Access to Innovators Podcast with Russell Weiner

Thanks so much for having me. Of course.

Um, you know, I'll—maybe I'll, we'll do career first, perfect, since we're out of school, and then we'll talk company. Um, you know, the one thing I'd say is, you know, transformation is not something you set out to do with a certain date on the calendar. I'm going to transform myself by April of 2024—that doesn't happen. Transformation is a process. A lot of it is exploration. And so, when I think about my own career, I started college, I was pre-med.

You know, didn't that then? I'm not doing what I wanted it to do. Then I changed to pre-law.

And I graduated really not having taken any marketing courses in my life, and I ended up, you know, being CMO at Domino's and before that running marketing at Pepsi. And, you know, people always ask me, well, you know, how did you do it? And I want to make sure folks know that, you know, there was a lot of time during college and post-college when I was figuring out what I wanted to do, and everyone else pretended that they knew what they wanted to do. Some people did, right? Sure. Um, wondering, oh my god, am I lost? Am I making right decisions? Should I just set up because I had gotten into law school? Should I just go to law school? And, um, you know, it's easy to say this looking back. So one is, I want people to know you're going to feel agita, um, like your tummy's going to hurt. Your parents are going to tell you, hey, you know, why aren't you—why don't you have a job yet? Um, your friends are going to make money when you're not. Um, but for me, what in retrospect the story is, you know, you're going to work, whether you love it or not, more than you sleep and maybe even more than you're with your family. So you have to love what you do. And so when I look about how I kind of progressed and found my career, in retrospect it wasn't like I was goofing around and couldn't figure it out. I actively, what I say, is check things off the list. And some people are lucky, some people, you know, you start, maybe you always wanted to be in communications, and, you know, God bless you, I mean, whatever, what a weight off your shoulders, absolutely. But I think a lot of people, you know, and I knew other folks who were pre-med like me, you know, you're starting that journey, so you're just going to finish it because that's what you started doing. And you know, you just got to make sure you love what you're doing. And if you don't, if you actively check it off the list by saying, like, so for me, I did an internship, I took a bunch of classes, and I was like, you know what, it's not for me, instead of saying, oh man, what am I going to do next, check, what do I want to try next? Sure. And then you go all in on that. You know, for on the law stuff, you know, took all the classes, had a bunch of internships, and got into school, and at the last minute I was like, you know what, this is not for me. And, you know, I can tell you at some point how I ended up in marketing, but this whole idea of, you know, there's never a hard date, especially when you're young, where you're going to say transformation is going to happen. You just need to be responsible and continue to go after it. But there is no end date because you're doing this rest of your life.

So this is crazy. Um, so my senior year, I finished my finals before one of my apartment mates, and I guess the statute of limitations is done now, so I can talk about it, you know, 30 years later, but he had two finals and a paper left, and the paper was in marketing. And he said, 'I'll give you 20 bucks if you write my paper.' 20 bucks? That's it? Well, I graduated that time in 1990, and, you know, I needed some money. Sure. And, you know, it was an advanced marketing class, and, um, but you know, it's like, okay, I'll whatever, I'll do it. And I read the case, and I just knew, I was like, oh my god, this is what I'm supposed to do, and I've never even thought about it before. Um, and so, you know, part of me was panicked, which is like, how am I going to get a job? You're right, I'm going to do this, I just did a case study. And by the way, he got a really good grade on it. Of course he did. How do I figure this out? And, you know, took a little bit of a risk, but it was because I found out that this is something that I wanted to do. But it was literally that close. It was, you know, helping someone with a paper, yeah, during senior week. And then I ended up turning down law school, actually, I think I deferred it for a year. Okay. Um, I went abroad, I went to Israel for a year, I worked for the government press office. Oh, amazing. But I also got a job in marketing on the side, and I went there because, um, to be honest, I needed to get away from my family who was saying, what on earth, you know, you've got all this college debt, and, you know, um, so I got a little marketing experience there, and I kind of leveraged that to get a job when I got back here, and kind of the rest is history. So you never know when it's going to hit you. Um, but don't settle, especially at this point in your life, don't settle, it's going to be forever, so figure out what you're going to love, and then you never, as people say, and that's totally true, actually not totally true, because it is hard work, but if you love what you do, it's not really work.

Well, I think it really depends on what the transformation is. Um, you know, when I started Domino's, um, you know, we had just come off of three years of negative sales. Our stock when I started was I think 12 or 13 bucks, it went below three dollars. Oh, wow. Um, and, um, you know, there was a need to transform. We needed to transform our product, we need to transform our brand. And, you know, we had thousands of stores around the world and tens of thousands of employees. And so I think, you know, you can't just wake up one day and say, you know, we're going to transform, follow me. Um, or you certainly can't do so responsibly. And so for me, I, you know, when I look at some leaders, I think they, they the way not to lead, in my opinion, is by the biggest business card you leave by fax. And, and, you know, we had established a fact base of what was wrong and what we needed to do to turn it around. And it wasn't Russell's opinion, it wasn't the CEO's opinion, it was a statistically viable sample of, you know, U.S. citizens. And so to me, if the data is there, then there is no convincing. I'm showing you data that says this is what we need to tackle. And I think that's the best way to align people. Otherwise, it's just everyone's opinion, of course. And opinions don't, during the tough times, don't keep you together. And if you're doing something based on fact, your likelihood of success is higher as well. So you don't set out, you, I think to get people, you got to give them something to believe in. And that's, you know, also what I would tell for you for your students. You know, obviously making sure you understand market research and how to establish, you know, the business plan and all that stuff is important. But the other piece, and, you know, you're doing it today here in the interview, is platform skills. And when I say platform skills, is can you get up in front of people with that data we talked about, sure, and get them to follow you? Right. Um, I mean, some people like Dr. Cobain, like I'll follow him without facts. Right. But he's got the facts, sure, you know. And so in addition to making sure that you are prepared, I'd say just really work on your platform skills. Um, both in small settings like this, but, you know, every year, every other year at Domino's, we speak, we bring all our franchisees together, and I speak in front of 10,000 people. And, um, they're only going to trust me if I'm comfortable with myself and I'm comfortable being up there. And so whether it's 10,000 people or one person, um, really work on how you communicate.

Yeah, um, well, I'll start with, um, the platform skills, that's where we ended up. Um, I really can't, uh, underemphasize how important that is. Like I said, it could be in—when I say platform skills, it sounds like you're always standing up, it's not—it's how do you get people, how do you take others along with you. Um, so that's one. Um, I think the second piece is, is, um, how you develop people and who you surround yourself with. You know, the interesting thing is, as you know, you start your career, you advance in your career because you're a, um, great individual contributor. Like for me, when I started in marketing, was okay, I was a really good marketing assistant. Mm-hmm. But as you get higher and higher in your career, it's no longer about your skills as an individual contributor, it's about your ability to lead an enterprise. So, you know, my example would be, you could be the smartest person in the world, but at some point, the job is so big you can't do that whole job. And so you need to, you need to be able to get the best of folks who maybe can't do it as well as you, but you need, in order to get the breadth of what you need to do to get accomplished. You know, and then as leaders, we can all figure out how we want to lead. Um, I think the best way to do it is, you know, like I said, to take others with you, um, and let them know that you're their champion and you're their advocate. Um, because, you know, hopefully then they trust you and they want to stay with you, and you continue to surround yourself with folks who kind of think the same way. And so I just, I really believe you get things done on a big scale through other people, and, you know, my approach is to try to, um, you know, lead by example.

Um, well, you know, on the who innovators, it's, you probably get the same names all the time. Um, so I'll tell you a name just of an innovator because I have a good story about it, but then I actually, I'm not going to tell you about a person, I'm going to tell you about, um, what I think is the most important, which is you need to be your own innovator. And so the key is where do you get the inspiration and the ideas. But the quick story I have about innovators, so I'm pulling out, for those who can't see, but this is a podcast, I'm pulling out my iPhone. This is the, I think the 13 is the new one, right? And so when I worked at Pepsi, one of my first jobs is I worked on a, uh, I think it was like the iPhone 1. Oh, wow, I didn't work on the iPhone 1, but that's when it came out, or 2, or whatever it was, so early iPhone, and this is when Apple Music first was, okay, big, because we used to have like tapes and records. You have no idea what I'm talking about. And so we had this promotion at Pepsi where if you unscrew the cap, you get a code, and you sign up, you get a bunch of codes, you get free music on Apple Music. And so we did a, you know, we did a commercial, Pepsi and Apple, um, you know, for the promotion. It was a Pepsi commercial, but we had to pass it by, you know, Steve Jobs. Um, who's obviously an innovator we absolutely talk about, but I'm going to tell you the story because, I mean, everyone knows Steve Jobs, but to me this was such an insight of why he's so, he was so great at what he did. So, you know, we all made sure we had our Apple phones before we, you know, of course, I think this was actually before Androids, but there were still Blackberries. Yeah. And, uh, you know, we had him out and he, he comes in and he, you know, he has a kind of look on his face. And, and, you know, I, at that point in my career, I was just a peon, I didn't say anything, but someone asked him, but, you know, what's the matter? He said, well, you know, all of you have these, you know, the new phone, thanks, but, but you got these cases on them. The phone case. Well, someone's like, well, I've already broke mine twice, you know, Mr. Johnson. And he eloquently and passionately talked about how painstakingly they, they thought about everything regarding the design of the iPhone. So for example, like the outside, it actually could have been plastic, it was cheaper, but they decided to go to glass, and just, you know, that every corner made it. And what he didn't like about the cases is the artistry, the passion, you didn't see it, at least in his view. And so what do you notice about my phone? No case. No case. Right. So this is, God knows how many, wow, 15 years, more than that later. Um, no case. And it was listening to his passion. And I think that's what you need to have as an innovator. There needs to be, whether it's the design of your iPhone or something else, um, you know, the key thing you need is just the passion and the focus. Um, so then the question is, you know, where do you go for ideas? Um, you know, I read a book a while ago, this is interesting for folks who maybe aren't as creative as others. Um, it's not important, the name of the book is called The Whack on the Side of the Head, it's not important the name, but what he talks about, the author is, you know, for those who maybe aren't creative, is wear different hats. So there's a problem to solve, we're trying to market, you know, HPU, why to come to HPU? Okay, well, obviously how would Dr. Cobain market it? How would Michael Jackson market it? How would LeBron James market it? Like, put yourself in other people's heads. And, and you come at things differently. Um, there's a, uh, a great story about, um, a guy named Ian Schrager. So he owns a high-end, bunch of high-end hotels, and I'm not going to tell this perfectly, so please don't, you know, listen to this, but, no, I've been told this story many times and I'm sure people, but essentially what I, how the story, the legend goes, so he owned Studio 54, which was Manhattan, the kind of disco, you know, nightclub place. Sure. And supposedly he was in this big card game, and at some point, um, someone, whether they wanted to up the ante or whatever, they, they said, you know, I got this hotel, instead of putting down X amount of dollars, I'll put my hotel on this. Wow. And I guess Mr. Schrager won, and so he got that, he won this hotel, and he, he went and he looked, wanted to see what he won because he was going to sell it, he did nightclubs. And when he walked into the hotel, he saw this big lobby and it was completely empty, because, you know, you have to walk to check in. And what he said was, wow, man, they could be serving drinks here, this could be like a nightclub. And so he had this mindset of being a nightclub guy and he brought it to hotels. So there's a whole bunch of, you know, I don't know if they're still around, a big deal, but Ian Schrager hotels, but basically any cool hotel you go today that's got a lobby where there's, you know, a bar and, you know, music and stuff like that, um, that was inspired by him. Amazing. And so the idea of trying to bring another mindset, you know, to a problem, is, is one. And then secondly, I'm giving you too much here, I'm sorry, no, it's great, but I think it's really important to read not about ideas but to get different points of view. And so one, um, because at the end of the day, you want to be the person who's creative, you want to be the person who's innovating, of course. It's not, all right, Steve Jobs does this and so how can I do what Steve Jobs, right? And so you got to get the facts. Um, but I think it's important to know, you know, so there's, it's important to know what's going on in society because you can have the best idea, I mean, the example is, well, before the Apple Store, there are lots of people trying to sell music through these phones, but it didn't work. And but I think what, you know, Steve realized was what was going on culturally. And so I think, you know, when I think about what's going on culturally, whenever I try to solve a problem, I try to figure out what's the tension in society we're trying to solve. Right. And so when we turned Domino's around way back when, the tension of our brand was, um, we were a pizza company and our pizza wasn't as good as it could be. And, um, the tension in society, this is 2009, 2010. The economy wasn't good, there were banks going under. Um, there was a big car bailout that you probably don't, you were probably 10 or something, I don't remember, but there was a lot of things going on in society, and people didn't trust the pillars of society anymore. They didn't trust government, they didn't trust banks, they didn't trust companies. They wanted someone to tell them the truth. No one was telling the truth. Well, we had this kind of scary truth to tell, which is that, you know, our pizza isn't as good as it could be. And we felt like if we could do, in our own little pizza company way, if we could break our tension, which was the same tension as was in society, everyone would say, you know what, Domino's is doing that, why doesn't government do that, why didn't? And so we went on, we talked about how it was, it was a transparent campaign, and, um, where we came out and said that, you know, we're going to fix the pizza, and we did. And, um, that it wasn't good at the time. And, you know, the stock went from under three bucks to, today or this year it peaked at 548 dollars. And we just continued to take that, what's the tension in the brand, what's the tension in society, and that's how you come up with a big idea. And the best way, I think, to find tensions in society, you know, is just through being current in your reading, and we can talk more about that if you want.

Um, actually, what I'd say is, I think failure—so I hate to disagree with him, I think failure is an option. Okay. In fact, I, um, we did a commercial at Domino's about failure being an option, and actually from that, we took, we made a big poster in the lobby when you walked in that said 'failure is an option.' And the reason I think it is an option is if you don't, if you're so worried about failing, you're not going to try to do something that could fail. And anything that's big enough that it could fail could also be fantastically tremendous. Now your job as a business person is to make sure that in the process of trying to both fail and succeed, if something looks like a failure, you need to assess it and maybe not launch it. Right. So in that case, failure is not an option. Sure. But I make sure everyone at the company knows that just as good an answer for coming out with something as 'here's a great idea' is 'this one's just not going to cut it.' And if your folks aren't comfortable doing that, and that's seen as a failure, saying we shouldn't do something is as much a success as saying we should do something, as long as you've kind of gone all in. So I'm not sure I totally agree with that.

Um, I mean, it's pretty simple for me, is, it's just the goal, it's the golden rule, you know, it's to do unto others. And, um, you know, I think that's something that a lot of folks can learn today, absolutely. Um, and, you know, like I said, there, you know, as a leader, you're going to be, once, once you get a title, you got to figure out how you want to lead, if you want to lead through fear, if you want to lead through intimidation, there will be people who follow you and do that. Um, but I'm a big believer in, in, you know, just doing unto others, and then the folks who are attracted to that, then you surround yourself with that. And, you know, your job is to teach them, and then their job is to give it back, and then I think you create an ecosystem that, to get back to where we started, it's no longer about you as an individual contributor, it's about the ecosystem that you created. And I prefer to be in one that, you know, where everyone is, you know, we're going to be hard workers, hard charging, but, you know, we're working, um, we're working to fulfill the positives that the team is trying to achieve.