Page 65 - Entrepreneur-November 2018

Franchisor

Taking a Slice of the Pie

Pizza is easy to love—but in a field dominated by giants, it’s not always easy to sell. So Toppers Pizza
founder Scott Gittrich found a working strategy: Get loud and rowdy. by HAYDEN FIELD

cott Gittrich is starting a pizza war. Almost
30 years ago, he left a manager role at Domino’s
to launch the Wisconsin-based pizza brand
Toppers Pizza. Since then, he’s been taking
swings at his former employer—and earlier this
year, Domino’s struck back with a cease-and-
desist letter. (It was because of a recent ad claim-
S ing that Domino’s ships factory-made dough
to its stores. “Them: Dough fresh off the semi. Us: Dough
made fresh in-house daily,” it says.) But Gittrich says he’s
happy for the controversy; it only helps him gain atten-
tion in a crowded field. Now the company he began with
$30,000 in savings has 80 restaurants, a growing roster of
franchisees, and pizza that’s worth legal action.

Your marketing is feisty, to say good friends at Domino’s, and
the least. What’s the strategy? they’re certainly a good com-
From the very beginning, we pany that does a lot of things
had this rowdy, smack-talk atti- right. But hey, there are some
tude. It was kind of acciden- things we do differently, and we
tal at first, but now we’ve got a think we’re better. Customers
brand image that matches our can make their own choice.
culture. It’s real, it’s relevant,
and it cuts through the clutter. In a crowded segment,
Good advertising tells custom- how do you build a loyal
ers what’s different about you. customer base? people I either knew from One of my favorite stories is
When we found out that many It starts in the restaurant. Domino’s or people who from about 10 years ago. I was
of our customers didn’t know There’s nothing we could do worked at Toppers and scraped visiting a franchisee’s restaurant
some of the practices we pride that would overcome bad man- together the money to open up and there was this young pizza
ourselves on, we decided to cre- agement in a restaurant. I their first pizza place. A lot of delivery guy. He was like, “Oh
ate a campaign that called out know that sounds hokey, but our restaurants are still owned my gosh—I can’t tell you how
what we do differently—like that’s the reality of it. Back in by those first franchisees. much I love working at Toppers.
making our dough from scratch the beginning, we used to buy Recently, we’ve attracted more I’m going to be a franchisee one
and using dough that’s never boxes of flyers, hand them out restaurant people—an operator day.” At the time, he was working
been frozen. We’re poking our to people, and put them on car at Papa John’s, an operator at for a franchisee who had worked
competitors in the eye. windshields. Our advertising Domino’s. Most contact us via for another franchisee who had
was so low-tech and unsophis- referral, but we’re picky about worked for me at one of my
Why single out Domino’s? ticated, but what we did in the the people we do business with restaurants. So I thought of that
It’s really the whole industry, restaurant and how we inter- because we want that organic, kid as my great-great-grandson
but we decided to use Domino’s acted with customers gave peo- owner-operated feel. We’re an in the pizza business. It gave PHOTOGR APH COURTESY OF TOPPERS PIZZ A
as our placeholder for the big ple a reason to be loyal. underdog in a big segment, so me the shivers. A place that
pizza chains. We came up with you’ve got to be a fighter. started off as an idea has become
the idea to do it in a brash, As you continue to grow, a place where people can feel
fun-loving sort of way, and, how do you recruit your Do a lot of your restaurant good about showing up to work,
gosh, am I glad we did. I do it franchisees? employees still eventually building their own business, and
with love. I’ve got a bunch of Our first franchisees were become franchisees? making a living.

82 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / November 2018