“Five Attributes All Successful People Share” with Franchise Leader and IFA Chair, Catherine Monson

1Huddle Podcast Episode #15

On this Bring It In podcast episode, 1Huddle’s CEO and Founder Sam Caucci sat down with Catherine Monson, CEO of Propelled Brands, the new corporate umbrella for FASTSIGNS and NerdsToGo. She has been in the franchising world for over 40 years and has become a leading expert at empowering workers and creating a positive mindset to inspire her teams. Catherine also appeared on the two-time Emmy Award-nominated reality series, “Undercover Boss,” in May of 2012, where she got to prove her commitment to FASTSIGNS. 

On this episode of Bring It In season one, Catherine sat down with 1Huddle’s CEO Sam Caucci, and discussed the five attributes all successful people share, strategies to maintain strong personal connections virtually, and how to engage workers through a screen.

Audio available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. 

TOP 3 HIGHLIGHTS

Below are some of the insights Catherine shared during our chat, edited for length and clarity. You can find more Bring It In podcast episodes here.

• “One of those important skills of great leaders is great communication skills, great public speaking, the ability to develop rapport, and interpersonal skills.”
• “There’s actually a lot of science behind getting happiness from close relationships and it’s very easy for relationships to weaken when you don’t see people.”
• “We’re trying to find different ways to do that and I’m open to any other suggestions you have because this ‘never stopping learning’ means we have to keep borrowing great ideas from our friends and other leaders.”

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Sam: What’s it like leading a major brand, like FASTSIGNS during a global pandemic? What has that experience been like for you? 

Catherine: Well, I think the challenges that any CEO faces regardless of the size of the company during the pandemic are the same, right? We have to figure out how to pivot, if we need to pivot, we need to figure out how to reach customers and reach prospects in different ways. If perhaps we were used to people coming into our locations or whether we were doing proactive, physical, outside sales calls. Right. So there’s that whole pivot about how do you stay in touch with customers? How do you convert prospects to customers? How do you work, in a business-like ours, where our franchisees are custom manufacturing signage. How do you still get that done where you might have a majority of your employees working remotely? And perhaps the only employees that actually need to physically be in the FASTSIGNS location would be the physical production staff so that the graphic designer, inside salespeople, outside salespeople, in the franchisee might all be working remotely. So we had to very quickly put together the tools and the resources to teach our franchisees how to do all of that because of my involvement in the International Franchise Association, which gives me exposure to lots of other business leaders, that I was, you know, thinking about the pandemic, not knowing that it would be necessarily a pandemic, but thinking it would be something very serious, really in early February. And so I asked my IT team in early February to put together the how to kit for our franchisees. How do you get the majority of your people working remotely? We were very blessed. One, we put all of our franchisees and our corporate staff on Google’s G Suite a couple of years ago. And so that has all kinds of collaborative collaboration and remote working tools. So it is absolutely possible to have 60 or 70% of your staff working remotely, if you’re a FASTSIGNS franchisee and they can still collaborate in real time. And then from a corporate perspective, we launched RingCentral, which uses the Zoom video platform. We were able to quickly move 99% of our corporate staff of which we have 118 people, quickly move them to working remote in their homes because we were able to see our people and our people can then see franchisees by using the RingCentral. That also made that pivot more effective than it would have been if we were only using voice, or if we had to get used to how to use the technology, like many companies that did not have a Zoom or a RingCentral and have no video conferencing capabilities. So I’d say, you know, it’s really all about the pivot, understanding how to continue to have impact with your local customers and to convert prospects to customers.

And then there’s another piece that I think is very critical and something that I’ve worked on a lot personally, and that is creating a positive mindset. It is very difficult to get up, to motivate your employees, if you’re a franchisee, to do the hard work you need to do to work the longer hours. Because you have to be able to control your mind and have a positive mindset to see this as a short-term situation in the short-term, maybe 18 months, but that’s shorter than a lifetime. You know, how do you develop a positive mindset, develop a growth mindset? How do you develop your personal grit or perseverance or courage? And those, I believe, are timeless lessons. If I walked into this office or if I had a meeting with my, my team virtually and I was in a grumpy mood and I was negative and I was saying things like, “God, we’re never going to get through this, this is so bad, oh”. You know, if I do that whole ‘woe is me’ thing, that doesn’t engender any confidence in anyone, right? So I think that creating a positive mindset and then teaching your team how to create and maintain a positive mindset is really, really important all the time, but a thousand times more important during a challenging time, like a pandemic. So that’s what we’ve been doing. We also increased our communication with our franchisees. We’ve always held a video conference call with the entire team, but we have always done that about every six to eight weeks, we call it ‘Connect with Catherine’. And then starting that first week of the shutdown every single week, we had a ‘Connect with Catherine’ where we were teaching them how to comply with the FCRA, or how to comply with the CARES Act, how to apply for a PPP loan, how to pivot, how to be deemed in a central business, because originally signage companies were not on the list of the US government’s essential workers or essential businesses. So we actually taught our franchisees how to do that and about a hundred of our franchisees, through the months of April and May, were actually inspected or audited, whether it was their local health, health commissioner or whoever it was. And they would say why are you open? And they would pull out the file that we taught them to build, where they would reach out to their customers who are essential and get those customers to write an email that says “You’re essential, because I’m a hospital and I’ve got to keep changing my signage. We keep changing how we’re handling COVID patients and where people line up and where they queue, right?” And so we told them, you know, think of all these central businesses, you know, who your customers are and get that email. 

And then at the same time, we were lobbying both the federal government and all 50 states in conjunction with the International Sign Association to get the 50 states and the federal government to deem certain companies as essential. So I think there was also, you know, a key party leadership is communication and that’s always important, but in bad times or challenging times, it’s even more important, so we’re doing these weekly calls. We didn’t go to an every other week cadence until the end of July. And we’re only now on an every three week cadence. And that’s because things have settled down for our franchisees to a great degree. And then I just have to say, I’m really blessed that the business we’re in could be deemed essential as compared to a sit down dining restaurant, a spa, a hair salon, an exercise concept where in some states, those are still shut down and that’s a real challenge and the pain for those business owners is just heartbreaking. 

Sam: I feel like, you know, during the pandemic, so many leaders struggle with how do you keep people together when you’re not together? When you are apart and you have this square that we’re looking at each other through, what did you learn about leadership given the fact that, you know, I love the messages and I’ve seen a few as they’ve come out with the International Franchise Association, but you’re knowing to do that. That initiative and that action, you know, is something that I think I’d love to hear, maybe something you’ve learned about leadership, as you have the unique perspective to work with so many business owners. 

Catherine: I have a belief that there are five common characteristics to all highly successful people and they’re simple and they’re all learned skills. Just because they’re simple, doesn’t mean they’re easy. Positive mental attitude, goal directed behavior, self motivation, a sense of urgency and never stopping learning. So that’s the basics, and I’ve worked on developing those skills for more than 20 years. So those are kind of foundational. And then in times of real challenge, you have to amp up the communication and you have to work to maintain that culture. 

So we had regular cadences of monthly employee meetings, every two week meetings with our management team, our middle management folks, seeing how we can support them better and help them. And so we quickly pivoted and we have those on RingCentral or Zoom. And then we try to have a little bit more fun, right? I mean, we might be more goofy, more fun on video, you know, just because we know we need to keep these relationships going right. And then our CFO had a brilliant idea that first week of the shut down, to start a daily email, Monday through Saturday, on the new normal, and that has included ideas on how do you maintain mental health and how do you have fun with your family or what things can you do.  And now we’ve even pivoted on that to where different members of the management team will take a week of doing that. And there’s actually a lot of science behind getting happiness from close relationships. And it’s very easy for relationships to weaken when you don’t see people. So we’ve been trying to think of ways, whether it’s a virtual happy hour lunch together, sharing pictures of what’s happening in different team members’ lives. We’re trying to find different ways to do that and I’m open to any other suggestions you have because this ‘never stopping learning’ means we have to keep borrowing great ideas from our friends and other leaders. 

Sam: You know, great cultures, you miss each other, right. And how you manufacture it as a leader is like, there’s a running list that you have to have and keep thinking about how do you create these moments and connection opportunities where people come to work for a lot more than just a paycheck.

Catherine: So I think the virtual happy hours were very important early on, and they were a great way to tie people together and to have a little relaxation, now I wouldn’t be doing those weekly today. And I had a whole group of franchise friends who did it Saturday nights consistently for probably the first eight or 10 weeks, and then we realized we had a pacing. We knew how to stay in touch and then things started to loosen up a little bit. But I want to tell you what we’re doing next week. We typically, twice a year, have something we call team week where we bring all of our field staff in and all of the entire team then works on increasing skills, knowing what we’re working on, what are our initiatives, and that was called Teamweek. And we canceled our June team week and we’re now holding a virtual team week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of next week. We’re doing it three and a half hours a day, cause you can never do a full day of Zoom meetings. Yeah, but each day we’re breaking into small groups, and each person is going to have five personal photographs. And in those small groups and those groups change, right? So you’ll be in one group of 10 on Tuesday, and it’ll be in a different group of 10 with no duplication on the Wednesday and the same situation, a different group of 10 on the Thursday. And you have 20 seconds to talk about each of these five photographs that have to be about your personal life. 

So I’m looking forward to that, but that’ll be about, this is my new puppy, or this is a hike we took, or my son got accepted to the Air Force, whatever it is, right? But it’s just another way to try to have those personal connections and make them meaningful, cause that’s what would happen at the water cooler, but nobody’s by the water cooler now.

Sam: You know, this new way of working this acceleration that’s occurred because of the pandemic. What is a skill that you think is in, if you’re talking to an employee out there, that’s thinking about how they develop themselves, what’s a skill that is undervalued that’s going to be super valuable in the years ahead?

Catherine: Oh you’d like to pick really tough questions, don’t you. Well, I think there, you know, certainly the comfort and knowledge of technology and how to use it to your advantage is important, but I’m going to go back to just old school for a second. And maybe it’s because I’m old. I think learning how to create, how to communicate well and create trusting relationships via video is going to be important at least until this pandemic is over. But our job at FASTSIGNS is to coach and motivate franchisees, and in some cases franchisee’s employees to take positive action. And it’s not that easy to do on the telephone. It’s a little bit easier right now where you and I are eyeball to eyeball and you can see that I’m smiling. You know, one of those important skills of great leaders is great communication skills, great public speaking, the ability to develop rapport and interpersonal skills. And it’s even more important in a pandemic, but we don’t get the ability to grab lunch together or to see each other in the office, so we have to do that using video conferencing. You know, we still need to touch franchisees. We still need to motivate them. We still need to sometimes be that patient ear that listens to their challenges. But also, you know, be really focused on getting them to do the things they need to do in their business. 

Sam: Sure. I have one final question I have to ask just given that we’re a few weeks from the election and I know great things to watch from a distance and be as a part of the franchise community with you to watching how much you fight and advocate and support, the business model, in Washington, and locally, why do you do that? Why are you so active? Why is that important? 

Catherine: Franchising has been great to me. It has created an amazing home. I’ve had the opportunity by being in franchising for 40 years with multiple franchise ores. And what I love about that is I get to make a difference in people’s lives. I get to help them achieve that dream of business ownership, create wealth for their families, create economic output and create jobs. I mean, there’s nothing more fulfilling. I just love it. But lawmakers don’t understand franchising, right? They might see a FASTSIGNS or they might see a Supercuts or they might see a MassageEnvy, and they know that there are lots around cause they have seen them in lots of places, so they think it’s one big chain, one big company owned chain.

And so the reason that I’m active on Capitol Hill is because we need to educate those people about what franchising is, that these are all small businesses, independently owned and operated. No different than Joe’s Signs shop. That local FASTSIGNS is owned by Joe and the vast majority of revenue generated at that business stays in that community. If you think about a Starbucks, yes there’s some pay that’s given to those employees. That’s a percentage of their revenue, but not a significant one. And there’s some rent paid to the landlord, right. But all of the leftovers goes back to Seattle, to the corporate office, enriching them, where the franchise model is enriching the local community. And you know what I want to make sure that lawmakers understand that franchising is the most democratic wealth creation model there is. Anyone can buy a franchise. Of course, they’re going to have to have initial capital, they’re going to have to meet some requirements, but if they just follow that brand’s systems, if they implement it well, they can create wealth for their family. And that is about as democratic as it gets. Also really excited about the IFA has had, you know, diversity and inclusion initiatives for years, but they’ve become even more important now. And we’ve got several initiatives that we launched this year that I think will make big, positive impacts for minority communities. And I think that that’s important for us to do as good citizens. So I do it because, just because you get elected to Congress, whether it’s as a House member or whether it’s a Senator or think about the state level or think about the local level, just because you get elected doesn’t mean, you know, everything and chances are, you know, nothing about franchising.

So that’s why I do it. It’s all about education and protecting the model. I believe in the franchise business model. I absolutely believe it. Are all franchise owners great franchise owners? No. But there are far more good franchise owners than the few bad franchise orders. And so that’s why I spend the time protecting the model.

Sam: Sure. Well, thanks for your leadership. I can say in my business, you know, you’ve made me want to be more involved in it, watching you know, that leadership’s been super inspirational. 

Catherine: So I just want to say that, I want you to know Sam, we’ve loved working with you and 1Huddle for the FASTSIGNS business, but what I’ve seen you do for the IFA and to use your platform to increase engagement for our franchisees, our franchise action network, I’ve been really impressed. So, you inspire me as well. 

Sam: Okay. Well, thank you for the conversation, Catherine. It’s awesome to chat with you. 

Topics Discussed: Franchising, Community, Government, Future of Work, Leadership, CEO, Executive