I read a fantastic article in February’s Inc. Magazine: Lessons from a Blue-Collar Millionaire. They had me at the subtitle: “When Nick Sarillo launched his pizza business, he had one goal in mind: to create a corporate culture unlike any he had seen.”

Nick wanted something new – something unconventional. He wasn’t going to settle for doing things the way people had done them in the past. Nope. He turned a def ear to all of the “experienced” people who were telling him how his business should run. Heck, he even went completely off course from the way his father has run his pizza restaurant successfully for many years.

They key? He went with a “trust and track” management philosophy, instead of the relatively common “command & control” style prevalent in most restaurants. In other words, Nick believed he could hire smart, hard working, go-getters to work in his restaurant, and reward them not only with the opportunity to make good money – but more importantly – by giving them a lot of responsibilities, and empowering them to execute.

It’s a great article so check it out to learn more. The connection to Schedulefly is that most of the restaurants that use Schedulefly favor some variation of Nick’s “trust and track” approach over a “command and control” approach. They tend to understand the importance of empowering employees – and what that means for employee morale. They want employees to have fun. They want employees to feel engaged. And so on.

The connection? I think its simply that restaurants that favor open, trusting, honest communication between management and staff like Schedulefly’s easy communication tools. They tend to believe in the power of happy staff members translating into more profits, so they love to leverage Schedulefly to make their employees’ lives easier. They like to foster teamwork and camaraderie, so they encourage staff members to interact on their Schedulefly Message Wall. They lean towards flexible tools that don’t assume they operate like everyone else. The list goes on.

Anyway, this approach apparently works pretty darn well for Nick, who runs two of the most profitable independent pizzerias in the nation. He’s not a customer (yet!), but I admire his cool, successful, unconventional approach.

Keepin’ It Simple & Fun,

Wil @ Schedulefly