'm sure along the way it hasn't all been smooth trajectory toward a hundred thousand cups a day.
- 6:21What would you recommend to be a good reaction if somebody's moving along in a good way and then all of a
- 6:24Mike McFall: sudden, bam.
- 6:26Well, I think what's really important is to understand that everyone hits brick walls and hits brick wall, heart hits 'em hard, , uh, you know, and there, I don't know anyone that's done anything significant in their life.
- 6:40They can't tell you a whole bunch of stories of very difficult times in, in building what they've built.
- 6:45And so acknowledging that, that they're gonna things are gonna happen is just, I think it helps sort of soothe the, the shock of it all.
- 6:53The other thing, I've always advocated is when you keep your mind focused on the end objective.
- 7:01So, so the end objective in my world, since I've been 23 years old, professionally, has been to own the Detroit Red Ws.
- 7:08Well, in order for me to own the Detroit Red Wings, I have to have a a b in my net worth, right?
- 7:14You don't own a major sports franchise without, uh, having a really significant net worth.
- 7:19And so all my life, and I'm now 50 years.
- 7:23All my life, I've stayed focused on that.
- 7:26I conduct myself in a way that, that, that beacon remains a possibility.
- 7:32And so no matter what brick wall I hit, no matter what pothole, you know, I blow a tire out on, I always continue to steer my ship in a way that's gonna reach that end goal.
- 7:42And, and a huge part of that is just never giving up.
- 7:46Never giving up.
- 7:48And, and I've learned over, over time that when you to build something significant, you need to look at it increments of five to seven to 10 years, not increments of quarters or, or even single digit years.
- 8:01Right.
- 8:02So, so for me to.
- 8:04Somehow have big B go off the rails today.
- 8:07I'm not gonna be able to replace Big B again quickly.
- 8:10It's gonna take me a decade or longer to recover from that.
- 8:14So I better keep bigby on the right path and stay focused on the development of Big B.
- 8:19And so to me, keeping your, your mindset on that ultimate beacon of what you're trying to accomplish in your life is what helps you get through the very difficult
- 8:30Dan Moore: moments.
- 8:31You know what I love about that?
- 8:32If the beacon is bright enough, you can see reflections of it even
- 8:35Mike McFall: over or around a wall.
- 8:37I like that.
- 8:38If I know that I have to continue staying focused on that beacon, the things that hit me day in and day out.
- 8:45Are they still, they're relatively minor.
- 8:48If that beacon's bright
- 8:49Dan Moore: enough, yeah, they're not gonna totally knock you off the tracks.
- 8:52You may feel a little bump, but you can keep.
- 8:54Now we're really excited about the book, Inc.
- 8:57Original book called Grind.
- 8:58I know you tell a lot of your story in that book, but one of the things that's really kind of curious, you talk about the idea of doing due diligence on yourself before deciding to start a
- 9:06Mike McFall: business.
- 9:07Yeah.
- 9:08The concept there is that people spend an enormous amount of time doing due diligence on a new enterprise, on a new business.
- 9:15They study pricing, they study, uh, competition.
- 9:19They can, they study consumer behavior.
- 9:20They can, there's just a laundry list of things and.
- 9:23Spend hundreds of hours doing due diligence.
- 9:25They leave out the most important ingredient in the success of their new.
- 9:31Which is themselves.
- 9:32Have you done the work to understand how you as an individual are going to impact the business?
- 9:40What are your strengths?
- 9:42What are your weaknesses?
- 9:43You wanna leverage your strengths, you wanna supplement your weaknesses, but unless you know what those are, there's no way to, to figure out how to supplement your weaknesses or how to leverage your strengths.
- 9:54And so that, that's this concept of, you know, doing the due diligence around who are you as.
- 10:01As a manager, who are you as a person?
- 10:03How are you gonna impact the business?
- 10:05And I put together something called the Grind Score, and it's a, it's a 24 question quiz that, uh, you walk through and answer.
- 10:14Every question is on a scale from, uh, one to 10.
- 10:17And, and so in the end, the grind score will give you your, an analysis of your strengths, your weaknesses, and the idea is this isn't an end bl list of whether you're going to be a successful entrepreneur or not.
- 10:30What it is, is it's meant to start a conversation about the areas that you might wanna take a look at, where you might need to get some assistance, and then the areas where you can leverage your own strengths to help grow the business.
- 10:43Dan Moore: I like that idea of that due diligence on yourself, cuz it doesn't matter what the opportunity is, you're gonna be the one in it right now.
- 10:49A couple of other, uh, key points you talk in the book is one is about gut checking
- 10:53Mike McFall: your ego.
- 10:54Yeah.
- 10:54Anybody that will say the words, I don't have an ego.
- 10:57I mean, I will, I'm gonna run from that person as fast as I can because if you, if you're gonna say the words, I don't have an.
- 11:04You are not self-aware because everyone has an ego, right?
- 11:09And so, but, but what it's about is understanding the ego and how it's playing in on you and your behaviors in relation to other people and the business itself.
- 11:19And so you've gotta be able to gut check that.
- 11:22And understand how it's impacting you, and Im impacting the, the business itself and the people within the business.
- 11:28And it's not about getting rid of ego.
- 11:30The gut check is, is understanding it so that you can manage it so it doesn't impact your relations and your business in a negative way.
- 11:41Dan Moore: So that helps you avoid that, that CEO disease that you talk about.
- 11:44I'm the big shot.
- 11:44I'm the big boss now.
- 11:45I don't need any help.
- 11:47Yeah.
- 11:47Kind of curious, do you have a morning routine to start your day besides waking up thinking about another cup of
- 11:52Mike McFall: coffee?
- 11:53? My morning routine is, I read.
- 11:55I just read.
- 11:56That's my, that's my moment.
- 11:58And I, when I can't, I, it, it sets me off in a, in a weird way.
- 12:02Uh, so I wake up and I've always got something.
- 12:04I'm in the middle of reading.
- 12:05Uh, so every morning I wake up and I make a cup of coffee, and I've got my spot in my office at home where I sit and read and I read for an hour, hour and a half.
- 12:13And then I go make my wife coffee, and I take her a cup of coffee, and then I launch into preparing for the day.
- 12:19And usually my kids are getting up at about that point.
- 12:21I've got four kids.
- 12:22So, uh, my life's a little.
- 12:25I'm working on my second book right now and, and a big section of, in my, it's a book on management leadership, and a big section in that book is about how leaders need to read.
- 12:35There's so much great stuff out there in the world that the smartest people in the world have written, and I don't understand why people don't engage that more aggressively.
- 12:42Oh, that's so
- 12:43Dan Moore: true.
- 12:44Years ago, somebody gave me a copy of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I started plowing through that and it got deeper and deeper and deeper.
- 12:51And I said, I'm trying to read this thing like it's a novel.
- 12:53This is not a novel.
- 12:54This is a workbook.
- 12:55Yeah.
- 12:55If I backed up, got out the pencil, started making notes in the margins and rereading sections, rereading pages, how great work that moves this internally is gonna require that kind of focus.
- 13:04You can't do it in seven.
- 13:06Mike McFall: No, and a lot of people will pick up a book and read the first chapter or two and think they understand the book when most authors leave the more powerful content towards the end of the book, and so you've gotta read the whole thing.
- 13:19Let's cut.
- 13:20Dan Moore: Mike, you work with, I don't know how many different associates you have in your stores.
- 13:24How many baristas, how many total would you say there are now in the Bigby network?
- 13:27Well
- 13:27Mike McFall: over 3000 for.
- 13:29All pursuing a life
- 13:30Dan Moore: they love.
- 13:31But we're faced with this thing called the Great Resignation that has just happened where lots of people leaving their jobs, not going back.
- 13:36But what would be some ideas you'd have in this particular market about not only retaining, but attracting hand retaining great people that want to be with you for longer than just a JB period of time.
- 13:47Mike McFall: Yeah.
- 13:47Right.
- 13:47So first of all, there's no short, in my opinion, there's no short fix.
- 13:51You know, I, I hear managers and, and leaders talking about pay rates and, you know, you can pay somebody a dollar, an hour more.
- 13:57It's not gonna make a bit of difference in the world, in my opinion.
- 14:00The concept that I'm advocating and that I've been writing about, uh, I wrote an article in, uh, Forbes about it just recently, which is that we need to, as leaders and managers, we need to.
- 14:12The investment first in the employee, and then they'll determine whether what we're doing is worth their loyalty.
- 14:20And if we make the investment first and we're up to great things within our organizations that they believe in, then they'll choose to become loyal and commit themselves to our company and to our purpose and to our cause of what we're, uh, of what we do day in and day out.
- 14:35And it's just flipping the equation around.
- 14:37It used to be, You know, as an employer you would offer somebody a job and you would offer them some dollar amount per hour to show up to work, and you expected loyalty.
- 14:48Well, I just gave you a great job, so you should be loyal to me because I offered you this great job.
- 14:55And I that is, that is transitioning now where people are looking for more.
- 15:01Out of an employer and out of a a, a company than just simply some dollar per hour and a few benefits and so on.
- 15:09They're actually looking for the company to invest in them as people, as individuals.
- 15:15Invest in their growth.
- 15:17It's what we were talking about earlier, investing in their growth and supporting them in building a life that they love.
- 15:21And then they will, in turn, become loyal to the organization and then they will in turn talk to their network and their friends and, and, and their, and their people.
- 15:31Which will help you attract more people.
- 15:32So, so to me, we really need to take a long, hard look at what it means to be a manager and a leader.
- 15:40And the other thing I advocate is we need to develop our environments within our companies as nurturing.
- 15:48And supportive places where people leave work more invigorated than when they showed up.
- 15:55They go home feeling better than when they got up in the morning.
- 15:59What we need to create is we need to create loving, supportive, nurturing environments for people to show up to.
- 16:05And I would argue that the great leaders over time, less, you know, hundreds of years, the great leaders created these kinds of environ.
- 16:14We just didn't talk about it, but that's what made them great leaders.
- 16:18That's
- 16:18Dan Moore: interesting.
- 16:19I'm sure when you talk to other business CEOs, they think you're talking heresy.
- 16:22Totally.
- 16:23Total heresy.
- 16:24Invest.
- 16:24First you outta your mind, Mike, what are you thinking?
- 16:26Mike McFall: Yeah, but I'll tell you the idea of labor being a transaction.
- 16:31Is where it's flawed people and relationships are not transactions.
- 16:36Once you understand that, then you understand the concept of investing first.
- 16:42Creating environments that are nurturing, that are supportive, uh, that are loving this stuff is, is, you know, again, I, I would argue all day long that great leaders have always done it.
- 16:52They've, we've just never called it, we've just called it great leader.
- 16:56It's a really good
- 16:57Dan Moore: point.
- 16:57You really view it as, as a compact, really not, not a expectation.
- 17:01It's a compact.
- 17:01If we help you develop the skills that you need for the life you love.
- 17:05You're gonna give back the loyalty, the focus, the energy, and, and making our customers life happier when they pop in to get their cuppa
- 17:12Mike McFall: for the day.
- 17:13Yeah.
- 17:13And we, we do a lot of work around creating the future with people and for people, and that means at times that people opt out.
- 17:21They'll decide they wanna go open a cupcake store in Traverse City, Michigan, which, which has happened to us.
- 17:26And we pat 'em on the back.
- 17:28We tell 'em, Hey, listen, uh, whatever we can do to support you, we, we thank them for their time and their energy and the service they gave us over the years they were there and out the door they go.
- 17:37And, and like you said, a lot of managers would say, that's heresy, but here's the magic.
- 17:41When you go through this visioning process with them and they create this concept for the future, And they're including your company in that that person becomes a superhero.
- 17:52That person becomes like just this incredible, like you wanna show up to work and work with that person every day because they're so fired up to be there and they, and the company is part of their life that they love in the future.
- 18:06And that's a beautiful thing.
- 18:08Dan Moore: It sure is.
- 18:10We work with college students in our business and the majority of them don't stay with us for a career, but we take such pride in calling them Southwestern alumni.
- 18:17So I think we have very similar shared philosophies
- 18:20Mike McFall: there, Mike.
- 18:20Well, we graduate, we call it graduate.
- 18:23We graduate baristas.
- 18:24I mean, you know, at pretty significant clip every year.
- 18:28Think of the power we could have when we're graduating thousands of baristas every year into the.
- 18:34Imagine if we have them for a year or two and the positive impact we can have on them in that year or two.
- 18:39But imagine how that magnifies over two decades.
- 18:43The power of that.
- 18:44Yeah.
- 18:45Dan Moore: You throw one stone in a in a pond, you're gonna get some ripples.
- 18:47You throw a thousand to 2000 a year in a pond, you're gonna get a lot of ripples and they're gonna change the world over time.
- 18:52Right.
- 18:53You know, Mike, a lot of our listeners, their lives right now, our lives, they love things are going in a great way for them.
- 18:59Got some other listeners though, that are, are kind of stuck right now.
- 19:02You know, what would you recommend to somebody that just doesn't know what to do?
- 19:05They're, they're stuck either personally, financially, business wise?
- 19:09Mike McFall: Well, what I believe, you know, if I'm stuck in hearing this, I might.
- 19:14Might look at this a little jaded, but I'll just tell you my philosophy.
- 19:17My philosophy is that we need to set what we internally in my organization refer to as our moonshot.
- 19:24You need to set that, that ultimate objective, that ultimate goal.
- 19:29Uh, you know, Michael Gerber calls it the primary aim out of the . The, um, Collins refers to it as the big hair audacious goal, right?
- 19:38These things that are like, and.
- 19:40You first have to get really intimate with what is it that you want, and, and then detail that, what that's going to be like in the end.
- 19:50So for me, like when I talk about owning the Reds, I have.
- 19:5510 points that are very specific about what my life is gonna be like when I own the Red Wings.
- 20:02And so I talk about climbing the the jet walk to get on the airplane to go to ro road games with the team and smelling the jet fuel and high fiving the trainers.
- 20:12I get on board the plane, I talk about raising.
- 20:15A banner into the rafters of, of the arena here in Detroit with the ICH name on it because they built this organization, right?
- 20:21That's the current owner.
- 20:23I, there's all these amazing details, but see what that does is it that allows you to emotionally connect with that future.
- 20:31Whatever that future is, you're emotionally, spiritually connecting to it.
- 20:34And then when you dial it back into your current day to day, the circumstances that you're in today start to feel less binding and less relevant because you're emotionally connecting to.
- 20:47This amazing future.
- 20:49And so, you know, I deal with all kinds of awkward things in my day, daily life of managing this business, right?
- 20:56Of course I do.
- 20:57But they never get me down.
- 20:59They never impact me.
- 21:01They, because I mean, I could.
- 21:03Wake up today and be very frustrated over a laundry list of things in my life that are, that are difficult, but I'm all fired up about that first road trip I get to go on as the owner of the Red Wings.
- 21:16Whenever that happens and that gets, keeps me going.
- 21:20I, I have this other vision.
- 21:22When I'm seven, I think it's 75 years old, I've written a vision that I'm in Orlando or Vegas in a huge ballroom and I'm, I give my last keynote address to the Big B Nation and I'm retiring, and I, I give this my last address and I go and I sit down and I just got chills thinking about it, that there's 10, 12, 15,000 people in the room.
- 21:43And I know that I have contributed to those people living a life that they love.
- 21:48That to me is, I cannot wait for that day.
- 21:51Put an end cap on it.
- 21:53So I just got chills like that.
- 21:54But that's that beacon.
- 21:56It's that thing that is so powerful for you as a person, right?
- 22:00And, and if you don't have that, I think that it can become, that your day to day can become very difficult and you're, you're letting the circumstances of your life today dictate your life going forward.
- 22:16As opposed to attaching to a future reality that you've created and then living into that today so that that will manifest itself down the.
- 22:26Mike,
- 22:26Dan Moore: this is totally inspiring cuz it's not only about the big vision.
- 22:29Talked about having details, really visualizing specific moments, specific events, specific things that'll happen when that occurs because that helps us get past the muck that we may be surrounded by now.
- 22:39Realizing that Beacon is strong us forward in such a good way.
- 22:42Never
- 22:43Mike McFall: give up.
- 22:43You'd never give up.
- 22:44Right.
- 22:45And, and you know, I think a big part of never giving up too, though, is never becoming complacent.
- 22:51And I'm not gonna become a billionaire by doing what I'm doing every single day today.
- 22:54Right.
- 22:54I gotta take risks.
- 22:55I gotta keep rolling the dice, I gotta keep investing, I gotta keep going.
- 22:59Otherwise, I mean, it's, you know, it's not just gonna happen.
- 23:02It's not just gonna automatically happen.
- 23:03So never getting up, but continuously doubling down, continuously going for it, and never getting.
- 23:11Dan Moore: Time with you goes really, really fast.
- 23:12Mike, I hate that we have to call this to an end.
- 23:14I wanna thank you so much cuz you shared more than business wisdom.
- 23:18You shared heart stuff with us and heart stuff is what's so key.
- 23:21You have an unselfish heart, you're a giver, and you built so much into so many people.
- 23:24And that's gonna continue.
- 23:26I've only got one favorite ask.
- 23:27Yeah, please, please tell the wing nuts to behave when they beat my predators
- 23:32. Mike McFall: Yes sir, I will.
- 23:35Thank you.
- 23:35Right, thanks.
- 23:36Take care.