Tag: culture

When Culture Scales: How to Grow a Brand Without Losing Its Soul

· 1 Comment ·

This article continues our Celebrating Entrepreneurship series, written in honor of National Entrepreneurship Month and crafted to form a cohesive playbook for the modern entrepreneur. We began with disruption grounded in precision, examined leadership presence as emotional anchor, learned from global brand expectations (Disney, Apple, Amazon), and then brought the business home, into the community, where belonging becomes the ultimate differentiator.

Now we address the next critical challenge:

How do you scale a brand without losing its soul?

Because it is one thing to make one location meaningful.
It is another to ensure that meaning holds across ten, twenty, or one hundred.

This is the precise point where many franchise and restaurant brands succeed or fail. They do not fail because the operations cannot be replicated. Operations are the easy part. They fail because culture has not been made transferable.

What Makes Culture Transferable?

Culture is not a slogan, a values poster, or a paragraph in an operations manual.
Culture is the lived behavior of the brand, ideally, repeated so consistently that it becomes instinctive.

A culture becomes transferable when it is:

  1. Observable — People can see what it looks like.
  2. Trainable — It can be taught, not just felt.
  3. Reinforced — There are systems that sustain it.
  4. Rewarded — The behaviors that express it are recognized.

If culture cannot be seen, it cannot be taught.
If it cannot be taught, it cannot be replicated.
If it cannot be replicated, it cannot scale.

Examples of Transferable Culture in Practice

1. Chick-fil-A — Culture in Language

Guests are not thanked with “No problem.”
They are thanked with “My pleasure.”

This is not a script.
It is a signal.
It communicates care, attentiveness, and respect.

Every location, every shift, every transaction, the language reinforces the identity.
Culture is transferred through shared speech.

2. Starbucks — Culture in Ritual

Starbucks does not simply serve coffee. It creates ritual.

The cadence of the barista, the consistency of the order repeat, the familiar environment, these are not operations.
They are rituals that replicate belonging.

Culture is transferred through consistent sensory experience.

People don’t return because the coffee is irreplaceable.
They return because the feeling is.

3. Texas Roadhouse — Culture in Behavior

Every server kneels to take an order.
It is not required by local leadership preference, it is an embedded behavior system-wide.

Why does it matter?
Because kneeling changes the dynamic:
• It eliminates hierarchy
• It increases customer comfort
• It expresses respect

Culture is transferred through shared physical behaviors.

How Independent and Emerging Brands Can Do the Same

You do not need global scale to build transferable culture.
You need definition and discipline.

Start with three questions:

  1. What does it look like when we are at our best?
    Describe it as if you were filming it.
    Don’t use adjectives, use behaviors.
  2. What do we want customers to feel every single time?
    Define the emotional outcome, not the procedural one.
  3. How do we teach new people what matters here?
    Not “what we do,” but why we do it that way.

Once defined, culture must be embedded into:
• Hiring criteria
• Training systems
• Daily routines
• Leadership language
• Celebrations and coaching
• Promotions and rewards

If behaviors are not reinforced, they disappear.
If values are not demonstrated, they become decoration.

The Most Important Truth

Culture cannot scale unless leaders embody it.
Not founders alone.
Leaders at every level.
Shift leaders, franchise owners, veteran staff, these are your culture carriers.

Their behavior is the brand.

If they model the culture, it spreads.
If they break the culture, it breaks.

This is why the previous article emphasized leadership presence.
Culture does not transfer through documents.
Culture transfers through people.

The Work Ahead

As the series continues, we are building a playbook, not for businesses that merely operate, but for businesses that live.

Our next article will address the next question in the entrepreneurial arc:

How does a brand evolve and expand without losing relevance or authenticity as it grows?

Because once culture scales, the work shifts from preservation to evolution, ensuring the brand continues to feel alive.

For now, the focus is clear:
Define the culture.
Demonstrate the culture.
Teach the culture.
Reinforce the culture.
Celebrate the culture.

This is how a business stops being a business…
and becomes a place where people belong.

About the Author

Paul Segreto brings over forty years of real-world experience in franchising, restaurants, and small business growth. Recognized as one of the Top 100 Global Franchise and Small Business Influencers, Paul is the driving voice behind Acceler8Success Café, a daily content platform that inspires and informs thousands of entrepreneurs nationwide. A passionate advocate for ethical leadership and sustainable growth, Paul has dedicated his career to helping founders, franchise executives, and entrepreneurial families achieve clarity, balance, and lasting success through purpose-driven action.

Ready to elevate your business or navigate today’s challenges with confidence? Connect directly with Paul at paul@acceler8success.com, because every success story begins with a meaningful conversation.

About Acceler8Success America

Acceler8Success America is a comprehensive business advisory and coaching platform dedicated to helping entrepreneurs, small business owners, and franchise professionals achieve The American Dream Accelerated.

Through a combination of strategic consulting, results-focused coaching, and empowering content, Acceler8Success America provides the tools, insights, and guidance needed to start, grow, and scale successfully in today’s fast-paced world.

With deep expertise in entrepreneurship, franchising, restaurants, and small business development, Acceler8Success America bridges experience and innovation, supporting current and aspiring entrepreneurs as they build sustainable businesses and lasting legacies across America.

Culture Is A Work In Progress

·

Work in ProgressI do believe, in many cases, the level of business success contributes to the decision on whether or not a high performer is let go because their style is detrimental to the culture. In the case of a high performer in a business that is barely making it, that high performer probably stays. This situation works for the immediate time being but not for long-term growth. It’s difficult to build a team in this scenario. A high performer with a bad attitude in an environment with other high performers, probably should go. But not without trying to get the person in line first. Bad attitudes are detrimental to team building. However, often times a bad attitude actually develops as a result of how people are treated by management, or by a particular manager. There are various other scenarios as well.

Culture lives and breathes in all organizations. It must be nurtured – fed and taken care of. If sick, the virus causing the sickness must be addressed. In the case of cancer, it must be identified, isolated and removed – making sure to properly treat closely affected areas to be sure of total elimination. If healthy, it must continue to be fortified – an immune system built, and new well-being programs developed.

At the end of the day, Culture is a work in progress! It must be fluid. It must fill in the cracks and gaps and reach its own level. It must be understood by all. It must be allowed to grow. But it must be managed. The key is whether you do so reactively or proactively!

Recently, I read an interesting article about strategy and its effect on culture. Key paragraphs and link to the article follows…

Does strategy matter?

If you do not think that it matters, then you are in good company. There are many who question the value of strategy. And I see many companies where there is no formal strategy; the informal strategy is to keep doing what has worked in the past or to chase what is fashionable today.

Strategy v Execution

When it comes to questioning strategy there are two schools that are particularly prominent. First, there is the school of execution. The execution school which says that strategy is waste of time. Why? Because strategies are generic-obvious and what matters is execution. The ability to turn strategy into the daily live of the organization. Clearly, there is some truth in this school. Strategy which cannot be operationalized is waste of time-resource.

Strategy v Culture

Then there is the school that says, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Yes, culture is powerful. Culture determines what gets done and how it gets done. A strategy that does not take into account the fit with culture will meet lots of resistance. Getting people to enact such a strategy will be like fighting a guerilla war with an enemy who is patient and cunning. What is forgotten is that culture can be and is influenced-shaped-shifted through strategy.

To see strategy and culture as being separate and distinct is a gross misunderstanding. This misunderstanding arises due to our reductionist-analytical thinking. Strategy and culture are interlinked. Put differently, if you change strategy, you will take actions that will influence the culture. And if you change culture, it will eventually influence the strategy.

Read more HERE.

6 Key Points to Strong Franchise Relationships

· 3 Comments ·

Building Solid RelationshipsValidation and multi-unit ownership are strong indicators that positively memorable experiences exist within your franchise system. Another way to confirm the existence of these experiences is simply to ask your franchisees: would you do it all over again? However, as a franchisor you must first earn the right to even be taken seriously if you ask this question.

As you head down the path of creating positively memorable experiences with each and every franchisee, be sure to consider ALL touch points – even those beyond the obvious mediums of in-person, by phone and via email. Think digitally!

How do you interact with franchisees on Facebook? How do you come across to your franchisees in LinkedIn discussion groups? Is there common courtesy? Are you proud of each other’s actions within these platforms?

Many will refer to all of this as being great in theory, and not really practical. But just think what could happen if every touch point were seen as another opportunity to create or enhance a positively memorable experiences. How would that change the culture of your system? How would that lend towards growing your brand? Think of the ripple effect.

Here are six key points to creating positively memorable experiences in a franchise organization:

  1. Understanding the true meaning AND spirit of interdependent franchise relationships. This must be shared and exemplified at every point of contact with franchisees.
  2. Developing the right culture at all levels. Be careful- culture is also defined as bacteria! This takes time and commitment, and is a reflection of how people, whether franchisees, employees, suppliers or others, are treated at all times.
  3. Creating an environment of truth, trust and transparency based upon open, two-way communications – the cornerstone of creating the right culture. Think of a three-legged stool that could hold a great deal of weight when fully intact, yet would immediately fall under its own weight if one leg was compromised.
  4. Establishing your franchise system as family. Treat them as such but understand that this is not the typical type of family of yesteryear with subservience to the head of the household. Mutual respect is paramount!
  5. Building an environment of bottom-up profitability and growth with ALL parties to the franchise agreement and other related agreements focused on mutual goals and objectives. All must sing out of the same hymnal, and not just for dress rehearsal – so be sure to give them the hymn book.
  6. Positively Memorable Experiences – Live it and breathe it every day for optimum results!