From Football to the Food Business, with Shane Jones

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molitor Group, Ed Molitor. Man, am I fired up to bring you this just exceptional conversation, just a fantastic episode with our special guest, Shane Jones. Shane is an esteemed alum from St. Ambrose University where he played football for four years. He is co founder, a co founder, excuse me, and director of partnerships for Food Up Food is amazing story in and of itself, which we'll get to. But let me tell you a little bit about what they do. They are a workplace food program that people love and look forward to every day because what they do is they scour the streets for the best food trucks, trendy restaurants, as well as a hidden gem, mom and pops, right?

And then they make the connection between those food trucks, trendy restaurants, and the hidden gems and the people who love that food and they bring that food to them in the workplace. And Shane's story is a quintessential success story. An ordinary person doing extraordinary things. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean it's just phenomenal. And when he got done, when, excuse me, when he graduated from St. Ambrose University, he went into the insurance business, where he will describe it as an unsuccessful stab selling insurance in Davenport. And he had a buddy that was working at Echo Logistics and talked him into coming down to the big city, out to the big city in Chicago for an interview, which he did. He was offered the job.

And while at Echo Logistics, he was tasked by his manager to figure out the productivity problem. They just weren't being productive. So Shane, being the observant person that he is, took a step back and watched. And what he noticed was people were doing two things. They're taking a lot of smoke breaks and they were taking really long lunches. He didn't know what to do about the smoke break, so he solved the lunch problem. And that story, which I'll let him share, is what led to futa. We'll talk about the different roles he's had, the different hats he has worn. But then we'll get into the leadership aspect of it and just so many great stories. But then we start talking about the leadership and he talks about the significance of explaining roles and communicating expectations to your people.

He makes a great point about putting pride on the shelf. And this stems from a story about when somebody asked him if he was a CEO and he says, you know, it's just that wasn't the right role for me. And he talks about surrounding yourself with the right people and putting them in the right roles. And when you do that, it raises everybody else up. We really get into the culture, and I'm going to leave it at this. I'm going to say we talk about protecting the culture by hiring the right people. And I'll give you a hint. Shane uses a little bit more colorful explanation of how they protect the culture there, which I absolutely love. We talk about being agile and being nimble. And I asked Shane, how do you do that in the interview process?

And he'll go through that and a simple task and what he does there and then I love. We talk about connecting in the interview. We stay on that for a few minutes. And the ability of the candidates to connect in the interview and build rapport and develop a relationship and not just to vomit the resume and regurgitate what they're trying to sell about themselves, but to really connect, especially when it's a sales position. And then something which Shane gets really transparent with us, that I love. I asked him something that he took away from athletics that still is something that drives him today, and that's the power of rejection. He said rejection. And he talks about an experience when he was younger with basketball and being cut.

But he also talks about, and I love this, he talks about when he was playing football at St. Ambrose and he played with some great players that were ahead of him and his position coach, who was a great friend of mine in college, I also went to St. Ambrose and graduated from there, Jeff Gersh. And he talks about, you know, when I talked to Jeff about Shane, he says, you just couldn't keep him off the field. He might not have been the most talented athlete, but you just couldn't keep him off the field. And Shane talks about that.

But he talks about how the first two, three years, you know, his head coach 30, was just very transparent and very honest with them and just told him he wasn't ready and wasn't good enough in how that has shaped him, his ability to take rejection and make it a positive in the business world. I think you're going to absolutely love, just love this conversation. So I'll just step out of the way and let Shane take over. Shane, thank you so much for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. I am humbled and Fired up to have you with us.

I'm excited, my friend. Thanks so much for the opportunity.

Just a little, you know, I gave the backstory in the introduction. So a fellow St. Ambrose alum. I would love for you just to kind of take us behind the curtain of your journey and go back as far as you want and bring us up to speed all the unbelievable work that you're doing today.

Yeah, well, started out small town kid in Princeton, Illinois, you know, a couple stoplights in a Super Walmart, you know, had a bunch of my friends, decided to head on the pipeline. We called it the pipeline to St. Ambrose. We had a couple all Americans there. We had Nate Norman go there, who was a senior when I was a freshman in high school and he had a big career there. We watched him. And so a few of my friends, we headed up to St. Ambrose, checked it out and then decided to play football there. I mean, it wasn't like a total plan for me to do that. I didn't really know what was going to happen. Matt Seidel, who ended up being my best man at my wedding roommate in college, was like, why don't you just come to Ambrose and play football?

I'm like, all right, let's do it. So changed positions. Went from quarterback in high school and went to the receiver role. I mean, it was a. I mean, I went against guys that were like all Americans coming in. It feels like they were great. They were great high school players. They were all state Shriner game receivers, you know, from Pekin, Illinois and a couple guys from Iowa. I mean, I definitely had some competition there, that they were definitely better at that position than me, that I learned a lot from them through the years there. And you know, by the end of my time there, with perseverance and working through some injuries and being behind some real studs, I got to get on the field, you know, throughout the time, score touchdowns and burn punts. Like, do what I wanted to do there.

But that wasn't the big part. You know, the big part for me was, I mean, I loved the game. It was great playing. But, man, I made some great friends, great stories, awesome bus rides, great place. Yep, everything about it. That's the favorite part for me. Like, I'm a godfather of one of my co players, Kurt Gersh. One of my sons is, you know, his godfather is Chris Burhans, who be another great guy to have on your podcast. Doing some big things out there and love it. So that was the spiderweb effect from Ambrose absolutely led into even my first job at Echo. I played football with Kyle o'. Connor. We called him Buddha. He's like, hey, I'm at this place called Echo Global Logistics. It's a startup. It's really cool. It's like a transportation firm going back and forth.

And I'm like, what's logistics? What's. I don't know. I'm in Davenport, Iowa at the time, selling insurance or not really doing well at that actually. And so I drove, I went to this city and I interviewed there at 600 West Chicago Avenue, Cabrini Green, downtown. You know, during the meeting, they're like, yeah, this is, you know, it went well. And they're like, well, we'd like to have you come back next week for another interview. Someone's. We'd like to have you talk one more person. And I'm like, I came from the Quad Cities. Is there a way we could just do this now? I mean.

Which is like the perfect thing to say for a guy really wanting a job, right? Yeah.

I'm like, I just. I don't know if I can go.

All the way back.

I mean, so they were like, sure. And they brought in one of the other directors and I left there with a job. And so I went back to. I think I went to the Southside Parade after that for that weekend.

And you made it out alive. That's good for someone from Princeton.

Exactly. Culture shock there. Then went back to LA Quad Cities, packed my stuff and moved in with my soon to be brother in law in Crystal Lake. And from there just commuted downtown to Echo Global for. I worked there for about four years. My first job right out of school was real job outside of selling insurance was at Echo.

Right, right. So then. Then what happened? What food? Where did this come from?

Well, while I was at Echo, I was tasked by one of the managers with. He's like, man, you gotta. Can we figure out a way to increase productivity here? And you know, we're in the middle of nowhere when it comes to food. We called it a food desert, if you will. This is before all the food trucks. And you know, we had Japanese in the building, which was like $50 a lunch.

Where was your. Where was your building at again?

600 West Chicago Avenue. It's the old Montgomery Wards building. Downtown is now Big Ten Network. I mean, Echo, all these places.

Pretty sharp. Yeah.

At 7,000 people. It's really awesome energy with that building, the whole thing about it. But either way. So we, I started watching what people were doing and they were smoking cigarettes and going to lunch. People were smoking cigarettes maybe seven times a day up to either 16 minutes of time when they would go. I mean, it was insane sometimes shorter sometimes, but it was a whole culture. I'm like, well, you know what? Maybe I could fix it. The lunch issue. So I went to a place called. I think it was like, Heckies or something was in Halstead down there. It was just this, like, gas station barbecue place. And I'm like, would you come in and bring food for my company? And they're like, well, how many people? I'm like, I have no idea.

Like, there's four or five hundred people there, and we don't have much options for food. So I think if you bring pulled pork and Mac and cheese, it should take off. And that's what they did. They brought that in. It went viral throughout the building. People started taking advantage of the food program. It got to the point where it went from one restaurant a day to. Or one restaurant a week, actually, to then two and three, and then we had five restaurants, one each day of the week. And my only thing was, I need. I want a free lunch out of it. But through doing that, though. Yeah.

So at first. At first, it was just simply. You were trying to increase productivity. That's the thing you identified. So you weren't really trying to make a couple bucks off of each person.

No, no, that came way later. I had to Google what productivity even meant to fit, figure out what I need to do. And I, you know, once I saw that. Yeah, I mean, the one thing that we could fix was maybe this lunch issue, because that was a big, you know, time suck when you go out. And it went viral throughout the building because a lot of people in the building were in the same boat. And, you know, one time a person dropped their lunch in our lobby. And, you know, once you get someone to get your team leader, whoever, to come clean this up, and they'll. Or they'll alert staff to do it or whatever. And the person's like, I don't work here. I'm on the eighth floor. I just came down to get the Austrian bakery sandwich.

And that's when Echo was like, well, I don't think we could do this. Like, we can't. Anyone outside of Echo can't come to this. We're taking our drinks and our cups. It was just like. It was just a weird little mingle of other companies sneaking in. So that's when went and set this up for a couple other places in the building. Randomly throughout this process, a restaurant gave me $20 and was like, thank you so much. We just did around $2,000 in sales and wow. And I'm like, well this is a crappy percentage. But, but that's when the, that's kind of when the light went off where like you pay us to do this. And they're like, yeah, we great at serving food. We don't really know how to get into these buildings or send the word.

And so that's when the light bulb went off and it's been going on for a few years. And so myself, a couple guys at Echo, we approached the EDP of sales and the president who were, you know, Echo. It just went public. They were on their way out and these guys were serial entrepreneurs that have great connections and we partnered with them, we got the business plan together, we raised our initial money, $1.3 million. And then we started Futa January 3, 2011 with about three guys.

Wow. Wow.

And that was how it evolved to it. But you know, you fast forward to now and we're in 24 cities, we have over 450 employees. We've taken over 30 million of investments and we're look, we're serving over 70,000 people a day which is 10 times the size of Princeton. So it's awesome. It's just a great, it's. And we're, and we're cooking, we're cranking along.

I mean it's unbelievable. So are you sticking to lunch? Have you gone outside of that and got into catering special events, anything like that?

Through it, you know, so early on we would go to our pop up events because our main customer was Echo and were right in the same building. And we go down and watch and you know, meet some active listening, hearing people saying. And we started seeing people go to the Pop ups and grab 10 or 15 meals and then go somewhere else. So we're like, what are you doing? You know, it's kind of been messing with our prep numbers. And like what happened? Like we have a catering event or meeting over here and we forgot to order. So we're just going to come to the Pop up and get the food. So you know, we got together, we created catering products like another animal here.

And then along the way delivery started blowing up, you know, so we created delivery product but it's only available in our Chicago market. But we serve over 3,000 delivery meals a day. Just doing that in Chicago. And then from there we've developed all their things. We got into do a full on cafe, not just a pop up rotating restaurant. And so I think by now we're at five or six different lines of products. So.

All right, so you had this amazing idea to increase productivity. Next thing you know you're killing it, you're blowing up and you're hiring people, you're leading people, you're building out teams. What, what was that like, what was that whole experience? I mean it's still going on now, but what was that initial journey like?

Yeah, I mean there was a time where it was, you know, a lot of people, not a lot of people, but wearing a lot of hats. And so early on, you know, I did a lot of the supply side of the business and you know, worked with the restaurants and dealing with onboarding them and you know, creating relationships and menus and such. But there was a point where we started growing and went to our next market which was New York. And so from there we started, you know, it was that kind of control growth. As we started getting more demand, we started adding to people, to our supply side. I mean it was a controlled growth and it was, it took a while, but I'd say, I mean went from like 20 to 100 people in like a few months though.

And then it was just like one of those big growth time. And then from there we've done that spurt a couple different times. And it's just, you know, from being in different markets, our headquarters now has probably about 140 people. And we have the people that are at our cafes, we have people in all our different markets. But it was a controlled growth for sure. But it was, it's a hyper growth stage until right about recently. And then now we're going to try to bring on the people that came on board recently, give them a great onboarding experience, nurture them to be successful in contributing and slow up on bringing tons of people in.

Right. So can you talk a little bit about what your exact role is now with the organization?

Yeah. So I started off in restaurant sales. I did that for the first four years of the business, kind of run the supply side, working on that. From there I took a career path and jumped over to the BDM side, business development rep and worked on closing accounts out there in the suburbs. Did that for about three years. From there I went and helped launch Detroit as an operations person. So I've kind of done a bunch of different things at the company. I took a break for a while, did that, stay at home, dad Life for about six months. It was great. I got to be with my boys. I have three sons. I have a four, five and six year old. I see seven now. And you know, my dad's great. Love him to death.

But like right now, to my kids, I'm like a superhero. So they're really happy to be around me. So I took advantage of that. And you know, I was in the car line, I'm at the Thanksgiving dinners, I'm at all the different trips.

Isn't that when you picked up golf too?

Oh, picked up golf a little bit as well.

Yeah, a lot of bit.

Yeah. Yeah, I caught that. I avoided golf my whole life and.

I should avoid golf now. But that's just.

Yeah, I started playing when I was around 30, like 31. I got a set of clubs.

Okay.

And my neighbors around the area here, they're all big golfers. They love it. We, we realize we're like golfers, but we have good shots sometimes that keep us in and we're getting better.

But why you keep coming back?

It is, it is. But yeah, I picked up golf a little bit during that and then, yeah, just got a great time with them. But after, I'd say the winter break where the kids are home for like a month straight without going anywhere, it was like, man, this is tough. And I went back and I met with Razio. They just moved offices. I had been gone for about, I took about a year off and it was. The office is brand new, 21,000 square foot, like beautiful place and the loop. And he's a great salesman whether he linked it or not. And he's like, you know, hey, what are you up to? Look, train's right here. Great. Like we're really. The commute would be great. Lots of opportunity here if you want to come back to the nest.

And I bet you within a week from that day, I was in the office in my desk working again, doing a more of a recruiter role, you know, and which is great. I can help in business development reps bring on board managers, different markets playing, fighting that good fight. As a bdm, you kind of know how it works and you can tell the true story to them, what this role is going to be like and set the proper expectations. And you know, along with that, I'm doing some data science, working on menu creation and other markets to help us participation. Yeah, it's fun testing these out, seeing results and actually seeing upticks and gross Food sales were. Yeah, just a bunch of different things. Wherever they need me right Now I'm trying to help out. I'm a huge ambassador of the place.

You know, when they, I speak at different events here and there and people are like, are, you know, the CEO? It's like, no, definitely not. I am not. I don't have the skills to do that. We had the right person in place. I feel like people need to sometimes put the pride on the shelf and realize what you're good at and surround yourself with people that can bring you up. And, you know, I stay in my lane and I'm a huge ambassador and I sell the crap out of food everywhere I go. And that's my role. And, you know, I think equity trumps your title as well sometimes.

Yeah, sure does.

It's exciting. And that's the thing about, you know, food at do. I think one of your questions were like, you know, what's the culture like? And things. So we pride ourselves in the people we bring on board and we have a great team and we're just growing that team. And, you know, it's, it's exciting. Everyone that comes on board, you get to see their face. And we're hiring people from big schools. Yeah. Where we got people from Notre Dame, you got people from Illinois, you got people from, you know, Duke, whatever. I mean, all over the place. And then from this, come from Ambrose just to be like, oh, you know, getting made fun of for going small. Ambrose. We're hiring people from these big schools.

Great school.

It's, it's really, it's a, that's our culture, is that startup feel. But we're a growth stage company now. We've been around for eight years. You're not a startup. Right, Right. So we, but we keep that feel going and it's hard to do, you know, across 24 markets. But how do you do it?

I mean, how do you keep that sense of urgency and that positive energy and that vibe going?

Our leadership team, they're very transparent with what's going on, keeping everyone motivated. Every Thursday, there's an all hands meeting where we throw the screens on at the home office and we do updates. And everyone's involved. They're not just out there on islands. They're all involved. We do sales summits, we do a leaders trip. I mean, there's a bunch of different things that we do to kind of keep the culture, but the leaders in each market too really can help with that as well. And that's why they're there. They've been, you know, we have guys, New York and Boston. They all, they understand and they run a nice ship. And it's been, it's been successful for us. And that's the main goal is to continue that and, you know, have great retention and just keep growing.

And you talked a little bit about the recruiting that you do and bringing business developers on and things like that. How protective are you? And I think I know the answer to this question, but how protective are you of this amazing culture that you built?

Very. I mean, it's, it doesn't take much to stir up things. And so you know, how they're gonna, you know, like what you're looking for. It's, it's a, the person is just, they need to sell themselves. They need to be a team player. They need to. Not that. Never have that attitude about, that's not my job. Because, you know, some of these new markets that we're hiring for, you're wearing a lot of hats. You're doing the it, you're doing, you're delivering food, you're helping out, you're taking payment. Like, there's things where you're, you're in the trenches and we need people to be that way and not stay, I mean, stay in your lane. Yes. And you're focused. But if you need to be pulled over, you'd be able to be nimble.

And if were in a huge environment where everything's super structured every to every minute of the day, like, we, I don't know if that works with us always. So we need great people. They're excited about the product and what they're doing and just open to being able to be pulled over here and pulled over there and nimble on the spot.

Right. And you talk about nimble. You know, I talk about agility. Right. And things of that nature. How do you, how do you identify that in recruiting process? Is that just a feel? Is that just your experience in your years being a people person and building relationships? Is there something specific you do to identify that?

You give them a small task at the beginning of the conversation. Like, and it's subtle. It's like, you know, like, hey, I'm a, I'm just giving them an agenda and then see if they follow it. Sometimes they just go straight into the pitch of what they're trying to get across and they make no rapport. Like, there's no like, relationship they're building with me. And in a sales guy, you gotta build that Relationship early. You can't just go into your pitch and you need to feel that person out a little bit or just break down some barriers. Sometimes people are like, I am. Like, just tell. I go through the agenda. I'm like, I'm gonna tell you about myself. I'm gonna tell you. And once you tell me a little bit about yourself, then we'll get into it. And then before.

And then they're like, all right, sounds good. And then they just start. And I didn't get to say anything about. Like, I said I was gonna intro myself, and then you can tell me about. And like, they just. And maybe that's nerves, but, like, I. I don't want them to be nervous. Like, this is a. We're a great place to be at. We're not. We're not. We're not trying to scare anyone. We want you to come on and feel super like, you know, motivated and. And we're behind you. And so that. Just subtle little things you can drop early in the conversation and see how they react to it. And then it sells a lot, I feel, in this first two minutes.

Well, I agree with you wholeheartedly on that. Now I'm gonna go back to your Ambrose days. I'm gonna go back to Coach Gersh. Because when you and I were first, Jeff and his brother, I mean, just great people. Right. And I was lucky to be at Ambrose. I'm a few years older than you. Okay, so we'll leave it at that. But I was lucky. Ambrose with a great crew. Well, thank you. With a great crew of football guys. Right. Obviously basketball guys, but great football guys. We hung out with. And I got to know Jeff and Joe real well. And when I talked to Jeff about you when were first trying to get connected, he said, you know, he said, the thing about Shane, why you'll love him is because he really wasn't. And you spoke to this a little bit.

He really wasn't the most talented wide receiver, but you couldn't keep his ass off the field. He was. You just couldn't keep him out of the game. He just found a way to get in the game. And then when he got in the game, he. He made plays. Right. And you sort of did the same thing with your interview with Echo.

Right?

You didn't. You weren't going to get sent back home without that second interview.

Yeah.

And so that's your personality. That's your character. That's the way you are when you interview people. Is it hard for you to realize or is It a challenge. Not hard, but a challenge to realize you've got to bring some people on board that aren't like yourself. How important is that?

And it's very important. And I'm. I get that I'm different than most in a lot of different ways, good and bad. And the thing that I love, there's things that I know that I can't do very well. And when I see it in somebody else, I'm so excited because I'm like, boom, there's that puzzle piece. Grab them. And like, you know, at Echo, I mean, Echo, but at futa, you know, our sales was revolutionized by a young, talented sales guy that just started going after a different vertical, and it blew up our sales. And so it's just guys like that. And then we also have people we brought on, like Brenda Lee Dean in Boston, who has a different caliber of work ethic, and she just is amazing.

And so it's like people that you could tell right away, like, they may possess something that you maybe wish you had, or they do better than you. And that's exciting. It's not much. It's not as saying that they're completely different than me. They may just, you know, better as few different things when it comes to it. But I mean, there's also different roles that you need, different people, and that's why we have different recruiters for them. I have a kind of not a niche, but I have a scope or net that I'm going after. And that's. There's certain reasons for that.

That's awesome. Now back to the football. Let's talk about the traits and behaviors that made you so successful. Let's talk about what you carried over and translated into the business world, because you've said a lot of things. I mean, besides the work ethic, besides the commitment, besides the fact that you were just not going to fail. Right. And when you made up your mind you're going to do something, what are the things you carry over into your. This enormously successful business career?

Rejection. I mean, you go from this stud in high school in a small town, you feel like you're doing really good, you're gonna walk in, and then you don't play for a couple years and you go. And you had the same work ethic, and you go to practice and you're. You're getting beat out by guys are better than you at this position. I've never played receiver in my life. I'm trying to like, you have expectations, delusional. Like, I'm gonna walk in here and do this. But time after time, then you're like, but coming back the next day, making plays, getting better. And then at some point, you know, I registered my freshman year, and then those guys that were three years ahead of me that I played behind for three years end up being gone my last year.

All that rejection that I could have stopped, like a lot of guys did throughout the years in spring ball, the next year, this or that. But, like, persevere. Persevere through all that and got to score touchdowns, got to do everything I wanted to do there, like I knew I could do. But throughout the time I got in there and made plays. But, like, you get rejected. I mean, and then in sales and when I take over now is constantly. You get rejected, get back on. Like, I am not scared to get on the phone and have hard conversations or lose a candidate or lose a restaurant or lose another. A lead, because I've been rejected so many times that I know that I. And I. But I've also had a lot of success, too.

So through this, through, like, with people saying, yes, but along the way, there's a lot of rejection. I feel like that experience in Ambrose, it sounds negative with it, but, I mean, there was a. I had to get used to that, you know, like, going to Coach 30 and be like, why can't I return punts? He's like, this guy's better than you. Damn. All right, all right.

That's how he does it.

Conversation for four days. I had it all ready. And then you just derailed the whole thing. So, you know, there's things. There's. There was those times, but Coach Gersh and other guys that were with me, I mean, they. I didn't want to ever leave the team. I love the experience. And it ended up paying off. And, you know, that's the whole thing.

That's a great segue because I really wasn't going to talk about. We have so much cool stuff to talk about, but I want touch on this because I've always said that the most successful athletic programs, teams, regardless of the sport, right? And I think the most successful organizations in business, in sales teams or whatever type of teams inside your organization, business units, are the ones that aren't like a family, but they. They are a family. Okay. You find a way to get to that point with each other and connect at that level. How important is that for you guys at futa?

I mean, it's huge. I, you know, I know people that have been at FUTA for years and years. And early on, they may have been at a crossroad where, like, man, I just don't know if I want to be here, but I love my co workers and I'm not going to leave them. And then, you know, they push through and then now they're, you know, have career path being exactly where they wanted. But there was a time where there's crossroad and for some, for many people that have been there throughout the years. And I think a lot of the things that kept us together are the team and the people that are around them because, like, they literally. They'll lay down for their teammate and they want to be there with them. And I've literally heard those words, like, you know, it's just.

It's this, I can get more money here maybe, or this could be that. But I just love working with these people.

Yeah.

I mean, how great is that?

Right? Right. It's. It's like anything. You make it impossible to leave or you make it extremely difficult to leave. And what does that do? It just increases your retention rate. It attracts top talent. It's everything we're trying to accomplish today, doesn't it?

Totally. And we're also. There's a line of people trying to get in, too. So it's a different. So, you know, I think that people. It's. It's changed throughout the years when it's come to, like, the whole, like, you know, when it comes the growth, it's just been. It's. So there's different issues with it and different positive and negatives with it. But, yeah, you're right. I mean, it's all about retention and having people have a good experience. And if they leave on great terms, too. I mean, so there's always. We want to springboard and help people out, but we're, I would say, like, yeah, the culture and the team and the family situation we have is special, and we try to nourish it all the time with different events and give people some autonomy. And so it's. That's.

That's the goal is to kind of keep that going in all our markets as well.

Can you talk about one of the events maybe that you do to add to or just to keep driving that culture?

I mean, yesterday we had a massive pumpkin carving contest. One of the pumpkins, where it's like a shaded version of our CEO Razzie. It was an epic piece. And then we do like a big. We did Blessings in a Backpack where we all got together and we packed backpacks for kids for that don't get food on the weekends. Our HR team with Emily, Maddie, and the rest of them, they put together and really did an awesome job. And we. I mean, that was. Those are the things that bring us all together that you feel you're really good about. And all our markets did it across the. Across the United States, all the different. They all did their groups, and we put thousands of lunches together for kids in need, and those are a few.

Yeah. Yeah. That is awesome. Now, you talked about rejection. Okay. And it's one of the things that drives us. Right. I mean, we're kind of twisted in the head that way. Like, the more times you reject me, the harder I'm going to work. But has you. Have you been on this journey with food and you've grown. What's been harder? Growing through the adversity or figuring out how to sustain your success?

I mean, I guess both. There's. When we first started there was not a lot of, you know, different people out there doing this. I don't think we have tons of fighters still because. Because we do some unique things, but the food space is, you know, there's a lot of people in it recently and a lot of great companies. We've had some other people go IPO with the grubhub Seamless, and there's some other ones coming along. So, I mean, you're always feeling like every lead out there is trying to be taken by somebody else. There's a crazy sense of urgency more these days of saturation and being first and, you know, getting to getting there and being the incumbent, to have someone try to displace you rather than being displaced. And so I feel like the urgency right now is pushing us the most.

We just want to grow, and we want to get there before they did.

So with that sense of urgency, how do you keep such an even keel, you know, kind of mentally and emotionally? In other words, you don't get too excited about having to be first or having to, you know, just be in this constant race where you're actually setting the pace.

We just professional salespeople and professional team leadership and just keeping the course. We have our goals. We have a great cso. We have great leaders individually, and they're very clear with what we need to do. And it's. It's. We could go a thousand miles an hour and go there and get there dangerously, or we can just keep our pace and go to the. Go through the stop signs and get there nice and smooth and safe. And the way we want to. So we have a controlled approach to it and we stand behind it and it's been, it's worked up to now and so we're going to just keep doing it.

You know, you just said something that, I mean said a lot that was significant but clear on what we need to do. In other words, your leaders are telling their people, right? They're very clear in their message and their communication. Can you talk into a little bit how significant it is to communicate everything necessary to all the stakeholders and do so consistently?

I just think, well, for everyone involved at futa, they all have such a unique role and there's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of things happening all around lunchtime. So it's just for them to know exactly their playbook and what happens with, you know, this. I mean, but the answer for this though is so many different ways. I can answer you for operations, I can answer your for finance, I can answer for tech, I can answer you for restaurant sales, corporate sales. So but overall they all know the role and they all have certain, I'd say like you know, with corporate sales they have their numbers to hit each month and then for delivery we need our on time delivery numbers. For catering we need certain.

So like they all have their what they need to hit and they focus on that rather than this massive, huge crazy chaos which it looks like, but everyone is individually knows what they need to do and if they do that it should be. And along the way with food there's a lot of unsolicited feedback we can say. And so how to turn those negatives into positives, that's huge with our people. A lot of people are putting out fires a lot and that's. And they do. And we have great, you know, and they turn those negatives into positive. They're proactive. That helps with just making everything seem a smoother experience if it's starting to.

Go south and to kind of keep going with that in terms of coaching your people. You know, a lot of us from athletic backgrounds, the people that had the biggest impact in our lives were coaches at some point, whether it be. It could be literally right. I mean I can remember my sixth grade basketball coach, Mr. Del Vecchio. He, he had a huge impact in my life. It could be our high school, our college coaches. And we have the opportunity now as business leaders to coach our people. Not just to manage them, not just to be their boss, not just to tell them what to do, but to jump in that Journey alongside of them and help them grow. How do you folks do that at food? And how significant. Just go ahead and talk. I mean, just talk about that.

Being able to coach your people, how significant that is.

Yeah, so we have a. It's all about our onboarding. You know, we're actually revamping that right now to turn it into like a virtual onboarding situation. But we used to fly people in and do welcome weeks with them. But I think the biggest thing is the way we get in front of them, the way we try to talk to them and bring them on and just that experience early. Because a lot of people in their first days will realize, you know, what kind of company you are, and that we need to focus on that early experience to make them understand that we're behind them, that here's the tools, here's exactly how this works. Here's. We're going to go into this segment of the business, we're going to tell you all about the business orientation, you know, our products, our strategy, our brand.

And then just three days of that. And then through, after you get through that, then from there you can try to get them. They have the foundation and they can start asking questions. And then when they start asking questions, you start coaching them a little bit more about, okay, here's how this works. Here's how this works. Make sure, like this subtle business jargon almost that they need to understand about futa, coaching them about being a better bdm, things like that, but also coaching them internally of how things work at futa. Who you need to talk to get through to this, who can help you with this, who is like, you know, when you need to go to accounting, just, you need to get like a buddy system. And we have so many coaches, we have so many people that leaders the business.

You knew with Emily and hr, with Stafford, in marketing with Alex. I mean, there's so many people that are leaders in their own way. But then within those groups in restaurant sales, we have Jake, that's a leader, we have Holden, that's a leader. So we hire a bunch of people that can do that main leader role. But they're all playing different roles and they stay in their lane. They understand they're coaching other people that come in. When I brought in people, we train them and coach them. And then I see them using some of the techniques I've told them. And so it's just watching them use what you say and have that work kind of like, you know, when the flag football, where you Call the play and they do it and they score.

It's like, it's just such a great feeling when, like it's executed and it's a win or it's executed and it's done and delivered or what any of that stuff based off some of the things that you told them to do. That's the fun, exciting thing.

Absolutely, absolutely. And you talk about that initial experience and in business, obviously the initial experience is the contract right to bid transaction. But you want to get it to that point where it's a transformational experience. And to do that, you have to build trust. We talk all the time about authenticity being broken down into honesty, integrity and vulnerability. Can you talk about how significant trust has been with your people into this massive growth of futa?

Yeah, I mean, early on, when you're a startup and they don't know, they hear all this stuff about startups, like, is it going to make it, is it not going to make it? You know, they all, everyone bought in. And a lot of the people that have been there since the beginning, that core group, it's still there. And we've lost people on the way and hired some other great people on the way. But the people that they come to futa, the reason I think they trust is because there's nothing in there that we're hiding from them. And every Thursday they share investor debts when we're working on fundraising, everything is out in the open, so there's no reason to have any distrust.

I mean, so people have questions, there's open doors, they have anything they need, we're there to answer for them and there's nothing to hide. You know, so I think the trust starts early and people ask hard questions and they get the right answers. And that's, I think when you talk to a lot of people, FUTA and you see our recruiting video, a lot of anything about it's like the transparency of the leadership, good or bad, is what makes you trust and really follow this group.

That's awesome. Now we're going to go back to sports real quick. Who, what coaches had the biggest impact on you and how does that show up in your leadership style today?

Well, I guess you can go back to rejection again. You know, I was cut from the basketball team in junior high. I mean, my best friends all were players and started. I whooped their ass playing basketball. And this coach, I still this day had no idea. And I was cut from the A and B team in seventh grade and with no explanation. And I have people that I Just couldn't believe. Even on the B team, whatever. The next year I go out again.

Did he just forget to put your name on the roster or what happened?

I have no idea. Jerry Thompson. What was your deal? But it was just like. Then he does it again the next year, and, like, it just get to it. Like, that right there ruined that sport for me. And it was.

What?

So, like, that was because you. There's always these positive stories with that story right there. It just, like, crushed a little kid for no reason. Like, do better at this. Do this. Like, nothing just said to me about it. So, like, that was one of those stories that, like, affected me in a really crazy way where I never want. I got, like, goosebumps on the basketball court because I'm like, is there something I'm missing here? But then some good stories. I mean, like, Coach Ryan, Joe Ryan, my high school football coach, he. He really took me under his wing, and I was a running back, and we needed a quarterback, and I probably wasn't gonna be. I wouldn't be a great quarterback, but he's like, you're athletic and you can do this. So I.

You know, we didn't throw a lot, and I just kind of ran the ball, but it's basically a running back at that position. And. But he brought me along. There were some hard times through high school. I went through with different family stuff, and he would take me to Illinois State games. He would take me in, and he was. I mean, to this day, I text him here and there, and I'm very fond of, you know, Coach Ryan. Coach Waka, you know, is another coach in my sophomore year of high school. Great coach, great guy. He's got a great family. I still think of him to this day at certain times. Even his bad breath, when he's right in my face telling me about what's going on in the halftime, he's like, you got to pull it together. And I'm like, I can't breathe.

Coach Sturdy, you know, at Ambrose, he's a. I have, you know, still, it's the good and bad with him. I mean, he gave it to me straight when I. And it was hard to hear sometimes from him here and there, but he also had my back when he needed to, and he's left a major impact on me still this day. And I named my son Carson after his first kid that. I mean. Yeah. I mean, there's. So those are the main ones. I mean. And to this day, I mean, I have a. You know, more of a business coach. I mean, like VIP Sandier, one of the VIP and Razzio, the co founders with us. These guys have given me some huge lessons throughout life that I still use.

I'm like another time where there's some deep cuts that also some of the most amazing things, some great high lows with some of these coaches, you know, with anything, there's, it's not always great, but there's high lows with it. But overall, it's all for the better.

Well, you know, and you know their only agenda is to make you better, right?

Yes, yes.

And that's it. So how important is that to you to continue to grow?

It's huge. I mean, I have three sons and I need to continue with times. I mean, and my wife. And we got. We always have to, we always have to grow and adapt to what's going on. I feel like things are changing and so I feel like we need to always be conscious of that. And you can't just treat everything the same. Just like every phone call or every sales call, you can't give them that fast pitch. Every time someone's looking to hear what the fast pitch, someone wants to hear a little bit about you qualify. Someone just wants to talk. I mean, so you have to dial that in and find out early on that. And I think that's how we need to adjust with our kids, with our work, with. I mean, we're constantly adjusting.

We wake up one day and two kids have pink eye. We gotta adjust. We gotta figure it out. And so there's just, you know, that's some of the things I think that are very important is adapting along the way. Because if you adapt or die is how I feel.

Well, there's no question. And then let's talk about your wife. She is, she's the real rock star of the family, right?

Absolutely.

How do you guys, how do you guys do it? How do you balance? How do you juggle? How do you make it all work?

Yeah, it's competitive household. We'll say that. I mean, Kathy's Kathy pretty amazing a lot of ways. She was a four year starter at Ambrose. Quadrupled major, like 4.0, no joke. Great. She's one of the leading women in her industry. She's a financial planner at Edelman Financial. And she's no joke. And she, as an athlete and as a worker, mom, everything she wife, she's top notch. I mean, so we, she's our rock. We rely on her for a lot of things and she probably wish she had a little more tender girl love around here, but there's a lot of guys and.

Well, her background, though, she's. She's cut out for it though, right?

She is. She grew up with three brothers that are massive, crazy animals, athletes. And so I think that's. That's why we get along so well. We have a lot of same interests. We. We do a lot of same stuff. She likes to golf. She likes to play cards. We'll watch mma. I'll watch Bachelorette, like, so we kind of. We get it. We. And we've been making this work since 2003 in one way or another. And it's.

It's been.

It's been exciting.

That's nice. I mean, that's. That's unbelievable that you guys are able to do that. Now, here's a big question. Are you able to get her on this podcast? Because we're been trying to forever.

Yes. I think I broke the ice.

I mean, does she hold it again? Does she hold it against me that I went to Palatine? Okay, so for those listening that don't know, the irony of this conversation is Shane is married to an amazing woman who just happened to go to high school on the wrong side of tracks in Palatine. I'm kidding. All right. No, but does she hold it against me? I went to Palatine, which is understandable.

No, no, I. She is. She's a busy gal. She doesn't. I mean, she doesn't reply to texts, she doesn't reply to phone. I mean, she'll get you here and there. I mean, she's consistent. She. I mean, if you don't get a reply, it's not. It's just because she's so busy, and when you're there with her phone's on the side, she's present. She's not that person looking at her phone. So, like, that's what you want. She's like sometimes a social liability.

I might.

I have to like people for her at times, but she's consistent and we love her for it.

In all seriousness, though, it is pretty amazing how you guys make it work. Can you talk to just the ability to be able to blow up in both your separate industries. Right. But to able to make the family work. Because you and I talked about this when we had lunch. It's so. It's the number one thing. It's so important to us. How do you. How do you really do it?

Well, we've adapted, like I've said. I mean, early on, Like I use that entrepreneurship quote of, you know, like, you know, entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't. So we had some. Early on, before we had kids and stuff, were going at a feverish, crazy pace. And so that has kind of helped us along the way to create some autonomy to help so we can take care of the family. Coach, her company is very big on family and they don't want you to miss your kids games or if you're helping out with soccer. They get it. It's all about results too. If you're making results happen and you're taking care of your work, you've earned that right.

And so that's the lucky part about both our jobs and both our situations is, you know, family is starting to become first when it comes to. I mean, even Futa, there was no one had families when we started. You know, now that it's starting to happen, you know, and so it's. I think that's the lucky part is just. But we also. There's a lot of planning. I mean every. You can't just go to sleep with like, all right, we'll see you in the morning. Like, what's going. Who's taking hair? Who's picking up? Does anyone have any amoxicillin to take? Are they creams or rub on anyone? Do we have any like today? Who has their Halloween costumes today? Two of them have today, one's on Wednesday. Okay. And one of them meets $5 for. I mean, like there's full on planning every day.

Yeah.

The second you take a break, you miss. You're that parent that showed up and they were in the costume and no one else is. And so, you know, we just try to stay ahead of it that way. And just constant communication with text. We got stuff written all over the place. Sometimes our kids remind us, but it's a lot of just planning ahead and trying to stay ahead of it.

Isn't it awesome when you're a kid? The other day, my son's in the car with my dad and they have me on speakerphone and my five year old, he goes, hey, daddy. I said, what's up, little man? He goes, are we going to my school tonight? And I kind of paused. I said, yeah, we got literacy nights at school. He goes, yeah, are we going? I go, of course we're going. I mean, I had to cancel like three different things I had going on. I forgot all about it. So that's. You just make it work, right?

Oh, totally. I mean, I. It's just. You just adapt on it. You just gotta adapt and like. Oh, yes. And then. But try to stay ahead of it because those times where you get caught off guard, it's like the one time it happens, it's like the one. It's all you hear about. So stay ahead of it.

So before we wrap this up, because I know we gotta roll, but before we wrap this up, where can folks find out more about food and more about you? But if, say, if they're interested in the company joining the company or they're interested in hiring or whatever it is, we're gonna find some.

We're@futu.com or fooder.com careers. You know, you can follow me on Instagram at sugshayne. But there, yeah, there's. That's the main stuff.

I mean, we're looking.

We have our careers page. We have stuff about. You can go and see different blogs about us. I mean, our site is very cool and slick and it's, you know, very get in there, click around. But for checking out for opportunities, there's, you know, food.com access careers and then see what's out there. Then it's always. We're always pipelining. You know, if we're not hiring right now, we talk and we start this process and we reach back out to you if it makes sense down the road. But also if you're a company looking to have food brought in, or you have a group of 10 people or more for catering, event, or, I mean, there's a bunch of different things.

Check it out for just possibly your business and check out the cities we're in and we'd love to get a rep in front of you to talk about what we do. And we're pretty excited. We think what we do is pretty cool.

Yeah, it most certainly is. And I appreciate you, brother. But here, the last question. Okay. And I really appreciate all you do for St. Ambrose. I mean, you do so much for the university. I've watched a couple of your videos talking in front of some groups. My question to you is this. You're standing in front of a group of seniors that are getting ready to graduate, go out into the business world. What is your advice that you give them, regardless if they want to be an entrepreneur, they want to become. I mean, whatever it is. What's that bit of advice.

For a lot of these people? I'd say get out there and get a sales role, get into, start making some calls, hearing some rejection, hand some wins. That kind of will build a foundation for so many different opportunities that you can evolve into. Like the training and the sales experience that I got from Echo, I use to this day and I'm not doing sales right now. And so it's just a lot of people you need to get out there and get into a position like that and really just bang the phones, learn how that works, get some wins and losses. But build up a little callous too to like, you know, some hard conversations because these are constantly going to happen. And whether you're doing operations or anything, you're going to have some tough conversations.

And, you know, doing that early on in a career I think is a great foundation. And so for me, I always say I'm a big sales guy and big into that. So try to find an awesome sales job and it pays early and it builds you fast. The more you're into, like find that perfect marketing job. Like those don't exist. You'll be a sales guy and do marketing. But there's certain things that you need to, I guess, create set of expectations too. Like, you know, find something, get in there and then build your way. You're not just going to pop out and land on something. Well.

And like you said, it teaches you so much about so many different aspects of the business. Right? You get to know the business, you get outside your comfort zone every day. You're going to fail, you're gonna fail fast.

And sales, you gotta do some onboarding, you gotta do the proposal, you gotta work with accounting. Sometimes you gotta work with arap. I mean like, you gotta work all different components of the business to make your account run smooth. And that helps you just better balanced and knowing your business too.

Right? Right. That's awesome. Shane, I cannot thank you enough. This has been an absolute blast.

Thank you. It was fun.

It was. Hey. Please rate and review this episode this podcast on itunes. Feel free to email me with any comments. Thank you for all the comments I've received over the course of the last year. E. Excuse me. Edemolitor group.com we appreciate everything and keep doing great things.

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