One of the reasons I grew to love Tweeting was because it was so interactive. I could follow the companies and people I was intrigued by, and do it in real-time. Yes I just said 'real-time', nerd alert!!
Facebook had always presented barriers to me. It was cool, but it lacked the intimacy I was after.
One night, very late.... A Miami Design company called 'Friends With You' tweeted across the globe, and I tweeted back. I am known to re-write my tweets sometimes 5 times before I put my 'tweet' out there, and I sat there with a Corona in hand hoping, really hoping that I would get something back. (This Blog is not sponsored by Corona, but if Corona is listening I'll take it)
Within a few minutes I had a reply, and soon I discovered that I had been communicating with one of the Creators of "Friends With You", Sam Borkson. Think of a Celebrity you really froth at the mouth over, and then imagine if they uttered words to you...
In the period of about a month, I had spoken with more of more heroes than I had done in my 28 years of existence. I WAS ONTO SOMETHING! It was in one of those 'Crash-bang, What have I been doing all my life moments?!' when I realised I should be interviewing these incredible leaders, and putting it in a Blog for the world to see!
My mission was to expose that if a CEO or Founder of a major company was prepared to talk to me, the little lady, that these people were successful for the 'right' reasons and this was the type of leader I wanted to be.
It was at a function that I had the pleasure of meeting Scott Geiszler, one half of the Pizza Capers empire.
What impressed me about Scott?
-He is an all round cool guy who supports a lot of charitable causes.
-We 'nerded it up' talking about Social Networking for an hour.
-Scott and his Co-Founder Anthony were ranked No. 9 in 'BRW's Top 10 Fastest Growing Franchises'. (One of my my career fantasies is to be featured in BRW's Young Rich List. Scott's been in the mag, I wanted to be near him!)
CLINCHER: I had been watching Pizza Capers on Twitter for a little while, little did I know that the person I was watching 'Tweet' was Scott. Just confirms my theory, if a leader is prepared to step out from behind closed doors and expose himself to the world, we've got a good one on our hands!
Enjoy!
SCOTT GEISZLER...THE INTERVIEW
Scott donating a cheque on behalf of 'Pizza Capers' to ' Mater Miracles'.
1. What makes the difference between a 'business owner' and an 'entrepreneur'?
I think Michael Gerber's book, the "E Myth" has the best answer to this question. Early in our working lives, we get very technically competent - the technician in us is in charge. Then, the entrepreneur in us kicks in, sacks the boss, risks capital, and starts a business, the technician becomes a business owner.
From this point, we juggle. The technician just wants to do the work, be good at it, and get paid well. If we let the technician run the show, we have a small business, maybe a good small business, maybe even a great one, but its totally dependant on its owner, and this, i think is the definition of a business owner. If the owner stops, the business stops.
An entrepreneur on the other hand, is about leverage. We leverage our capital to get more and more out of it. We leverage our time and create more of it by surrounding ourselves with a talented team. We listen, learn, grow, invest. We are not good at detail. The classical entrepreneurial problem is continually coming up with the latest greatest, exciting thing, and kind of forgetting about the little details.... like the completing last weeks latest, greatest and exciting thing.
2. I know you are a big believer in Social Media (The likes of Twitter and Facebook). Was there a pivotal moment when you realised the potential of working with Social Media in your business?
I think social media has always been inevitable, and in some ways, it's always existed, we used to call it "talking". Humans are social animals. We like to have friends over, communicate, interact etc. 10 years ago we stopped getting that in traditional ways, and to an extent, we stopped being social. Chasms now exist between neighbours. Because of inexpensive long distance travel, family units, once close geographically are now all over the world. We needed a tool to keep in touch. Clever buggers like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter just saw that need and built a tool to satisfy it. For Pizza Capers social media is simply a new way to do what we've been doing for years, connecting with our customers.
3. What do you dream about?
I've always had a very strong belief in setting goals. Not just having "wouldn't it be nice" dreams, but specific, measurable, written down goals, with a corresponding step by step plan. I re-run my own goal setting workshop every year, and then review my progress weekly or sometimes daily. I have many goals, in all facets of my life. I have many business growth goals and milestones, many personal development goals, as well as goals of contribution to the community. For example, presently, I want to invest more time learning to play my guitar and learning to take better photos. This year I want to learn a new language, French. I would like to commit more time to helping out charitable ventures and I would like to become involved in politics. Each of these things has a corresponding specific action plan. Its the action plan that turns dreams into goals, and goals into reality. The action plan is the most important bit.
4. A multi-million dollar business is no easy feat, what abilities were you born with, and what skills have you needed to acquire to 'make it work'?
I think the only thing I was born with was a set a parents who are amazing, and they set the scene for everything we've been able to do up to now, and everything that we'll do in the future. I remain eternally grateful to them. The things you need to be successful are a matter of skills and attitude. All of these things can be learned, acquired or developed. The foundational lesson my parents taught me were:
1) You don't work, you don't get paid.
2) Next they taught me to love to work, not just to do it, not just to like it, but to love it - no matter what the job is.
3) do your best, no matter what the task at hand is - just strive to do it as best you can.
The next most important thing I learned was understanding that you always work for yourself, even if you're employed by someone else, you still work for yourself. You are your own brand. You should continually invest in learning, reading, listening and growing, and the value of your brand, "you". the more you've grown and learnt, the more you can ask to be paid, and the more you become "worth". From there, success seems to find you.
The next foundation lesson is to learn to continually ask quality questions. Things like, "What's not perfect yet?", "How did I do today?", "How can I help my customers and my team more?", "What can I do better tomorrow?", "How can I add value here?"
Finally, the attitude of win - win is important. There is win in every situation. I learnt to find the win for everyone involved in a situation and to do it as often as possible. This has been one of the most important parts of the story so far.
5. One of my dreams is to be featured in BRW Magazine, and for me that would be one indicator that I had 'made it'. Is there something that you measure yourself against? (You and Anthony have already been in BRW Magazine, congratulations!)
I remember listening to a Zig Ziglar tape once, on it he said that you should never measure yourself and your achievements against anyone else, you should only measure your performance against what you could have done with the skills and talents you had. In other words, I measure myself against myself only. The question to ask is "how did I do compared with what I could have done?". I ask that question a lot, and my journal is filled with lessons learnt in that type of reflection. I'll admit that I can be pretty tough on myself, but that's better than measuring myself against other people who may be smarter, more talented, more educated or who started from a stronger position than I did - I find that if i do this i end up depressed and to an extent paralysed from moving forward, and this position is counter productive. If I judge my actions against myself, I find that the lessons learned are powerful and motivational.
6. What has been your most valuable lesson so far in Business?
Early on we learned to think as if "Pizza Capers" was a person. It was not a tool that we used, it was a person and it employed us. Every time a roadblock came up or a decision needed to be made, we repeatedly asked "what's best for Pizza Capers?". This philosophy meant that at all times it was easy to make tough decisions. Some times those decisions were not easy on us. They caused us to work outrageous hours, or to do things we were not comfortable with. The philosophy meant that the business was never stifled by our own limitations, rather, it, as the boss, forced us to go out, get the tools, talent or skills that the business needed - as a result the shackles were off, and the business grew well.
7. What was the last moment of enlightenment you had? (A.k.a what's known as a light bulb, or 'aha!' moment)
I have very few light bulb moments, unfortunately. Almost everything we've come up with is the result of patience, diligence, work and thought. Any that I do have are usually in the kitchen. Most often a new product or new menu seems to come to me an an instant, and often I'll be at work most of the way through the night getting the new ideas down before they evaporate from my head even quicker than they arrived.
Recently we launched a new range of 97% Fat Free pizzas. Over about 4 months, we tried, tested, retried Post Optionsand went back to the drawing board with dozens of different ideas..... none of them worked. Then, it hit me and the 4 new pizzas we launched with were all born in a matter of seconds, and they resembled nothing like what we'd be playing around with up until that point.
8. Where do you see the 'Pizza Capers' business concept in 10 years time? With where the world is going with technology, will it be vastly different to the Business we see today? (Totally happy for a Jetsons or Futurama answer here!)
I think the core of the business, i.e. making high end, convenient meals and satisfying our guests will be the same.
There will be a myriad of changes in terms of how we communicate our messages, and in operational things like ordering stock, handling guest orders, measuring and monitoring performance. These are the areas we're focussed on right now.
Additionally, I think menus are undergoing the most significant changes we've ever seen. Within the next few years I think we'll see a real surge of our kind of food: natural, wholesome ingredients. I think over processed foods, like force meat and processed cheeses and the kind of stuff used by the fast food burger and pizza chains will die a deserving death. I think you'll see the rise of soy type products, and a general Asian-ification of the western diet - wok tossed, stir-fried, real veggies will take the place of burgers, pepperoni and cheese in an increasing number of diets. Red meat will be consumed less. Chicken, seafood will become increasing popular, but vegetarianism and the consumption of products like tofu will grow at an even higher rate.
9. For those who have a new concept or idea they would like to create, what would be your advice to them?
Learn - I went to a Brad Sugars seminar the other day, he said "you can't out earn your learning". I think the most important thing is to get into a frame of learning. Research, read, listen to audio books, attend seminars, do whatever it takes but get you're learning into overdrive. Stuff you don't know can hurt you - it pays to lessen the number of things you don't know. The other thing is to make sure that your new idea or concept solves some problem for your target market, and very importantly, that it solves the problem in a way that offers something different to the solutions offered by others.
Anthony and Scott - Co Founders
Pizza Capers has just launched a new 97% fat free range that ACTUALLY tastes good. ;)
www.pizzacapers.com
Follow them on Twitter and Facebook, please.
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