Marco’s Franchisee Review: Kevin and Laurel Wilkerson, Edmond, Okla.

Military vets find success as Area Reps, multi-unit Marco’s franchisees.

Retired military couple Kevin and Laurel Wilkerson were happily settled in Columbus, Ga., where Laurel, now 49, was in a law firm, and Kevin owned a mergers and acquisitions firm. Now 54, Kevin, who had always yearned to be an entrepreneur, enjoyed helping others find their own businesses to run. One of his former clients, however, found his own business — a Marco’s Pizza franchise. The Wilkersons stopped in for a visit and became immediate fans of the awesome pizza. Fast-forward three years: The two now own seven Marco’s stores of their own, oversee 14 total as Area Representatives in Edmond, Okla., and have 14 more in development in their territory, which includes most of Oklahoma City, a little bit of Texas and a slice of Kansas. The Wilkersons, who have two grown children, share a lakefront home in Edmond with their schnoodle (a Schnauzer-poodle mix), Dooley. They also happen to be Marco’s Multi-Unit Franchisees of the Year for 2012.

What were you doing before Marco’s?
Laurel went to University of Georgia, and after graduating law school she became a JAG officer. Her first assignment was Hawaii. I went to University of Oklahoma and I have a master’s degree from Harvard and from Naval Senior Service College. I met Laurel in Hawaii. We got married and traveled, and I quit the military after 24 years as an infantry officer in the Army. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial bent. In Columbus, I was looking for a business to purchase, but I didn’t really find one. So I started my own mergers and acquisitions firm to help other people find businesses …While the mergers and acquisitions firm was lucrative and fun because you learn about different businesses, Marco’s was more fun, and you get to go out and execute everything yourself. That’s what attracted us to Marco’s. First and foremost, it’s just a great product. It’s hard to beat in the marketplace. If you start with that product and add great service, it’s just phenomenal.

How did you find out about Marco’s?
We had a friend who was actually looking for a business. He approached me at my mergers and acquisitions firm, but we did not find him a firm. Six months later, he owns a Marco’s. I was surprised. I had never worked in a restaurant in my life. I even got to where I wouldn’t buy and sell restaurants because it was such a different niche. We tried the product and really liked it. A year or so later, we approached him about the opportunity. The short answer is, it was the pizza that sold us.

How long have you been a franchisee?
Since 2010.

Do you own one unit or several? Why? We are opening our seventh store personally, and we’re ARs with 14 in the territory that we have — a 40-store territory — and we have 14 more in development. We enjoy working with kids and developing leaders, and we’ve proven we’re strong operators, so it’s possible to own several. It would be hard to be a good AR if you can’t show you can do what you expect your franchisees to do. We set the bar for them.

How important is it to have food or retail experience before owning the franchise?
I don’t think it is that important. I’m obviously prejudiced, because I didn’t have that. What’s really important to succeed is a passion for the brand. You have to believe in that pizza, in that brand, you have to believe you’re the best in the marketplace. You can learn what it takes to run a restaurant. You can’t learn passion.

What do you like about the job?
I like the variety, first and foremost. With Marco’s, the operational aspect replicated what I had done in the military in the past. Every day we’re dealing with hiring, firing, benefits, certainly all the marketing and market analysis, how to retain customers and get new customers, training, day-to-day operations in stores, development of new stores, site selection, construction, management — all the logistics. I get pretty hyped up about all the variety of things we do. We’re still developing our stores, too. We finalized negotiation of a lease yesterday. We opened a store less than three weeks ago, and we’re already developing another. From that standpoint, that’s the thing that attracted me the most. I really enjoy developing young leaders, whether it’s their first job or they’re starting a new career. I enjoy working with those people and seeing them blossom.

What sets Marco’s apart?
What sets Marco’s apart first and foremost is the product. There is a real feeling across the brand, because we have such a great product, there’s a certain synergy there — we’re an up-and-coming brand; we’re growing.

How large is the opportunity to grow with Marco’s?
I don’t think we’ve seen any limits to date. We cert have a lot of opportunities for people who have a passion for success. There are multi-unit deals out there still, and territories for ARs, so it’s scalable. That’s one of the business aspects I like about this. Marco’s, for me, offered different business aspects I was looking for in a model. We’re kind of atypical in that. I like the scalability. You can get into a store for $300,000, so you can open multiple stores. You have a recurring revenue if you take care of the store and the customers, because they’ll come back time and again. It has wide market appeal … everybody loves pizza. And there’s opportunity for community involvement and fundraisers for community causes. It also offers a good investment-to-return ratio.

Who are your main customers?
Who are your best customers? Soccer moms are our area. It’s that dual-income, busy family — they value quality food, and that’s our customer. That’s who we’re looking for.

What attracts customers to Marco’s rather than its competitors?
I think the flavor profile of those specialty pizzas is the first thing. Once they’ve tried some of our specialty pizzas, that’s it. The other thing is the environment. We have a higher-end image with rock walls and plants. And there’s the image of our people, more importantly. They’re very sincere, very cheery, they welcome you to Marco’s with a smile. That attracts them. That image either puts you on top or kills you. We’re not perfect — we have complaints now and then. The key to that for any franchisee is the speed of response. Most respond to customers’ complaints very quickly. We try to respond lightning-fast. It’s amazing how people react when you show a sincere concern and respond quickly. It’s rare these days, and it’s fortunate for us that it is rare because we live by that.

How many customers do you typically serve in a day?
About 300 customers on a Friday. It varies by day and to a certain extent by weather and sporting event.

What does your typical day look like?
It’s a nighttime business. In the army, we were up at 5 o’clock in the morning. In this business, I’m getting up closer to 7. I wish I could tell you I’m working out on a regular basis — I ought to be, but I’m not. I check email to see where I stand overall, then I’m going to prioritize my day. I’m big on organization. Really being effective with my time management is something I focus on more than most. I try to do only those things I have to do and delegate the rest to others.

A lot of my job is giving tools to others to do their job. With the new store open, I’ll roll through the new store to make sure everything’s set, make sure the GM knows I’m there to support him. I’m operationally hands-on. I spend most of my time during the day in operations. I try to spend my days with the people and my evenings on the paperwork. That tends to make me have a longer day than some. Yeah, somebody may email me at 2 in the morning, but I don’t tend to need as much sleep as some. During the day, there are meetings with vendors and partners. At night, there’s financials, marketing, counseling. We work out of our home. Laurel has a complete office of her own. What should have been a formal living room is another complete office. We’ve thought about renting or buying a space, but quite honestly, this is working out for us right now.

In this business you need to be in the stores and out there with the people. I’ve got some great franchisees. I spend a lot of time up front with them. I’ll spend four to six weeks with new franchisees. Our model is a little different. We spend a lot of time up front setting the culture and tone and making them as self-sufficient as possible. I’m talking to franchisees every other day, and I see them every 10 days. It’s not like I see every franchisee every week. If you set the tone up front and they’re self-sufficient, they reach out and you check on them. It makes everyone more independent and happier, and it makes everyone’s time more efficient.

What is a secret to your success?
We’re having fun. That’s really it, we really, really are having a good time. While people talk about that, you have to dig down and see if they really are. If you look at the amount of time we spend doing this, it’s really true. It’s comes back to passion.

What kind of person do you think would enjoy owning a Marco’s franchise?
First of all, it’s a people business. You need to enjoy people. I think you need somebody who, while they’re really focused on detail and perfection, can’t be driven crazy by the fact that it’s an imperfect world. I’d love to have no complaints and put out a perfect pizza every time, but that’s not realistic. Outgoing people who pay attention to detail but have a good balanced way of looking at things. I’ve seen some people that I thought would be fantastic, but they were such perfectionists they really had a hard time. I’m somewhat in that camp, but it’s perfectionism with a dose of reality.

What are some of the personal benefits of franchise ownership?
You have a network of other people you can bounce ideas off of and talk to; you’re not in it by yourself. If they’re in business for themselves, what they’re missing is the whole chemistry with other people. We’ve got friends in Georgia or Colorado or Alabama or wherever they are that we can bounce ideas off of or steal ideas from. I think that makes us stronger, whereas a mom-and-pop is only as good as you are. I would say the peer group is a benefit of the franchise system. That scenario doesn’t get as much publicity or press.

When people look at business owners from outside, they say you’re free to go where you want and do what you want. You can cause that environment to happen. If we want to travel, we go travel. We’ve been blessed in that we have afforded ourselves the time because we have a great management team in place. You can have the freedom to use the time where you want, but that only works if you set up good systems and hire people you trust that allow you to go in and do that.

Would you recommend a Marco’s franchise to someone else? Why?
It has such wide appeal and offers such a great product within that marketplace. If you’re willing to put yourself into that business, it’s a great business to be involved it. What this isn’t — I turn down more people than I allow in — is a flat-out investment where you put a 22-year-old in charge and take the money out back in a wheelbarrow. This is more hands-on than that.

What’s your favorite Marco’s pizza?
Barbecue. It’s got a classic crust, a lite sauce, chicken, onions, bacon and barbecue sauce drizzled across the top. I also like the White Cheezy on a thin crust. There’s that variety thing in me again.

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