Why adaptability is key to success ft. former CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts, Robert Rosenberg.

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This week will be about former CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts, Robert Rosenberg.

Robert Rosenberg is the former CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts. He took over as the CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts at age 25 from his father, who was the founder of Dunkin’. In his 35 years run, he grew the company from $10 million in sales to over $2 Billion, with more than 3000 outlets. He served on the board of Domino’s Pizza and SONIC Drive-in.

Change is constant in business.

In business, it can be challenging to keep up and stay relevant, but something every entrepreneur should learn is how to adapt to constant change.

Market, customers, and everything around you can change anytime, but something that must always come first is your ability to see ahead of the game ad act accordingly.

Learn how to do that from someone that has been in it for quite a while, dear reader, and let's dive into our interview with Robert.

Parts of this newsletter are freely taken from our interview and adjusted for reading. Everything a person says in the interview reflects the guest's opinion, not the newsletter's or brand's.

GG: Do you think entrepreneurs should always adapt faster than their competitors? Or is it better to take your time, prepare and test something in a smaller market before expanding? What would you do if you were starting a business today?

RR: When starting a new business, there's an emphasis on a couple of things. You have to know your industry, you have to have enough capital to be able to get through the first few tries because sometimes it doesn't work out as you envision it and so you've got to reposition it a couple of times, and have some people around you that complement your skills as a team. Those are the three must-haves. You have to be nimble and agile when you're starting. My experience at Dunkin' Donuts started as an Open Kettle, and it didn't work because of serendipity and chance. It got repositioned because the competitor was going to open across the street, and partners fixed it. Then my father hired this executive vice president who lost confidence in the donut business, and he started to put in scrambled eggs and hot dogs and hamburgers. I came along and went back to the original version of what we had. So we ended up having three different starts. Luckily we had the capital and the right people at the right time to save it, but most things don't start flying out the gate. I wouldn't say go slow, I would say go fast and be prepared to make adaptations.

GG: If you were running Dunkin' Donuts today and were trying to take down your competitors, how would you win? What would your strategy be?

RR: Better locations, better advertising, better value, better convenience, and an array of products that meet the consumer's needs - it's the same things that have always existed. Beating the competition to the punch is a full-court press. It's about trying to fill every niche in the consumer's mind better than the competition. This can be achieved by making it more convenient through better locations and providing access to the brand in every possible way - through drive-through windows, home delivery, or office delivery. Our job is to get it to them better and faster than the others, not just faster but better, whichever that means to the customer. This gets harder and harder all the time, and it becomes more challenging to fill the customer's desires and needs because the competition grows better and stronger. You have to raise your game and continually strive to be better at doing that. I marvel at how our company, as well as others, pivoted early and made significant investments in digitization.

GG: If you and I were starting a business together today, how should we go about hiring? 

RR: There are at least three things that you should do in terms of recruitment. The first thing I would do would be being very crisp about defining the assignment. “What is the job that needs to be done?” The better you define the assignment, the more likely you'll find the right person to fill that position. If you are looking to hire a store manager for a retail site, it would certainly be beneficial to find someone who has been a long-tenured store manager for another chain, who understands what it takes to recruit, retain, and motivate staff, and who has a proven track record. While it's not a guarantee of success, it will significantly increase your chances of success. Second, I would pay attention to complementarity, there isn't one person that's good for all things, and no one suits all needs, and as you put together a team, it is going to be the strength and the complementarity of that team that's going to be successful. The third thing I would hire people in line with our company culture. Every company has a culture, everybody has values in the way they do things. In our case, our was team-oriented, truthful, aspirational, and with no backbiting.

GG: Do you see yourself as more of a sales leader, a marketing leader, or a finance leader?

RR: Marketing. I see companies as marketing companies and in my era, I fit the assignment. I wasn't necessarily better than my peers or different, my characteristics just happened to luckily fit the requirement of the job. Today, it may be different, it may be someone more digitally acute because that's required. But I have seen lawyers run companies brilliantly who have great adaptability and who are curious and who have acquired knowledge in different technical areas in what I call the digital age, even though that wasn't their training. A leader is someone who's very curious, who's very honest, and who really can define reality - not the world as they would like it to be - but the world as it is, which is a very critical element. The ability to define reality is easy to say, but hard to do because there's a lot of emotion in that, a lot of hard truths about yourself and your capabilities, but in any of it, people that are gifted with those skills will be able to bridge the gap. But in my case, it was good that I like marketing. I didn't get trained in marketing, but I liked it. Generally, you get good at the things you like or you like things you're good at.

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So what do we take out from this? That if you want to grow your business you need to respond to the environment around you, adapt to it, and not forget that you are doing your job for two things: because you want to provide the best service you can to your clients and because you like it. Whenever you are on your journey there is always room to evolve, and you don't need to be scared if you have to start again.

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