9.12: Human Element - Hour 3

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, it's seven oh five here News Radio eight

(00:01):
forty whas, thanks for hanging out with us this morning
as we get the seven o'clock hour starter. We were
joined by Matt Dodd, who is somebody who has a
really cool story. He worked at McDonald's as an employee
and now he owns many locations and he just opened
up a brand new and Matt, thank you for joining
us here bright and early on a Friday morning.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'll start with this.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
When you were an employee at McDonald's, was there ever
any initial interest in saying, hey, maybe i'll run one
of these, become an operator, and then end up having
nearly twenty Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
I think you know, my initial idea was I loved McDonald's.
I love the fast pace. My grandmother owned a restaurant
when I was young, and I worked there when I
was like four and five years old, just cap and drinks.
But you could tell immediately the ability there was there
with McDonald's, which you know, you don't see on every
other kind of business. It was just if you put
the work into it, you know, whatever opportunity you would

(00:50):
like is there.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
So how often do they push employees to understand that
if they do grow with the company, they're patient and
of course they're good employees. They could put them elves
in that situation because it seems like a lot of
the people in your position did start out as as employees.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, so you know, the percentage is lower on actual
employee base. A lot of it is next generational, you know,
children that were operators, children, but you know, it's it's
becoming a larger percentage. So a lot of company employees
that work for the corporation. And then I worked for
a franchisee and I just you know, kind of have
to be right place, right time and take the certain

(01:27):
opportunity that's given, whether it's you know, a struggling restaurant
or something that you need to take over. But you know,
I took that chance and it paid off, you know, tenfold.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I think a lot of customers just assume they think McDonald's,
they think of the higher up and owner. They just
think corporate level. They don't necessarily think about the fact
that there are people who own maybe one maybe maybe
like yourself, own a lot of them. And I'd say
that's because there's a consistency for the most part, and
that's not it's not one hundred percent. But McDonald seems
like a corporation that if you are going to be

(01:57):
in charge of maintaining their brand value, you got to
follow rules, You got to you got to uphold what
they want.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
What's that process?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Like, I mean, I see you probably have to be
pretty pretty strict yourself on just making sure you're doing
what they want.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, no, for sure, I mean McDonald's and I can
say this without bias, it's the best franchiser in the world.
There is a lot of you know, standards that they
require and but you have to, you know, maintain those
as a business owner. And most of it is just
simply to maintain consistency for your customer, you know, gold
standard product placement and then just out outstanding service metrics

(02:33):
and uh, it's it's it's not unattainable things, especially when
the labor market solid. You know, you're we can do
really really well with the standards.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
So when it comes to the growth that you've had
so seek enterprises is the name of your company? You
went from having three to is it seventeen or eighteen?
Now seventeen and you just open up a brand new
winere' Is that located.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
It's an eleven seven oh one Dixie Highway. Okay, gotcha?
And when did it? When did it take off?

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I mean it seems as if going from three to
seventeen and relatively in fact, a very quick amount of
time in the grand scheme of things, was that the plan?
Or did you just did you just realize, Hey, I
can really I can scale this.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
No, I mean it takes partnership with McDonald's. And you know,
again right place, right time, there was different operators that
were retiring, some of them have children that maybe didn't
want to take over the whole business. So it just
like all of a sudden, I thought I'd have five
even throughout my career. So it just exploded over a
couple of years, and you know, I'm very very blessed

(03:31):
with that, and it allowed me to really take care
of my people and do a lot of really cool
things for the community and my people.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Does it ever hit you like, oh, wow, I'm responsible
for this many McDonald's.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
I mean, that's that's a lot.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
It's actually the scariest thing of owning a business, as
just owning one would be scary to me. Yeah, and
you're you're responsible for over a thousand people's livelihoods. So
that's definitely a you know it. You have to be responsible,
you have to be you know, do the right things,
do the right things in the community, do the right
things for your people, and you know it, just you

(04:03):
have to be a good business owner.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
So the process from from going to maybe managing one
to being an actual operator. What does McDonald's require. There's
actually a long training process.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
So makes sense they're not just going to hand it over. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
So I basically had about nineteen years of just operational
training in the background that they allowed me to kind
of utilize. But there's still I have to apply to
become what's called a registered applicant, and then there's about
a year training process that I have to show that
I have you know, the financial stability, personal and professional
you know, the the no withal with my operational uh,

(04:40):
you know, just operational abilities. Yeah, and just a lot
of different other boxes to check that you know, they require.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
So it makes total sense they're gonna vet you.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
They're going to make sure that they can trust that
you're going to uphold what they have established as a
giant in the fast food world. Two part question, what
would you say to those that may be interested in
potentially pursuing being a franchise, being being an operator like yourself.
And also what would be one thing that maybe keeps
folks from maybe having the success and maybe they end

(05:11):
up having to hand off their restaurant because it didn't
work out.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, so I'm gonna answer the second question first. But
it's it's when you get just not involved. I mean
McDonald's is a hands on business. I don't care how
many employees you have. I'm still in my restaurant invisible. Yeah,
you know, people want to see you, the communities want
to see you. Have to be involved. Now, it does,
it does mold as you grow. I'm in a lot

(05:34):
more larger community settings and uh, you know, different meetings
and things like that. I lead part of the are
what's called a field office, which is pretty cool. And
then you know, just the the first part just knowing,
uh you know, anyone can get in. I think it's

(05:54):
it's the tougher part is just making sure that number one,
you know the what it's going to take. The financial
obviously is, but it's it's really, uh, it's just knowing
what you're getting into and making sure that you're ready
for that kind of that mindset.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
So how hard has it been for you to because
I would imagine your growth a lot of it is
due to you having a good team and you've got
good employees, You've got people. I mean, it's that when
it comes to just job people who work in McDonald's,
a lot of them, like yourself, do it for a
long time. They continue to grow, But obviously those kind
of jobs, I'm sure there's some people that it's not
a long term thing. How hard is it in the
current climate today to find reliable people that will not

(06:34):
only come to work but also do their part to
make sure you guys are upholding the brand that is McDonald's.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, I mean you have to be selective, but you know,
every one of my people are all basically internal hires
and internal promotions, and you know, we have six figure
salary people that do fantastic jobs for us now and uh,
you know they ultimately run the company and hold the
standard that you know we've put together. I'd say, what
my what my role is now? I was more of

(07:00):
a visionary and making sure that we, you know, keep
financially responsible and grow the business responsibly and make sure
that we're you know, taking on opportunities we can and
then operationally, I have a great team that handles the
day to day.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
So when it comes to your restaurants nearly twenty of
them now here in the Kentucky and area, what flexibility
do you have as far as doing anything that you say, Hey,
I'm Matt and I know McDonald's has to say so,
but I want to do this because these are my restaurants.
When it comes to pricing those kind of things, is
that I mean, is it pretty much just going with
whatever they want to do or do you have some

(07:34):
some flexibility to maybe do some some specific things that
are at your locations then maybe wouldn't be elsewhere.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
No, I mean McDonald's gives you some open ability to
do things. We can do pretty much whatever we'd like
in the communities. But you know, again you talked about
the standard I mean, they have a standard menu, they
have a standard set of you know, rules and regulations
and kind of standards. Pricing wise, though, that is you know,
they can suggest things or we can vote on things,

(07:59):
but it's really at operators discretion, you know, So it's
it's really open ended and they do a great job
of allowing to listen to our feedback.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
I'm not sure if it was the CEO or who
it was, maybe a spokesman, but it was a story
that I found interesting that they were acknowledging that just
with pricing, with everything is more expensive and I'm sure
for you as well as far as to run your businesses,
but they they feel like they may have priced out
some of the lower income families that maybe now don't
find McDonald's as affordable as they used to, and they're
looking to maybe change some things, restructure that. What goes

(08:31):
into that and can you tell us any anything as
far as what that may look like.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, no, So, I mean we.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Realized that there was a challenge with the lower income consumer.
So last July we introduced the five dollars meal, which
has a multitude option, which quite frankly is I think
the best deal on the market. You know, it comes
with the sandwich, nuggets, fries, drink. But secondly, we also
now are doing an extra value meal. We're reintroducing their
extra Value meal, which just really it allowed us to

(08:59):
kind of to take a look. We have great scale.
McDonald's does an awesome job buying our products and buying
our whether it's food or supplies, and most of that
is in the USA. So we kind of all got
together as an operator in McDonald's leadership and said, hey,
you know, this is our chance to use that scale.
And even though we're taking a hit too with with

(09:20):
food costs and things and late labor, especially labor cost,
but it allowed us to say, hey, you know, we
want to introduce this new discount. We want to kind
of give back to our consumer for being so loyal
to us through COVID and through everything else, and just
you know, reintroduce this and I think it's going to
be a win for the consumer for sure.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Well, it's one thing that definitely gets attention given today's
price of everything, and obviously others others in that in
that industry, fast food industry aren't doing the same thing.
So good on McDonald's for doing that. Last question I
have for you, is there any conspiracy to the to
the to the ice cream machines never working? Is there
a part that is that is that is often going down?

(09:57):
I will admit I've never actually encountered that, but it's
become like known thing where people just make jokes. There's
memes about McDonald's ice ice cream machine never working.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, I mean, trust me, I've I it's one of
the things I see on Facebook, all the social media
so much it makes how much people want the ice
cream though, I guess yeah, So I will say the
tailor company is are the majority of our ice cream machines,
and they've done a really great job over the last
couple of years of they've introduced what's called a gold program,
so they do all of our in house cleaning now

(10:25):
and maintenance, and a lot of it is our machines
are actually cleaned really well. Every night. They go through
a heat mode, which most ice cream machines do not
do not do that, So that's that's sort of where
the opportunity lies. And they've worked really hard to try
to adjust some of that to make sure that we're
going through and going through the heat mode proper, properly,
and it's it's helping a lot, and I think you'll

(10:47):
continue to see, especially as we roll out new machines,
which I'm getting one brand new at there we go
to Highway, you know, they're they're kind of capping off
some of those issues and I think it's going to
be a lot.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Better you could have answered that better. If make Donald's
heard you give a statement to the conspiracy about the
ice cream machines, I think they'd be happy with that response.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
But Matt, I appreciate you making time for us.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Congratulations to you have such a great story, somebody who
self driven and clearly now you're running nearly twenty McDonald's
on your own. So congrats to you. Thanks, thanks for
your time, and hopefully we can catch up again soon.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Absolutely, thank you.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Let's get a quick update of traffic and weather and
we will roll along. Here it is news Radio eight
forty whas it is seven thirty six here Kentucky at
his morning news coffee and company with you. I'm Nick Coffee.
I hope you knew that. If not, my ego is
not her. We have Tom Leech, the voice of the
Kentucky Wildcats. I know you know who he is.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Tom.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Last week Kentucky have fairly perfect a pretty competitive game
against a good old miss team. Two weeks in, what
would you say you feel confident that you've learned about
Mark Stoop's team here.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
Well, I think it's probably too early to say for
sure about anything, because there's so much that was new
for this Kentucky team, and they beat a good till
then played oh miss close. But so you can look
at that as they have played twentieth ranked team in
the country, played them to one score game, they had

(12:12):
a chance in a tie game in the fourth quarter,
and a chance to then get tied again. All of
that those are positives. Other side, if you want to
look at the half empty glass, it is that they
had a chance to win and they didn't. So they're
gonna have to If you want to outperform the expectations,
you've got to close the deal on some of those

(12:34):
games where you get a chance to win them in
the fourth quarter. Now, I think have other opportunities to
do that. It's just this was a miss one. It's
kind of missing a birdie putt and kind of think
about it for a while until you make one.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, I think early on in the season there's value
in just being tested. And who knows how any who
really don't know how good a lot of teams are,
so to your point two games in it is it
is tough to know. But they did go up against
a team that is probably going to be better than
most teams in the in the country. However, maybe not
as good a lot as a lot of the teams
on their own schedule because of just how challenging that

(13:06):
schedule is. Again, tough to know how good a lot
of teams are. You've been doing this a long time, Tom,
It's not new for Kentucky, but this schedule specifically just
seems as if it's they could have made substantial improvements
and the record really not be a lot different than
last year because of how challenging it is.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
Possible, but it's always going to be like that, in
the least be easier. And the thing is, you look
at Florida. Now they get upset at home by South Florida.
What's Florida gonna look like by the time November rolls around?
You know, uh, maybe you caught old myths at a
good time and missed an opportunity. I think, you know,
over the course of a season, some things do you think,

(13:44):
you know in September looked different in November. So hopefully
that happens in a good way for the team that
you're following. I think there's certainly some areas that they
needed to improve, some boxes they needed to check to
have a chance to be better than people think and
those they've checked a lot of those boxes. Their offensive

(14:04):
line is significantly better, their running game is significantly better,
defense has played pretty solidly, kicking game really good. All
of those things are good to give you a chance
to win those games like the one last Saturday. But
they have to find a way to be better in
the passing game. You know, it's just hard to be
as one dimensional as they were in that game in

(14:27):
the first week and beat good teams. And so that's
what the challenge is. And you know, this is a
team that they should handle certainly this week, and they're
gonna potentially we know at least a Cutter Bollay's going
to play. We don't know if he starts or not.
Mark Stoops hasn't made that announcement, but we're going to
get to see more of him. It certainly sounds like
maybe they can find a spark in their passing game

(14:48):
because they're going to need it when they go back
into SEC play to have a shot to win down
at South Carolina.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
This is an opportunity not only to get a win,
but also get some confidence going. And if in fact,
there are a lot of reps for Cutter Bowley that
that could go a long way. What can you tell
us about this, This Eastern Michigan team. I know they're
coached by a former Lois of coach, Ron Cooper, which
I had no clue he was still coaching. But it
seems as far as timing this is, this is a
good opponent to have coming off a tough loss last week.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
Eastern Michigan is struggling. They lost to an s CS
team last week, and I don't think I don't think
coach Cooper is the guy there. He's not Chris Creighton.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Oh no, I'm sorry, I think he was.

Speaker 4 (15:29):
He was there.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
He's the coach who beat Eastern Michigan. My apologies, I
got it. I got it incorrect. I believe he's at
Long is That was at Long Island who ended up
knocking off.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Eastern last year.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Ron Cooper is the coach at Long Island. My mistake,
I got that confused.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
Sorry, but yeah, that was a loss to an s
CS team and then they were blown out the first week,
so they are struggling. I mean teams out of the
Mid American Conference. That's a good league year and a
year at good mid major league. The best teams there,
like Toledo last week. Are are formidable. This is a
team where Kentucky's a you know, significant favorite against you
know there, it's a is a team that is struggling.

(16:05):
They've given up a lot of rushing yards. So that's
a matchup that seems favorable for Kentucky. But again, we
can kind of back to the first point. If they
can run the ball and you know, establish a lead,
that would be great. But what they really need to
do is find out can they find a rhythm in
their passing game. Can Cutter Bowley seize an opportunity to

(16:27):
take command of that quarterback position. Nobody's you know, done
that at the moment. Zach hadn't certainly done that through
the first two games. Can a receiver make a move
forward to start being more of a of a go
to guy in that position, group, tight end, et cetera.
They've got to find some way to be able to

(16:48):
have more success throwing the ball, and they should have
an opportunity to do that against UH Eastern Michigan team
that is, you know, really struggling. There's not you know
a lot of positives to find on their statue anywhere
at the moment. But if you're Kentucky. You the challenge
is you know what's coming. Like the schedule you were
talking about earlier, you can't afford to, you know, sleep

(17:11):
walk through a game like this and let it let
the game, you know, be closer than it should be.
You need to go out take care of business. And
you know, maybe it gives you a chance to take
a look at some younger guys to see us for
somebody could give you a spark in that passing attack.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Tom, appreciate the time, have fun, good luck on the call,
and we appreciate you oncekey making it time for us
this morning.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
Absolutely, talk to you next week or two weeks. Is
Kentucky's open next week?

Speaker 1 (17:37):
There you go, Thanks Tom. That's Tom Leach's voice of
the Kentucky Wildcats. Joining us here is again not only
did they have a chance to get a win, get
some confidence going, but work on some things because their schedule,
I mean, it's it's brutal, and it's probably going to
be like that annually, and there'll always be teams that
end up not being quite as good as maybe expected,
but there's also teams that end up being a little better.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Than you might have expected.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
So yeah, this is just what the doctor ordered for
Mark Stoops and his team to get some confidence going.
All right, we'll talk Louis football coming up little bit
later on. They're off this week. And I've got a complaint.
I hate early by weeks in the season, and I
want a challenging opponent. JMU gave us a challenge the
other night, which credit to them, but it just seems
like this is the second straight year we've gone nearly
a month into the season before you really get a

(18:19):
chance to see kind of where you stand. That's my complaint.
But college footballs here, that's good stuff. And we'll talk
more about it a little bit later on. Right here,
and there's Radio forty whas. We're just a couple of
minutes away from you.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Next up.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Day of trafficking weather. Trying to get this thing back
on track. My clock management has not been great, but
it happens at times. I'll try to work on it.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
All right.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
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of updates coming your way trafficking whether we'll see how
the roadways are looking. Bobby Ellis will get us caught
up there, We'll see what the forecast is looking like.

(20:27):
We're going to have a really beautiful weekend really, which
is great for bourbon and beyond going on. I know
a lot of folks here locally are going to be there,
and there's many that are that are going to be
in town for it, so let's hope that that holds up. Also,
we will get a sports up date with Scott Fitzgerald.
And don't forget lmpdchief Paul Humphrey set to join us
here in studio. Dwight Mitchell's already here. He's hanging out
and he once again joined us on his day off.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
What a guy. What a guy. So again we'll have
a lot of fun here. Keep it locked here.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
We will take you up till nine o'clock on news
radiy Waight forty whas