Heroes in Business - Anne Beiler, Founder Auntie Annes Pretzels, Advocate and Speaker for women

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Show up and do twice the work of what is expected. Anne Beiler, Founder Auntie Annes Pretzels, Advocate and Speaker for women is interviewed by David Cogan famous Host of the Heroes Show and founder Eliances entrepreneur community.  

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That's right, and welcome back again. We've just got a jam-packed show. Keep the feedback coming. We love it. We're getting a ton of feedback. when I recently had on the co-founder of Netflix. So make sure again, you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. The only place where entrepreneurs align, where you're going to be pretty hungry by the time this interview is over. I'm a big fan of what the founder has created. And I'll give you a hint.

It tastes amazing and it's fresh and you get to see them making it. We have with us Ann Beiler, the founder of, drum roll please, Auntie Ann's Pretzels. She's a speaker, advocate for women, and can be reached at annbeiler.com. Let me spell that out for those of you that are listening. A-N-N-E-B-E-I-L-E-R.com. With that, our favorite aunt, right? Welcome to the show, Ann. Good morning, good afternoon from wherever you're at. Well, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are. And I am grateful to be on your show today.

Thank you so much for the ask. So I remember Auntie Anne's from way back, what feels like 100 years ago. But I mean, when you guys first came out, there was lines all the way across. Nobody had ever done anything. There were, we won't mention the competitors out there where it was just like put in the oven type thing, but nothing where you actually saw people making it fresh and putting it in the oven. How did you like, how did this even come to be of let's do this, let's put it in malls and let's roll it out all over?

Well, well, that's a loaded question and it took us some time to figure it all out. But, you know, I think that some of the, most of the ideas actually came from my own, my history as a little Amish girl on an Amish farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And, you know, as far as the fresh hand rolled, rolled out, making, making it in front of the customer, That was just kind of what I did at home in my kitchen with my mom. And there was eight of us kids and mom and dad, and I was always in the kitchen. And I loved to bake and I loved to cook and I was mom's helper. And I knew if I served a really good meal or I made a great pie or cookies or whatever, and I served it

fresh, my family would love it. Now, when I did Auntie Anne's, that wasn't really what I was thinking about, but it just was so natural for me to make sure that we serve a product that is fresh and hot and golden brown, and that it goes right from the oven into the bag to the customer's mouth. hot and golden brown, and that it goes right from the oven into the bag to the customer's mouth. I just enjoy doing that. And again, I think the idea came from my upbringing. In fact, too, is I remember going to the mall and I thought I was in another dimension because there wasn't just one of your places in the mall, but two. I mean, who has two locations in a mall? You know, I remember Montesenko was the franchisee's name, and he joined us many years ago. We had done a mall location. Our very first small location was at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Montesenko was the mall manager. So we knew

nothing about malls, and we knew nothing about leasing agreements at that time. And so we go to Park City because it was the mall in my area. So why not? Right. I believed in my products so much that I feel like, hmm, sure, we can do this anywhere. So we go to mall management and he said, nah, he said, I don't think who's going to make money selling pretzels and lemonade. And we're like, no, no, no. I promise you we can do this. So what he did was he put us in a dark corner of a very busy mall. And he said, you know, nobody's been successful in this corner. And we're going to put you there because, and we'll do a three month lease. Okay. That's my history with Monty Senko. After three months, Monty was like, what is this? And he was the very first franchise. He went from a mall manager, what is this? And he was the very first franchisee.

He went from a mall manager to a franchisee. And he was the very first person that did two locations in the same mall on the same day in Georgia. Incredible. And how was that feeling as you walking the mall and now seeing things that you worked so hard to get rolled out to just now be out there for others to taste. I know, you know, growing up in my very simple and very humble background, Amish background, and seeing my name in neon lights is like, well, I never would have dreamed that would ever happen. But I remember the first time that happened was at the mall in Lancaster.

And I'm like, I kind of felt like I might have arrived. But at that time, we only had like 13 or 14 stores. But I really kind of thought, I'm there now. This is probably as good as it will ever get. I don't know. It was a great feeling. What kind of secrets, though, can you share now with others that have an idea? Perhaps now they're making something within their kitchen that, you know, they'd like to, you know, build, have it at various locations. What, you know, what kind of mindset, what things can they do? How do you stay positive? I mean, it's like the million things because because, again, you know, right. The mall person saying, well, we don't have anything.

We're not going to, you know, it's just what it is. It's we don't believe it's negative and all that. And suddenly you have to overcome it to prove them. You have a lot to overcome, number one. I think that for, I can only speak out of my experience. And that is that when you start a company, the number one most important part of this, you know, starting your career or being an entrepreneur

is that you love your product you have to believe that your product is is in your opinion is the best one out there like i knew that there were lots of pretzels out there there was there were no hand-rolled soft pretzels in the mall. So we were the first in the industry. But I knew after we had perfected our recipe, there was nothing out there like that. I mean, we went to Florida, we went to Texas, to California. People say, what is this? And you know what? What I want to tell your audience to really hear me out on this one is that we gave samples to build our company. Honestly, we didn't do any advertising, none, zero. And I believe so strongly in the fact that my product, I knew it was so good that if you're going to walk past my store, I'm going to stop you because you have to try the product. Now, if you have a food product, then you can do that to some capacity.

But it then became mandatory. If you became an Auntie Anne franchisee, it was mandatory that you sample your product every single day. So that's how we built our company, honestly. And it was because, number one reason, we believed in our product and I knew there was nothing better out there. You might equal my product, but there's nothing better. And you have to have that kind of passion to grow your company in many ways. But for the product itself, be willing to give it away. Because when you begin to give it away, it's going to come back to you many, many times over. And that's

certainly and what got me hooked and my kids hooked and my life hooked there you go it worked it worked oh it definitely worked because we have with us again we have with us ann beiler founder of auntie ann's pretzels she's a speaker advocate for women can be reached at annbeiler.com. That's A-N-N-E-B-E-I-L-E-R.com. And of course, we'll have it on our website because you're listening, watching me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero Show. Make sure you go to alliances.com to check out her episode and past episodes at E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com, the only place where entrepreneurs align.

All right. So, Anne, now you're also an advocate for women. Tell us what you're doing to help women in the world. Well, you know, in my opinion, it's never enough. But what I do is I support organizations, two in particular. One is called Changing Destiny, and they help victims of sex trafficking. And then I also am part of a group called Nkosi out of Washington, D.C. Again, they're very involved with sex trafficking around globally, around the world.

So that's my involvement. And that's the way I feel like I can contribute is to be on the boards or financially support them. Excellent. Excellent. Why did you decide to franchise and not keep it company owned? I mean, that's a question that we typically get when people franchise. owned? I mean, that's a question that we typically get when people franchise. Well, so I didn't know anything about business, number one. Before Auntie Anne, I was a housewife and we were married and we had two girls. And, you know, my dream was to be a housewife. And so my educational background is really not very impressive in the Amish culture.

I went through the eighth grade and I quit school because that's what you do and you help on the family farm. And so franchising, when we started to franchise, we honestly, David, I'm going to expose who I really am. And that is that I really didn't know anything. And so we did the franchise model without even knowing that's what we were doing initially. And because people were coming to me and they were saying, you know, Ann, I want to do Auntie Ann's pretzels and I want to use your name. I'm like, well, okay. I don't know. I don't know how to do this. But I said, if you want to use my name and you want to use the Auntie Ann pretzel recipe, then we'll charge you an upfront fee. And I would like to have 4% of your gross sales. Now, okay. For those of you who know anything

about franchising, that is the franchise model because, um, so that's what we did for about two years. And without knowing it, we were, we were calling, calling it licensing. We had a licensing agreement. But within two years, we discovered that we're actually franchising. And so it seemed like the same model. But we did that model instead of company-owned stores. Because every time that you sign up a franchisee, we made, in that day, we made just enough money to be able to build another store for our new franchisee and the royalties then became the cash flow for us to pay for our expenses which at that time was minimal but it really worked and that's how franchising works you use you sell a franchise and then that big that's cash up front and then you have that capital to work with. So it made sense to

us at the time, but really, I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't do it that way again. I loved our franchisees and it was always amazing to me that they trusted my husband and I. We were unknown, completely, totally unknown. But the reason they came to us is because they loved Auntie Anne's pretzels, number one. And as they began to work with us, they began to trust Jonas and I and my team because we were people of our word. We really wanted the franchisee to succeed at the expense of many times. We weren't making that much money, but it was so important for me that you are successful. So we began licensing. We started licensing, then franchising. And what I would do today, if I would start a new company,

I would do the Chick-fil-A model. I would do the Chick-fil-A model. If you don't know what that is, then go research and find out. But it does mean you have to have a whole lot more capital up front. So franchising is a way to grow with very little capital up front so couldn't you have kept couldn't you have kept i and i get i know what the chick-fil-a so make sure you guys research this you'll be amazed of what goes through and how somebody can become and run a run a chick-fil-a um why not keep the licensing model oh well at the point that we at that time we had about 35 stores and what we were doing actually was not legal. Got it. So you had to switch to franchising.

We had to get into the franchise. It was almost by default, but we didn't have a UFOC. We didn't have the right to do business in any other state but Pennsylvania. And we were already in five states at that time. So we had gone too far. The ship was too far out to sea to bring it back in. So we had to revise and just become a franchisor. And we did that. It took us six months to really put our feet on solid rock when it comes to the franchise model.

But we learned the business and we were happy about that because we were grateful that we didn't like 35 stores rather than a few hundred at that, you know, and would have had to turn the ship around. But I can only tell you, it's just, it was a learning curve for us. All of it was a learning, just being in business for me was learning. And I can tell you, David, that you may have some people that are listening right now that are like, you know, I can't do this. Well, if you think you can't, you probably won't. But I never thought that I couldn't do this. I always knew I could somehow, I knew I could do this, even though I had limited the three things that I did not have. I did not have a formal education. I did not have any capital. I borrowed, I had a few dollars,

and when I say a few dollars, $25 to my name. And I went over to my father-in-law, who was an Amish, a wealthy Amish guy, and he became my angel investor, and he gave us $6,000 to start our very own company. And so I had no formal education, I had no capital, and I had no business plan. But let me tell you, the passion for the product that I had, what I did have, over time, I realized. I whined often about what I didn't have. I complained, like, huh, I wish I would have. But that really took me nowhere. But when I began to understand what I had was so powerful. I had a great purpose. I had a great product. And I had great people. And that, my friend,

great product and I had great people. And that, my friend, is a formula for success. Phenomenal. How do you find, how does, for a franchisee, how did you, what skill set or what did you see for those that were most successful as a franchisee of Auntie Anne's? Oh, if you want to be successful in a franchise and if you really totally trust the franchisor, that's really important. Some people get into franchising relationships that are not healthy. But as at Antien's, we wanted our people to know you can trust us. And so they asked me the question again. I'm sorry. I just I went down.

They asked me the question again. I'm sorry. I just, I went down a path. Just in regard to what makes a franchisee, what made the franchisees that you selected, and again, we have with us the founder of Auntie Anne's Pretzels, Anne Piler, be successful above the others that maybe weren't so successful within Auntie Anne's? Thank you.

Thank you. That is a very simple answer. If you're going to pay thousands of dollars for a franchise, then it's really important that you follow every single jot and tittle. Follow the system, follow the recipe, follow the, for us, it was like, it was only making a soft pretzel, but it was make sure it's fresh, hot, golden brown. We had a 200 page manual, training manual for anybody that came into Auntie Anne's. And if they did it well, if they followed, it's not about, it was never about me controlling everything, but it was only because if you

follow this, I know that you will be successful. So the ones that followed the system and all of the little details of fresh product, a clean store, a great customer service, threefold philosophy. That sounds really simple, right? It was simple for me, but some people, they came in, they kind of wanted, they wanted to, you know, do the fast track lane, make, make money faster, less employees, and, and, and maybe, maybe take the recipe and maybe try to tweak it or, or less salt on the butter or less cinnamon sugar, less salt on the product, less cinnamon sugar. I mean, they would try to, you know, just lessen the value of the product or even employees.

So follow the system. If it's a proven franchise, follow the system and you will be successful unless you may be in a bad location or there's a turntable in the economy. And so there are factors in, you know, around that. But number one, follow the system if you are going into a franchise. Very important. And let me ask you, you have children, right? Yes, we have three children, one in heaven and two on planet Earth. OK, so if you had one full day to spend with them. And no distractions, no internet, nothing of that, what would you spend the day sharing with them of how to be successful,

be a good person like you have no distractions with that. Share with us some of the secrets you would share with them of being good person. I would, that's really's really my hot topic. I love talking about the highs and the lows, the good and the bad of my life, because all of it together has made me who I am today. So if I had one day to just sit down with my family and talk to them, and we've done this occasionally, but I still feel like there's more. There's always more that you can share. Spend quality time with your family, with your employees, and be, how can I say this? Be real, be open, be transparent, and talk about the pitfalls. Talk about the things that you did in your life that really took you to the wrong place. And then talk about the things that you did that took you to the highs of life, to the great success. And I've always said that,

encourage them to listen to the right voice because if you listen to the right voice, you'll make the right choice. If you listen to the wrong voice, you'll make the wrong choice. So I want people to understand that owning a company is not easy peasy street. It's commitment.

It's perseverance. And perseverance, my definition of perseverance, if I had a day to talk with anyone, I would talk a lot about perseverance because everybody wants to be an entrepreneur as I'm out and about speaking. People want to, oh, I want to own my own company. I have a great idea. I have a great product. I have all. And I'm saying, yeah, but do you have perseverance? Are you disciplined? Perseverance simply means to do what others do not feel like doing. You know, perseverance is like pushing through when you want to stop. There's so many things. But I learned all of that on the farm, David. I persevered as a little girl when mom asked me to go down to the basement and make 70 or 80 pies all by myself as a 12-year-old.

And the next day they were going to take him to a farmer's market and sell them. So I learned perseverance. market and sell them. So I learned perseverance, but I feel like we cannot underestimate the power of disciplining my life, getting up at a certain time every morning, going to work every day. Even as a teenager, when I had jobs, my dad said, go five minutes early and stay five minutes late. Just go beyond what's required of you. And that's what it takes as an entrepreneur. Go beyond what's required of you. And that's what it takes as an entrepreneur. Go beyond what's required and do what you don't feel like doing. Because I'm telling you, if you get into business, there will be so many challenges that you're going to have to push through and just persevere through. Be wise as a serpent and harmless as it is.

Be kind to all of your employees and, you know, value them and respect them. But at the same time, help them understand, you know, that there is a job to do. Auntie Anne's had a purpose and I wanted people to understand what our purpose was. And it's just when you care about your people, they will care about your purpose. Truly incredible. Well, again, just what you've done, what you've created, who you've helped and who you continue to help. That's a miracle in itself. And having touched so many people and that makes you and a hero and welcome again. Thank you so much for providing the information to the Alliance's Hero Show. Anne Beiler, founder of Auntie Anne's Pretzels, advocate for women. You can reach

her at annebyler.com. That's right. Thank you so much for being on the Alliance's Hero Show. Now you got to dance with me too. Got to dance with me.