Q But, but how did you Control the brand when you were, you know, it was just 80 stores by 1980. How did you control the brand?
A I didn't really do a good job of that, and I didn't realize I had a brand, but I'll tell you the key to a field-based organization with partnerships and everything is the bank statement. The fact that I was reconciling the bank statement under my auspices I was in charge of the payroll for the locations. I was in charge of, uh, ultimately we became in charge of all their accounts receivable. You only do three things in business, and it's really simple. Motivate your workers, understand your customers, and balance your checkbook. The best definition of management is management is to remove obstacles, and I wanted every obstacle for my partners and those, those store managers so they could be loving the customers. So I took I tried to take every impediment away from the easy flow of that relationship.
AI assessment note: “I didn't really do a good job of that, and I didn't realize”