When Philip Schram is hiring people, he is looking for talent more than expertise.
“Talent you have forever with employees,” says the French-born president and CEO of Buffalo Wings & Rings LLC. “They
are going to learn and put the best foot forward. Expertise, you
realize after a year you have transferred the knowledge of that
particular individual to the rest of the organization. Expertise
is a short-term acquisition, where talented people, you have
the smartness forever.”
Schram has used that philosophy to turn Buffalo Wings &
Rings around from a failing chain of restaurants to one that
employs 400 people and had 2006 revenue of about $10 million.
Smart Business
spoke with Schram about how to know the difference between someone who is smart and someone who
has expertise.
Q: How do you know if people are smart or have expertise?
I have been burned. I am not American. I would like to
compare three different cultures in the way you interview.
In America, people try to sell themselves extremely well.
In Europe, people are kind of neutral. In Japan, you want to
be extremely low profile, and it is the role of the interviewer to find the right man or right woman.
At the beginning, people told me they did such and such,
and I would hire them. When it was time to perform, they
didn’t perform. Right now, I have a philosophy that we don’t
give them a position immediately. We see how they interact
and how they deliver.
We look to put you in the right seat in the bus. Before, it
was the resume and what was said in the interview to determine what they do. Now, we let them ride in the bus for a
while and see what the right seat is for them.
Q: What are the keys to being a good leader?
You need to be genuine and yourself. I like to read a lot about
the successful American entrepreneurs. I start with a vision.
Then I do a road map, a tactical plan, and then I execute and
follow up.
I have a companywide staff meeting once a month where
everybody can keep up on achievements. At the beginning of
the year, I do the yearly plan. We also have a six-month plan,
and we update that every quarter.
It’s a lot of one-on-one or weekly meetings where you explain
and listen. It’s between the vision, which is the strategic side,
and the execution of the vision so that it is successful.
Q: How do you deal with failure?
The constant feedback I get back is that when you make a
mistake, you need to acknowledge that you made a mistake.
It’s more important that you are going to fix the mistake than
the mistake itself.
So, if someone calls and says that a take-out order was
wrong, if you take a corrected order to their home for free, you
get the psychological credit, which is incredible. The customer
then sends an e-mail that an order was wrong and the manager went above and beyond to fix it.
You should never deny. Try to do something that in the eyes
of the customer is outstanding. People become loyal when
they are treated well.
Q: How do you keep a business from growing too fast?
The thing I am doing is to sell a new franchise, then build the
store. Third is to open the store and then manage and grow the
business of the open store.
Once we have identified those, I keep the balance of these
activities so I don’t have any bottleneck. It’s like a wheel. It
needs to be spinning without unbalance. There is one additional thing behind all that, which is money. I am monitoring
the balance of those four key activities of the company while
keeping the money in mind.
Q: What are some things you do to prevent a bottleneck?
To have people that coach me outside of the company, for
example, senior people in my industry with a completely different background. I discuss with them, which heightens me to
get some feedback, and I am listening to their feedback.
It’s retirees and people that are in their 60s that like to teach.
That’s one avenue to get feedback.
HOW TO REACH: Buffalo Wings & Rings LLC, www.buffalowingsandrings.com
