Who owns our customers and who will serve them?Who owns our customers and who will serve them?

Jim Sullivan is a popular keynote speaker at leadership, franchisee and GM conferences worldwide. This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of Nation’s Restaurant News. 

In the leadership keynotes and workshops I conduct globally at foodservice and franchisee conferences, I often begin with the following anecdote: “If you asked a farmer 125 years ago what he’d need to be more productive in the future, he’d probably tell you he’d like a horse twice as strong that ate half as many oats. He would not say he needed a tractor.”

Conversely, if you asked a restaurant owner 20 years ago what she would need to be more productive in the future, she’d probably say, "I need more effective newspaper ads and a s...