Cover Society: Shannon Foust
Shannon Foust brings a career’s worth of operations and franchise knowledge to a local upstart.
By Mary Boltz Chapman, Editor-in-Chief -- Chain Leader, 1/1/2007
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PODCAST: Listen to or download a one-on-one interview with Shannon Foust. |
What made you accept the job at Roosters?
I had known this concept for many years and have been a frequent customer. The attorney that handles all of Roosters’ work also handled Damon’s work and has been a lifelong friend of mine.
It’s a concept that I thought was well positioned for today’s economy: full service, but when you walk out, you don’t get sticker shock. They’ve been around since 1989. They’re operators, and they never really thought about the development side. We started talking about franchising, and they knew I had a lot of experience in that. So we started putting together a program to bring this concept to the rest of Ohio and the Midwest.
What are you bringing that they were lacking?
Hopefully I’m bringing my 25 years of experience and the many mistakes that you make throughout that time, and you learn from those mistakes, and you find the things that work well and things that don’t work so well and try to apply them.
These models are getting really stressed out by increasing costs in a lot of areas and putting a lot of pressure on making an adequate return. A lot of people are looking at the industry and saying, "This is a lot of work and a lot of risk, and what am I getting out of it?" What we try to do at Roosters is focus on keeping the model strong and try to find ways to lessen the costs.
What does that look like?
Our royalty fee is low [3.25 percent]. We are not going to have any marketing fees. Focus on the model. We’re not going to have a home office; we’re going to have people that work out of their homes. The Web site is going to be the main message area for franchisees. And we’re looking for experienced operators, not first-timers. No new construction, no set footprint. We’re going to take failed businesses and boxes around the country—and there’s plenty of them—to convert.
You called it the bottom rung of full service. What does that mean?
Our average check is below $10. We just won best wings in Columbus, Ohio, and we beat two well-known competitors in the industry. Because our wings are just so much bigger than everybody else’s. They’re bigger and they’re cheaper, and our consumers know it.
You have the history in Columbus. How are you going to expand that into new markets?
It’s amazing. We’ve sold contracts in Cincinnati, in Cleveland, and people travel, and they come around here to Ohio State games. I was shocked actually about how much brand recognition we did have.
When we go into new markets, they’re going to see very quickly what Roosters is about. It’s a fun, casual joint.
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