576: Anthony Pigliacampo on Start-Ups and Capitalism Being The Solution

Graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder, entrepreneur, health enthusiast, and engineer who likes to build businesses that make the world a more interesting and sustainable place, Anthony Pigliacampo is the founder and co-CEO of Modern Market.

Modern Market opened its doors in 2009 with the mission is to serve delicious, healthy food that moves us forward.

Since it's first location almost 10 years ago, Modern Market  has scaled to 28 restaurants in 5 states with many more in development.

Show notes…

Success quote or mantra

"Onward and upward." 

"Treat every day like day one."

In today s episode with Anthony Pigliacampo, we discuss: 

• How Anthony broke into the industry. 
• What he learned about the food system and food economics while working as an engineer for MacDonalds. 
• How Anthony wanted to create a restaurant that wasn't only economically healthy, but that also served healthy food. 
• The benefits of treating your small business like a big business from day one.
• How to raise money for a restaurant with no prior experience in the restaurant industry. 
• "Blocking and tackling" projects and challenges. 
• Having cash reserves in the bank to live off during the early lean days. 
• When tackling challenges, starting with the end in mind and reverse engineering a solution.  
• The benefits of having a partner to divide and conquer the work load. Especially, in the early days when you're developing, and fine tuning your systems while managing and growing relationships with guests and team members. It is a lot to do by yourself. 
• Staying dialed into your numbers, so you can track the impact of your efforts and keep your thumb on progress.  
• The significance of trust in a partnership.  
• How partnerships hinge on agreeing to the same long-term goals. While you must agree on the long-term goals, it is actually healthy to disagree on the day-to-day decisions. 
• Why you need to be fully committed to removing yourself from the day-to-day, if you desire to scale. 
• How prioritizing, blocking, and tackling plays its role on removing yourself from the day-to-day.
• Creating a culture where your line staff is encouraged to speak up and share when they see something being done wrong or something that could be done better. 
• If you want people to buy in, then do what you say you're going to do.  
• Scaling  culture:
  • Using technology to expand your reach and presence; Anthony holds live chats that anyone who works for him can attend. 
  • Taking the extra time and effort to hire people with the same values as you.   
• Why capitalism is the solution to effective change. 

Today's sponsor:

EthicsSuite.com -provide a safe, secure, simple and anonymous communication channel between you and your employees to help you protect your hard-earned reputation and assets. Demonstrate to your team that you are committed to providing a workplace that operates with the highest ethical standards. Staying informed about important issues will help you resolve them internally before they spiral into larger, costly, or public problems.

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Knowledge bombs

1. Which "it factor" habit, trait, or characteristic you believe most contributes to your success?
   • Grit.
2. What is your biggest weakness?
   •  Disorganization.
3. What's one question you ask or thing you look for during an interview?
   • Energy.
4. What's a current challenge? How are you dealing with it?
   • Scaling his culture at the same rate he's scaling his business. 
5. Share one code of conduct or behavior you teach your team.
   • The power of "yes". 
6. What is one uncommon standard of service you teach your staff?
   •  Instill the level of service that a full service restaurant would deliver in a casual quick service environment. 
7. What's one book we must read to become a better person or restaurant owner?
   GET THIS BOOK FOR FREE AT AUDIBLE.COM 
   • Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change
8. What's the one thing you feel restaurateurs don't know well enough or do often enough?
   • They don't think about the impact their food has on the health of their guests. 
9. What's one piece of technology you've adopted within your four walls restaurant and how has it influence operations?
   • Sticky Chit printers. Sticky paws 
   • Par POS 
   • Long-Range Systems 
10. If you got the news that you'd be leaving this world tomorrow and all memories of you, your work, and your restaurants would be lost with your departure with the exception of 3 pieces of wisdom you could leave behind for the good of humanity, what would they be?
    1. People need food that makes them feel good.
    2. The people make the restaurant. Success is just as much about serving your team as it is about serving your guests. 
    3. The industry will never change if you're going to leave it to the accumbent.  

Contact info:

ModernMarket.com

Thanks for listening!

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Huge thanks to Anthony Pigliacampo for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time!

 

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