"My Pleasure"

When I was in my 20s, I was invited to attend a “Young Men’s Business Club” dinner event. I felt quite honored, mistaking that half the invitation was a suggestion (or expectation) to join YMBC. It was a seated dinner, they met monthly and always had a speaker.

On my first visit, the speaker owned some franchise I’d heard of, but with none in my town, was unfamiliar. The guy’s name was S. Truett Cathy, which seemed odd enough. His company name was some poorly spelled version of Chicken Filet.

Yet the oddities had only begun. He actually told this crowd of young, eager, hopeful entrepreneurs this…

“I hear people who say, ‘You should treat customers like family.’ I see how some families treat each other. I say treat them way better than that!”

Truett Cathy smiled when this got laughter and light applause. He had us. This comment segued into his feeling about family, how he ran his business to balance family, work ethics and life. “Business is life if you make it so.” He paused. “Your business is your mission. How you live that life, how it makes you feel to do a good job and mostly how it honors God.” He continued. “No business is worth sacrificing your family, your ethics or your God.”

What I didn’t know about Truett Cathy then, I learned over the next many years. I bought two of his books, and heard his interviews on the local Christian station. His strong but humble leadership washed over me when I first heard of his passing on September 8 at age 93.

Take a Stand

He won praise for his teenage adventure camps, and for teaching a Sunday School class for nearly 60 years, and for his immense philanthropy. (He’d say, “It wasn’t mine in the first place; it was always God’s.”) Later, he caught fire for his stance against gay marriages.

The truth is that he stood for something, instead of falling for anything. He never wavered from his vision just to be popular.

It seems no person’s life can ever be summed up in a single thought or position they take; but only in sum. From his writings and from others (notably Dave Ramsey, the biblically based financial mega advisor to millions), I compiled this list. The marketing ‘insights’ – if you can call them that – are my takes from his book, Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People (which gives the backstory to the ‘cows’ and their misspelling adventures).

Truett Cathy abided in the following (from Pablo Picasso, who as far as I know never ate at Chick-fil-A):

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

6 Great Life and Business Lessons from the $3 Billion Chicken Man

1.       Define Values. Train Values. Stick to them. Truett’s business philosophy remained rooted in his beliefs. They were part of the training and a continual source for ‘course correction’ at the appropriate time. Does your business have a core set of values? Does it waver over time? Do ethics shift according to the economy or the aggressive/conservative nature of the person in charge?

2.       Customer Service is not a phrase, but a lifestyle. I always ask in my seminars, “Who in here values customers?” All hands shoot up. “Who in here proves it regularly?” There is much squirming and looking away. Truett Cathy honored customers.

Surveys, voluntary consumer taste groups, sending staff into the crowded parking lots to take orders if the drive-through is too long, and the most famous “care” phrase ever coined: “My pleasure” after the order is taken. Sadly, I’ve noticed other fast food franchises pirating this phrase with the sincerity of a shark with an abscessed tooth.

3.       Faith, Family, Finances, in that order. His speeches were peppered with biblical references. His life followed his belief. Though he’d been very poor growing up, and his stores grew to $3 billion in sales, he wrote, “Wealth: Is It Worth It?” The answer – for those of you with insatiable curiosity – is yes, IF you use it wisely, keeping the above order and focus on how it can help others instead of merely enriching yourself. Does your business ever “take over” your faith or family life? It has in mine before, for which I’m not proud, but acutely aware. Step 1.

Most obvious example: Chick-fil-As are famously closed on Sundays to honor this code. He could’ve stayed open 24/7 as do many fast food stores to extract every last penny and energy from overworked fry cooks. How many more billions could he have sold, adding 52 more open days among over 1,000 restaurants? “Not enough to be worth it” said the founder. (NOTE: Chick-fil-A stores consistently rank at the highest profitability per square foot of all chains, even with the ‘6-day’ deficit.)

4.       Plan. (Seems to me that “Plan Ahead” is rather redundant, don’t you think?) Planning takes discipline to do, discipline to follow. One example: Truett saved. Taught his staff to save. Taught them to teach their children to save. “If you don’t plan for the unexpected, the results will be quite expected.” He also labored to teach people who were “on their way up” and filled in roles behind them. All about planning for succession, which obviously works since he has left a monumental legacy, and a business completely intact.

Do you have a plan for your staff that goes beyond today’s work? Who would lead if you didn’t? Are they “on their way up” by plan… or by accident? The lead into…

5.       Invest in Others – Truett set up educational foundations from within the store framework. Why? He felt, “If we show them how much they’re valued, they’ll show us what they’re worth!” He let store owners choose from legitimate charities to support locally, to teach them the meaning of charity and investment, making them more compassionate leaders.

His WinShape Foundation supported homes for the underprivileged, summer camps, foster care, medical care and more. What lessons do you feel he showed to his Chick-fil-A employees by living a life of giving? Part of his mission was that he stood out by example, which includes –

6.       Dare to Be Different. Do you know of any other Chicken places? Only a zillion or so. But they aren’t Chick-fil-As, which stand out by their cleanliness, friendliness and unendliness of customer service. (I made that last word up. Use at your own risk.)

The ‘Cow’ campaign has endured – yet never grown stale – for over 20 years. The misspellings, the implied intelligence, the not-so-sneaky ways to discourage their consumption has entertained motorists for many miles and smiles. Their marketing remained fresh, captivating and professional.

“I know how to make a good chicken sandwich, not necessarily how to sell it to millions” said the understated leader. “I let others show their specialties. Whoever heard of cows selling chicken? It was a risk, but we took it.”

Do you “try to do everything yourself” or do you let others show and prove their special gifts? Do you “follow the crowd” or stand out from it?

In all I ever read or heard about Truett Cathy, I admire his great strength and simple, humble, pure philosophy. Truly, reflecting on the first speech I ever heard from him, it was “My pleasure.”

Adams Hudson