Why Zaxbys COO Sharlene Smith puts alignment ahead of big ideas

When Sharlene Smith joined Zaxbys as chief operating officer in 2022, she expected catering to grow into a much larger share of sales within two years. It didn't, and she said the problem wasn't the idea.

"My key learnings are that if you don't have alignment from the top to the store level, most great ideas won't work as intended," Smith said in an email interview..

That lesson drives her keynote, "Every Brand Has a Strategy. Few Have Alignment," at the Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit, March 8-10 in New Orleans. Smith will share how Zaxbys gets corporate teams, franchisees and front-line crews to carry out the same plan in every restaurant.

Why great ideas stall

With catering, Smith said, the leadership team wasn't aligned on putting the needed resources behind the channel. Too many competing initiatives also pulled support away from it.

She said franchising attracts people with an entrepreneurial spirit who bring plenty of ideas. The brand's job, she said, is to turn those ideas into strategies "that help create an aligned experience that moves the entire system forward together with speed and purpose."

Leading from the franchisee's side of the table

Smith also weighs those decisions as a former multi-unit franchisee.

"I understand what it feels like to invest your hard-earned dollars in a company and how important it is to help our franchisees be financially successful," she said.

Guest experience and franchisee financial health top her list when Zaxbys weighs companywide initiatives, Smith said. Her team also runs more than 140 company-owned restaurants, so her decisions affect those stores the same way they affect franchisees' stores.

Fixing the drive-thru

Zaxbys CEO Bernard Acoca said he brought Smith on in part to fix the brand's drive-thru. It became about 70% of sales during the pandemic but was "woefully slow relative to our competitors," he said.

"Everything starts with operations, right? I mean, that's the cake and then marketing we consider to be the icing on the cake," Acoca said on the Fast Casual Nation podcast.

Zaxby's has since improved drive-thru throughput, capacity and speed of service by more than 20%, Acoca said. Franchisees must now meet an operations scorecard before they can grow. Acoca said Smith will cover that scorecard, which measures company-owned and franchised restaurants the same way, in her keynote.

What RFIS attendees will hear

Attendees should also expect a lesson in patience. Smith said working with fewer resources than she had at McDonald's taught her to think outside the box.

"Coming from McDonald's where every process, tool and resource was built and available, what I learned is that building the tools, processes and training, and gaining adoption takes more time than just gaining alignment and focusing on execution," she said.

Smith has more than 30 years in restaurant operations, including leading a McDonald's region and overseeing Papa John's North American operations, according to the RFIS session description.

Zaxbys expects to finish 2026 with about 1,050 to 1,060 restaurants and to be in 25 states next year, Acoca said.

Register here for RFIS.