Jason Taylor 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the People's Playbook Podcast. I have to tell you, I'm pretty excited today because we have Dominic Permucci as our guest, who is the president of Pizza Nova. He's been at the helm for a long time now, and he's led Pizza Nova to be one of Canada's most recognized family-founded restaurants in more than three decades, quite frankly. Under his leadership, Pizza Nova has grown consistently. That's a key word, consistently. But the big thing I love about the brand is they're community focused. They give back to the community. And Dominic is a big believer in leave more on the table than you take. And I think that's probably why he's been so successful in his franchise success. And with that, we'll get to the conversation. Dominic, welcome to the show. Thank you, Jason. I'm excited to be on the show. So, Dominic, let's get right into it. So, Pizza Nova, it is a it's a household name. It is in all communities right now, it's a household name. And you started leading the that at the helmet in 1990. In the 90s. 19 what? In the 90s, sometimes. In the 90s. In the 90s. In the 90s. How has your leadership style evolved without losing the values that actually built the brand?

Domenic Primucci 1:12

I think change is imminent. You have to consistently understand that you need to change and you need to change with the times, whatever case it may be. I mean, whether it's in leadership and innovation or whatever you do. However, if you don't accept that, then you'll you'll stay behind and you won't be able to look at different initiatives from employee relationship or franchisee relationship. I think all these things you have to realize that we do things always to get better, right? So if you're not if you don't have that open mind to get better, then then then you won't change. You know, fast forward, or you said the 90s, but I'm fast forwarding to COVID. But I mean, I'm looking back at COVID for really, and I hate to always reference COVID. However, that changed everything. It changed the way we led. So I mean, you just have to find the ways that where you can help the people that you're leading on an everyday basis. Whatever the case may be. Like, I mean, you know, Jason, me and you can have a different relationship than somebody else. It's because our we're we're different people. We're the dynamics. This is what I even speak with my district managers on the road with the franchisees. I mean, one franchisee to the next franchise, they're totally different people. You have to manage them differently. And you have to be able to be open to that.

Jason Taylor 2:35

I I like the the saying if you if we manage and lead everybody the same way, it's like giving everybody the same size of shoe. It doesn't make sense.

Domenic Primucci 2:42

Definitely. And we follow our core values. I mean, core values is a big thing. And as long as we, you know, core values are there for a reason. They're not there just to put up on a wall and nobody reads it. Uh no, we lead by those values. And that's what's going to guide us making the decisions that what Pizza Nova is about in our case.

Jason Taylor 3:04

Yeah, it's nice to have those values too, because when you come to uh crunch time or you're looking at a decision that's hard to make, you can just kind of look on the wall and look and look on in each of your in your phones and see those core values and say, okay, so based on what we said we were gonna do, how are we gonna make this decision and move forward?

Domenic Primucci 3:20

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jason Taylor 3:22

Yeah. Dominic, it's a family-founded business. And those businesses are sometimes a little bit of a different dynamic to move around and lead and kind of make sure everybody's happy. How do you honor the legacy while still pushing innovation forward?

Domenic Primucci 3:38

It's a great question. I think the legacy is has to be basically like an everyday standard type of thing. You know, we built this company, or you know, my father and my family built this company believing that everyone deserves a great, honest, good pizza type of thing. So with you know, love and care and so on and so forth. However, we have to continue to to believe in that and continue to honor that legacy and continue to build it because that laid the foundation for us moving forward to today. So that foundation is important. If you don't have a foundation in anything you do, it's not just in my world, but in every in every world they're out there, you've got to have a strong foundation. And in our in our world, for argument's sake, our foundation, which was set by the family earlier on, not necessarily when I was around, you know, dough in our case, pizza, dough, sauce, and cheese. Those are the three ingredients that basically are on every single order that we we fulfill. So that is the standard. That's where we need to base. And then innovation obviously has to be continuing to find out, like I just said, about leading and changing and and and seeing. You know, there are changing tastes in this world. The community wants different things. Today, with the explosion of the food network and so on and so forth on TV, and then on Instagram now, you're seeing all these types, everybody's uh showing pictures of food and everything. So people are a little bit more well-educated on the food as well. You know, they want to try something different. It's not always the standard. So you gotta be able to look at different things and different tastes. Now, we don't want, you know, we never really chase the trends. I always say, you know, yeah, definitely there are trendy things that happen out there. But let's look at things that will, we think are more of a shift in the market. If there's a shift in the market, well then maybe we need to jump on on this and say, let's let how do we how do we do this? Like, for example, many years ago we we we jumped on the shift in the market was, you know, people wanted uh different styles of dough, like for gluten intolerance. I mean, we have gluten-free dough that we've we we've had for over 20 years, and it's it's so it wasn't a trend. It was just uh something that the community or the the customers or our guests wanted something that would because of health reasons or whatever the case may be.

Jason Taylor 6:08

Yeah, for sure. Uh there's one thing that you guys always stick to, I find, is you l you listen to the guest. You listen to the guests. And even the stuff that I've done with you, Dominic, you're always that guest and that franchisee are always at the forefront, and it's evident in everything you talk about and everything you do. You don't I I've heard this so many times. In my personal opinion, the best pizza sauce around is pizza nova. Like, and it is it's so consistent all the time. You never ever, you know, you never ever sway from that sauce because of your consistent values and kind of how you do things, right?

Domenic Primucci 6:41

Yes, of course. I mean, uh see, those are the standards, right?

Jason Taylor 6:44

And then then you can innovate from there. Franchise systems live or die by alignment. And we're kind of in that conversation about alignment right now. So how do you keep culture strong across so many locations? How do you how do you get that consistency? Because you're all about alignment and consistency, but how do you make that message resonate when you have so many locations?

Domenic Primucci 7:05

I think the core values is one thing where we just kind of mentioned is that core values helps us guide our in making our decisions. So in everything that we do, when we're, and this is what you know I say and we we talk about even with my my to my operations teams and so on and so forth, when we are trying to teach something or explain something, try to tie it back to a core value. Because that what that'll do is it keeps it keeps it top of mind. And what also is that we're learning every day and we're trying to get better every day. So that culture of trying to always improve is always there. You have to live it daily. If you don't live it daily, then it gets lost. You know, it's a slippery slope. It's gonna go away eventually. So unless we keep keep it top of mind all the time, then it continues to live and continues to be that culture who you are. And our culture really is about we spend a lot of time with our franchisees as you know in this question about franchisees. And we're I mean, we have district managers on the road every day. It's not about seeing a franchisee once every month. It's getting out there every week, trying to see as many as possible, speaking with them, speaking with their with their staff if they're not there. It's connecting, right? If you don't connect, then we we we lose track. And we also have many meetings throughout the year. Now they're we we've kind of morphed them into more workshops. So they're invited to come every so often. We have a workshop on whatever the topic may be, could be from food costs, could be from guest experience, could be app functionality, could be whatever the case is. But it's more, you know, business, but it's getting together and understanding and listening to what they say and and vice versa, because communication has got to be a two-way street here. And what happens is you're keeping that alignment that we're moving together.

Jason Taylor 9:15

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, it did absolutely. You because you and you know, you said some key things in there that that and you said them multiple times, which I liked. You you talked about listening, you talked about connecting, and you talked about communicating. And I think actually those three things together actually build trust, right? So when we when we listen more, and we and I I like to say if we listen to understand, not just listen to here, and you know, I'm listening to you, but I'm walking, I'm walking to my car as I'm listening to you, right? Listening to understand, communicating more and connecting. And then you you actually leave somebody with a feeling. And what one of my favorite kind of principles about leadership and culture is people will always remember how you made them feel. They won't always remember what you said. They won't always remember, you know, the analytics or the data that you kind of you know said to them along the way, but they'll remember how you make them feel. And even when you talk about your district managers going in and you know the franchisee's not there, but hey, let's make sure we talk to the staff, let's make sure we connect with them. That's absolutely huge, in my opinion.

Domenic Primucci 10:15

Yes. Well, it's important, right? I mean, they're the front line, everybody, those are all the frontline workers, and we need to understand, you know, where they are. I mean, sometimes they may be in a great place or may not be in a great place, or you know, can be very busy or not very busy. And, you know, and and you also find out things from everybody, right? I mean, the old adage is uh, you know, work the front line and you'll find out how difficult some things are. And uh, you know, and sometimes upper echelon of a company, not not understand what's going on at the front line, that's when things get sometimes mistakes are made because some things do not flow properly on the front line if for whatever reason.

Jason Taylor 10:56

Yeah, for sure. Let's talk about frontline and just performance in general. So in your opinion, Dominic, what separates operators who can simply run the store from the leaders who actually build winning teams along the way?

Domenic Primucci 11:09

And I think really the the operators who run the stores are operators and they're managing the tasks at hand. They're doing what needs to be done. A leader will train and show and develop that their their staff and help. This way they don't have to operate that in particular task and continue to develop those people. And that's what makes the difference from a great operator to a you know one that kicks it out of the park every day. And they're different. So it's making them their their staff feel good, valued. Uh in the end, it it creates consistency, it creates loyalty, assuming loyalty too is right. I mean, uh and then and then kind of comes out when the guests walk in the door because everybody's on the same team.

Jason Taylor 12:04

Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about that. So in hospitality, customers often feel culture instantly, right? So, what internal habits do you think create that external experience? What internally do you have to do to make sure that external experience is phenomenal?

Domenic Primucci 12:20

Again, you know, the the our core values, our service, we have a service strategy that we built that you know, we try to train and teach every single day. However, at the end of the day, it's pretty simple. It's making the customer feel good. You know, the old adage is treat people or treat others as you wanted to be treated, right? And if you treat somebody with care and understanding, you know what? That's all they're asking for. They're gonna love you. They're gonna love that aspect. I mean, yesterday, you know, I got an email from our call center that we had a couple outstanding responses from our guests about a couple of our calls that had transpired with how the opera our order operator was taking the order, and they were just so, so fantastic that they've never had that type of exceptional experience before. I said, Well, send me the send me the uh call. I'd like to hear it. And you know what? Some of it wasn't even about pizza, it was just genuine conversation. It's you know, obviously it's always about the pizza at the end of the day, because they're you're you're you're selling. However, the customer felt so good. And sometimes it doesn't take a lot. It just takes, you know, a little bit of a thank you, a please, you're welcome, comfort them, and and and and sometimes that's all you need to get the customer to experience. So going back to treat people the way you want to be treated, it's pretty, pretty well, really. It's it's a simple thing. I think sometimes we overthink things like that, and we put all these strategies in and so on and so forth. But at the front line, customers just want to see a smile. They want they want to see that you know you're you're interested in them and you want to and thank them for their business, right?

Jason Taylor 14:12

Yeah. Thank yous are free. Thank yous cost nothing, right? They're they cost nothing and it's amazing. Curious, does that call center employee know that you actually listen to his or her?

Domenic Primucci 14:22

I I think so because I was I I because I sent back a message to ask them to uh send my message.

Jason Taylor 14:28

So I'm sure they did. Yeah, that that's that's phenomenal. I love when I hear those kind of stories because I believe culture is contagious. And when, you know, all of a sudden, you know, the top person in the company is saying, Hey, by the way, I heard your call, like that's that's phenomenal just to see. I could just imagine when they opened up that email and said, You are you kidding me, right? Like that that that's phenomenal. Dom, after decades of leadership, what is the people lesson that took you longest to truly learn? Listen, pretty simple.

Domenic Primucci 15:00

I think at the beginning, when you're young and hungry, you kind of do things and your listening skills are not as as sharp as as you get older, and you start to to listen more. And it's not uh it's not always about talking and but it's also listening, and because sometimes, you know, well it's not sometimes. I mean I I always say I don't know it all. I mean uh it's at the end of the day, I don't know it all. So it's good to listen to how somebody or not even feels, but even understanding an ops procedure or something. Listen to see what they have to say, see what see what see their reasoning behind it, right?

Jason Taylor 15:41

Yeah. It's funny. I I remember being a young Jason Taylor in my low 20s, let's say, and just to your point, I thought I was listening, but I wasn't. I was just I was I was already thinking of what I'm gonna say to the person before they even finished their statement. I was thinking, oh, I'm gonna tell you right now, like this is not how it is, right? But and then you look back, and now I'm 54 now, and you just look back at some of those things you did in, you know, when you're starting your career, and sometimes you try not to cringe because you're just like, I can't believe I I said it like that, or I can't believe I dismissed it as soon as I did. But I guess that's you know the old uh saying, right? We we learn a lot along the way, right?

Domenic Primucci 16:19

Yeah, I mean, i if you don't listen properly, you're going to if some if someone explains something to you to do a task or whatever the case is, right? And you and you don't understand the whole thing, and you and you all of a sudden you just go, okay, perfect. I'll go on, I'll go out and do it.

Jason Taylor 16:35

Yeah.

Domenic Primucci 16:36

And you come back, it's what they'll say, well, that's not what I asked you.

Jason Taylor 16:40

Yeah.

Domenic Primucci 16:40

I never asked you for this.

Jason Taylor 16:42

What what is all this? I could I could just see you as a younger man and your father saying something to you about the brand and whatnot, and and as all young men we do, sometimes we just think, Why is why is he thinking this or why is this happening? But they got to where they were for a reason. They were they were all pretty smart. One of my favorite sayings is every year I get older, my parents become a year smarter. It's true. We all do. We all do. Exactly. That's right. We learn every day. Dom, how many well, I'll put it to you this way. Many businesses actually chase chase scale, and as part of that, they lose kind of the soul of the company. So how do you protect both at Pizza Nova? Because you're a growing brand. I assume if I said to you, Are you going to still grow? You wouldn't say no. You wouldn't say, Jason, I'm good where I'm at right now. We're done. I know you're you're constantly growing. So how do you protect the soul of the company and just all those values that you keep talking about and the core values, which I love, from just scaling at the same time?

Domenic Primucci 17:41

That's a question that is uh is asked to me many, many times, you know, in different ways. You know, so a lot of times I get, well, how many stores are you going to open this year or next year or whatever the case is? And I always answer it, I said, I don't have a number. And the reason why I don't have a number is because we want to ensure ever when we open a store or with the new franchisee, we want to ensure that that franchisee is successful, first and foremost. I mean, I can go out and open 25 locations tomorrow. I mean, it's very easy to find real estate. You're gonna overpay for it, but that's a whole nother another another another topic or another podcast. But and then you're gonna put in 25 new franchisees, and 90% of them are probably gonna fail because your target, your your focus is on scaling up and scaling up as quickly as possible. So that's not the outcome that I want. The outcome that we want is more about ensuring that our franchisees are successful. So we're gonna exhaust all avenues and make sure that franchisee is successful in that location. And as part of that, what happens is you're organically grown. Because now all of a sudden, that franchisee is doing well, is able to do the sales, you know, have great employees, and then those employees will see that and they'll say, oh my gosh, you know what? Maybe I want a pizza nova, or maybe, you know, or whatever the case is. Because our actual goal is not about opening 25 stores, it's about to be the best that we can be every single day. We want to be the best pizza, we want to give the best experience, we want to give the great place to for you to start your career. As I just said, we have a lot of franchisees that have come through the system. We'd rather grow, I say, a little slower than and grow, I don't know if the terminology is right, but it's right for us. And don't just grow for the sake of growing. I don't believe, because you can grow within your system. Each location can grow their sales. So we're growing. So it's not always about scale in in locations. However, we still do, you know, open a few locations every year or whatever the case may be. I mean, but it's it's it's more of a controlled growth that we can sustain and uh continue to build a great company with great foundation to last. We've been around since 1963. It's 63 years this year. So that's crazy.

unknown 20:19

Yeah.

Jason Taylor 20:20

That's that's absolutely that's that, and I'm saying this in a positive way, that's absurd. Like it's amazing. It's not a lot of people can say that statement that you just made. Right? And it it's funny when you talk about growth, I'll bet you there is some and I'll I'll because I'm in the business, Dominic, and I know this business well, there's there's certain brands that actually say, hey, hey, they're willing to give us a check, let's just take it and and go from there. It sounds like you're the complete opposite. You're like, hey, I can get the growth through same store sales, I can get the growth through other ways. I want the right people. And that's why, and for those listening today, I can tell you, I've been at company events for Pizza Nova, and it feels like a family. It feels very much like a family. And when you look around the room, there's so many side conversations going on and so much laughter and so much uh inside jokes that you can tell they've been together for years and whatnot. It's it's a really, really cool thing that you built. You and the team have built.

Domenic Primucci 21:18

Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Jason Taylor 21:20

Yeah.

Domenic Primucci 21:20

It it's uh and and that's all done organically, right? I mean, uh, yeah, family is a big, is a big thing for us because you know that's we feel that everybody needs to be treated as as well as whether it's the person that's uh taking an order on the call center, whether it's the dish person washing the dishes, or whether it's the president of the company, or everybody everybody in between. We all we're all valued at uh what we do every single day.

Jason Taylor 21:48

Let's talk about young leaders for a second, Don, because they're the ones entering the restaurant industry right now. So what do younger leaders entering the industry often underestimate about leading people?

Domenic Primucci 22:00

Hmm. Very good question.

Jason Taylor 22:01

Yeah, it's a hard one I know.

Domenic Primucci 22:03

Yeah. One thing is, you know, how do young people under underestimate, you said, right? First and foremost, everybody's watching at all times. So I think that sometimes they take for granted that people are just not watching and seeing what's happening, how you handle things, your body language, your your how you speak to people, how you speak to somebody that is at the same level as you, uh above you or below you. I mean, it's those how those conversations go. I think everybody really, really sees that. And I think that, you know, they should own up to their mistakes.

Jason Taylor 22:43

Hard sometimes when you're young.

Domenic Primucci 22:45

Yeah, it is. But you know what? It I I when somebody owns up to their mistake, they come into my office and say, listen, I'm sorry, but this happened and it my mistake, my whatever I it's it's on me or whatever the case is. You know what? I don't get upset. I'm like, okay, no problem. Thank you. Thank you for letting me know. Hopefully you learn from it. Yeah, that was your job to do that, whatever the case may be. Because that tells me that somebody is first and foremost honest. And and secondly, that really values their their job, values what people think of them. What's the way I'm trying to figure out the word, but yeah, no, I know exactly where you're going with this.

Jason Taylor 23:21

It's a huge driver of culture for sure.

Domenic Primucci 23:24

Yeah. You and you touched upon trust earlier, and I think trust is built. And I think yeah, sometimes young people come in and they they want respect right away. You gotta build it. You gotta build that trust. You respect doesn't come unless you build it. And it's up to you to build it, nobody else. And nobody's gonna build that trust for you. So if if you come in and you start to respect the people around you, then you'll start to earn that trust. So I think that's huge.

Jason Taylor 23:51

Yeah, I often comment on people having trust bank accounts, and uh you have to make sure there's more deposits than withdrawals. You you gotta make sure that they there there's some there's some trust built up in there so they can they they want to do business with you or they want to be around you and whatnot, right? So that's first thing. The other thing that you said that was really cool was you talked about everybody's watching and I'm a huge advocate that leaders, as a leader, you're always on stage and you can't be part of the chaos. You can't be part of the chaos. The other thing you said that resonated with me was when somebody makes a mistake or they're just honest about it, I actually love it when a leader says, I don't know. You know, you see some people that just do the hubbadah hubbadas and they're trying to do this dance and pretend that they know because they're the leader, but it's so authentic and it shows so much humility when the leader actually says, I actually don't know that. I can find out for you, but I I don't know it personally. Right. I just think it, I I actually think it gives that leader more power than they ever even thought they had in the first place. Yeah, be humble. Yeah. Be humble, be humble. Dominic, I have two more questions for you, and then because you've been incredibly generous with your time, and then I'm going to uh let you get back to your day. One of the questions is when challenges hit, and they often do, how do you personally stay steady and knowing that you're always on stage and you can't be part of that chaos, how do you stay steady so the team can stay focused? A brilliant one is probably COVID. Like that's a that's a massive challenge that the the industry faced, right? So how do you how do you stay steady so everybody else kind of uh stays focused on what they should be doing?

Domenic Primucci 25:29

That's a difficult question because I think we do this even though we do this on a daily basis, it's hard to say exactly what it is in a sense. I think it's about really sitting back and understanding the situation and understanding it from different views, not just your view. Because your view is one way. If you hear a couple other people's views on whatever it may be, whatever the challenge is, is so understanding where the group is at and then figuring out what the solution is. Because you have to figure out a solution. You know, you're the leader. They're looking for you for a solution. And and and you know, you just said it. Sometimes you're gonna say, I don't know. Let me get back to you, let me let me think about this, give me some time. I've never experienced this, whatever the case may be. Yeah, for sure. Uh so then you you you can think about what you the next steps are. However, you you need to come to some sort of solution, or you can work on a solution with the person or or whatever the challenge is with the team and work together to come out to be a better, better thing for the company. At the end of the day, it's it's what's going to make the company prevail. And we you have to look, you have to almost sometimes take that personal side out of it when it comes to a company challenge. I mean, if it's an employee challenge, that's a wholly different thing, right? But uh, when it's a corporate challenge out there, you I think it's putting the team together and saying, this is this is a tough thing. Well, let's figure this out and let's move forward, right? Once you move forward, this is what we do. You know, I I've said this uh also many times and for argument's sake, in my SLT meetings, like the senior leadership team said, you know what? Obviously we've we've had to discuss some sort of sensitive stuff as well. And when you cut when you discuss that, it's the four walls is our is our room. And it doesn't go outside these four walls. It's our in a sports analogy, our our locker room, if you will. And let's come up with a solution that's gonna help whatever the challenge may be. And we all gonna be, we all have to be a hundred percent aligned. Aligned. Whether I like it or not, I have to be a hundred percent aligned once I walk out that door.

Jason Taylor 27:49

Yep. I I have to say bulletproof. We there can be a kink in the armor. We all have to say, hey, we're we're doing this as a team. And you know, it's just like a hockey analogy. I may not like the system we're playing, but I'm playing it because I'm part of the locker room, right? So let's do that. Last question. So, well, let's put it this way if your team described your leadership legacy, let's say, in one sentence, years from now, years from now. Okay, what would you hope that they'd say?

Domenic Primucci 28:14

It's hard to analyze your own self, but I'd say that that I was an honest, fair, good person, uh, that they've learned from me, so that whatever they took from the way I led or deal with issues or whatever that they've learned from that they learned from that and and value that. I think those are probably the the biggest things. I'm a humble type of person, so I'm not out there trying to be, you know, a big ego type of guy. I'm not that guy. So I mean hopefully that all comes through in that sense.

Jason Taylor 28:48

I think it does in spades, quite frankly. In all my interactions with you, Dominic, you are extremely humble. And just as you did today, you always leave more on the table than you take. So, with that, thank you for your time today, Dominic. I appreciate it. If you love that session and that conversation as much as I did, would love to have you join our People Playbook community in the link below.