By Charlie Pogacar
As a second-generation Little Caesars franchisee, Jennifer Martin knows better than most that community engagement is the lifeblood of a pizza business. Martin owns two stores in St. Joseph, Missouri, a small city north of Kansas City that’s home to about 70,000 people. Martin learned the business from her parents, who were longtime Little Caesars franchisees before her, and even enjoyed working for and with them for several years in the 1990s prior to her taking over the business.
In Martin’s opinion, community engagement is even more important when you’re the franchisee of a national brand. There’s a tendency, she said, for some folks to forget that franchisees are small business owners.
“There’s a real push now—and I think it’s a good push—to support small businesses and local businesses,” Martin said. “So it’s important for us to let people know, hey, that’s us, too. You have to find ways to differentiate yourself from others, especially when you have a national name on your building.”
Related: The Largest Pizza Hut Franchisee Just Eclipsed 1,000 U.S.-Based Locations
Martin has thus worked hard to establish connections within the local community. She has formed a tight working relationship with local schools—to which she might donate time, money or pizza depending on the occasion—and even a local college and its sports teams, which compete at the NCAA Division II level. There are also fun occasions where Martin will bring the Little Caesars mascot to a catered birthday party to liven up the day for children. No week looks the same, she said, but one thing they all have in common is the consistent attention to the community around her.
The good that Martin puts out into the community is returned to her business in several different ways. As she alluded to, it helps the people of St. Joseph put a face and name to the Little Caesars stores in their community. It also, she said, makes recruiting and retaining employees that much easier.
“The more things that we do with the kids, the better chance we have of keeping a good solid crew,” Martin said. “I’d say 90% of our team members are in high school. If these kids see us in their class in elementary school, or in middle school at a Career Day, then they see us during their high school basketball game—maybe they’ll want to come work for us.”
Martin added that none of her community engagement would be possible without a robust support network. That begins with her husband, Jay, who is a human resources manager for a different local company but “knows how to do just about every job in the restaurant by now.” It also includes Trent Neil, Martin’s director of operations who has been with the company for 18 years. Neil is in the process of becoming a business partner with Martin and receiving an equity share because of his great work. Having an experience veteran as her director of operations means Martin feels comfortable leaving the shops, knowing she’s leaving them in capable hands when she’s out and about at community functions.
“It really can be cyclical for us,” Martin said. “We are fortunate to have some really great long-term people who are our managers. All of our managers start out as crew people, and we raise them up in our system. We focus on the basics with them, and if we are making good pizza, giving good service, as long as I’m confident that’s happening, then I can get out there as much as I can.”
Martin has operated her two current stores continuously since 2013. When asked if she ever thinks about expanding, she said she does, but at the moment, she is satisfied with where the business is at. If she ever does expand, though, she’ll do so knowing the new store will have plenty of support based on her playbook of community engagement.
“I feel like you have to be open to opportunities as they present themselves,” Martin said. “But right now, we’re pretty content in our city. Geographically, where we are located, we are spread out correctly. But we definitely could expand in areas near us in the future. It’s not that I definitely think that will happen—but it’s certainly not out of the question.”
