Here’s How She Does It (One Sweet Episode) - Betsy Hamm, CEO of Duck Donuts

Today's female CEO super-star, Betsy Hamm, joins Restaurants Reinvented to talk about franchise marketing, branding, community involvement, empathetic leadership, & so much more! 

Betsy is the new CEO of Duck Donuts, a successful donut shop franchise with 100+ stores worldwide. She entered the restaurant industry after working at Hershey Foods for 14 years. After that, Betsy started the formal marketing function at Duck Donuts, moved into operations, and is now the chief executive officer. From the time she joined the company five years ago, Duck Donuts has achieved 5x growth and continues to expand across the globe.

We're so excited to have a smart, strong, and courageous female marketer turned CEO on our show today!

Show Highlights
• The beauty of a franchisee brand 
Betsy & Duck Donuts stresses the importance of community involvement and their franchisees excel at being extending the brand locally, anything from donating donuts to schools to dropping some off at the local fire station.  The marketing "...really has to be from the franchisee's perspective ... getting them to really own the brand and elevate their game to help grow the brand and their store sales..." is the focus on Duck Donut's branding.

• What does a well-thought-out franchising model look like?
Hear how Betsy uses the predictive index assessment to find the right 'marriage' with franchisees that fit their culture and model.

• Why even small restaurant chains need marketing.
Betsy does a great job explaining how marketing and brand building helps even small restaurants build a bigger-than-life brand. She details the "free" marketing channels available, such as social media and others.

• Use social media to engage with your customers.
If you already receive lots of user-generated content on social media, why not use it to your benefit! That's exactly what marketers at Duck Donuts focus on, their customers' love. "We don't have millions of dollars in our marketing budgets. So we do have to be very strategic and also very engaged with our customers to maximize their love for us."

• Empathetic Leadership
The importance of being empathetic, realistic, and positive. As humans, leaders, and workers. Betsy focuses on constant communication with franchisees to help them get through uncertain times.

• From junior Marketer to CMO to COO to CEO! 
Not only is Betsy an experienced and talented marketer, but she also thrives in connecting the dots and uniting marketing and operations. Combining these skills turned out to be the key reason why the CEO asked her to replace him. She's now 4 months into her new role and we know she's going to do GREAT THINGS!

Tune in to hear her sweet & exciting story.

Resources
• Connect with Betsy Hamm on LinkedIn
• Duck Donuts
• The Biggest Challenges and Opportunities for Restaurant Marketers in 2021
• Refresh Your Brand (Now!) - (RR Podcast Episode)

Check out Qu's Annual State of Digital for Enterprise QSR & Fast Casual Brands