The Secret Sauce to Business Success? Employee and Customer Satisfaction

Hello. My name is Matt Bros of Lockton. In my role, I consult with employers all around the country related to their employee benefits strategy. We're in conversations all the time about how to attract the best talent and get the best out of their people. Work ethic integrity? Those are all traits of people that pursue excellence and it doesn't even stop there. From the boardroom to the storeroom, we're gonna find out what drives those people? Welcome to the Excellence culture. This is gonna be an excellent adventure. Well, welcome to the Excellence culture. I'm Matt Brost with locked and donening Benefits, and I'm super excited to be sitting next to John Coodmiller. Let's president of Freedom Park. And I would say if you live in the DFW metroplex, there's a very good chance that you've seen the red shirts at the airport, the Freedom Park employees, and doing that amazing valet parking service that you guys do, and For me, I just wanna tell you, like, I'm very, very impressed and almost just admire the service that you guys deliver. Thank you. Every single time I go to the airport, and I park my car. I just can't believe the smiling face that greets me how engaged they are. In this world that right now, you know, we'll go to a restaurant, and we've got to apologize for asking somebody to get a glass of water. Sure. You know? Yeah. And and your guys and girls are out there in the heat -- Yeah. -- parking cars, helping people with a smile on their face and I can't wait to hear how you do it. Okay? Appreciate it. But first, I would love to hear a little bit about your upgrade -- Sure. -- because you're obviously significant leader in this thing that I see that is crazy excellent. So I'd love to hear about your upbringing, what were what was your, you know, upbringing like, values, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So from from the Dallas Fort Worth area, grew up in Hurstulis Bedford. And I think a big part of my upbringing or the, you know, significant things that happened in my life was blessed to be raised in a home where it was really close to my father. Who also was a part of our business. So kinda parents got divorced when I was nine, that's a tough thing that happened. Was really tough. And through that experience, we live with my dad. And so our upbringing, there was a lot of expectations, high expectations, And so really poured myself into school and sports and I was really fortunate that I had a really close group of friends that I grew up with, that I in fact, in a couple weeks meeting up with them to go on a guy's trip up in Vermont. That's cool. Some of the them guys. So From HEB? From HEB. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So play competitive basketball, which kinda kept me on the straight and narrow. So pretty typical, I would think, you know, high school in junior high. Life, I ended up going to Texas AMM University, and kinda like a lot of I apologize. Yeah. Well, I gotta make sure I get that in there. I was gonna but I I'm not gonna do that. So you know, went went there and I think when I went to college kind of like a lot of kids do, that was kind of my you stage, you know, I was out from some of the pressures of, you know, what it's like to grow up in a household where we're pretty high expectations on you. Kind of lost my way in that, and nineeleven happened -- Mhmm. -- which is also about the time we were starting our business, and so I joined the Marine Corps. And that was a really good influence in my life, but I think I thought it was gonna be my savior. Yeah. Really because I thought that's what I was gonna do my whole life. I thought I was gonna be a marine. And then god good plan. I busted both my knees, had complete reconvene construction on both knees. And so that that dream ended, and I back and was part of the family business. And right around that time is also when the Lord just picked be up to save me. And so -- Gosh. -- big big shift in my life happened right at that kinda twenty two year old, twenty one two year old. It's almost it's almost like there was a pre life -- Yeah. -- that I experienced. I think you understand that. Yeah, I do. I do. And then life just changed at that point. So yeah. That's kinda sort of short quick story. Well, thanks for being so transparent about that, man. And it obviously is probably something that drives you in your leadership for sure. You know, you were a part it seems like you were a part of Freedom Park from the very beginning. Right? And so I would love to hear what that experience was like. What was early Freedom Park Days where all of a sudden y'all are parking cars or or what? What what was the beginning of Freedom Park? Very basic. Yeah. So we actually launched in the spring break of the semester I had decided to go into the marine corps, so that summer I was gonna go to boot camp. But we launched in spring break. So I was back March twelfth two thousand one, And there was five of us. So my father, one manager, and three valets, and I was one of the three valets. And we were on a really old beat up parking lot in South Irving. We had one partner at the time and he owned the parking lot that was his big contribution to the business. And the the idea was really I had a deal came from my father who own a courier company in Dallas Fort Worth sold it, was doing some consulting, had a buddy that wanted him to start a sedanser of his driving people to and from the airport. And my father is really, really big on customer experience and frontline employee experience. He wants to know what's it like for the customer and what's it like for the front line employee. And so he told a business partner, he said, I'm going to drive a limo for a month. And if I think I can add anything new, different or better for either the customer or the employee, then I'll do this. And he says that his story always was that every single customer told him they loved that a sedan picked you up and dropped you off right at your gate. But what they didn't like is when they would come home, they didn't have their own car. So they're trying to go to a kid's soccer game or a date with his wife or whatever the case may be, and they got to come all the way back to downtown Dallas, get their car before they could go home. So he went to his business partner and said, we're gonna get people the convenience of a sedan. Limo, but we're going to let them drive their own car and be in control. And in two thousand and one, there wasn't a single Valley parking company at any airport in the country. So his whole idea deal is he's gonna let people prearrange valet parking, and we were gonna track flights and let people drive their own car directly to their gate. So no valet no place the customer has to go, we're gonna go to where they need to be. Yeah. So when we launched, we had a very basic database built on Microsoft access We had a really basic parking lot in this concept of something new that nobody else was doing. And we were excited about it. We thought it was gonna We thought as soon as we went out there, everybody was gonna use it, and that didn't happen. Really? Yeah, that didn't happen. It took a lot of hard work. And Well, I I found for me, I don't know what led me to use it the first time. It was probably a referral. Somebody say, man, you gotta try this. But once I tried it -- Mhmm. -- it's like, you it it's I mean, the service is just so good. Yeah. If we get somebody to use it, they're not gonna go back. Yeah. But we didn't have any money. Right? So all all the family money has invested this. We have one one partner who's not who's not giving the investment that he said he would be giving. It was real tenuous. And so we didn't have any budget really. We had some funds set aside for that. And then this is two thousand one. So in September six months into a business completely dependent upon air travel, nineeleven happens. And so one of the biggest memories I have is standing on our parking lot with my dad staring in the sky right out by DFW Airport and there's no flights. Nobody's fine. And you guys from an employee how many employees did you have at this time? That probably about fifteen twenty maybe. And so we we didn't know when people were gonna start flying again. And so the conversations were kind of this was a great idea, but this isn't going to happen, or we got to stick this thing out, and we think when people do start flying again, we have something special. Yeah. And one of the biggest decisions I know that we ever made was we we knew when we came back, the employees that were there from the beginning, that were invested, we were gonna need them. And if we didn't keep them on, they're gonna have to go find another job. So we took what money we did have that was ear for marketing, and we paid our employees basically just to stay home for four or five months until flights came back. Mhmm. It was one of the best decisions we made. Because when it came back, we had we had people ready to go. Yeah. But that was that was scary because it was early on. Well, I wanna like right from that, you know, go straight to just what you guys just recently I mean, COVID. And and, you know, I just had the fortune to be able to talk to Clay Parks with Parks Coffee and how much they were impacted by COVID and you were one of the first people I thought of -- Right. -- when COVID happened too. Right. And I know that we've even had texting back and forth, you know. Yeah. Saying, I got nothing I can tell you other than praying, man. But, you know, did you did you guy use use some same philosophy from the learning of nine eleven -- Sure. -- or, you know, what was that process going through? Yeah. So the pandemic was more difficult because the impact lasted longer and because nobody had any idea when you started. I mean, you were you you probably had hundreds of employees that were impacted. We had four hundred and twenty five -- Yeah. -- the day that I remember being in Phoenix at our operation in Phoenix, and I'm sitting down eating dinner, and it was they they canceled the basketball game. We were watching the Mavericks because they canceled it halfway through. Yeah. That's right. I remember calling my brother. And at that point, I said, hey, I think this is real, and this is probably gonna impact us for a month or so. Yeah. We had no idea. A a month later, we went from four hundred and twenty five to twenty five employees. We went from twenty five hundred people parking with us a week to twenty five people. Parking with us a week. It was just overnight. But I do think we learned a lot through a bunch of the challenges that we had early on, and we were just blessed to have gone through those things. Yeah. Because I think we were we were nervous, but we we we very quickly were able to kinda say, okay, here's what we're gonna have to do. Whether it was gonna work or not, we didn't know. One of the things we did is we we furloughed all the employees that had benefits. We didn't fire them because -- Mhmm. -- they needed I mean, these people needed their healthcare. They needed -- Mhmm. -- we needed to keep them at the Freedom Park. We did keep twenty five, thirty salary employees on staff continued to pay them. And then one of the biggest things I think that we've learned over the years is our business is about our people. Yeah. You you you know that as a customer. Your interaction with Freedom Park is this your sole opinion of Freedom Park is based upon the person you're gonna meet at the airport. Yeah. So we knew how important those people were. So we held I held a weekly Zoom call that any employee could jump on at any time. And I did a video message every Friday, and we just tried to stay connected to our people and be as open as we could about what we knew -- Yeah. -- what we didn't know. What we were trying to do. And I think that served us well when it did start to come back because it's probably more than most companies we were able get a lot of our employees to finally come back to us. Yeah. So, yeah, it was it was scary, though. Yeah. Crazy. So, like, that grow back I mean, do you have PS do you I mean, do you think about, like, just the instability of America sometimes or you're growing back, just wondering like Or do you are you able to just kinda look forward? You know? And I think we realize, like, there's gonna be a next something. Yeah. Right? I don't know if it's a pandemic or It does seem like the airline industry gets impacted by a lot of things. Sure. Right? Yeah. Well, the mortgage crisis was a big deal for us. We took a big no not nothing like the pandemic, but we at those dive because of that. Anything in the economy or in the world that would cause people to stop flying or companies tighten their budgets, we're gonna be affected by. Yeah. So one, we understand we have to run our business really, really smart. I think that was a big blessing is when we hit the pandemic, we had cash saved up. We weren't in debt, and we weren't leveraged. Like, we were kinda prepared maybe better than some, and I'm really thankful for that. But, yeah, I think about what's What's gonna, you know -- Yeah. -- what's gonna happen? I bet. But from my from my perspective, I mean, probably the most important thing that I would love to talk to you about because this is the excellence culture. Sure. And it's just really how do you do it, man. I mean every I have never had a bad experience with Freedom Park. And and I and I find that you do that with majority part time in employees too. And I see every other industry and the challenge it is to train up and execute excellence, especially with a part population. Yeah. It seems impossible, to be honest, but somehow you've made it very possible. So I'd love to hear even just some of the mechanics that are going on background that allow you to just kinda execute at that level on a regular basis. There's a lot there. And, you know, I I think to your to your question, like, there are mechanics, but I think more than anything first and foremost, it's just a world view on and then it's a company view And I think we understand that the most important person in our organization truly is or valet -- Mhmm. -- that has a customer that's that the opinion you're gonna have on Freedom Park and whether you use this or not, it's not me. You're not gonna talk to me. My job's to make sure they can do their job, but it's that front line employee. And it seems like a lot of times, companies may have a culture where the guys at the top are the ones doing all the important work. And the guys on the bottom or the guys that are just executing it, I think we think differently. I think we flip that on its head. So a lot of the mechanics we have are Not just in theory, but in practice. In practice. Yeah. So a lot of mechanics we have, they'd have to support that. So we talk about it a lot. I wanna make sure that that frontline employee genuinely feels like what they're doing has value. Yeah. And not just what they're doing, but that they have value. So some of the things we do, if I'm in town, I'm in every training class. Every week that comes in, I go in, I talk to them, I give them our full history, I talk about how important their job is. If I'm not there, one of one of our other executives goes in, somebody in our executive team is in every single training class. Yeah. We vet a hundred and forty applicants a week, and we try to pick the top five or six. So we're trying to find the right people to begin with. We spend a lot of money and time on trying to find the right people. And you don't have to tell me what you pay, but I would I would assume that you pay above average. We do. For Yeah. You're talented. Yeah. You have to. You have to, and it's worth it. We, you know, try to give him as many opportunity these to make tips and to make extra wages and ways that they can. I think one of the other important things that we've able to do is not just show people the value that they have, but how they can add value. So every person in our organization started as a valet. We're twenty two years in, and there's not an executive, a manager, a supervisor, anybody that did not with a red shirt parking car. I mean, that's what Chick's light has too. Yeah. Yeah. So we, you know, we've been blessed really good talent come in and really good people, and we try to give them opportunity to grow. And again, we stay connected. So there's rules, like, Our management team, my management team, they're not allowed to have their doors closed. They're not allowed to have iPads or I pods your things in just to demonstrate to our folks that if you need something, you just come on in. Yeah. Those simple things. I mean, we do a lot from from our broker standpoint at helping employers with the concept of employee engagement. Mhmm. You know, we have a whole practice that helps employers with employee engagement. But some of the things that you're talking about is employee engagement. Right. There. I mean, making sure your managers have their door open. Yeah. Making sure people aren't walking around with airbuds in and that kind of stuff just allows interaction among an employee population. And I mean, that's that's huge. I mean, we can all learn a lot from that, man. Yeah. I think you have to believe it as an organization that those front line employees really are the most important ways, and then you have to do you have to do things that show them that's true. Yeah. So, you know, one of the other things is you may see me every once in a while at the airport because if we have a busy night, I'm going on grabbing all our guys. I don't care what your title is, and we're getting in a car and putting our shirt on, and we're going out to the airport. Yeah. So Yeah. There are crazy nights with delays and oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can see the weather out. That might happen tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Does look pretty gloomy right now. So Alright. Well, I want I wanna kinda hear about what's going on with Freedom Park right now. What's the future looking like? I know that there's some expansion going on. Mhmm. Let's let's talk about that. Yeah. We're in the middle of it right now. So we we just launched our third airport at Salt Lake Okay. And anytime you launch a new airport It almost takes you back to the grassroots at the always does. So so it's funny you said, so two weeks ago, I'm I'm out there with me, my director of operations, and we're in Red Shirts khaki pants, and we're training valets and valet parking cars. Yeah. Which is fun. I mean, I enjoy it. Right? You get back to it. But every every city is challenging because every city, every airport's run differently. And so, we launched two weeks ago and very quickly, the airport came to us and said, well, you can't be doing this. And we said, well, you gave us a permit to do this. So now, we're into some negotiations with kind of a more long term plan with Salt Lake City Airport, but I think within the next couple weeks, we'll be fully launched and have our our third airport. And then we have two others that were pretty actively looking looking at. And so on the airport side is just finding good markets where the service is needed. And as traveler, you know, it's needed. And then aggressively trying to get into those to the airports. Well, I'd say if there's anybody listening that lives in Salt Lake City, or is a part of that airport, they need to know that that Freedom Park is a blessing. And -- Thank you for that. -- and that you guys really enhance the whole experience in the airport. So I only expect continued great things. And I think the things that you're talking about, like Just the example of what you're doing in Salt Lake right now that you're putting your red shirt on. Yeah. Those are the unique things that we're seeing with these organizations that execute excellence that we're talking about. Sure. You know? And so really appreciate you sharing that. Appreciate who you are. Thank you. Appreciate your faithfulness. And just thanks for this time, man. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. I appreciate this is fun. Yeah. Good stuff. Thanks, man.