September 8, 2025 • 59 mins
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, host Jeremy Julian speaks with Craig Miller and Cliff Hudson, two key figures behind Sonic's transformation into a digital-first, nationwide brand. They discuss their new book, 'Bricks and Clicks,' which details their journey of automating business practices right before COVID-19 and their successful implementation of a digital strategy. The conversation explores how they integrated technology to enhance customer experiences and improve operational efficiency, including the introduction of mobile ordering and digital payment systems. Their strategies not only bolstered sales but also turned technological innovations into significant business advantages. The episode also delves into change management, the importance of the partnership between business and tech, and the challenges and successes faced along the way.
00:00 Sonic
00:14 Introduction and Welcome
01:59 Meet Cliff Hudson: Sonic's Transformational Leader
03:34 Craig Miller's Journey to Sonic
04:22 The Evolution of Technology in Business
07:21 Sonic's Unique Drive-In Experience
11:00 The Impact of Credit Card Technology
13:50 The Tech Oval Vision
17:52 Building a Business Partnership
25:37 Implementing the Tech Oval
30:10 Craig's Arrival and Marketing Evolution
31:50 Building the Tech Backbone
34:59 Omnichannel Strategy and Franchisee Buy-In
36:38 Implementing Digital Touchpoints
42:53 Centralizing Marketing Efforts
49:29 Final Guest Experience and Company Sale
54:43 Reflections and Book Promotion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker (00:02):
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast,
helping you run your restaurantbetter.
In today's episode, we arejoined by two of the members of
the Sonic team that really grewSonic into being a nationwide
(00:24):
brand.
Uh, Craig Miller and CliffHudson wrote a book that really
talks about their journey andhow they went from where they.
Really started to helping toautomate the business practices
right before COVID.
It's a really remarkable storyof seeing a vision for where
they wanted to go and executingit.
And it really paid dividendsboth for them, for their
(00:46):
franchisees, and for thecommunities at large, because
they went digital in a timethat, uh, most weren't.
Check out the episode and let meknow what your thoughts are.
'cause uh, nowadays you can getat Sonic just about anywhere.
And I remember when they firststarted, it wasn't something
that you could get across thecountry.
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy.
Julian.
(01:06):
I am the Chief Revenue Officerfor CBS Northstar.
We sell the North Star point ofsale product for multi-units.
Please check usout@cbsnorthstar.com and now
onto our episode.
Jeremy Julian (01:18):
Well, welcome back to the Restaurant
Technology Guys podcast.
I thank everyone that out therefor joining us.
As I say, every single episode,we're grateful that you guys get
to spend time, hanging out andlistening to some cool stories.
And today is no exception.
one of the most beloved brandsin the country, I would say
definitely in the Midwest.
And we're gonna talk a littlebit about where they, where they
really reinvented, inventedthings from a digital
(01:39):
perspective and, their new book.
But Cliff, why don't youintroduce yourself to get
started and then you canintroduce your, your co,
co-author and, co-host fortoday's show where we get to
talk about, what you guys builtFrom Drive-In to Digital: How
Sonic Transformed the CustomerExperience
Clifford Hudson (01:53):
Happy to do so and appreciate the opportunity
to be with you and your,listeners today.
thank you for that.
so Cliff Hudson, I, for purposesof today's, discussion, my
background is with Sonic and, Ispent 35 years with the company.
The last 23 years as a CEOchairman and CEO of the company,
(02:13):
3,500 plus units across 45states.
And, in my time as CEO grewsystem-wide sales, it was 95%
franchise system-wide sales from900 million to 4.5 billion.
pretty radical transformation onthe technology front.
My, partner on all of that, interms of the, the deep and
(02:38):
serious planning, strategizing,implementation.
And, Ann now co-author on thisbook is Craig Miller.
And, Craig and I had thepleasure of working together,
going on eight years, from 2009forward.
And, in, all of the above indeveloping strategy and, ex
(03:01):
execution of that strategy atSonic and really
transformational for ouroperators.
And, only, regret I have is thatwe didn't beyond 2018, because
the change of control of thecompany didn't have the
opportunity to see next stageand get the benefit of all of
our labors.
So Craig and I, a great runtogether and I can turn it over
(03:21):
to Craig for a moment.
If you don't mind.
let him talk about hisbackground as well.
Jeremy Julian (03:26):
I had Love that Craig.
why don't you share a little bitabout where, prior to Sonic,
'cause I think it's, it'scritical so that everybody
understands.
And then, talk a little bitabout what you got to do at
Sonic.
Craig Miller (03:34):
Yeah, sure.
so my, my backgroundacademically, was, computer
science and compu andengineering.
So you might say I, I was, cameoutta school as a computer
scientist, but quickly, turnedinto a business strategist.
I really enjoyed, really enjoyedbusiness and the operations of
business and, and really helpinginnovatively to grow businesses.
(03:56):
But most of the, most of myearly I'd say, The first quarter
or third of my, my, career, Iworked, on a lot of, advanced
technology for, department ofDefense and military.
So some, the most advancedtechnology, that, that existed.
and so that's how I cut my teethon emerging type of
technologies.
again, my interest in businessis quickly, shifted over and,
(04:19):
started a company with, apartner.
we, we grew it quite rapidly, atthe time in the late eighties,
and going into the ninetieswhere there were two things that
were happening in technologyfrom an emerging standpoint.
one, many businesses were movingfrom old mainframes to now.
Everyone had a PC on their desk.
And, computers were really,pervading all aspects of the
(04:43):
business and.
Many companies were failing toexecute these new solutions.
And we, we would come in and,help first fix broken situations
and then eventuallystrategically help them.
The other, the other, aspect ofour business was, Microsoft was
exploding with windows from DOSover to Windows, quite rapidly.
(05:05):
There were a lot of, consumerproducts that were still in the
old dos, dating myself a bit,but it, I think it connects with
how, what led to experience tosupport Sonic and, and so we
worked, we were one of the fewnon-Microsoft companies that
actually knew how to developWindows apps.
for the, for, consumers andcommercially, de deploy them
(05:27):
into real retail.
you bought software at thatpoint?
comp USA.
It wasn't online at that point.
And really developed, theadvanced kind of business
strategies, but also consumerfacing type products.
then, the left, the company andwent back into large
corporations really doing thesame thing.
(05:48):
And technology was justadvancing quite rapidly.
But Bank of America, Pepsi, coNielsen, a lot of big companies,
now with distributed computingweb was, evolving quite rapidly.
Even mobile started to evolve.
And I went for a period ofprobably 10 years really
learning now how to, how toexecute from within large co
(06:09):
companies.
And and that eventually led meto a brand that was also.
really thinking through how toleverage technology, which was
how I met Cliff, and, that,that, that was, an exciting time
because it was, and I'm surewe'll get into this, but cliff
(06:30):
vision was, really far ahead ofmost any of the CEOs at that
time, certainly in restaurants,let alone retail.
And so it was an exciting timeto partner with Cliff and,
really help bring his vision tolife.
Jeremy Julian (06:42):
Yeah.
And I'm excited to talk throughthe change management process.
'cause I know you and I weretalking hit before to hitting
the record button andoftentimes, the vision's there,
but without the changemanagement, it, it falters
Cliff.
you spent a lot of years of yourcareer at Sonic, but for those
that might not have had theprivilege yet to experience a
sonic, I know for myself,growing up on the West coast, I
had never been to a Sonic untilI came to the Midwest.
(07:03):
And I was like, where has thisbeen in, in my life all of these
years?
And then ultimately you guys putone in, in Fullerton, but it was
like a 30 minute drive to get toa Sonic.
So for those that aren'tfamiliar with it,'cause it is
traditional products, but notnecessarily the way that you
guys go to market isn't alwaysthe same as, as what you might
think of as a, as traditional,traditional restaurant
experience.
Clifford Hudson (07:21):
Sonic started in the early 1950s in Oklahoma.
the town, then the town ofShawnee, Oklahoma.
And, grew in a concentricfashion.
from there it was given the1950s a, a drive-in restaurant
in which you had, in essence, akitchen on a parking pad,
(07:43):
parking spaces extending, outdirectly from the building
canopy over the parking places.
and, customer pulls into one ofabout 25 stalls.
Varies, from drive to drive in.
You pull into angular parking,gives you a little bit of
privacy, vis-a-vis.
The car is next to you and,there is a menu housing outside
(08:06):
the driver window.
You look at the menu, decidewhat you want, push a button on
the intercom.
historically, before theapplication of the technology,
that's the topic of this book.
Historically, then what wouldhappen is a, a person inside the
building.
We'd come over the intercom andask you what you wanted, you
would place your order, the foodwould be made to order.
(08:28):
But very quickly, our objectivewas to get food orders out in
four minutes or less.
And, then get the food.
a car hop would bring the foodout to the customer, in their
car, hand it to'em through thedriver window, and, take
payment, make change, et cetera.
And then the driver could stayor the driver would leave on
(08:48):
average customers.
the pre-technology applicationcustomers, would stay on lot
about, or in the parking place,about 11 minutes.
And so it was an unusualopportunity as we started
putting together these plans.
an unusual opportunity to,communicate with them, you might
say, while they were in their,that parking stall.
(09:10):
By the time, the company wasacquired by Rourke Equity Group,
work Capital.
by the time it was acquired,that was pretty much still the
business, although theapplication of technology was
changing, quickly in terms ofhow, that worked in terms of
order taking and payment methodsand, and many of the drive-ins
(09:33):
had added drive-through windows,et cetera.
But it was a, mostly atraditional 1950s drive-in
restaurant.
Jeremy Julian (09:39):
Yeah.
and still today, even withoutthe tech, you can still
experience it.
And again, I was talking toCraig prior to I, there's one
right next to my chiropractor.
I often will go in, for mymorning appointment, grab a
breakfast burrito on my way to,to go to the chiropractor.
And, and, my wife, especially,one of the other uniquenesses
that Sonic has is their, thedrinks, the beverages.
My wife, often I've got a9-year-old who, one of her
(10:00):
favorite places is to go havemom order it, hands her the
phone in the back seat, sheorders it, and then they go pull
up to the spot.
And I know we'll get to that.
to get to that shortly, how youguys built that cliff.
You said something interestingright before you, you passed the
mic over to Craig that I thinkis unique that I'd love to have,
have our listeners here.
You, you talked about a businesspartnership and then I'm gonna
talk with Craig.
(10:21):
'cause all too often I have seenthe CEO sees the tech team as a
necessary evil.
They don't necessarily treatthem like business partners in
their business.
I've watched this acrossmultiple brands across my 30
year career.
There are some that, that trulytreat them like business
partners.
And then I'd love to have Craigtalk a little bit about how that
(10:41):
has interacted prior to usjumping into kind of what you
guys did, but how and when andwhere did that come about in
your own thinking?
Because all too often, like Isaid, I don't see that as being
something that, that theyemphasize and ensure at the
executive level that they have aseat at the table to be able to
drive the business to the placethat you guys ultimately drove
it to.
Clifford Hudson (11:00):
in the, first decade of this century, there
were some technology,developments that were very
positive for the business.
I began viewing, we had alwaysbeen about min about innovation,
but that was generally aboutmenu innovation with made to
order food and so on day partinnovation, in terms of when we
(11:21):
would attract customers withwhat type of promotion and
product and so on.
innovation had been very muchpart of our history and culture,
technology innovation.
Became, more part of the culturethan the other part of that
decade.
And that was with theapplication, installation of
credit card readers at theindividual stall, attached to
(11:44):
the menu housing.
And that was so successful.
bro check when people usedcredit cards, they spent 40%
more money with us.
The average check on in 2001,before we rolled that out, the
average check with cash was fivebucks.
The average check with creditcard was seven bucks.
(12:05):
And we had been told that peopleused credit, they spend more
money.
but it was quick and it wasconcrete, now to give you a
sense, and I'll come back toanswer your question more
directly, to give you a sense ofthe impact of that.
When we finished rolling it out,or as we began rolling out, we
called that program Pays, whichwas an acronym for Pay It Your
Stall.
(12:25):
it almost doesn't make adifference what the acronym was.
It's called Pays, but when webegan to roll it out, credit
card sales were 5% of our totalsales.
So cash in 2001 cash was, 95%.
in, interestingly enough in ohthree, then as we finished
(12:46):
rolling out this attachment, thePACE program, we were brushing
up against 2 billion actually inoh one, we had just passed 2
billion in sales.
That's right.
Oh one 2 billion in sales, 5%credit cards.
When the company sold, I.
15, 17 years later, that 2billion had gone to two and a
(13:07):
half billion more, or four and ahalf billion total.
The credit card sales were 55%.
Now, 55% of sales, not 5%, butthe credit card sales were two
and a half billion dollars.
They had gone from a hundredmillion to two and a half
billion.
So in, in other words, 100% ofthe incremental sales in that 15
(13:31):
year period worth your creditcards.
So this could tell you in that1, 2, 3, 4, 5 timeframe that if
you move toward technology thatwas customer interfacing and
agreeable with them, helpful tothem, they would utilize it and
they'd utilize it to theirbenefit and to our benefit.
Okay.
Simultaneously, we had startedutilizing, Jim Collins good to
(13:55):
great.
And, I totally bought into theflywheel.
utilized it in the next 15 plusyears in all my discussions with
our operators and used it andput it in our business plans.
Used it with the managementteam, the employees franchisees
used it in investor relations,presentations and so on, and
(14:16):
used it in how we ran thecompany.
the application of that and theflywheel.
when we started looking at thisburgeoning technologies, it
occurred to me that the more wecould link these technologies
more, we could create a flywheelfor our technology.
And, but I didn't call it thatbecause I felt like I'd be
(14:39):
ripping off Jim Collins, so whywould I do that?
So I started calling it ourtechnology oval because I would
put all these points.
Jeremy Julian (14:48):
An oval instead of the circle.
Clifford Hudson (14:49):
Sit in the circle, gotta have my own deal,
And, and for a short, the technooval and, at any rate, so this
was, so I started seeing it thisway and it struck me that it
really by oh three and oh four,my view was this really could
become our future marketingvehicle.
(15:10):
if we got enough informationwith customers on this, we could
become communicating with'emmore directly instead of having
to pay television pay, radiopay, cable pay, so on.
So this really was the thought.
Now the challenge was that, whenyou talk about how CEOs viewed
tech folks, this, the reversewas also true, and that was the
(15:33):
tech folks viewed themselves.
Having an isolated spot in thecompany.
they spoke their own language.
It didn't have to be English.
And they would stand in meetingsand say stuff.
And I would sit there saying,what is he saying?
And I'm not talking about Craig,I'm talking about his
predecessors.
And it was, in terms of this,distancing, it was mutual, and,
(15:56):
to me, we were getting nowherefast.
We were getting nowhere fast onreplacing a point of sales,
systems across our sonic system.
We were getting nowhere in termsof updating things effectively
internally.
And it was very frustrating.
in the kind of the oh eighttimeframe, I hired a search
(16:16):
firm, and went, in a differentdirection.
In other words, I hired a searchfirm from Connecticut and, and
relatively shortly, theyintroduced me to Craig.
And, when Craig came, we startedtalking.
We, things clicked pretty fastbecause I could tell he had a
broader business view.
and when he came in and wetalked about the nuts and bolts
(16:40):
or as we would say, the wiring,plumbing, and wiring for the
company, I also sit down anddrew him the techno oval, And,
I, on the one hand felt like Iwas taking a chance because a
little embarrassing for a guywho's not a tech guy, me to be
drawing on a piece of paper thisoval and putting these touch
points on it and saying, this iswhere I want to go, but we can't
(17:03):
get our base systems in place.
Anyway, I think this excitedCraig, and he just, he took a
fundamentally different approachthan his predecessors the day he
walked in the door.
'cause he, his view was you, I'mhere to not just fix this thing,
but to help build the company.
and so he and I just, hadstarted having regular, you're
(17:25):
always gonna have regularmeetings, but more intense, more
often, one-on-one, much morestrategizing.
And to be blunt, me getting himto educate me, about how this
could have happened.
And, so that's the process ittook.
And it just, it evolved and itwas a different relationship
than I'd had with any of hispredecessors.
(17:48):
And of course, his impact on thecompany was different than any
of his predecessors.
Jeremy Julian (17:51):
I love that.
Craig, talk to me a little bitabout kind of the mindset.
Obviously you came from thebusiness mindset and I
appreciate you sharing thatearlier.
I, and I know we'll eventuallyget to what you guys built, but
I love to educate our listenersout there, especially those that
are on the tech side, becauseI've watched people that are
tech for tech sake.
let me show you all these coolgadgets.
Let me show you all of thesethings that you can do, but it
(18:12):
doesn't drive the business.
But you took a differentapproach and I really think
that's why you guys were sosuccessful, is it was about
building the business.
It was about making sure thefranchisees could operate it,
that the guests could operateit, that the, they could make
money from it and the businesscould ultimately make money.
So I'd love to have you talkthrough that mindset shift to
educate some of our listenersthat might be out there, that
might be either young in theircareer or looking at taking that
(18:35):
executive leap.
And they go in and they don'tspeak the language.
And as Cliff said, they'respeaking a different language to
the executives and they're like,I don't care.
The bits and bites, I just wannaknow what's it gonna do for our
consumer or what's it gonna dofor our business?
Craig Miller (18:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Happy to.
so as I had, stated earlier, Ihad the wonderful opportunity to
learn very early on, and with alot of scars because, I came
out, as I said, a computerscientist, but when I, when we
started our company very earlyon and, and needed to put
proposals together andinfluence, potential clients, I
(19:09):
quickly learned, I really, I hadto communicate fir first it was
in proposals, right?
But then, I really had to findways to, communicate and educate
at that time, potential clients.
On how to think abouttechnology.
so a lot of it was to Cliff'sPoint was first educating, but
(19:29):
in terms that would resonate andquite frankly, the different,
different companies sometimeshad different language.
You really had.
So if you're gonna influence,outcomes and come, you've gotta
one speak English, in a way thatthey understand.
but even some nuances indifferent companies.
So I learned that very early on,that was how do connect.
(19:50):
so for your listeners, it's veryimportant.
And honestly, it, I tell thisstory.
My, my wife at the time when Iused to have her review some of
my proposals, she'd say, I don'tunderstand.
You need to start talking like,you're talking.
And so it really helped me todevelop those, the, the style
and the technique.
and then the other piece is Iwould quickly try to understand
(20:13):
where they were coming from, andwhat they were concerned about.
So I can connect with them,whoever clients.
And then, even, like in Cliff'scase, this was gonna be my boss,
right?
This is gonna be our CEO and ourleader.
and so that, that was a kind ofa technique and a skill that I
had, thankfully developed.
Many tech technologists don't.
(20:35):
I coach a lot of folks and a lotof my team even at Sonic is they
would present something makessense now put it in a way, you
have to look through theproblem, through the lens of the
business.
And so that you develop that.
So that's really how I learnedthat.
And in my meeting with Cliff,you quickly assimilating his
(20:56):
frustration.
and he meant, he said there werefour things here that, that
really I wrestle with andfrustrating.
One was the point of sale, we'reon antiquated point of sale.
So one was data and we've spenttens of millions of dollars on
this data warehouse and we stillcan't get, what we need from a
data perspective.
(21:16):
the third one, was some of thetechnology, other technology
that they had.
We had in corporate on supplychain, we're still running our
business on spreadsheets.
we run a over a billion dollarsof food and paper.
And the fourth thing was histechno oval.
now the other three I worked inthe restaurant industry and
those are like, it's like offthe top of my head, I know what
(21:38):
we need to do there to help youcliff.
but this techno oval really was,really was stunning to me
because, it, ha have having,talking to lots of CEO and board
members,
Clifford Hudson (21:51):
he was more accustomed to circles,
Jeremy Julian (21:53):
Yeah, he's got the book behind his left
shoulder that, says, good togreat.
But,
Craig Miller (21:56):
but what struck me is Cliff's vision was, as I said
earlier, way far ahead of wheremost CEOs were thinking and
that, and it starts with that.
And so I started to dig into hisrationale around it.
and it really, he drew thiscircle had these tech, points
(22:16):
around the outside of all thesenew ways we can communicate and
connect with the customer.
And this is pre-mobile, this ispre-social.
And and in the middle was acustomer.
and to, and that's, I hadlearned a long, you always start
there.
So when I'm usually having tospend time with CEOs to say,
okay, let's not, let's get backto who your customer, your
(22:39):
business is.
that's what Cliff started.
And he had really grown thebusiness by always starting with
the customer and the visionthat.
That, that he had learned,really through the electronic,
payment, is that if I cancollect more information and
data, I can learn more about mycustomers.
(23:01):
That's how we win.
That's ultimately where youstart in any business and any,
and I'm typically having toshift.
So now it was just, I just saidCliff IA had to bring this
together.
I had to make this happen.
and I think that was thebeginning of connecting, I would
say o over time, initially hadlaid out, I think within the
(23:22):
first 90 days, here's what thiswould look like, and, over the
next three to five years.
and so I gave him a picturequickly of now what it could
look like and educating them.
and we'll get to the kind of thehow.
But the one thing I, that Iwould say that over time.
(23:43):
Over the next year, I had toearn and, cliff's trust and
confidence in my thinking.
And what evolved fromone-on-ones, typical one-on-ones
between a, CEO and a, andanother executive in the
company.
It turned into, these, and wehave it in the book.
(24:03):
We have a, we've replicatedthese sessions.
we would get to a point, eitherhave a challenge or we get to a
point where we succeeded andneeded to get to the next phase.
And I would get a call, Craig,what are you doing tonight?
after work?
let's meet for some wine.
help me understand how should webe thinking about it would
always start that way.
How should we be thinking aboutthis?
(24:25):
and so those would be becomerituals for us.
It could be a Sunday morning.
All of a sudden Cliffs is he's,he wants, how do I think about
this?
And so our rituals reallybecame, in both ways, he would
educate me on, the dynamics ofthe brand and the businesses and
how, and I would educate him,how we think about it, in ways
(24:49):
that, that, you know, mypredecessors really hadn't done.
I think with Cliff and thosebecame important.
Jeremy Julian (24:56):
cliff, why don't you, it's clear that your vision
for where you wanted to go wasthere and able to be articulated
and then it's, back to what yousaid, Craig, it's now how do we
get there?
But Cliff, I'd love, and I knowit's in the book.
So for those that, haven't yetpicked up the book and that are
now just discovering the factthat you guys have put this all
down, talk us through kind oflong-term where were you trying
to go?
Because I think, to, to what youhad said, Craig, it's a three to
(25:18):
five year process to get there.
'cause it's not the big bang andeverything's just there.
You've gotta work through it.
And so the fact that you keptthe customer at the center of it
and then said, okay, let's justkeep pushing the envelope a
little bit better, keep askingquestions of the team, but give
us that vision of what was onthat oval for those that, that,
that are sitting here listening,going, where are we going?
Clifford Hudson (25:37):
Yeah.
so a couple of, lines of, eventsand thinking there.
One, what was on the oval?
everything that in oh 3, 4, 5,you, could have thought about,
texting, e email, point of salesystems, anything that we had
that was, digital and computerdriven and or the customer had
(26:00):
that I could see that we couldeventually link with.
my perspective was it could behelpful for the headquarters,
the store, our employees at thestore, our customers.
And that the linkage that, thatit would provide would only grow
over time.
But it would provide a way forus to start communicating with
people that was one-to-oneinstead of through
(26:21):
intermediaries.
I shared it, 3 0 4, with ourboard of directors and, two
interesting things about that.
I think in terms of that, thatboard meeting.
One, because I was thinkingthen, and I, it was ahead of
things, but, I was thinking itwould become mostly a marketing
(26:42):
tool.
And I asked our then C-M-C-M-Oto present it to the board.
the, and she may have had thetitle of president by then, but
she had come up through CMO andshe was still responsible for
marketing.
So I asked her to present it tothe board at a board meeting.
And, interestingly enough, shesays to me, no, you present it
Jeremy Julian (27:04):
Hey, the non-tech guy is gonna present, this
marketing.
Clifford Hudson (27:07):
I think her deal was, I think her view was,
I don't know what the hell itis, and you're not pitting that
on me.
I think that was really the, theunderpinning for her resistance.
So I presented to the board.
Okay.
and, the points along the waywhere we look, we're gonna be
going here anyway, and hereanyway.
Why not cause these things tolink and get leverage out of
(27:29):
them.
And, Bob Rosenberg, who had beenthe 30 year CEO of Dunking
Donuts and had retired not longbefore that, Bob grabbed it at
the board meeting and he says,look, in the seventies, the
Industry Restaurant Institutewas all about just raw growth
and chains developing.
(27:51):
In the eighties.
It really became about,financial refinement of how you
managed your business anddifferent kinds of executives
started running companies tobring financial refinement to
the business.
In the nineties, it reallybecame about brand building.
This was Bob's comment to theboard.
Then the nineties, it becameabout brand building.
(28:13):
He said, my view is what Cliffis showing us today is the
future.
And he says, he said, I thinkthis is the next place for
restaurants to go, and those whomaster it are gonna master the
industry.
That was Bob's comment like inoh three or oh four.
Jeremy Julian (28:33):
Interesting.
Clifford Hudson (28:34):
my, my reaction was, yay affirmation, and, glad
my CMO forced me to present it.
I got credit with the forwardthinking board and so that was
the early on, implementation ofthat.
And then so how did, what wasthe drive to keep moving with
it?
I was convinced the thing couldbecome something.
(28:57):
strangely enough, I'm not namingnames here except for guys that
were helpful, like BobRosenberg.
but I hired a CMO from next CMOfrom Yahoo.
And, my thought was, this guy'sbeen living in the digital
world.
He'll have us, he'll help ustake it there.
And he had been on a while and,and let's say oh six or so, and
(29:20):
I was saying, okay, this isgoing fine and that's going
fine, but I would need you tohelp us think about the tech
oval.
and he basically said to me inso many words, that's bullshit.
He said, we're not moving offtelevision anytime soon.
And the idea of that being a,the big marketing tool, I'm not
(29:40):
spending my time on it.
And I thought, that'sextraordinary.
You came to us from Yahoo.
what in the world, So anyway, Iwas frustrated with the
marketing, lack of marketingbuy-in within the company, but I
was more frustrated that weweren't getting ahead on POS and
so on, so forth.
(30:01):
And so it was in the oh eighttimeframe where, I changed CMOs
but also changed, CIO.
and it was Craig's arrival that,that started providing the
impetus.
cause we started moving.
I had somebody that wasintrigued with the whole thing
and he could cause it to move.
The marketing, moved, excuse me,moved with it.
(30:25):
But the marketing was even in,9, 10, 11.
The marketing was slow comingwith it.
And in 11.
I brought in a marketing guy whoreally became a good partner for
Craig and me.
And, he really helped this startmoving forward as well.
And, so that once, I had theteam in place like that, then,
(30:50):
things really started movingextremely well.
that marketing, CMO by the way,in that 1112 timeframe also saw
some aligned with me on, how weneed to line up resources for
current and future new andfuture marketing activities.
(31:10):
Current was cable and future was
Jeremy Julian (31:14):
One to one.
Clifford Hudson (31:14):
the whole bit with the, ultimately we, we
would say through social mediaand smartphones and so on, so
forth.
So he saw that, seemed to seethat coming and.
Help get things lined up to movethat direction.
Unfortunately, in like 2015, thecompany had such a positive run
in, in the mid-teens thatseveral of our people got
(31:35):
plucked off, very senior,
Jeremy Julian (31:37):
that's how it happens.
and just as a reminder for ourlisteners, I just went and
looked it up while you weretalking there, cliff is just,
the iPhone originally gotreleased in oh seven.
So you were talking abouttexting and communicating back
well before the iPhone even cameout.
And Craig, I'd love for you totalk through what it is that you
guys were trying to accomplish,and what did you guys build
Again, I know a lot of thesestories are in the book, but I'd
love to where did you guys startand how did the build go?
Craig Miller (31:59):
Yeah.
yeah, taking, really building onclose vision, ha having worked,
in other industries that werealready starting to work,
omnichannel retail, right?
the concepts were relativelyvery new for, for the restaurant
and chain.
Like I said, it was pre mobile,but, but I typically always
start, as Cliff did with, the,really th there, there are three
(32:20):
things on the business side, andthen that, that quickly I frame
everything out.
How does a business drive salesand how does a business, drive
profitability?
And, what is the profile of thecustomer?
What drives the customer to, topurchase?
and so I start with that, thatbe, that, that kind of begins to
unfold what the tech should looklike.
(32:41):
and sales in a restaurant, as iswe, to, we wanna drive traffic,
we wanna drive check, we wannadrive frequency profitability.
It was predominantly, labor,and, inventory that we, we would
wanna manage.
And then of course, the take itdown to the next level is kind
of efficiency.
We wanna get in under fourminutes.
(33:02):
we wanna streamline theexperience for the customer.
So I take those and I, that,that kind of really quickly
helps me to understand where,how to begin to model the tech
in the, in sense of the tech,the techno oval.
At that point, there were a lotof industries that were already
building these networksolutions, right?
Distributed solutions.
So I knew I had to connect therestaurant with the customer.
(33:24):
And then these, the kind ofexternal, channels, and really
start to, even before it wascalled omnichannel, begin to
build this kind of, omnichannelapproach, adding the digital,
connections with thetraditional.
So it's not about replacingtraditional media, it's about
adding to the traditional mediaand for those marketing folks
(33:47):
who are listeners, right?
It's the, you use TV to pull'eminto the top of the funnel and
then in, in many cases, and thenthe engagement because the
digital or two way you drivethem through.
And how do we eliminate thebarriers of the physical store
so that the, and restaurant, sothat the, engaging with a
(34:08):
prospect or consumer outside therestaurant, we can continue to
drive that engagement all theway through sale on the, when
they're on lot.
And so that becomes the model.
then, because, as Cliff said,the, there the brand was
burdened by a lot of 20,30-year-old technology in the
restaurants.
I knew the first thing we had todo is to rebuild the backbones.
(34:29):
Which was the point of sale inthe kitchen, in the kitchen
system.
before we, we do that, we,nothing, we can't do anything
else.
The backbone of this kind ofdata infrastructure.
and that was gonna require, andthis goes to the change
management question, not onlygetting the board and the
executives, Sonic, butfranchisees.
Jeremy Julian (34:49):
Yeah, I was gonna ask how, you guys had this huge
vision, but if it ultimatelyeither didn't work or the
business constituents that areout in the field didn't adopt
it, it would've all fallen on
Craig Miller (34:59):
So about, again, 90 days in, laid this picture
out for Cliff.
Okay, now let's get to it.
about three or four monthslater, I get a call, Hey, I
wanna talk about how we shouldbe thinking about this.
And Cliff shares, you know what,I get it.
I get the, I get what theblueprint looks like, I'm just,
and I get the roadmap, but itfeels like we're not getting
(35:21):
there.
It feels like we're still hungup on all this old technology
stuff.
And I said, cliff, I said, weare, but understand until we get
the point of sale as thebackbone, and that's gonna
require bringing the franchiseesand influencing them along the
way.
that ha nothing else happens.
He says, okay, what's your planfor that?
I said, we've instituted a, withI think six or seven of the most
(35:44):
influential franchisees to atech council.
I'm gonna educate them on thecost of not moving away from
this point of sale, how we canmove and we will get them on
board.
They'll in, they'll influenceothers, and that's gonna take a
good six, seven months.
and Cliff, said, okay.
But, we've got, we're a publiccompany.
every quarter we've gotinvestors and analysts saying,
(36:07):
we're, when is this gonnahappen?
and that's, I shared a storywith Cliff.
it's like renovating a70-year-old house.
I said, first you gotta fix theplumbing before we can start
adding the rooms and everything.
So that became a, cl itresonated with Cliff, the whole
plumbing piece.
So we would use, first we gottaget the plumbing in place and
the foundation, and then we canstart adding a lot of the new
(36:27):
21st century.
capabilities on site.
that happened, it took aboutnine months.
We had franchisees, we alignedon the new point of sale how we
were gonna go forward.
Once we did that, the next thingwas how are we gonna digitize
the stall?
and that's where we're workingwith Bill Claman.
we initially said, Hey, I'll goback to my Bank of America
(36:49):
contacts to, suppliers who putin, kiosks and ATMs.
But that didn't work out becausetoo small wasn't, for
restaurants.
So we went to a kiosk company,to adapt their solution.
That didn't work out.
So we eventually just steppedback and said, listen, we know
what we need to go build.
We're not gonna, we're not, noone else has this, we're not
(37:10):
gonna find it off the shelf.
And so we said, let's build aprototype.
See if we could drive trafficand check to the stall.
And we did that.
cliff called it the uglyduckling because it really, it
was just a prototype todemonstrate the value
proposition of a digitalconnection point in the stall.
Clifford Hudson (37:30):
I called it an ugly duckling to lower the board
of a director's expectation.
'cause we were gonna take,
Jeremy Julian (37:37):
oh, sorry.
Go for it.
Clifford Hudson (37:38):
we were gonna take them to see it.
And I thought, somebody's gonnasay, that's ugly.
I said, let's just take that offthe table.
Jeremy Julian (37:46):
most, most Gen one and gen two are pretty ugly
until, until it starts to getsome adoption,
Clifford Hudson (37:50):
Right.
Craig Miller (37:52):
Yeah.
So we quickly, proved out thebusiness proposition, on that.
And then went and, scaled thatout.
So we had point of sale going.
We now had, engineering.
And manufacturing of the digitaltouchpoint.
And then we worked on, now howdo we build the network across
everything to connecteverything, so we could start
(38:13):
to, integrate all the pieces onCliff's techno.
I'll stop there for a minutebecause the one story I think
would be worth talking about,but I'll stop there for a
minute, was that was about thetime where Mobil started to
emerge, and I added Mobil andsocial to the, to Cliff's techno
Oval and Cliff.
(38:34):
He certainly knew what that was,but he didn't, he said, I don't
understand how that's going to,
Jeremy Julian (38:38):
Of the power of it.
Craig Miller (38:40):
So anyway.
Jeremy Julian (38:40):
gonna ask you, cliff, is really how did you
manage a, at the point, a 50plus year old brand going
digital first, because that,like again, you've got the
legacy, you've got the historyof, the car hops, the drive-in,
but you also saw the vision.
And I'd love to, to help ourlisteners understand even that
part of the change management,because you had to have a pretty
(39:02):
bold vision that says we'regoing here in the early two
thousands to get to where youguys ultimately got to.
and I'd love to just hear yourthought process on how you did
that, because ultimately I thinkthat drove the success because
again, technology fortechnology's sake is worthless,
but technology that drivesbusiness value for the guests
and for your team members iswhere it's really at.
And I'd love to get yourunderstanding of how you cast
(39:24):
that vision that says we'retaking a 50-year-old brand.
Now, 70-year-old brand, but 50years at the time, and bringing
it to the 21st century, becauseyou probably had franchisees
that were like, no, we've beendoing it just fine this way
forever.
And you had to manage that bothinternally and to the board and
to the public markets.
Clifford Hudson (39:42):
Yeah, you're exactly right.
So as to those, particularlyfranchise operators who might
have been resistant, what, thepitch I used and we used for the
most part was look at thesepoints around this techno oval,
or as we came to call it,integrated customer engagement,
the ice.
(40:02):
Wheel, And
Jeremy Julian (40:03):
restaurant has their own acronyms.
To your point, Craig, they'vealways got some different
language.
Sorry.
Every acronym, every restaurant.
What's this acronym mean?
So sorry, I'll let you keepgoing.
Clifford Hudson (40:11):
that's alright.
when we would review that withfranchise leaders, I will, I
would always say all the pointsalong there we're gonna have to
do anyway.
You're gonna, you, we have anantiquated point of sale system,
it's at its end of life.
We've got to replace it.
We've gotta move to softwarebased, systems.
(40:31):
And, so this is not an expense,this is not an expense you're
going to incur.
but for, this plant you got,we're gonna have to do it
anyway.
And so you would make the pointabout now the one place where
that was not true was we wantedto put in.
In place, as Craig has alreadytalked about a video screen in
(40:55):
each parking stall.
And we wanted that to, to beable to now any number of
things, confirm the customer'sorder, show them paid, not paid,
show that the order's coming outover time.
As we built then informationabout customers, we would also
promote things to them wherethey, we knew they had purchased
before, and so on and so forth.
(41:15):
So we wanted that, I wanted thatvideo screen in the stall.
That was the ugly ducking thatCraig was referring to a moment
ago.
that was something that, the,that would not be put in place
but for this integrated customerengagement plan.
and so what we did with that,because it was instead of a few
(41:36):
hundred bucks, it was a couplethousand bucks a stall, we went
to vendors.
who sold goods to our system andsaid, how would you like your
product to be on that screen?
And, all these years later, Iwould just say it was Coke and
Dr.
Pepper.
That's who we,
Jeremy Julian (41:54):
Say, I'm sure it was Coke.
'cause they like to put theirlogo in front of lots of
Clifford Hudson (41:57):
Yeah.
And here we were gonna have ahundred thousand screens every
day of the week, with thecontent that we controlled, with
consumers by definition, lookingat it, And Dr.
Pepper was a little slow, butCoke immediately said yes.
And so we were able to go to ouroperators.
it was interesting'cause none ofour number of our board members
(42:19):
had seen it.
And they saw the impact on saleswith the ugly duckling, but they
were still eh, their average agewas, 68 or something.
20 years ago.
So they were kinda like, what isthis?
so then Coke steps up and putsmillions of bucks behind it, and
our board of directors said,okay, this must be for real,
Anyway, that, but it also, thatwas one impediment with our
(42:42):
franchise operators that waserased because vendors were
gonna pay for advertising, inessence, on the screens.
So this was a, that would'vebeen an impediment.
how else did we do this?
The biggest thing early on in aslide of hand fashion was too
much of our marketing dollarswere still spent in local co-ops
(43:03):
through to local media.
And my reaction was as we movetowards more social media and
this whole ice apparatus that,having a hundred local co-ops
was a loser.
And, trying to then, manage thatall across the system.
So we needed to convince ouroperators to centralize more of
(43:26):
those dollars.
and, that came out of a, theopportunity came out of to do
that came out of a management,no, a franchise leadership
retreat, in which, the leader,the president of our, the chair
of our franchise advisorycouncil said we have to do
something about new markets.
My pitch was, let's move moneyto national fund, more money to
(43:49):
national fund.
Let's buy more national cable.
Our ad, our new ad agency showedto us and them, the enormous
purchasing power to spendingmore money on national cable
instead of local anything.
and so in the, in September of12, after four, three to four
(44:09):
months of working on that.
The shift had to be approved bytwo thirds of our franchise
operators under, excuse me,under the license agreement.
And they approved it inSeptember of 12.
And, shifting those dollars tothe national fund and for the
next several years, spending iton cable television was
(44:30):
fantastic for our business.
But the big thing it did thatwas unknown to 99% of the system
was it set us up for the futureso that as we moved to what I
call the techno oval formarketing, as we moved to that,
we had 85% of our funds in anational fund that we could
(44:54):
control, all across the systemwith social media and anything
else, texting or anything, sothese were pieces that we've
moved on.
To tell our operators It makessense today.
You'll come out ahead and they,they agreed and, yeah,
Jeremy Julian (45:12):
And ultimately we're much more successful
because of it.
Clifford Hudson (45:15):
absolutely.
I.
Craig Miller (45:16):
Yeah, the, I'd say the, this is key to your point,
Jeremy, in terms of you can't,you can't just whole shot this.
Right on.
So what's really important, I,and I think this is an another
good one for your listeners,especially when you go on, you
got a complex, strategy and setof initiatives over multiple
(45:36):
years.
you, the way you know what Cliffis talking about all very, the,
these were all very creative outof the box approaches to, at the
end of the day, the way you getan operator on board is if it's
gonna drive their business,they're gonna listen.
And so you have to constantly bedemonstrating it, and validating
(46:01):
along the way that it's goingto, this is gonna continue to
grow your business, your sales,your profitability.
and so we had to have certainpoints, and as Cliff said in 12,
we knew, we, it was going to beanother three years before we
would convert all these stores.
We had to have something in thestrategy to, drive their
(46:21):
business.
And that those are all points,along the way that you're
investing, it's not an expense,it's an investment.
and they're learning along theway.
I can't tell you how many timesthe franchisee leadership would
turn to Cliff, who initially,was resistant towards things and
would look at Cliff and say, weshould have done this years ago.
(46:42):
And it's a vision.
It's the strategy, showing themhow you get there and then
demonstrating along the wayincrementally that the old, that
it's gonna continue to, drivevalue in the business and then
they become advocates.
Jeremy Julian (46:57):
now they're pulling instead of you guys
Craig Miller (46:59):
That's right.
Jeremy Julian (46:59):
is oftentimes in a franchise system, it's
corporate pushing stuff downversus them saying, no, I want
this.
How do I get next on the list?
'cause it's gonna drive my
Craig Miller (47:07):
and it was always a trade off because the Coke,
Dr.
Pepper piece, we had gotten to apoint, we had proved out
technically point of sale theygot and they knew, and the
economics work for theirbusiness.
our, some of our leadershipwould say, Craig, these are
pretty expensive.
replacements normally cost$700for a housing, per stall.
(47:27):
Now it's gonna cost 26.
That doesn't fit the economicsof our business.
And we have this in our book.
you've gotta find ways to makeit fit the economics, and at the
end of the day, if it's drivingsales and profit, so for the
initial three years, it wasreally Cliff turned to our CMO
and said, wait a minute.
We, we're about to, we, 10 yearcontract up with some of our
(47:50):
vendors when renegotiating, ifwe can get that, it's gonna
build their business and buildours.
We can get them to helpsubsidize this initially until
it demonstrates the value to theoperator and then the operator
can carry the economics.
It becomes part of itseconomics.
Those are the different te thoseare outside technology, right?
(48:11):
Those become critical to takingthe vision and the strategy to
fruition.
all of those, the changemanagement and making sure that
all, all along the way you'redemonstrating that the idea, the
strategy is truly, translatingto sales and profit period.
Jeremy Julian (48:29):
Which again is a very big tenet of the show.
As I, and I've said it multipletimes in our conversation today,
is technology that doesn't drivebusiness value is worthless.
But technology that ultimatelyis making the guest experience
and the staff experience iswhere it's at.
Where again, you can stillexperience Sonic, I do today in
a very similar way to what youmight have done 30 years ago.
(48:50):
Maybe a little, a little bitmore digital, but you can also
take it to the next level.
So I'd love to.
have you guys spent just acouple of minutes as to what was
the final resolution?
And then people will have toreally look through the book
because we're at close to anhour now of recording time.
and I'd love to get some bookssold as well and get people to,
to dig into some of thosedetails.
But what was the finalresolution before you guys
launched the product off to rand you guys both, both went
(49:12):
about your way, what was thatend result of the guest
experience?
And Cliff, I'll start with youjust'cause you had the customer
at the center of your ovalreally.
And I'd love for you to walkthrough what does the guest
experience, or what are thepossibilities of what the guest
experience can look like onceyou guys put your final stamp on
things.
Clifford Hudson (49:29):
the, the thing that I saw occurring for our
business once we put all thistogether was that a customer
could order off premises, payoff premises, pull into a
parking stall, enter the stallnumber on their app, and not
have to go through a process ofordering through a menu housing
(49:51):
if they didn't want to.
running the potential thatsomething was misunderstood or
miscommunicated in that oral,application.
And, And then the waiting time,So on, I developed a phrase and
a phraseology that, for this,which was the customer could
(50:12):
experience being first in lineevery time.
So that if you think about, howcustomers would use drive
through windows and waiting andor going inside and waiting in a
line and so on.
Or even at Sonic, if you're, youpull in a lot and it's a full
lot, it can, it could take alittle longer to get your food.
So ordering off premises, payingoff premises, pulling into a
(50:35):
stall.
What happened when we aimed toget food out in a, in four
minutes or less?
Once we implemented all thisbefore Rourke brought, bought
the company and we pulled thetrigger, put it in place, March,
April of 2018.
Was when that occurred.
We rolled, made it live instages across the system, but by
(50:57):
August the whole thing was liveacross the sonic system.
And what was occurring was thatpeople that used filet first in
line every time people thatordered off premises and paid
off premises, pulled in, put astall number in their app and
quote, waited for their foodinstead of four minute service
times, they were experienced oneminute and 50 seconds, ma made
(51:20):
to order food.
And half the time what our goalhad been, before that time, even
if, operators couldn't, most ofthem on average, maybe didn't
meet the four minutes, but, theaverage customer was getting,
made to order food in a minuteand 50 seconds using the mobile
order, mobile pay.
So this was the transaction sideof it that we had envisioned and
(51:44):
was in place.
Before Rourke brought, boughtthe company that the other side
of the equation, which was tobegin getting customer data on
these transactions.
Who were they?
When did they come, what didthey buy?
et cetera, et cetera.
We started getting thatinformation, we started storing
that information, but that wasreally gonna be something, that
(52:08):
the algorithms that woulddevelop, that we could develop,
was going to take time to say,either about a person or a type
of person or a market or a timeof day or a product, so on and
so forth.
When people buy this, theyusable, buy that.
Okay, that's an obvioussuggested sell.
(52:29):
Anyway.
this was going to take time andwe were, starting to develop it
and we were taking early onstages of implementation.
But the explosive potential ofit was really going to be in 19,
20, 21, 22, et cetera as webuilt it.
(52:49):
Now, the fact is, from a usagestandpoint, Rourke got the
benefit of that anyway.
'cause they bought the companyat the end of 18, 19, sales were
positive.
There was some, there wasgrowth.
I think by toward the end of theyear, 7%, of sales were coming
in, through mobile order, mobilepay in 2019.
(53:12):
I was no longer with thecompany, nor was Craig.
but with CO hitting in 2020, my,it sped up everything of course,
but things just exploded.
The use of the app, the use of,mobile order, mobile pay, and
most importantly.
People feeling more comfortablegoing to a drive-in just for
(53:33):
safety, and by the time COVIDhad ended and you got 22, 23, a
quarter of sales were comingfrom, they had 5.5 billion of
sales then, and 25% of it wascoming through the app.
So you're talking about morethan a billion dollars coming
in, through a methodology thatfive years before for Sonic, did
(53:53):
not exist.
Jeremy Julian (53:55):
and the part that I said to Craig prior to you
jumping on, is I experience itand, outside of the marketing
side, just as a guestexperience, methodology, it's
incredible.
It's incredible because, whetherit's just on the beverage side,
which again, my 9-year-old willbe in the parking lot and she'll
know there's a sonic there andshe'll, she knows that she can
get it in that one to two minutetimeframe that she can get her
(54:16):
drink, and get her treat on andbeyond her way.
And The incidents even for us asa family have gone up because
you've broken down the barrierto ordering.
There's no longer the weight,there's no longer the, I have to
have this interaction.
it goes all digital.
And so congratulations on reallyseeing the vision cliff for that
and really getting to a placewhere you were able to execute
(54:39):
in partnership with Craig andthe rest of the people in the
business to be able to do that.
I know you guys wrote a book.
I guess why don't you guys sitand share what is the book?
Tell us a little bit about wherepeople can get it and and why
even write a book?
Why give people the playbookthat you guys did, to help
people, help people along this?
Clifford Hudson (54:55):
I think, our view was that we had a good
story to tell and, it wasn'tnecessarily completed IE the
stage of ice that was reallymore about building customer
data and starting a newmarketing world, our own
marketing world.
we didn't get to experiencethat, but we felt like we had a
(55:16):
good story to lay out from startto finish, put it in the context
of the world and industry, putit in the context of COVID and,
lay out what we had built, layout what happened through COVID
in a very natural sort of way.
But then also, quite honestly,lay out some lament that our
plan had not been fullyimplemented, and the consequence
(55:39):
of that was negative.
And, but we wanted to tell allconstituents, here was the plan,
and by the way, as to the newowners, if you wanna get the
momentum of the business goingagain, here's our plan.
And, look at the stage three andconsider implementing it.
Jeremy Julian (55:57):
and the crazy part is obviously you guys got
to a place where, you guys gotto a place where you, you hit
the ground running right beforethe acquisition.
quite honestly, I still think itwould've been there.
and Craig, you and I talkedabout the fact that, restaurants
oftentimes are laggards, but thefact that you guys had this
vision to put it out there andto execute really hit the market
in a time and a place that, isincredible.
Clifford Hudson (56:18):
so Craig came up with the name Bricks and
Clicks early on.
And, the subtitle we played withfor, a couple of years, but, the
title of the book, bricks andClicks, has been the, our kind
of working name throughout, andthat's the name of the book now,
bricks and Clicks, which you canget on Amazon.
You could go, it's a, it is aForbes book publication, and, so
(56:39):
you can get it on the, at theForbes website, Emma's Amazon
website, your lo your localbookstore, excuse me, or any
book seller online.
and, it said, 210 page fastread.
It's getting, quite good reviewsfrom people that, are reviewing
it.
We're really tickled with thatand some early brisk sales.
(56:59):
but, Craig was really the driverwith, between the two of us to
write the book.
And, a couple years ago wereally got on it and followed
his structure, et cetera.
I think it's a nice book.
It's a nice story, not justabout technology and business,
but there's good human interestelements to it as well.
Jeremy Julian (57:18):
I love it.
Craig, is there anything that wemissed, sharing in the story
other than,
Craig Miller (57:21):
I would.
Jeremy Julian (57:22):
go out and buy the book?
Craig Miller (57:22):
I would just add, again, having worked in dozens
and dozens of, of companiesleading Yeah.
Brand leaders, and manyindustries.
what we achieved with, onestarting with Cliff's Vision,
all of the challenges.
It's a, it's really a complexcase study.
and we wrote the book in a waythat not only tells the story to
(57:43):
Cliff's Point, but does it in away, where it's, engaging,
entertaining, but educational.
it's a framework and a templatethat any business could really
use.
and today, particularly astechnology becomes more and more
critical to any business,succeeding, there are a lot of,
lessons and frameworks in there.
(58:03):
Even at the end of everychapter, we have a couple of
questions.
Your turn.
After, at the end of eachchapter, that just has the
reader say, okay, now for yoursituation, ask, start with by
asking these questions.
the, the style of the book isone of, educational as well,
and, can be used almost as aplaybook or a blueprint for
their business.
Jeremy Julian (58:24):
no, and I think that's an incredible reminder
and part of why I asked some ofthe questions the way that I
did.
'cause I've watched too manyrestaurants and restaurant
executives, fight amongstthemselves and not get the
desired results that they did.
And obviously you guys were ableto do that.
So thank you guys for distillingthat all down, putting it into a
book.
Thank you guys for hanging outwith me today and sharing the
story.
I'm grateful that, as aconsumer, I'm grateful that you,
(58:45):
my wallet might not be grateful,my budget might not be grateful,
but, grateful that you guyscreated, created honestly a
difference in the restaurantspace.
And so thank you guys for comingon to our listeners, guys, thank
you guys for hanging out withus.
And, if you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do share
this, episode with your friendsand, to Craig and Cliff.
Thank you guys again and make ita great day.
Clifford Hudson (59:02):
you, Jeremy.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology
Guys podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast,
helping you run your restaurantbetter.
In today's episode, we arejoined by two of the members of
the Sonic team that really grewSonic into being a nationwide
(00:24):
brand.
Uh, Craig Miller and CliffHudson wrote a book that really
talks about their journey andhow they went from where they.
Really started to helping toautomate the business practices
right before COVID.
It's a really remarkable storyof seeing a vision for where
they wanted to go and executingit.
And it really paid dividendsboth for them, for their
(00:46):
franchisees, and for thecommunities at large, because
they went digital in a timethat, uh, most weren't.
Check out the episode and let meknow what your thoughts are.
'cause uh, nowadays you can getat Sonic just about anywhere.
And I remember when they firststarted, it wasn't something
that you could get across thecountry.
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy.
Julian.
(01:06):
I am the Chief Revenue Officerfor CBS Northstar.
We sell the North Star point ofsale product for multi-units.
Please check usout@cbsnorthstar.com and now
onto our episode.
Jeremy Julian (01:18):
Well, welcome back to the Restaurant
Technology Guys podcast.
I thank everyone that out therefor joining us.
As I say, every single episode,we're grateful that you guys get
to spend time, hanging out andlistening to some cool stories.
And today is no exception.
one of the most beloved brandsin the country, I would say
definitely in the Midwest.
And we're gonna talk a littlebit about where they, where they
really reinvented, inventedthings from a digital
(01:39):
perspective and, their new book.
But Cliff, why don't youintroduce yourself to get
started and then you canintroduce your, your co,
co-author and, co-host fortoday's show where we get to
talk about, what you guys builtFrom Drive-In to Digital: How
Sonic Transformed the CustomerExperience
Clifford Hudson (01:53):
Happy to do so and appreciate the opportunity
to be with you and your,listeners today.
thank you for that.
so Cliff Hudson, I, for purposesof today's, discussion, my
background is with Sonic and, Ispent 35 years with the company.
The last 23 years as a CEOchairman and CEO of the company,
(02:13):
3,500 plus units across 45states.
And, in my time as CEO grewsystem-wide sales, it was 95%
franchise system-wide sales from900 million to 4.5 billion.
pretty radical transformation onthe technology front.
My, partner on all of that, interms of the, the deep and
(02:38):
serious planning, strategizing,implementation.
And, Ann now co-author on thisbook is Craig Miller.
And, Craig and I had thepleasure of working together,
going on eight years, from 2009forward.
And, in, all of the above indeveloping strategy and, ex
(03:01):
execution of that strategy atSonic and really
transformational for ouroperators.
And, only, regret I have is thatwe didn't beyond 2018, because
the change of control of thecompany didn't have the
opportunity to see next stageand get the benefit of all of
our labors.
So Craig and I, a great runtogether and I can turn it over
(03:21):
to Craig for a moment.
If you don't mind.
let him talk about hisbackground as well.
Jeremy Julian (03:26):
I had Love that Craig.
why don't you share a little bitabout where, prior to Sonic,
'cause I think it's, it'scritical so that everybody
understands.
And then, talk a little bitabout what you got to do at
Sonic.
Craig Miller (03:34):
Yeah, sure.
so my, my backgroundacademically, was, computer
science and compu andengineering.
So you might say I, I was, cameoutta school as a computer
scientist, but quickly, turnedinto a business strategist.
I really enjoyed, really enjoyedbusiness and the operations of
business and, and really helpinginnovatively to grow businesses.
(03:56):
But most of the, most of myearly I'd say, The first quarter
or third of my, my, career, Iworked, on a lot of, advanced
technology for, department ofDefense and military.
So some, the most advancedtechnology, that, that existed.
and so that's how I cut my teethon emerging type of
technologies.
again, my interest in businessis quickly, shifted over and,
(04:19):
started a company with, apartner.
we, we grew it quite rapidly, atthe time in the late eighties,
and going into the ninetieswhere there were two things that
were happening in technologyfrom an emerging standpoint.
one, many businesses were movingfrom old mainframes to now.
Everyone had a PC on their desk.
And, computers were really,pervading all aspects of the
(04:43):
business and.
Many companies were failing toexecute these new solutions.
And we, we would come in and,help first fix broken situations
and then eventuallystrategically help them.
The other, the other, aspect ofour business was, Microsoft was
exploding with windows from DOSover to Windows, quite rapidly.
(05:05):
There were a lot of, consumerproducts that were still in the
old dos, dating myself a bit,but it, I think it connects with
how, what led to experience tosupport Sonic and, and so we
worked, we were one of the fewnon-Microsoft companies that
actually knew how to developWindows apps.
for the, for, consumers andcommercially, de deploy them
(05:27):
into real retail.
you bought software at thatpoint?
comp USA.
It wasn't online at that point.
And really developed, theadvanced kind of business
strategies, but also consumerfacing type products.
then, the left, the company andwent back into large
corporations really doing thesame thing.
(05:48):
And technology was justadvancing quite rapidly.
But Bank of America, Pepsi, coNielsen, a lot of big companies,
now with distributed computingweb was, evolving quite rapidly.
Even mobile started to evolve.
And I went for a period ofprobably 10 years really
learning now how to, how toexecute from within large co
(06:09):
companies.
And and that eventually led meto a brand that was also.
really thinking through how toleverage technology, which was
how I met Cliff, and, that,that, that was, an exciting time
because it was, and I'm surewe'll get into this, but cliff
(06:30):
vision was, really far ahead ofmost any of the CEOs at that
time, certainly in restaurants,let alone retail.
And so it was an exciting timeto partner with Cliff and,
really help bring his vision tolife.
Jeremy Julian (06:42):
Yeah.
And I'm excited to talk throughthe change management process.
'cause I know you and I weretalking hit before to hitting
the record button andoftentimes, the vision's there,
but without the changemanagement, it, it falters
Cliff.
you spent a lot of years of yourcareer at Sonic, but for those
that might not have had theprivilege yet to experience a
sonic, I know for myself,growing up on the West coast, I
had never been to a Sonic untilI came to the Midwest.
(07:03):
And I was like, where has thisbeen in, in my life all of these
years?
And then ultimately you guys putone in, in Fullerton, but it was
like a 30 minute drive to get toa Sonic.
So for those that aren'tfamiliar with it,'cause it is
traditional products, but notnecessarily the way that you
guys go to market isn't alwaysthe same as, as what you might
think of as a, as traditional,traditional restaurant
experience.
Clifford Hudson (07:21):
Sonic started in the early 1950s in Oklahoma.
the town, then the town ofShawnee, Oklahoma.
And, grew in a concentricfashion.
from there it was given the1950s a, a drive-in restaurant
in which you had, in essence, akitchen on a parking pad,
(07:43):
parking spaces extending, outdirectly from the building
canopy over the parking places.
and, customer pulls into one ofabout 25 stalls.
Varies, from drive to drive in.
You pull into angular parking,gives you a little bit of
privacy, vis-a-vis.
The car is next to you and,there is a menu housing outside
(08:06):
the driver window.
You look at the menu, decidewhat you want, push a button on
the intercom.
historically, before theapplication of the technology,
that's the topic of this book.
Historically, then what wouldhappen is a, a person inside the
building.
We'd come over the intercom andask you what you wanted, you
would place your order, the foodwould be made to order.
(08:28):
But very quickly, our objectivewas to get food orders out in
four minutes or less.
And, then get the food.
a car hop would bring the foodout to the customer, in their
car, hand it to'em through thedriver window, and, take
payment, make change, et cetera.
And then the driver could stayor the driver would leave on
(08:48):
average customers.
the pre-technology applicationcustomers, would stay on lot
about, or in the parking place,about 11 minutes.
And so it was an unusualopportunity as we started
putting together these plans.
an unusual opportunity to,communicate with them, you might
say, while they were in their,that parking stall.
(09:10):
By the time, the company wasacquired by Rourke Equity Group,
work Capital.
by the time it was acquired,that was pretty much still the
business, although theapplication of technology was
changing, quickly in terms ofhow, that worked in terms of
order taking and payment methodsand, and many of the drive-ins
(09:33):
had added drive-through windows,et cetera.
But it was a, mostly atraditional 1950s drive-in
restaurant.
Jeremy Julian (09:39):
Yeah.
and still today, even withoutthe tech, you can still
experience it.
And again, I was talking toCraig prior to I, there's one
right next to my chiropractor.
I often will go in, for mymorning appointment, grab a
breakfast burrito on my way to,to go to the chiropractor.
And, and, my wife, especially,one of the other uniquenesses
that Sonic has is their, thedrinks, the beverages.
My wife, often I've got a9-year-old who, one of her
(10:00):
favorite places is to go havemom order it, hands her the
phone in the back seat, sheorders it, and then they go pull
up to the spot.
And I know we'll get to that.
to get to that shortly, how youguys built that cliff.
You said something interestingright before you, you passed the
mic over to Craig that I thinkis unique that I'd love to have,
have our listeners here.
You, you talked about a businesspartnership and then I'm gonna
talk with Craig.
(10:21):
'cause all too often I have seenthe CEO sees the tech team as a
necessary evil.
They don't necessarily treatthem like business partners in
their business.
I've watched this acrossmultiple brands across my 30
year career.
There are some that, that trulytreat them like business
partners.
And then I'd love to have Craigtalk a little bit about how that
(10:41):
has interacted prior to usjumping into kind of what you
guys did, but how and when andwhere did that come about in
your own thinking?
Because all too often, like Isaid, I don't see that as being
something that, that theyemphasize and ensure at the
executive level that they have aseat at the table to be able to
drive the business to the placethat you guys ultimately drove
it to.
Clifford Hudson (11:00):
in the, first decade of this century, there
were some technology,developments that were very
positive for the business.
I began viewing, we had alwaysbeen about min about innovation,
but that was generally aboutmenu innovation with made to
order food and so on day partinnovation, in terms of when we
(11:21):
would attract customers withwhat type of promotion and
product and so on.
innovation had been very muchpart of our history and culture,
technology innovation.
Became, more part of the culturethan the other part of that
decade.
And that was with theapplication, installation of
credit card readers at theindividual stall, attached to
(11:44):
the menu housing.
And that was so successful.
bro check when people usedcredit cards, they spent 40%
more money with us.
The average check on in 2001,before we rolled that out, the
average check with cash was fivebucks.
The average check with creditcard was seven bucks.
(12:05):
And we had been told that peopleused credit, they spend more
money.
but it was quick and it wasconcrete, now to give you a
sense, and I'll come back toanswer your question more
directly, to give you a sense ofthe impact of that.
When we finished rolling it out,or as we began rolling out, we
called that program Pays, whichwas an acronym for Pay It Your
Stall.
(12:25):
it almost doesn't make adifference what the acronym was.
It's called Pays, but when webegan to roll it out, credit
card sales were 5% of our totalsales.
So cash in 2001 cash was, 95%.
in, interestingly enough in ohthree, then as we finished
(12:46):
rolling out this attachment, thePACE program, we were brushing
up against 2 billion actually inoh one, we had just passed 2
billion in sales.
That's right.
Oh one 2 billion in sales, 5%credit cards.
When the company sold, I.
15, 17 years later, that 2billion had gone to two and a
(13:07):
half billion more, or four and ahalf billion total.
The credit card sales were 55%.
Now, 55% of sales, not 5%, butthe credit card sales were two
and a half billion dollars.
They had gone from a hundredmillion to two and a half
billion.
So in, in other words, 100% ofthe incremental sales in that 15
(13:31):
year period worth your creditcards.
So this could tell you in that1, 2, 3, 4, 5 timeframe that if
you move toward technology thatwas customer interfacing and
agreeable with them, helpful tothem, they would utilize it and
they'd utilize it to theirbenefit and to our benefit.
Okay.
Simultaneously, we had startedutilizing, Jim Collins good to
(13:55):
great.
And, I totally bought into theflywheel.
utilized it in the next 15 plusyears in all my discussions with
our operators and used it andput it in our business plans.
Used it with the managementteam, the employees franchisees
used it in investor relations,presentations and so on, and
(14:16):
used it in how we ran thecompany.
the application of that and theflywheel.
when we started looking at thisburgeoning technologies, it
occurred to me that the more wecould link these technologies
more, we could create a flywheelfor our technology.
And, but I didn't call it thatbecause I felt like I'd be
(14:39):
ripping off Jim Collins, so whywould I do that?
So I started calling it ourtechnology oval because I would
put all these points.
Jeremy Julian (14:48):
An oval instead of the circle.
Clifford Hudson (14:49):
Sit in the circle, gotta have my own deal,
And, and for a short, the technooval and, at any rate, so this
was, so I started seeing it thisway and it struck me that it
really by oh three and oh four,my view was this really could
become our future marketingvehicle.
(15:10):
if we got enough informationwith customers on this, we could
become communicating with'emmore directly instead of having
to pay television pay, radiopay, cable pay, so on.
So this really was the thought.
Now the challenge was that, whenyou talk about how CEOs viewed
tech folks, this, the reversewas also true, and that was the
(15:33):
tech folks viewed themselves.
Having an isolated spot in thecompany.
they spoke their own language.
It didn't have to be English.
And they would stand in meetingsand say stuff.
And I would sit there saying,what is he saying?
And I'm not talking about Craig,I'm talking about his
predecessors.
And it was, in terms of this,distancing, it was mutual, and,
(15:56):
to me, we were getting nowherefast.
We were getting nowhere fast onreplacing a point of sales,
systems across our sonic system.
We were getting nowhere in termsof updating things effectively
internally.
And it was very frustrating.
in the kind of the oh eighttimeframe, I hired a search
(16:16):
firm, and went, in a differentdirection.
In other words, I hired a searchfirm from Connecticut and, and
relatively shortly, theyintroduced me to Craig.
And, when Craig came, we startedtalking.
We, things clicked pretty fastbecause I could tell he had a
broader business view.
and when he came in and wetalked about the nuts and bolts
(16:40):
or as we would say, the wiring,plumbing, and wiring for the
company, I also sit down anddrew him the techno oval, And,
I, on the one hand felt like Iwas taking a chance because a
little embarrassing for a guywho's not a tech guy, me to be
drawing on a piece of paper thisoval and putting these touch
points on it and saying, this iswhere I want to go, but we can't
(17:03):
get our base systems in place.
Anyway, I think this excitedCraig, and he just, he took a
fundamentally different approachthan his predecessors the day he
walked in the door.
'cause he, his view was you, I'mhere to not just fix this thing,
but to help build the company.
and so he and I just, hadstarted having regular, you're
(17:25):
always gonna have regularmeetings, but more intense, more
often, one-on-one, much morestrategizing.
And to be blunt, me getting himto educate me, about how this
could have happened.
And, so that's the process ittook.
And it just, it evolved and itwas a different relationship
than I'd had with any of hispredecessors.
(17:48):
And of course, his impact on thecompany was different than any
of his predecessors.
Jeremy Julian (17:51):
I love that.
Craig, talk to me a little bitabout kind of the mindset.
Obviously you came from thebusiness mindset and I
appreciate you sharing thatearlier.
I, and I know we'll eventuallyget to what you guys built, but
I love to educate our listenersout there, especially those that
are on the tech side, becauseI've watched people that are
tech for tech sake.
let me show you all these coolgadgets.
Let me show you all of thesethings that you can do, but it
(18:12):
doesn't drive the business.
But you took a differentapproach and I really think
that's why you guys were sosuccessful, is it was about
building the business.
It was about making sure thefranchisees could operate it,
that the guests could operateit, that the, they could make
money from it and the businesscould ultimately make money.
So I'd love to have you talkthrough that mindset shift to
educate some of our listenersthat might be out there, that
might be either young in theircareer or looking at taking that
(18:35):
executive leap.
And they go in and they don'tspeak the language.
And as Cliff said, they'respeaking a different language to
the executives and they're like,I don't care.
The bits and bites, I just wannaknow what's it gonna do for our
consumer or what's it gonna dofor our business?
Craig Miller (18:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Happy to.
so as I had, stated earlier, Ihad the wonderful opportunity to
learn very early on, and with alot of scars because, I came
out, as I said, a computerscientist, but when I, when we
started our company very earlyon and, and needed to put
proposals together andinfluence, potential clients, I
(19:09):
quickly learned, I really, I hadto communicate fir first it was
in proposals, right?
But then, I really had to findways to, communicate and educate
at that time, potential clients.
On how to think abouttechnology.
so a lot of it was to Cliff'sPoint was first educating, but
(19:29):
in terms that would resonate andquite frankly, the different,
different companies sometimeshad different language.
You really had.
So if you're gonna influence,outcomes and come, you've gotta
one speak English, in a way thatthey understand.
but even some nuances indifferent companies.
So I learned that very early on,that was how do connect.
(19:50):
so for your listeners, it's veryimportant.
And honestly, it, I tell thisstory.
My, my wife at the time when Iused to have her review some of
my proposals, she'd say, I don'tunderstand.
You need to start talking like,you're talking.
And so it really helped me todevelop those, the, the style
and the technique.
and then the other piece is Iwould quickly try to understand
(20:13):
where they were coming from, andwhat they were concerned about.
So I can connect with them,whoever clients.
And then, even, like in Cliff'scase, this was gonna be my boss,
right?
This is gonna be our CEO and ourleader.
and so that, that was a kind ofa technique and a skill that I
had, thankfully developed.
Many tech technologists don't.
(20:35):
I coach a lot of folks and a lotof my team even at Sonic is they
would present something makessense now put it in a way, you
have to look through theproblem, through the lens of the
business.
And so that you develop that.
So that's really how I learnedthat.
And in my meeting with Cliff,you quickly assimilating his
(20:56):
frustration.
and he meant, he said there werefour things here that, that
really I wrestle with andfrustrating.
One was the point of sale, we'reon antiquated point of sale.
So one was data and we've spenttens of millions of dollars on
this data warehouse and we stillcan't get, what we need from a
data perspective.
(21:16):
the third one, was some of thetechnology, other technology
that they had.
We had in corporate on supplychain, we're still running our
business on spreadsheets.
we run a over a billion dollarsof food and paper.
And the fourth thing was histechno oval.
now the other three I worked inthe restaurant industry and
those are like, it's like offthe top of my head, I know what
(21:38):
we need to do there to help youcliff.
but this techno oval really was,really was stunning to me
because, it, ha have having,talking to lots of CEO and board
members,
Clifford Hudson (21:51):
he was more accustomed to circles,
Jeremy Julian (21:53):
Yeah, he's got the book behind his left
shoulder that, says, good togreat.
But,
Craig Miller (21:56):
but what struck me is Cliff's vision was, as I said
earlier, way far ahead of wheremost CEOs were thinking and
that, and it starts with that.
And so I started to dig into hisrationale around it.
and it really, he drew thiscircle had these tech, points
(22:16):
around the outside of all thesenew ways we can communicate and
connect with the customer.
And this is pre-mobile, this ispre-social.
And and in the middle was acustomer.
and to, and that's, I hadlearned a long, you always start
there.
So when I'm usually having tospend time with CEOs to say,
okay, let's not, let's get backto who your customer, your
(22:39):
business is.
that's what Cliff started.
And he had really grown thebusiness by always starting with
the customer and the visionthat.
That, that he had learned,really through the electronic,
payment, is that if I cancollect more information and
data, I can learn more about mycustomers.
(23:01):
That's how we win.
That's ultimately where youstart in any business and any,
and I'm typically having toshift.
So now it was just, I just saidCliff IA had to bring this
together.
I had to make this happen.
and I think that was thebeginning of connecting, I would
say o over time, initially hadlaid out, I think within the
(23:22):
first 90 days, here's what thiswould look like, and, over the
next three to five years.
and so I gave him a picturequickly of now what it could
look like and educating them.
and we'll get to the kind of thehow.
But the one thing I, that Iwould say that over time.
(23:43):
Over the next year, I had toearn and, cliff's trust and
confidence in my thinking.
And what evolved fromone-on-ones, typical one-on-ones
between a, CEO and a, andanother executive in the
company.
It turned into, these, and wehave it in the book.
(24:03):
We have a, we've replicatedthese sessions.
we would get to a point, eitherhave a challenge or we get to a
point where we succeeded andneeded to get to the next phase.
And I would get a call, Craig,what are you doing tonight?
after work?
let's meet for some wine.
help me understand how should webe thinking about it would
always start that way.
How should we be thinking aboutthis?
(24:25):
and so those would be becomerituals for us.
It could be a Sunday morning.
All of a sudden Cliffs is he's,he wants, how do I think about
this?
And so our rituals reallybecame, in both ways, he would
educate me on, the dynamics ofthe brand and the businesses and
how, and I would educate him,how we think about it, in ways
(24:49):
that, that, you know, mypredecessors really hadn't done.
I think with Cliff and thosebecame important.
Jeremy Julian (24:56):
cliff, why don't you, it's clear that your vision
for where you wanted to go wasthere and able to be articulated
and then it's, back to what yousaid, Craig, it's now how do we
get there?
But Cliff, I'd love, and I knowit's in the book.
So for those that, haven't yetpicked up the book and that are
now just discovering the factthat you guys have put this all
down, talk us through kind oflong-term where were you trying
to go?
Because I think, to, to what youhad said, Craig, it's a three to
(25:18):
five year process to get there.
'cause it's not the big bang andeverything's just there.
You've gotta work through it.
And so the fact that you keptthe customer at the center of it
and then said, okay, let's justkeep pushing the envelope a
little bit better, keep askingquestions of the team, but give
us that vision of what was onthat oval for those that, that,
that are sitting here listening,going, where are we going?
Clifford Hudson (25:37):
Yeah.
so a couple of, lines of, eventsand thinking there.
One, what was on the oval?
everything that in oh 3, 4, 5,you, could have thought about,
texting, e email, point of salesystems, anything that we had
that was, digital and computerdriven and or the customer had
(26:00):
that I could see that we couldeventually link with.
my perspective was it could behelpful for the headquarters,
the store, our employees at thestore, our customers.
And that the linkage that, thatit would provide would only grow
over time.
But it would provide a way forus to start communicating with
people that was one-to-oneinstead of through
(26:21):
intermediaries.
I shared it, 3 0 4, with ourboard of directors and, two
interesting things about that.
I think in terms of that, thatboard meeting.
One, because I was thinkingthen, and I, it was ahead of
things, but, I was thinking itwould become mostly a marketing
(26:42):
tool.
And I asked our then C-M-C-M-Oto present it to the board.
the, and she may have had thetitle of president by then, but
she had come up through CMO andshe was still responsible for
marketing.
So I asked her to present it tothe board at a board meeting.
And, interestingly enough, shesays to me, no, you present it
Jeremy Julian (27:04):
Hey, the non-tech guy is gonna present, this
marketing.
Clifford Hudson (27:07):
I think her deal was, I think her view was,
I don't know what the hell itis, and you're not pitting that
on me.
I think that was really the, theunderpinning for her resistance.
So I presented to the board.
Okay.
and, the points along the waywhere we look, we're gonna be
going here anyway, and hereanyway.
Why not cause these things tolink and get leverage out of
(27:29):
them.
And, Bob Rosenberg, who had beenthe 30 year CEO of Dunking
Donuts and had retired not longbefore that, Bob grabbed it at
the board meeting and he says,look, in the seventies, the
Industry Restaurant Institutewas all about just raw growth
and chains developing.
(27:51):
In the eighties.
It really became about,financial refinement of how you
managed your business anddifferent kinds of executives
started running companies tobring financial refinement to
the business.
In the nineties, it reallybecame about brand building.
This was Bob's comment to theboard.
Then the nineties, it becameabout brand building.
(28:13):
He said, my view is what Cliffis showing us today is the
future.
And he says, he said, I thinkthis is the next place for
restaurants to go, and those whomaster it are gonna master the
industry.
That was Bob's comment like inoh three or oh four.
Jeremy Julian (28:33):
Interesting.
Clifford Hudson (28:34):
my, my reaction was, yay affirmation, and, glad
my CMO forced me to present it.
I got credit with the forwardthinking board and so that was
the early on, implementation ofthat.
And then so how did, what wasthe drive to keep moving with
it?
I was convinced the thing couldbecome something.
(28:57):
strangely enough, I'm not namingnames here except for guys that
were helpful, like BobRosenberg.
but I hired a CMO from next CMOfrom Yahoo.
And, my thought was, this guy'sbeen living in the digital
world.
He'll have us, he'll help ustake it there.
And he had been on a while and,and let's say oh six or so, and
(29:20):
I was saying, okay, this isgoing fine and that's going
fine, but I would need you tohelp us think about the tech
oval.
and he basically said to me inso many words, that's bullshit.
He said, we're not moving offtelevision anytime soon.
And the idea of that being a,the big marketing tool, I'm not
(29:40):
spending my time on it.
And I thought, that'sextraordinary.
You came to us from Yahoo.
what in the world, So anyway, Iwas frustrated with the
marketing, lack of marketingbuy-in within the company, but I
was more frustrated that weweren't getting ahead on POS and
so on, so forth.
(30:01):
And so it was in the oh eighttimeframe where, I changed CMOs
but also changed, CIO.
and it was Craig's arrival that,that started providing the
impetus.
cause we started moving.
I had somebody that wasintrigued with the whole thing
and he could cause it to move.
The marketing, moved, excuse me,moved with it.
(30:25):
But the marketing was even in,9, 10, 11.
The marketing was slow comingwith it.
And in 11.
I brought in a marketing guy whoreally became a good partner for
Craig and me.
And, he really helped this startmoving forward as well.
And, so that once, I had theteam in place like that, then,
(30:50):
things really started movingextremely well.
that marketing, CMO by the way,in that 1112 timeframe also saw
some aligned with me on, how weneed to line up resources for
current and future new andfuture marketing activities.
(31:10):
Current was cable and future was
Jeremy Julian (31:14):
One to one.
Clifford Hudson (31:14):
the whole bit with the, ultimately we, we
would say through social mediaand smartphones and so on, so
forth.
So he saw that, seemed to seethat coming and.
Help get things lined up to movethat direction.
Unfortunately, in like 2015, thecompany had such a positive run
in, in the mid-teens thatseveral of our people got
(31:35):
plucked off, very senior,
Jeremy Julian (31:37):
that's how it happens.
and just as a reminder for ourlisteners, I just went and
looked it up while you weretalking there, cliff is just,
the iPhone originally gotreleased in oh seven.
So you were talking abouttexting and communicating back
well before the iPhone even cameout.
And Craig, I'd love for you totalk through what it is that you
guys were trying to accomplish,and what did you guys build
Again, I know a lot of thesestories are in the book, but I'd
love to where did you guys startand how did the build go?
Craig Miller (31:59):
Yeah.
yeah, taking, really building onclose vision, ha having worked,
in other industries that werealready starting to work,
omnichannel retail, right?
the concepts were relativelyvery new for, for the restaurant
and chain.
Like I said, it was pre mobile,but, but I typically always
start, as Cliff did with, the,really th there, there are three
(32:20):
things on the business side, andthen that, that quickly I frame
everything out.
How does a business drive salesand how does a business, drive
profitability?
And, what is the profile of thecustomer?
What drives the customer to, topurchase?
and so I start with that, thatbe, that, that kind of begins to
unfold what the tech should looklike.
(32:41):
and sales in a restaurant, as iswe, to, we wanna drive traffic,
we wanna drive check, we wannadrive frequency profitability.
It was predominantly, labor,and, inventory that we, we would
wanna manage.
And then of course, the take itdown to the next level is kind
of efficiency.
We wanna get in under fourminutes.
(33:02):
we wanna streamline theexperience for the customer.
So I take those and I, that,that kind of really quickly
helps me to understand where,how to begin to model the tech
in the, in sense of the tech,the techno oval.
At that point, there were a lotof industries that were already
building these networksolutions, right?
Distributed solutions.
So I knew I had to connect therestaurant with the customer.
(33:24):
And then these, the kind ofexternal, channels, and really
start to, even before it wascalled omnichannel, begin to
build this kind of, omnichannelapproach, adding the digital,
connections with thetraditional.
So it's not about replacingtraditional media, it's about
adding to the traditional mediaand for those marketing folks
(33:47):
who are listeners, right?
It's the, you use TV to pull'eminto the top of the funnel and
then in, in many cases, and thenthe engagement because the
digital or two way you drivethem through.
And how do we eliminate thebarriers of the physical store
so that the, and restaurant, sothat the, engaging with a
(34:08):
prospect or consumer outside therestaurant, we can continue to
drive that engagement all theway through sale on the, when
they're on lot.
And so that becomes the model.
then, because, as Cliff said,the, there the brand was
burdened by a lot of 20,30-year-old technology in the
restaurants.
I knew the first thing we had todo is to rebuild the backbones.
(34:29):
Which was the point of sale inthe kitchen, in the kitchen
system.
before we, we do that, we,nothing, we can't do anything
else.
The backbone of this kind ofdata infrastructure.
and that was gonna require, andthis goes to the change
management question, not onlygetting the board and the
executives, Sonic, butfranchisees.
Jeremy Julian (34:49):
Yeah, I was gonna ask how, you guys had this huge
vision, but if it ultimatelyeither didn't work or the
business constituents that areout in the field didn't adopt
it, it would've all fallen on
Craig Miller (34:59):
So about, again, 90 days in, laid this picture
out for Cliff.
Okay, now let's get to it.
about three or four monthslater, I get a call, Hey, I
wanna talk about how we shouldbe thinking about this.
And Cliff shares, you know what,I get it.
I get the, I get what theblueprint looks like, I'm just,
and I get the roadmap, but itfeels like we're not getting
(35:21):
there.
It feels like we're still hungup on all this old technology
stuff.
And I said, cliff, I said, weare, but understand until we get
the point of sale as thebackbone, and that's gonna
require bringing the franchiseesand influencing them along the
way.
that ha nothing else happens.
He says, okay, what's your planfor that?
I said, we've instituted a, withI think six or seven of the most
(35:44):
influential franchisees to atech council.
I'm gonna educate them on thecost of not moving away from
this point of sale, how we canmove and we will get them on
board.
They'll in, they'll influenceothers, and that's gonna take a
good six, seven months.
and Cliff, said, okay.
But, we've got, we're a publiccompany.
every quarter we've gotinvestors and analysts saying,
(36:07):
we're, when is this gonnahappen?
and that's, I shared a storywith Cliff.
it's like renovating a70-year-old house.
I said, first you gotta fix theplumbing before we can start
adding the rooms and everything.
So that became a, cl itresonated with Cliff, the whole
plumbing piece.
So we would use, first we gottaget the plumbing in place and
the foundation, and then we canstart adding a lot of the new
(36:27):
21st century.
capabilities on site.
that happened, it took aboutnine months.
We had franchisees, we alignedon the new point of sale how we
were gonna go forward.
Once we did that, the next thingwas how are we gonna digitize
the stall?
and that's where we're workingwith Bill Claman.
we initially said, Hey, I'll goback to my Bank of America
(36:49):
contacts to, suppliers who putin, kiosks and ATMs.
But that didn't work out becausetoo small wasn't, for
restaurants.
So we went to a kiosk company,to adapt their solution.
That didn't work out.
So we eventually just steppedback and said, listen, we know
what we need to go build.
We're not gonna, we're not, noone else has this, we're not
(37:10):
gonna find it off the shelf.
And so we said, let's build aprototype.
See if we could drive trafficand check to the stall.
And we did that.
cliff called it the uglyduckling because it really, it
was just a prototype todemonstrate the value
proposition of a digitalconnection point in the stall.
Clifford Hudson (37:30):
I called it an ugly duckling to lower the board
of a director's expectation.
'cause we were gonna take,
Jeremy Julian (37:37):
oh, sorry.
Go for it.
Clifford Hudson (37:38):
we were gonna take them to see it.
And I thought, somebody's gonnasay, that's ugly.
I said, let's just take that offthe table.
Jeremy Julian (37:46):
most, most Gen one and gen two are pretty ugly
until, until it starts to getsome adoption,
Clifford Hudson (37:50):
Right.
Craig Miller (37:52):
Yeah.
So we quickly, proved out thebusiness proposition, on that.
And then went and, scaled thatout.
So we had point of sale going.
We now had, engineering.
And manufacturing of the digitaltouchpoint.
And then we worked on, now howdo we build the network across
everything to connecteverything, so we could start
(38:13):
to, integrate all the pieces onCliff's techno.
I'll stop there for a minutebecause the one story I think
would be worth talking about,but I'll stop there for a
minute, was that was about thetime where Mobil started to
emerge, and I added Mobil andsocial to the, to Cliff's techno
Oval and Cliff.
(38:34):
He certainly knew what that was,but he didn't, he said, I don't
understand how that's going to,
Jeremy Julian (38:38):
Of the power of it.
Craig Miller (38:40):
So anyway.
Jeremy Julian (38:40):
gonna ask you, cliff, is really how did you
manage a, at the point, a 50plus year old brand going
digital first, because that,like again, you've got the
legacy, you've got the historyof, the car hops, the drive-in,
but you also saw the vision.
And I'd love to, to help ourlisteners understand even that
part of the change management,because you had to have a pretty
(39:02):
bold vision that says we'regoing here in the early two
thousands to get to where youguys ultimately got to.
and I'd love to just hear yourthought process on how you did
that, because ultimately I thinkthat drove the success because
again, technology fortechnology's sake is worthless,
but technology that drivesbusiness value for the guests
and for your team members iswhere it's really at.
And I'd love to get yourunderstanding of how you cast
(39:24):
that vision that says we'retaking a 50-year-old brand.
Now, 70-year-old brand, but 50years at the time, and bringing
it to the 21st century, becauseyou probably had franchisees
that were like, no, we've beendoing it just fine this way
forever.
And you had to manage that bothinternally and to the board and
to the public markets.
Clifford Hudson (39:42):
Yeah, you're exactly right.
So as to those, particularlyfranchise operators who might
have been resistant, what, thepitch I used and we used for the
most part was look at thesepoints around this techno oval,
or as we came to call it,integrated customer engagement,
the ice.
(40:02):
Wheel, And
Jeremy Julian (40:03):
restaurant has their own acronyms.
To your point, Craig, they'vealways got some different
language.
Sorry.
Every acronym, every restaurant.
What's this acronym mean?
So sorry, I'll let you keepgoing.
Clifford Hudson (40:11):
that's alright.
when we would review that withfranchise leaders, I will, I
would always say all the pointsalong there we're gonna have to
do anyway.
You're gonna, you, we have anantiquated point of sale system,
it's at its end of life.
We've got to replace it.
We've gotta move to softwarebased, systems.
(40:31):
And, so this is not an expense,this is not an expense you're
going to incur.
but for, this plant you got,we're gonna have to do it
anyway.
And so you would make the pointabout now the one place where
that was not true was we wantedto put in.
In place, as Craig has alreadytalked about a video screen in
(40:55):
each parking stall.
And we wanted that to, to beable to now any number of
things, confirm the customer'sorder, show them paid, not paid,
show that the order's coming outover time.
As we built then informationabout customers, we would also
promote things to them wherethey, we knew they had purchased
before, and so on and so forth.
(41:15):
So we wanted that, I wanted thatvideo screen in the stall.
That was the ugly ducking thatCraig was referring to a moment
ago.
that was something that, the,that would not be put in place
but for this integrated customerengagement plan.
and so what we did with that,because it was instead of a few
(41:36):
hundred bucks, it was a couplethousand bucks a stall, we went
to vendors.
who sold goods to our system andsaid, how would you like your
product to be on that screen?
And, all these years later, Iwould just say it was Coke and
Dr.
Pepper.
That's who we,
Jeremy Julian (41:54):
Say, I'm sure it was Coke.
'cause they like to put theirlogo in front of lots of
Clifford Hudson (41:57):
Yeah.
And here we were gonna have ahundred thousand screens every
day of the week, with thecontent that we controlled, with
consumers by definition, lookingat it, And Dr.
Pepper was a little slow, butCoke immediately said yes.
And so we were able to go to ouroperators.
it was interesting'cause none ofour number of our board members
(42:19):
had seen it.
And they saw the impact on saleswith the ugly duckling, but they
were still eh, their average agewas, 68 or something.
20 years ago.
So they were kinda like, what isthis?
so then Coke steps up and putsmillions of bucks behind it, and
our board of directors said,okay, this must be for real,
Anyway, that, but it also, thatwas one impediment with our
(42:42):
franchise operators that waserased because vendors were
gonna pay for advertising, inessence, on the screens.
So this was a, that would'vebeen an impediment.
how else did we do this?
The biggest thing early on in aslide of hand fashion was too
much of our marketing dollarswere still spent in local co-ops
(43:03):
through to local media.
And my reaction was as we movetowards more social media and
this whole ice apparatus that,having a hundred local co-ops
was a loser.
And, trying to then, manage thatall across the system.
So we needed to convince ouroperators to centralize more of
(43:26):
those dollars.
and, that came out of a, theopportunity came out of to do
that came out of a management,no, a franchise leadership
retreat, in which, the leader,the president of our, the chair
of our franchise advisorycouncil said we have to do
something about new markets.
My pitch was, let's move moneyto national fund, more money to
(43:49):
national fund.
Let's buy more national cable.
Our ad, our new ad agency showedto us and them, the enormous
purchasing power to spendingmore money on national cable
instead of local anything.
and so in the, in September of12, after four, three to four
(44:09):
months of working on that.
The shift had to be approved bytwo thirds of our franchise
operators under, excuse me,under the license agreement.
And they approved it inSeptember of 12.
And, shifting those dollars tothe national fund and for the
next several years, spending iton cable television was
(44:30):
fantastic for our business.
But the big thing it did thatwas unknown to 99% of the system
was it set us up for the futureso that as we moved to what I
call the techno oval formarketing, as we moved to that,
we had 85% of our funds in anational fund that we could
(44:54):
control, all across the systemwith social media and anything
else, texting or anything, sothese were pieces that we've
moved on.
To tell our operators It makessense today.
You'll come out ahead and they,they agreed and, yeah,
Jeremy Julian (45:12):
And ultimately we're much more successful
because of it.
Clifford Hudson (45:15):
absolutely.
I.
Craig Miller (45:16):
Yeah, the, I'd say the, this is key to your point,
Jeremy, in terms of you can't,you can't just whole shot this.
Right on.
So what's really important, I,and I think this is an another
good one for your listeners,especially when you go on, you
got a complex, strategy and setof initiatives over multiple
(45:36):
years.
you, the way you know what Cliffis talking about all very, the,
these were all very creative outof the box approaches to, at the
end of the day, the way you getan operator on board is if it's
gonna drive their business,they're gonna listen.
And so you have to constantly bedemonstrating it, and validating
(46:01):
along the way that it's goingto, this is gonna continue to
grow your business, your sales,your profitability.
and so we had to have certainpoints, and as Cliff said in 12,
we knew, we, it was going to beanother three years before we
would convert all these stores.
We had to have something in thestrategy to, drive their
(46:21):
business.
And that those are all points,along the way that you're
investing, it's not an expense,it's an investment.
and they're learning along theway.
I can't tell you how many timesthe franchisee leadership would
turn to Cliff, who initially,was resistant towards things and
would look at Cliff and say, weshould have done this years ago.
(46:42):
And it's a vision.
It's the strategy, showing themhow you get there and then
demonstrating along the wayincrementally that the old, that
it's gonna continue to, drivevalue in the business and then
they become advocates.
Jeremy Julian (46:57):
now they're pulling instead of you guys
Craig Miller (46:59):
That's right.
Jeremy Julian (46:59):
is oftentimes in a franchise system, it's
corporate pushing stuff downversus them saying, no, I want
this.
How do I get next on the list?
'cause it's gonna drive my
Craig Miller (47:07):
and it was always a trade off because the Coke,
Dr.
Pepper piece, we had gotten to apoint, we had proved out
technically point of sale theygot and they knew, and the
economics work for theirbusiness.
our, some of our leadershipwould say, Craig, these are
pretty expensive.
replacements normally cost$700for a housing, per stall.
(47:27):
Now it's gonna cost 26.
That doesn't fit the economicsof our business.
And we have this in our book.
you've gotta find ways to makeit fit the economics, and at the
end of the day, if it's drivingsales and profit, so for the
initial three years, it wasreally Cliff turned to our CMO
and said, wait a minute.
We, we're about to, we, 10 yearcontract up with some of our
(47:50):
vendors when renegotiating, ifwe can get that, it's gonna
build their business and buildours.
We can get them to helpsubsidize this initially until
it demonstrates the value to theoperator and then the operator
can carry the economics.
It becomes part of itseconomics.
Those are the different te thoseare outside technology, right?
(48:11):
Those become critical to takingthe vision and the strategy to
fruition.
all of those, the changemanagement and making sure that
all, all along the way you'redemonstrating that the idea, the
strategy is truly, translatingto sales and profit period.
Jeremy Julian (48:29):
Which again is a very big tenet of the show.
As I, and I've said it multipletimes in our conversation today,
is technology that doesn't drivebusiness value is worthless.
But technology that ultimatelyis making the guest experience
and the staff experience iswhere it's at.
Where again, you can stillexperience Sonic, I do today in
a very similar way to what youmight have done 30 years ago.
(48:50):
Maybe a little, a little bitmore digital, but you can also
take it to the next level.
So I'd love to.
have you guys spent just acouple of minutes as to what was
the final resolution?
And then people will have toreally look through the book
because we're at close to anhour now of recording time.
and I'd love to get some bookssold as well and get people to,
to dig into some of thosedetails.
But what was the finalresolution before you guys
launched the product off to rand you guys both, both went
(49:12):
about your way, what was thatend result of the guest
experience?
And Cliff, I'll start with youjust'cause you had the customer
at the center of your ovalreally.
And I'd love for you to walkthrough what does the guest
experience, or what are thepossibilities of what the guest
experience can look like onceyou guys put your final stamp on
things.
Clifford Hudson (49:29):
the, the thing that I saw occurring for our
business once we put all thistogether was that a customer
could order off premises, payoff premises, pull into a
parking stall, enter the stallnumber on their app, and not
have to go through a process ofordering through a menu housing
(49:51):
if they didn't want to.
running the potential thatsomething was misunderstood or
miscommunicated in that oral,application.
And, And then the waiting time,So on, I developed a phrase and
a phraseology that, for this,which was the customer could
(50:12):
experience being first in lineevery time.
So that if you think about, howcustomers would use drive
through windows and waiting andor going inside and waiting in a
line and so on.
Or even at Sonic, if you're, youpull in a lot and it's a full
lot, it can, it could take alittle longer to get your food.
So ordering off premises, payingoff premises, pulling into a
(50:35):
stall.
What happened when we aimed toget food out in a, in four
minutes or less?
Once we implemented all thisbefore Rourke brought, bought
the company and we pulled thetrigger, put it in place, March,
April of 2018.
Was when that occurred.
We rolled, made it live instages across the system, but by
(50:57):
August the whole thing was liveacross the sonic system.
And what was occurring was thatpeople that used filet first in
line every time people thatordered off premises and paid
off premises, pulled in, put astall number in their app and
quote, waited for their foodinstead of four minute service
times, they were experienced oneminute and 50 seconds, ma made
(51:20):
to order food.
And half the time what our goalhad been, before that time, even
if, operators couldn't, most ofthem on average, maybe didn't
meet the four minutes, but, theaverage customer was getting,
made to order food in a minuteand 50 seconds using the mobile
order, mobile pay.
So this was the transaction sideof it that we had envisioned and
(51:44):
was in place.
Before Rourke brought, boughtthe company that the other side
of the equation, which was tobegin getting customer data on
these transactions.
Who were they?
When did they come, what didthey buy?
et cetera, et cetera.
We started getting thatinformation, we started storing
that information, but that wasreally gonna be something, that
(52:08):
the algorithms that woulddevelop, that we could develop,
was going to take time to say,either about a person or a type
of person or a market or a timeof day or a product, so on and
so forth.
When people buy this, theyusable, buy that.
Okay, that's an obvioussuggested sell.
(52:29):
Anyway.
this was going to take time andwe were, starting to develop it
and we were taking early onstages of implementation.
But the explosive potential ofit was really going to be in 19,
20, 21, 22, et cetera as webuilt it.
(52:49):
Now, the fact is, from a usagestandpoint, Rourke got the
benefit of that anyway.
'cause they bought the companyat the end of 18, 19, sales were
positive.
There was some, there wasgrowth.
I think by toward the end of theyear, 7%, of sales were coming
in, through mobile order, mobilepay in 2019.
(53:12):
I was no longer with thecompany, nor was Craig.
but with CO hitting in 2020, my,it sped up everything of course,
but things just exploded.
The use of the app, the use of,mobile order, mobile pay, and
most importantly.
People feeling more comfortablegoing to a drive-in just for
(53:33):
safety, and by the time COVIDhad ended and you got 22, 23, a
quarter of sales were comingfrom, they had 5.5 billion of
sales then, and 25% of it wascoming through the app.
So you're talking about morethan a billion dollars coming
in, through a methodology thatfive years before for Sonic, did
(53:53):
not exist.
Jeremy Julian (53:55):
and the part that I said to Craig prior to you
jumping on, is I experience itand, outside of the marketing
side, just as a guestexperience, methodology, it's
incredible.
It's incredible because, whetherit's just on the beverage side,
which again, my 9-year-old willbe in the parking lot and she'll
know there's a sonic there andshe'll, she knows that she can
get it in that one to two minutetimeframe that she can get her
(54:16):
drink, and get her treat on andbeyond her way.
And The incidents even for us asa family have gone up because
you've broken down the barrierto ordering.
There's no longer the weight,there's no longer the, I have to
have this interaction.
it goes all digital.
And so congratulations on reallyseeing the vision cliff for that
and really getting to a placewhere you were able to execute
(54:39):
in partnership with Craig andthe rest of the people in the
business to be able to do that.
I know you guys wrote a book.
I guess why don't you guys sitand share what is the book?
Tell us a little bit about wherepeople can get it and and why
even write a book?
Why give people the playbookthat you guys did, to help
people, help people along this?
Clifford Hudson (54:55):
I think, our view was that we had a good
story to tell and, it wasn'tnecessarily completed IE the
stage of ice that was reallymore about building customer
data and starting a newmarketing world, our own
marketing world.
we didn't get to experiencethat, but we felt like we had a
(55:16):
good story to lay out from startto finish, put it in the context
of the world and industry, putit in the context of COVID and,
lay out what we had built, layout what happened through COVID
in a very natural sort of way.
But then also, quite honestly,lay out some lament that our
plan had not been fullyimplemented, and the consequence
(55:39):
of that was negative.
And, but we wanted to tell allconstituents, here was the plan,
and by the way, as to the newowners, if you wanna get the
momentum of the business goingagain, here's our plan.
And, look at the stage three andconsider implementing it.
Jeremy Julian (55:57):
and the crazy part is obviously you guys got
to a place where, you guys gotto a place where you, you hit
the ground running right beforethe acquisition.
quite honestly, I still think itwould've been there.
and Craig, you and I talkedabout the fact that, restaurants
oftentimes are laggards, but thefact that you guys had this
vision to put it out there andto execute really hit the market
in a time and a place that, isincredible.
Clifford Hudson (56:18):
so Craig came up with the name Bricks and
Clicks early on.
And, the subtitle we played withfor, a couple of years, but, the
title of the book, bricks andClicks, has been the, our kind
of working name throughout, andthat's the name of the book now,
bricks and Clicks, which you canget on Amazon.
You could go, it's a, it is aForbes book publication, and, so
(56:39):
you can get it on the, at theForbes website, Emma's Amazon
website, your lo your localbookstore, excuse me, or any
book seller online.
and, it said, 210 page fastread.
It's getting, quite good reviewsfrom people that, are reviewing
it.
We're really tickled with thatand some early brisk sales.
(56:59):
but, Craig was really the driverwith, between the two of us to
write the book.
And, a couple years ago wereally got on it and followed
his structure, et cetera.
I think it's a nice book.
It's a nice story, not justabout technology and business,
but there's good human interestelements to it as well.
Jeremy Julian (57:18):
I love it.
Craig, is there anything that wemissed, sharing in the story
other than,
Craig Miller (57:21):
I would.
Jeremy Julian (57:22):
go out and buy the book?
Craig Miller (57:22):
I would just add, again, having worked in dozens
and dozens of, of companiesleading Yeah.
Brand leaders, and manyindustries.
what we achieved with, onestarting with Cliff's Vision,
all of the challenges.
It's a, it's really a complexcase study.
and we wrote the book in a waythat not only tells the story to
(57:43):
Cliff's Point, but does it in away, where it's, engaging,
entertaining, but educational.
it's a framework and a templatethat any business could really
use.
and today, particularly astechnology becomes more and more
critical to any business,succeeding, there are a lot of,
lessons and frameworks in there.
(58:03):
Even at the end of everychapter, we have a couple of
questions.
Your turn.
After, at the end of eachchapter, that just has the
reader say, okay, now for yoursituation, ask, start with by
asking these questions.
the, the style of the book isone of, educational as well,
and, can be used almost as aplaybook or a blueprint for
their business.
Jeremy Julian (58:24):
no, and I think that's an incredible reminder
and part of why I asked some ofthe questions the way that I
did.
'cause I've watched too manyrestaurants and restaurant
executives, fight amongstthemselves and not get the
desired results that they did.
And obviously you guys were ableto do that.
So thank you guys for distillingthat all down, putting it into a
book.
Thank you guys for hanging outwith me today and sharing the
story.
I'm grateful that, as aconsumer, I'm grateful that you,
(58:45):
my wallet might not be grateful,my budget might not be grateful,
but, grateful that you guyscreated, created honestly a
difference in the restaurantspace.
And so thank you guys for comingon to our listeners, guys, thank
you guys for hanging out withus.
And, if you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do share
this, episode with your friendsand, to Craig and Cliff.
Thank you guys again and make ita great day.
Clifford Hudson (59:02):
you, Jeremy.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology
Guys podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
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