QuikTrip CEO Chet Cadieux - Encore

i know when you think of great places to work you probably think of glamorous jobs exciting challenge is earning big box you probably don't think of your neighborhood convenience store i'm kay mcintyre and today on tv are present find out why a quick trip is consistently ranked one of the best places to work in america quick takes me outside the job gave me university of kansas school of business these executive lecture on january twenty nine two thousand fourteen it's interesting to come and talk about people about quick trip because it's what i've always done and in most people a quick trip itself they've ever done and so i'll be candid elmo elmo little self conscious about coming in and talking about a quick trip not self conscious about speaking but coming in speaking to people about all the things that we do good seemed kennel like cheating ok because that's that's gonna like that the dream speech don't give your online

about the things we'd be bad because that would just suck nominee that right so i am their top of the things that we didn't and i don't talk about things that would be bad but understand that we're very self aware we know there are any number of things that we don't do a very good job on the presentation they really isn't used to be a very short presentation has a much more interest in answering questions i always feel like whenever i'm talking that means i'm guessing it which you might wanna know about and i would much rather get through all that and get the point were you guys ask me questions imminently softballs to stick it to me a stunning because that makes a productive for you guys and for me but what i am to talk about his quick trip as a value these values based business and we are clearly that how many of you guys just just really quickly we are unwarranted you've only got one story you're necessarily from kansas city so how many of you guys hopefully a lot please please please nominate you guys had been liquid crystal before god bless your sweet sells swag that's good because we need to go a lot the stores cost a lot more people got a lot for the reason that we have

generally been successful which looks like a pretty successful career for seventy hands it went up because we are valued based business before getting them to tell you a little bit about the business in case you don't know anything about it we are convenience store company we're a private company we were founded in nineteen fifty eight i we're founded by my father has so and they sure are wondering how this says schorr big nosed i got to run this really cool company and only in the lucky sperm club it's not that i was smart so they were totally locked into unfortunately i hadn't messed it up yet but we start in nineteen fifty eight was started by my dad that you actually was my dad's idea was again it was a friend of my dad that with schoolwork sauce in seven elevens in dallas and believe it or not back in nineteen fifty eight there were hardly any convenience stores in the entire united states there are three hundred stores oh in the entire united states for perspective today there are over two hundred thousand convenience stores in nine states so really the main reason that we even survive is to start a company is because they're with any competition right now i would tell you the odds are restarted it probably would

make it and say you're going to pay people really well until really nice to worsen in charge low margin is not exactly a great business plan and i don't encourage you guys to submit that any of your professors of gaga's the gentleman probably be shut down we were fortunate because we didn't have any competition it so happens that bird calls sauce in seven elevens in the house and said you know that seemed like a pretty cool idea but he really liked his job and so he didn't want it up his job that he was in to go and do this really need ideas we got my dad who's a soccer and again i get your lunch and he said listen chesterton against manchester you hate your job so why don't you go do this in our kitchens a minute pitch in some money will go out and find some money will start this business so they did that they started the business with fifteen thousand dollars in nineteen fifty eight now that may not sound like a lot is like about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars inflation adjusted so it's not all it's still pretty good now money but not all the money in the world dead putting the thirty part of his parents were put in a third because bert had a good job and they found a rest from investors around town as a matter fact we receive store for for about the first half of

our life we didn't start selling gasoline until nineteen seventy two for an even though we didn't get serious about the way we got into gasoline does is believe it or not was we stuck a castle meantime up on the front sidewalk of store and will i will actually we didn't i was still just barely out of diapers but you know mostly employs where we were in the gasoline business i we had no idea we were done they get an idea how sophisticated we were by nineteen seventy two i went back in tears as momentous decision that the company made right you think a quick trip and him i think that those guys are self selecting professional when they don't think that what sort of imagine from it that you think that these guys are so selective so specific they're so professional they must do everything right now to give me an idea what that decision looked like when we decided to make this momentous decision to get into gasoline business i went back and looked at the notes the menace from the board meeting where they decided to get into the gasoline business that decision was made in the board meeting the board meeting was in the back of a van on the

way to you know use initial bug sorting out right so we need to really get serious about gasoline until several years later nineteen eighty four star get serious about gasoline has been the next twenty years did you where we are today we are actually pretty doggone good selling gasoline got older ninth other things were bad at we're pretty doggone been selling gasoline to this twenty years for perspective to get that good at we now have over fourteen thousand employees i worried about eleven billion dollars in revenue at six hundred eighty five stores in ten major markets actually called eleven billion is can a cheating i'll be honest with it and we sell gasoline right and number one gasoline it sells for four hours or it sells for seventy nine cents a wish and seventy nine cents or be a lot better for our business plan or not but they're because of their price and that causes the revenues go up and then we don't make that much money and so we like to joke that we're actually one or just not for profits in the entire world because we are in the meantime you know i don't talk about things that are cool about us so wow are we something we got a lot of revenue and all those sorts of things were number thirty on the forbes list of

privately held companies number fourteen on the fortune list of best places to work in the united states which especially proud of and all this would all that's all just the background of what quick trip this book but the wire how we're successful any success that we have really is centered around her culture which is what were talking about now when i when i enter one answer questions about because that's really what makes us who we are we're schmidt on this very strong culture and people who aren't familiar with it and have left a quick trip think that it's kind of like a cult ok now not in the creepy way we don't have the paddles in and all that sort of thing but we're so strong culturally that if you don't fit the culture you're really totally down so is the culture look like because it really is what makes us who we are we have these core values and if they did as a studied about companies having core values you might think that that's a bunch of bok in a lot of companies cases it is but we live by the score that ok we make business decisions dating lea based on these core values and most importantly and the reason that it's the definition of our culture we hired people

based on the facts and i mean if you think that we've got that employs which i hope you do because we did i will not apologize for vermont i am proud of skeletal report which hurts and they are really amazing people and what they have in common is they have these five corvallis gazette we hire and we have all sorts of psychological testing in interviews that we do and all that sort of thing and we go through and we're looking for people who had these core values and that's what makes a quicker version the first one is that we will find people who will be the best and you may think that everybody wants to be the best a lot of people would say they want to be the best but they're actually not that many people in the world who really wanna be the best and bybee the best i mean they are so hyper competitive but if they are going to be the best they are miserable this is the person like me who if i can be the best in any sport earning game which is not very many but awakening look ma ri it if i can be the best at it but i don't want to play this makes me miserable that sector to put it in that context that's the person but on

talking about whatever we say we're looking for people who want to be the best at the same time we're looking for people who are never sad smile ok even if they are the best at something and you can get the best at something and are some things very few but there are some things the quick trip is the best act very few things ok but a couple things that we are the best that and yet were not satisfied that is not good enough okay we just lay awake at night trying to figure out how we're going to get better because we have institutional paranoia that would be the best so that we got there and oh my god we are constantly improving somewhat become inoperable walk off it has ever notice that were remodelling our stores every time you turn around tearing down a perfectly good stored replacing it with another story that's because we're never satisfied just about the time that we get a remarkable instrument oh my god that is spectacular we're so amazing in about a day later we go manage crap we get to better than right that is what we're looking for people that that

sort of an attitude that effect is supposed to lift up our lobbying and our about our lobby it's a parlor office the desperate to rid the backstory for every day africa gazelle ways not from us actually from david glass from wal mart but a perfectly distraught describes are never satisfied attitude every day in africa gazelle wakes up knowing the stout run the fastest line or it will die each day ally and wakes up knowing it just outrun the slowest to zeller it's been a star the point is you wouldn't really matter where you're a wiener gazelle when you get up you better be running and a quick trip everybody was running all the time because ever notice that you're having these red shirts there going like crazy and it's like that in our offices to all manner of people run around costly because that's people we're looking for ok not because we're cracking the whip now because we have to tell him to go do it because that is the person that they are not required to begin with never core value focus long term now be honest we're private that makes things a heck of a lot easier and i can imagine as ever being a

public company ok because we would be able to focus longer more likely by focus long term i mean they're focusing on the things in our strategic plan that we work on are really things that are going to change who we are when we grow up that's how we determined that we call fifteen years now twenty years out the things that we're working on now that were really pouring capital and that were really building up our talent level on these are things that were worried about fifteen twenty years from that's long term and there's all kinds of other stuff we need to do and you're right we need to be doing all sorts of tactical things there's a very small population of employees for that patient who were willing to forgo corporate profits for what's going to be good later arrived in a lot of cases that maybe have never be retired by then so are they really so interested in building an organization that's the bass and they're never satisfied so much so that they're willing to forego crawford's pour out capital now in order to make sure that the company they leave behind

is a better company than with the effects of these rare people especially when you put all these things together are interested in finding people who want to do what's right for quick trigger sets and premiums on self serving then yeah but that's what that's really about is people who are interested in being successful as a team not as an individual these are people and all of our reward systems are based around team compensation that would have any individual bonus is that you did your stuff this year so you get a bonus even the store's great customer service is rewarded on the whole store chain if you're on the clock when a good mystery shop happen when you're given a bonus if you're on the clock when a bad history shop happened it didn't matter that you were what the person of the registry you're on the team nobody is rewarded is a team we all celebrate is a team and we all absolutely cry your eyes out if we had a bad quarter a bad year or whatever is a t it's actually a very rare person who was really interested in being successful on a team rather than for themselves i mean this is this point it's about

saving is not about saving private ryan it's about saving a whole platoon were interested in making sure that the entire organism of quick trip is as healthy as it can possibly be in if you're not a person is interested in that the odds are you're going to really creeped out that that's working on so hard and were not interested in view as an individual person okay at least as far as a lot of decisions are made in the last one is the most important core values that really makes of the culture quick trip and that's that we would do the right thing we're trying to find people who would be the right thing nice people and there's a lot of those programs i'm not in an unlikely there are a lot of people who want to do the right thing but are there what we're looking for people who are willing actually may be in the works if they hadn't had to but if push came to shove with a be willing to make a little bit less money for the company make a little bit less money because they wanted to the right thing just fundamentally what's your definition of do the right thing is you call that a number of things right wasn't our definition of do the right thing means at the end of the

day were to be proud to tell your mom today that is a that is a no bs standard on about your mom your dad he can justify stuff right you know yeah well you know yeah it may put under that's fine you know which are modeling and stand for that there is an indisputable standard us that's actually my bed standard knitting my dad's mom you would understand it you make sure you're probably tailor what you did to lose their court those laws or corvallis oregon were specifically firing people you have those those guys a mezzanine at those other only values like that there are any number of their pay a thousand very positive values that a person could have all we know is that a quick trip or as these five things in common they may have all sorts of other values and so it's not like we're this homogenous they were all out of the titans that are exactly the same but we have these things in common which makes this very tight knit makes is very effective makes is very old wine as an organization as a matter of fact so much so that if you if we hired wrong if we made a

mistake because it makes you a bad person but it make that person that person it just makes them randomly uncomfortable because around all these people that have these very specific values and somewhere somehow that doesn't fit as a matter fact almost all of our turnover is in the first three months we're about fifteen sixteen percent turnover which is obscene really well for the world of retail basically unheard of it almost all that is in the first three months if you're with a spring year on certainty which for ten years or twenty years and so because you fit in it make sense and make you happy to be there how we are actually positively wouldn't get these values up there a number of decisions that we make in any given year that hurt the company financially makes it means that we make less money or shareholders make less money and so on but it would be country toward others there any number of products that we don't sell that we would make a lot of money yet but we don't feel like it would be done right that there are a number of really models

that we do that don't make financial sense in the next three years but it's really important to the brand over the next ten twenty ch germany falling that's how we use these values to make decisions and you know what if we start making decisions that were contrary to these values in about fourteen thousand employees who had these values they would meet me if we didn't live up to try to put it in perspective we have hired fourteen thousand people who are never satisfied and many of your employer's or work in a business somewhere you think your coworkers wine i've got fourteen thousand employees who are never satisfied god help you and i wouldn't have it any other way and that's really what makes a car culture why do we do this and this is what's different maybe it's yeah don't think i'm totally fooled but i swear to you that our purpose or reason for getting up and going to work everyday you know when you get hired on a plane that when you're a lot of your age you know you're here you're going to have a paycheck and that sort of thing that you know theater for a little while it is very clear we're very why not why we do it

and it might shock you to hear that we don't do it we'll get a bed and go in every day for cut to provide great customer service that's the result of what we do but we cannot deny that we are not inherently subservient people will lie awake at night going man i hope i go into a sort of marlin somebody drops a gallon of milk on the floor of the bus open that would be awesome the second reason we do it the reason we do what we do this because we will provide an opportunity for employees to grow and sixty we hired these great people and we firmly believe in what is make quick trip successful is that if we find great people smart people and nice people who want work hard for find those people and will take care of them and give them an opportunity had success they will take care of the customer and in return if they take your the customer that our shareholders gonna do okay but we don't get up in the morning to make sure all the richer we'll get up in the morning to go on the laptops to customers i'm sorry to disappoint you

guess which you think of as we get up in the morning to provide an option for employers to be successful as they deserve as we found some amazing people out there is a hell of a recent get that knowing i would tell you that i really literally believed that i have one of the best jobs out there is a great gig and i'm fortunate to have even if i didn't totally panic so what let's talk about that trip a couple of things and how this plays out and if you if you're a business do anything you know that their five he's the chief should be focusing on to be a successful business right place people product price promotion what picture together fear that your first post only focus on one or two has no business can afford to do all five you can't be the best and find competitive disadvantage compared advantage if you were trying to do will finally go broke so what we focus on its people first and foremost and place because we're coming ashore company better have a damn good location right so those the two things that we focus on getting a little bit of background on both of them really quick we're in a hyper competitive industry and i know all

businesses tough but we're in one of the few businesses that is literally a zero sum game and what i mean by that is everybody knows that if you have people sitting at a poker table if someone wants someone lost right that's a zero sum game in most businesses if you do a really good job of advertising or you do it really good job of operating or whatever you could do good and create new business selling gasoline you never ever created business matter how good we are no matter how bitter marketing is matter what a great job with your customer service i cannot possibly convention to blubber more gasoline sonata happen you're going beyond our much gasoline and burn and why is that important reason it's important is because it means that if we sell a gallon of gasoline by definition that is a gallon of gasoline it was stolen from a competitor which makes it a very hostile environment to do business and so we've gotten really really really good so ford a focus on people we better do a great job of it and i will too liu we

do these two things which you know a lot of other things that these two things were great at annual rate way that we ever say we're really great at something is it for good enough that we could get rich consulting on a plywood people come and pay us a lot of money to teach them how we do people on how we do place and the answer is yes and everything else we may be pretty good at these the only two things that meet that standard so how did such a good job of people and we do and what i mean by that is we get great people the workforce and if you don't agree with that that ongoing fight with you about the parking lot later some damp rather people right first of all we say well you guys know that right starting employee a quick trip that you're a full time employee rhonda register we hire again you're going to make an over forty thousand dollars a year starting in should very short time we should begin at seventy thousand dollars a year because your other three working hard doing a good job you're working with store manager in very short order so where we're paying that kind of money okay without any pre qualifications or anything you're just a good person who's nice and you won't work hard in any sport right if you come and in order to make sure that you make a good living

starting out in because we do that we got along with people who will become the workforce which means what that means we get to be very picky because we got at any point time three hundred people were want to get a job any given division we hire about one quarter of one percent of all the people who apply for a marriage will keep that number that low to be mean it's because we have a big pool of people who want to come to work for someone you've got a huge pool of people who want to come and work for you that is fantastic that means you get to really be picky and another great way to really picky is because we always run long a number of people we may twenty by long and that's that's that short pants aren't we at any point in time employee thirty percent more people than we need to run the stork to make sure we never have to be changing our standards for who we are we intentionally hire more people than we need by thirty percent and oh by the way that means their

people to take time off which is that's right means if they decide they wanted to see their kids play ball we say ok that probably wasn't somebody a cover for your money with me so we get to be incredibly pity which means we get to look for people or extroverted and have a high need to please and her high energy and have all those core values that i said a few minutes ago that we're looking for myself we pay well so we got to be really picky so we found this really great people now we got a train and i have i can't tell you how many people come up to me and say you guys are the best job and train you must have the most amazing training for it and the reality is we're pretty good at training ok but we went weren't good enough to get paid as consultants and the reality is we hire great people to begin with and if you hire great people it's not that hard now it helps that one of business it's not exactly rocket science academy we're not designing saturn five rockets we're not doing brain surgery thank god ok so it's not that complicated we can teach our

people to do what we needed to do we can teach nights we can't teach work ethic we can't teach and wanna be a team player all those other things we hire for the qualities we want and that we teach him for whatever job it is that they need to do and we do do a good job of training we make sure that we get him all the time and they could possibly need to be successful but that isn't what makes a success let's just a prerequisite you don't do that if you're headed people we do care and respect that time it was harvey's great people anybody would want and don't tell my employees that everybody wants employees arrived at uni body would love to have more people working for it so we better take care of them and we better respect him and a lot of people pay lip service to that i don't think this really that many companies really look at their employees literally is an investment and seven expense line item there's a huge difference amazed at the investments hundreds of millions of dollars to companies were making capital and they call investment

and yet whenever they talk about what the repair what the benefits package looks like or what have you the consumer expense item and the single most important resource the company has this is people and so money should not get in the way of making sure you care about our employees and respect them if you found people as good as ours a big part of your respect his integrity i'm it's interesting you know integrity is sometimes it was really hard and i'm not saying that people generally one of the liars okay but when you talk about honesty in a lot of cases honesty requires you to have a certain ability to confront people or i mean there's any number of the white lies the taliban are not talking about those what i'm talking about is i make a point and people a quick trip make a point to never live your employees don't these are smart people and you care and how many of you guys have ever respected somebody who like to know what and yet it's remarkable how often and business companies lie to their employees and i don't mean like

dirty lies i mean like just not tell them when things are going good always tell when they're going doing great or conversely time things are going good when things are going just fine alex guitar with his confrontational it because they make you feel uncomfortable it may make me feel unsuccessful was a ceo if i tell everybody look we need to do better but the reality is that it's really it's what i believe are the most important things that employers should do with her poison off and on delivery job is be absolutely dead honest with the mets and feedback at and job evaluations that some three sixty evolved throughout the organization all the time make sure your honest even if it means you're uncomfortable and the definition that i gave our employees for the mess try to help them through the tarp retired nice people it's hard to tell your employee that works for you that they did didn't do the job right mean if you enjoyed telling people that they didn't do a good job and then you're a word that i probably shouldn't

use a notorious big we are bad person so it get over that mike tell them is an even brine a lot in this auditorium humming humming your parents do you have any problem getting on your kid when they didn't do so right now and it's horrible right as a parent you might get on your kid tore the worst things that we have been doing it we do it why because we care about him so much they're willing for them to be mad at us for a period of time we wear make sure that were honest with them an interesting thing you know move on is the quick trip we do these fortune one hundred deals to get on that we return and only service everything we get the results back interesting way one of the reasons the main reason that we score so i'm going to list every year is because our employees trust quitter as a matter fact based on the statistics which triggers the most trusted company in the united states by its employees at least those who apply to be on that list and it's terribly important or employees it's something you can really mess up the

culture with it or not known that then the other things that you expect we share with our voice we pay him a lot given an ownership stake our employees line employees on about fifteen percent of the company i would get great benefit packages which you would expect you would hope i would get great health plans for full time and part time retirement plan sweetened of sabbaticals every bill quick trip for long enough you could start taking months off to go out and turn off your email and till you know i come around as we always say that will likely anymore go do your sabbatical all that sort of themself were really big benefits and all the sorts of things that you expect these are all investments in people and then lastly feedback which i boarded talked about quite a bit right that every employee a quick trip gets a constant nauseate ing levels of feedback you're constantly evaluate by year by her boss by your peers by your subordinates all the time because we believe that all on a no how good a job they're known are how good job they're not right that's honest that's integrity those

the investments we make in people on the last thing that i would tell you want people to really mentioned in the questions cheer this poster this supposed to get in the lobby of our office thirty feet tall as a quick trip we totally understand we all grew up most of us grew up working in stores i grow organs for the shirt was sixteen years old a star in the graveyard shift as soon as i got out of college where i talk about social life change right all of us understand that restores make money and the rest of us are overhead ok so we all understand that if you're not taking care the customer you damn well there be taking care of people who are anybody who worked in offices got promoted up the level a quick trip where they are in a store anymore they know that there's nothing more important going on in the world at any point on the what's going on in stores if i got a phone call from a store i don't care what i was doing i'mma go and that's the most important part of your time in the middle of a board meeting explaining myself were bored i'm a good economical find out what's going on in that story now the reality is that her store managers cupertino done the job so those calls are few and far between that point is

stores make money in the rest of us are over in a quick trip culturally we totally understand that that's a matter of respect second thing and it has been nearly as much time on and that's the other thing they were really great at that place we are phenomenally good at that locations and building pre stores most of our business comes from being in the right location they're having a happy workforce having good customer service having customers that like us comes from having great people but the reality is that we have the right location you would probably shop with its leaders be ticked off at us all the time ok the shoplifter the closest place curiosity was poised to work already so we have to be a great place to in the military we're great at we're literally world class at mathematical modeling for site selection we can tell you give me a latitude longitude and i can tell you within two percent what a quick rich or would run if we put in that location i was a person actually designed a math geek at heart loves math i think it's

very cool i think it's incredibly useful for you do you think you think you'd never use math you will ok i'm on a math guy at heart i wrote our first mathematical model to predict store locations i did that when i was a sophomore in college in lotus one two three most pure to you even know what the hell that is it was on a disk like that day and that was the only thing that would fit on the abyss i am and that is not what we do that is that was a joke compared what we do day now into business intelligence department and that's all they do is filled with phd is in math and only minority eighties these are the people that just drive me nuts to people who got their phd when they're like twelve you know i mean they were in shaving yet and they had a doctor that's the people who are filled up in the sport and they are incredibly good at model i mean understand what's that they do but they're great at it we do over the top investment constant re investment that the same level of pace of investment technology associate with site selection as we do with our stores which a sizable you guys have some idea of how much investment reinvest we do in the stores average four

h again were worked fifty five years old just about now in your average stores only three point three years old and that is because the best location constantly changes and if that doesn't change then when you make stomach for the stores really nice i can tell you that from a discounted cash flow basis for need you were finance majors you would never tear down a quick trip stuart as they made great money and they can't possibly make enough money to tear down and replace it with a new and yet if you don't do that twenty years from now you're gonna have a whole bunch of old be that nasty look in stores or nobody wants to go of god which is a huge mistake that people who are from a finance guy to so it took me a while to really grasp this but it's true you have to make sure you're constantly in resin reinvesting in it and something that's important to me so that's what we did now i'd been talking for a while now about all things that were great at the one oh sure you we don't take ourselves too seriously as i've already said we realize that

what we do is not rocket science ok we're not doing brain surgery already that sort of thing just really hard work and it's not that we're good at everything we're not good at that thing signs read those two things and neeley asked me to come and talk about it and so i did for those of you don't know who do have a rock star in your business school in serious there is it is a rare trait in academia any inconvenient in the business world to find somebody who gets both very i would tell you that that both are incredibly important you have in academia that researches and lawrence and thank god for them because they teach the next generation how do things better then the current generation ever had a hope of going and then you have business people are out there who are putting that stuff in practice and figuring out what stuff works and doesn't work in the real world as opposed to theory right is that rare person who understands both and she is one of those in and that is the reason that we got along so well even if we fight and in

spring when brother and sister from time the time we both understand each other very well and so you're really really fortunate to have her here and that that's the reason that i came out because i think that we're all that i will tell you that the key for us i'm really what we found these people is to make sure we hear and respect for all these employees i think that's very rare in this world i do believe that most businesses view it as an expense as opposed to an investment so i encourage you guys have you taken any notes to write that down and think about that it is the single most important resource the most businesses have been the last thing i despair that there has nothing to do with what i said except when my favorite quotes and it's actually from retired cfo a quick trip and by the way she started out in the mailroom receiving mail and worked her way up to become quick trips you know and she's retired now which is fantastic for her but she says she always said this and everything we do there was two ways annuities you way in the right way and she was insistent that those are never the same but the easy way is never the right way and i am a firm believer and

so with that i think i'm done we can answer whatever questions you guys have we get it from listening to keep the art of them on kansas public radio we've just heard chuck edge of the president and ceo of quick trip rangel gave the university of kansas ku a business dean's executive lecture on january twenty nine two thousand fourteen he now takes questions from the audience if you had one piece of advice get your groceries senior services would be one piece of advice the somewhat notorious for akai it really is i did a commencement speech and i've never been asked to do it again because i told every student who was getting her to graduate and i do believe this is just think it came out that's right now partially in this what this time every student graduates something super special

and we were all just mean clear i was brought up pulling up special and wonderful and all then and the reality is that to really excel it whatever it is that you're going to have to like is this too is can take an enormous amount of hard work and the fact that when you're getting out of school you're just getting started i promise you that in sync him with me it took me probably another five or six years to really understand that there are a lot of great people in the world and the difference between those who are really productive members of society counterfeits a quick trip or for a doctor to figure something out or if your baby greatest business professor of all time whatever it is that you're going to do to be a productive member of society for you to be really great at it is going to require a ton of hard work and candidly the easiest part of your life is probably college i am serious it was great i wish i was still in schools a complete idiot i graduated early so

that is your question about that yes so i have two questions project thank you for speaking sure second that why is quick that's why supporters felt wrong it is the wrong war just terrible spellers no actually there's the actual story behind that it's because whenever we did the first sign on a store that got a sign company guy convinced my dad that if you do with a seal be asymmetrical and it will never look right and so if you want to look right on the sign you need to get rid of either the cia or the k and without the k distant cannon gross and thirty so they chose to be ready to see and that's the reason that it's built around oh my i had my other question was he talked about working towards the future twenty years ahead that serves up with the ship's away from gasoline as the editor says

houser company adapting the airplane for what it is right gasoline consumption unite states peaked in the year two thousand seven every year from now americans will burn less gasoline every single year over at least over the next thirty years and what that is about essentially is not because electric cars are going to take over all or c injury or what have you it's that whatever that combination of technology changes whether to commission a like pretty high results were think technology advancements in reducing fuel consumption and carbon emissions are now out pacing population growth in the united states forever population grows with gross more than made up for whatever technology advancements there weren't improve mileage cars knowledge or thing and that now past each other so how are we ready for that and that is a perfect example of what i'm talking about most of our investment right now it is in us getting better if they'd found another thing from the notes of that board meeting in the back of a family will you suitors board games the other thing they were talking about was unwittingly get into

gasoline or that and again both in the food and they decided that they wanted to get into gasoline for that rather pick a fight with exxon them and dance and that was in nineteen seventy two and so thirty years later now we decided that we'd already pick another fight pure and simple we are fortunate in that because we do think out that long term it will take us twenty years effectively for us businesses where gasoline will take at least that long time we started getting ready for the coin in gasoline consumption seventeen years ago and when we started testing a whole bunch of money in the interiors of the stores to make sure that we can sell enough merchandise that we could pay the bills without any income from gasoline and i would tell you believe it or not and slipping through a softball question quick trip is the only convenience store gas station company that states that can break even with the gasoline so gasoline way tomorrow we're the only ones that are gonna make it which means roots of crap without drinks minutes can be great but that's not really the late

can happen right and it just like two three percent over time it so much gasoline to go down and so which are at the dealership to constantly come up with new things to sell to get ready for that eventuality rather than just saying i will be fine that's the next generation job they answer question right yes or you thought about your family in foreign policy and how you handle that yeah we're way against nepotism i say that's what jermaine i'm all for it i'm all for family members' unemployment my family i'm all for family members working for our company fun because they know how hard they're have to work they've watched their parents work and i know what it's about and so if after all of that after all the efforts of their parents put into under broiler put in or whatever to it if they still want to do it and that means they are really in it and so i'm happy to have and we have any number of husband wife team eames who workforce my wife workforce my daughter works for she's eighteen years old has a clerk in a store if you're a guy stay the hell away from or

amounted to a witch store shoes at so us a world for us force my family goes we are the only ones in my family my wife and my my daughter i am i'm one of six the rest of the family i have an older brother who's retired was in marketing for a while but he's retired now but the only thing is sound if they work in the business then they're in any special treatment and i probably go the special treatment the number much because i would be for all people were boasting about every day otherwise and i answer which are looking for a cut called lesser thank you for coming out today is my pleasure eating burgers i'd recently start watching a show on cbs called undercover boss as you were talking as though that they knew that show so my question for you because i obviously couldn't sell your passionate about could trigger international below work there as how have you seen an address like a room surgeon income by focusing on the people that actually works there

rather than focusing on what you buy sell gasoline and stains because a majority of companies just focus on those things are in place so how has that helped increase your income the weights help increase your income is that is to think of our employees is our marketing plan apparently we could go out and switches what most companies would do in yemen saying that they're wrong cause all i know about is our industry to a place of ever worked ok so not shooting on other industries force this goes most businesses would you know if your sales are good to go and spend fifty million dollars on advertising to make it better our view is in our industry at least for us we would be much better off having great people that you interact with every day because bad people can't possibly overcome a good you know they're kind of like make a good marketing campaign look bad just like that so see your perception of quick trip in the plan is much more influence by our people and our stores than

anything else that we would invest money was that they answer to your question yes and it's worked for us now in fairness if you were starting today it would be really hard in a start a business to say i'm in over pay our people as we pay about three times what what the market would pay and i'm in a build stores the cost three or four times as much as everybody else and ominous sell stuff for a good price and be successful we worked her way up to that over a very very long period of time so i wouldn't want to you know give somebody bad advice and he's saying that his strategy is doable over the long run and really quick before hitler question i think is hilarious on undercover boss which number one i can do undercover boss because all our voice of we know me i go on i need with every one of them every single year ok and so hopefully they would know many big laugh whenever i came in as they know it's i can't write anymore i'm not i'm not as good as they are number two i find it so dishonest and insincere whenever they go do that i mean here's this

person who's the boss and they're filing ago on the front lines and do the job now because of tv cameras around and now they're gonna find religion and do something nice for their employees right now that said it's very entertaining show so i get what people watch a man anyway yes or allows the math how and why business model has changed in the last two years a chicken inside a huge fuel question but can i take off that arm how's that change the average at your store like as happy as that really change your last two years is that it's something we haven't noticed yeah i did i did believe the business model i think that a lot of our industry is not as clickable like i think just in the last five years or so a lot of our industry's waking up the fact that but they may not be able to depend on on gasoline income for the wrestler was interesting business candidly a pro a lot of them probably don't care america focus that long term but most of our

industry is working really hard to try to get better at selling stuff from inside the store certainly been working on for a long time and so i don't know is rooted in a drastic change in our model of light us over the course the next year if you want a quick rich or on so you'll see in a kitchen america's were putting that in every single store and they're dynamite says average age are stored like drastically changed the average a divorced or eight point three years now and always been that now cuts that's been pretty consistent and not by design it's not like that's the target is just that's a quick we don't get sense of itself what we didn't satisfied so in the predawn i'm like yes sir with the new healthcare law i know many businesses versus smaller ones are facing that dilemma of whether they lay off employees or pay the fine in order to stay in business and i want to know where your company was doing to do a strike the president's orders lew will look into a college campus way to go man so that is a big issue

i think it could be a really big issue i think that they're going to be a lot of people and we're going to end up the exchanges because on employers or don't do their employees as an investment are going end up saying well collision exchange of their egos to get her own insurance and they're not get much check to go do that the reality is that those exchanges i can't speak to what the one in kansas looks like i know the one in oklahoma it cost the same as what are employers pay for insurance that total between us and our employers with premiums are and yet the deductible of six thousand dollars so odd i think there's going to be a lot of people who don't have a sort of health care that they're accustomed to health care coverage for cost to now a quick trip thing happen but it is going to result in increased costs increased premiums and i do actually think there are a lot of noble things and that wall my mom and i'm a conservative but i'm a bleeding heart conservative so i'm somewhere in the middle saying there's a lot of really positive things in it it's just as the increased cost and increased premiums the way that

we're dealing with that is a quick trip that we have we have around that retire on doctors and the fire and nurses and we've built around clinics and we found that that is much less expensive than putting him into the general health care population to the tune of a lot and so much so of the picking on doctors and the reason that it's cheaper is because they don't have it we were just playing on a retainer so they don't care if they see one patient a day or a thousand patients a day there and be there and they don't have the bed that and anybody who comes in and sees the doctrine that never pays him not to argue with insurance company not getting paid they're just a doctor which is what they went to medical school for their nurse which with a lot of nursing school for and they get just returned voice and and that has been very very very effective for us thanks to first answer your question yes so that's our plan for now hopefully it's gonna work

to continue work yes and i've had to grandparents and a friend back on the work for you to retire as the work too much tougher and will but they're also my grandma worked for you from anywhere from fifteen to twenty years or susan stroman probably guess is the senior storm and he will issue that kind of animal care and freight cars yeah well you know and i know my peeps it's very clear why there are aligned with all the things the managers get a duffel bag a backpack and there are key chain you whatever she will give you all the stuff i give her when i was a kid and i'm just i'm just isn't that used to have three year managers the way you treated them back then i think so because it i think it i think we would treat her managers it's extremely well and actually probably better than we did years ago and not because we didn't want to but because we can afford to more so now so such a question lee yeah yeah i think a bigger storm injured ok we'll

have lower turnover in store manager no that's that's a pretty good gig so that school was nice to make a witch named alice nice to meet again you wonder that there's a good trip in the sprint center how to feel about working with pd a quick trip to a business school says there's still one in the sprint center if there's a definitive it still there that was true long years here's the rub here's the rub and i'm not saying we will figure it out one of these days ok here's the rub is that generally to get into a location like that you have to pay really high rent ok you don't own the land were not in only in a multi campus removal business school in the senate a huge donation to us in school which had been incredibly expensive stroller that would make it a very tight so you end up with really high rent and so the way that most retailers or concession

errors in an arena or in the business school or what have you or it'll pay that went is they charge a lot for whatever's they sell and we feel really trapped by that because you guys would expect us to sell you a foundering ferree nine cents and yet we really need to charge for hours like you get at a marina in order to make that work you follow him signing day that would be really bad for brain and tip toed to be out of a line like that and so that's why we strolled in a sprint center now on the sprint center a fear that at any number of ways to subsidize it basically like getting our vendor sponsors herb vendor partners to help pay for some of the red ink in exchange we're selling some stuff in there but it's it's it's a tough row i would tell you that i promise you that if we can make a business case for we would be interested in that strongly selfishly because being on a number of college campuses and today eu is a great business school good to be in front of future leaders and future employees of quick trip would be a phenomenal thing

but if we ever figure out this case for it than the knobby knocking on the least or do you still get but i know a lot of your own competition is franchising for their stores as a reason you guys never win or that we don't do any franchising because our belief which we believe that means you lose control your brand mcdonald's is actually very good that they do a pretty good job of keeping their franchisees true to the brand promise we've always been very fearful that it is a very new way to make a lot of money really quick no but i don't think it's focusing long term over the senator is or great great and i was asked that because sometimes i didn't get the question solomon jury answered your question so the judge actually work for you for a for years but i went to school before kaminski you so thank you for that opportunity and it is an idea which a backpack a really awesome which won the gray wanted a red one the gray one yeah i like rehman better you know they want this year too young it was

before you were a so my question is are you spoke about how richard is i'm moving towards food to pay for the decline in gas you know another technology perspective are you guys using their positions for new technology like charging stations or smuggled ivory that's the question that charging stations is an interesting conundrum and i am actually i like the concept of electric cars and selfishly hopeful that they've seen ge or something else is the alternative fuel because i think the electorate which is a possibility that we're probably on the game would probably selling fuel anymore because we're not a utility in only utility has a lot to sell electricity that's the law so until that changes a company can charge you to target their car i am it's possible i guess you could cheat by renting parking places or something stupid like that but i mean we do the right thing and it would be on the up and up the real fundamental issue right now electric course is twofold number one that it takes twenty minutes charge or are we latino with a level three charter of the number one customer complaints we get which you could

probably have but it's still real problems that were too busy at work just packed so imagine a whole bunch of cars sitting on a parking lot for twenty minutes while there are other battery charge that would be a fundamental problem that we would have to solve the biggest issue in total for electric cars is what's what has the best batteries right now what's with are based on you know the answer with a rare and is not enough with him on the planet is a finite resources not enough lithium on the planet to make more than five percent of course electric that's not something to talk about really hope with also about technology welcome our new battery technology that and practically i do believe gasoline will be substance and i just don't know when we're like what it will be because we run out of oil that is there is a misnomer in my opinion just under my soapbox from around the world will never run out of oil ever and not because it's an infinite resource but because we won't run out it'll just get too

expensive you know gets substituted by something else the cheaper anybody know what the energy source was that was used for crude oil well a very good thing and somebody than one class ok well i'll look at women stopped using willow because we ran away helps thank god has a cool you know we ran out we stopped using willow because we started running our whales and made them very extended well all that will very expensive and so somebody smart one of them a substitute for uniform right to my kerosene and why our houses with your sin and so i would put to you that some alternative fuel will come along that will make economic sense it also be in my lifetime but right now there's not an alternative fuel that does make economic sense in the end by which i mean from production to the cost of fuel to the filling stations to the engine that in the car and all sorts of things but i do believe that they're going to figure out i just don't know when and why i know the already

right so great question go oh okay mom because i know sometimes compared to what he really generates the why don't you charge for a year like when people hear about what a church for yeah i know i can almost a really kathy's barges for a lot of this was with electronic money without charging you a quarter for aaron that it was insulting seriously that's not fair that a smart ass into the question so there's eighty on any money anything you could charge for it right and we could charge for stuff to clean your windshield we could charge you know to use or bathrooms you know really got obscured a clear winner you know i mean not literally watch my watch my my language here in any business you're providing services that you don't charge for any business you have things that you do you charge for and what you have to find some balance of what makes sense to charge for him and understand that because we

don't charge you for air we probably end up charging you a tenth of a penny more for a founder it all must be paid for somehow and so we just said that's that's the that's the beauty and the fun of business is figuring out what you paid for something in which you didn't deliver and how much you're going to charge for it and can i make a go of it dylan that so far we have been able to and nowhere an interview for so much right thank you very much you just heard said hey joe the president and ceo of kwik trap cage aux gave the university of kansas school of business dean's executive lecture on january twenty nine two thousand fourteen i'm kay met entire k pr prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas if you missed last week's

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