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Changing the menu

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The Bassoul file

Be No. 1

Middleby’s industry is turnkey and simple: You make a range of products and you go to visit a restaurant and sell them all. But Bassoul realized something that a lot of companies struggle with: Middleby wasn’t that great at anything.

“The problem is if you’re not No. 1 or No. 2, then you’ll never get pricing,” he says. “So, being No. 1 always generates a higher price premium because you can service your customer better, you can innovate better, and you can retain your employees better because you can pay them better bonuses.”

So Bassoul made a decision that he recommends to you if you need to get your company out of a rut.

“We audited all of our engineering resources, and we decided we wanted to be No. 1 in one segment -- and we were not No. 1 in anything,” he says.

That audit told him that his company could not be No. 1 in things like refrigeration or dishwashers. So Bassoul and his team dropped everything but the hot side -- conveyor ovens, fryers and the like. Knowing that area was the strongest, they put all of their resources into it and began doing new things. With more engineers working on that core competency and more salespeople dedicated to it, Middleby was able to start leveraging a new customer base. With more than 60 percent of the sales going to just three customers, the company was in a risky area, but by taking a new risk on just one core competency, they actually made things safer. Having bet everything on the hot side, Middleby began getting its foot inside the door with new customers by offering the most liberal guarantee in the industry.

And that’s Bassoul’s first lesson for you: If you want to start digging your company out, find something that you do well and do it better. You have to be responsible for dropping your dead weight and charging your people with being truly great in one area.

It was risky, but here’s a sneak peek on how it worked for Middleby: “Our market share increased from a 6 percent to around 20 percent,” Bassoul says. “And today, we are No. 1 or No. 2 in every segment we serve worldwide.”