Ep 08: Starting Virtuous Cycles with Kat Kole, COO and President of Focus Brands

Aug 26

Kat Cole is the COO and President of Focus Brands, a role in which she oversees the leadership teams of seven major franchises: Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, Carvel, Jamba, McAlister's Deli, Schlotzsky's and Moe's Southwest Grill. Today we chat with Kat about her career, the early steps she took as a teenager, and the massive leaps she made during her time at Hooters, taking up leadership positions at the age of 20! Our conversation with Kat is especially relevant as we spend some time focusing on her work at Cinnabon in 2010, at the end of the recession, and the steps she took to get the brand back on track and prepared for an economic upturn. These lessons are really useful in the current climate, and Kat expands on her approach to the COVID crisis and how this has played out through the array of brands under her watch. Kat goes so far as to call crisis her 'jam'! We talk about the power of dedicated leadership teams within a large corporate and brand structure and how this setup serves the Focus Brands family so well. We also get into how Kat goes about empowering the leaders of these teams to work to their strengths while adhering to an overall culture. The conversation covers technology, local constraints on franchises, and the bottom line. Make sure not to miss this fantastic conversation!

Key Points From This Episode:

Kat's amazing career path leading up to her current position at Focus Brands.
The branding education that Kat received early on in her young career.
Kat's transition from her position at Hooters to a new title for Cinnabon and Focus Brands.
Learning while serving and networking for everyone's benefit.
Becoming the president of Cinnabon and dealing with the effects of the recession.
How Kat approached rebuilding the Cinnabon brand and tackling the challenges it faced
The three questions with which Kat began her process with the franchise.
Empowering the franchisees and systematizing and reinforcing the business.
Keeping the focus on people and building a culture of excitement and progress.
Mapping Kat's achievement at Cinnabon in terms of revenue.
The portfolio of brands under Kat's watch at Focus Brands currently.
The response from Focus Brands to the COVID crisis and how this played out across different brands.
Investments in new technology; how these advancements are implemented across brands.
The management of brands and their own leadership teams; the view from the top.
Acting local in the current economic landscape and adapting to new, localized regulations
Kat's advice to young professionals in marketing management in multi-locations brands!
The benefits offered by joining a growing company with new roles to fill.

Tweetables:

“My plan was to get my engineering degree and then go on to law school, which obviously I did not end up doing, because I was derailed by a series of really unexpected opportunities from restaurants and franchising.” — @KatColeATL [0:02:38]

“I learned to break it into its parts and then work with a team to reassemble those parts in a way that still delivered a consistent brand experience, but allowed the brand to stand tall in a completely different environment.” — @KatColeATL [0:06:12]

“When this thing was peeking, it's like a new business hierarchy of needs. This is the foundation. People need to be safe and you can't run out of money. And that was it.” — @KatColeATL [0:25:28]

“You can never replace the deep personal experience of running a shift, hiring and firing, directly serving customers and be understanding of what drives the business never leaves you.” — @KatColeATL [0:41:31]