Tony Libardi of Marco’s Pizza: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Uncertain & Turbulent Times
People-First Approach: While tech and innovation reign supreme, Marco’s credits its success to its People-First approach to business. Customer empathy is essential in building an exceptional customer experience. Billion-dollar companies have figured out how to make the most of the relationships with their customers by understanding basic truths about being human. Strive to establish a positive emotional connection with customers — it will lead to consistent and reliable results you’ll be dependent on during challenging times.
As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Tony Libardi.
Tony Libardi has over 30 years of successful restaurant experience building profitable organizations within highly competitive markets. Libardi joined Marco’s in 2014 and was promoted to Co-CEO & President in January 2021, from President/COO. Libardi has evolved Marco’s into a performance-driven culture that puts ‘People First’ including employees, franchisees and our customers. Libardi is focused on product, process and technology to grow the brand to new heights. Prior to joining Marco’s, Libardi spent 10 years running a $1 billion division of Burger King Corporation as the Vice President of Company Operations leading a restaurant portfolio of 750 locations with combined sales of approximately $900 million annually and over $145 million in EBITDA. Libardi also ran the joint venture between Magic Johnson and Burger King, serving as the principal liaison in a huge marketing initiative.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
My background is not typical of your run of the mill C-level executive, as the path I took to Co-CEO & President of Marco’s Pizza started with boots on the ground military experience.
While I have over 30 years of successful restaurant experience building profitable organizations within highly competitive markets, my leadership journey really started in the military when I joined the U.S. Marines in 1985. I learned invaluable lessons: self-discipline, patience, accountability, and how to demand excellence — all of which has set me up for a successful career to the c-suite.
Prior to joining Marco’s Pizza, I spent 10 years running a $1 billion division of Burger King Corporation as the Vice President of Company Operations leading a restaurant portfolio of 750 locations with combined sales of approximately $900 million annually and over $145 million in EBITDA.
I joined the Marco’s team in 2014 as President & COO and was promoted to Co-CEO & President in January 2021. My role has been centered on evolving Marco’s into a performance-driven brand that puts ‘People First,’ including employees, franchisees, and our customers.
With an eye for product, process, and technology, we’ve been able to grow Marco’s to become the nation’s fastest growing pizza brand based on year-over-year unit growth, average unit volume, as well as new units, currently boasting 1,100-plus stores with $1B in annual systemwide sales.
Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
What I found most challenging assuming leadership roles is the art of delegation. I’ve had to learn how to get out of the weeds of the day-to-day operational side of the business and reframe my mindset to focus on the brand’s big picture vision — which now is to maintain steady and rapid growth while Marco’s strives to become the nation’s №4 brand in pizza.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Talk to us about Marco’s vision/ purpose.
Marco’s is a purpose-driven business with a People-First culture. We are striving to be the pizza brand that connects with customers at the human level. We’ve grown from humble beginnings as a small, regional concept to a nationally accredited brand, and as we continue to expand our footprint, we will never lose sight of those neighborhoods that have made Marco’s their pizza of choice.
To commemorate our $1B annual systemwide sales achievement, we’ve launched the Marco’s Pizza Foundation as an extension of our mission to empower franchisees and team members to make a positive difference in their communities.
The new effort marks a deeper commitment to unification across Marco’s as it brings our brand, franchisees, and the communities we serve closer together under one common cause. The Foundation will support four key pillars: School & Education, Hunger Prevention & Nutrition, Workforce Development, and Entrepreneurship.
Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?
As a leader, you must embrace the ability to accelerate innovation during difficult times. As we’re facing economic challenges, labor shortages, and consumer demands for convenience and speed, our leadership team took action to strategically best position our brand to navigate difficult times.
For example, we recently announced the investment of millions of dollars in technology innovations over the next few years designed to create business efficiencies, maximize order growth, and improve the customer experience. Such projects include:
Migrating to a 100% cloud-based order management system
Utilizing AI for voice-to-text ordering and generating automated promise times
Digital wallet payment technology
Rapid adoption of third-party delivery
Testing new operational equipment to improve efficiencies in the kitchen
Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?
From my experience in the military, I’ve learned to eliminate failure as an option. Instead, look at uncertainty as an opportunity to test your ability and grow your resiliency.
Opportunity lies within many obstacles — identify your vision, what you hope to achieve after addressing the obstacle. This will allow you and your team to redirect their energies to a higher purpose and know the work you do each day is making a positive difference toward that vision.
What inspires me and sustains my drive is watching franchisees grow and develop their business entities.
From Joe Jaros who worked his way up from a Marco’s delivery driver to thriving franchisee, to stories like Rafi Vargas and Kattya Barbaran — immigrant entrepreneurs who opened our milestone 1,000th store, to Kal Gullapalli who left Wall Street to build a multi-brand portfolio and is now on a mission to grow a 100-plus-unit Marco’s empire, everyone in our network has a unique growth story. These are the types of stories that inspire and motivate me, contributing to the why behind what I do.
I’m an author and I believe that books have the power to change lives. Do you have a book in your life that impacted you and inspired you to be an effective leader? Can you share a story?
I’ve read a lot of books that have helped me be an effective leader. I really can’t pick just one. I’m continually reading, learning, and picking up on new approaches. There are three books that come to mind that I perhaps refer to most often:
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradburry
Constructive Conflicts by Louis Kriesberg
All three of these books really helped influence the performance-driven organization created here at Marco’s and some of our core cultural beliefs like People-First, Hospitality Always, All In, Real Talk, and Take Action.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?
Prioritizing a people-first mentality. During challenging times, you realize your people are your most valuable asset; lean in.
At Marco’s, we often say we are in the people business not the pizza business. Leaders of people-centric organizations understand that it is their people who make their business successful. In order to make this a reality for our brand, we’ve created a culture of people-first, meaning we are only as strong as our franchisees, dedicated team members, and loyal customers — putting people at the center of everything we do.
Well-run organizations use culture to drive unprecedented results during challenging times. For example, throughout the pandemic and even now, Marco’s achieved historic, record-breaking sales and aggressive franchise growth. We credit this success to rallying behind our people-first cultural belief. Our key priorities will always center on People, Business, and Community Health.
By maintaining our future-focus mentality on these three things, we have been able to pivot and quickly change our policies, operations, and marketing to align with our future path while effectively navigating economic challenges.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
A fierce, positive, resilient mindset is what team members need from their leaders — especially in the face of uncertainty. Inspiration unleashes motivation. Thinking about the future gives people something to look forward to. Be transparent on how you are addressing challenges and be clear in your vision so your team can redirect their energies to a higher purpose, knowing the work they do each day is making a difference. People want to be inspired to be innovative and experiment with new ideas in intelligent ways — and this is exactly what your business needs in the face of economic uncertainty.
How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?
Prioritize projects that impact bottom line results — for us that means it must benefit both our franchisees and customers.
An unpredictable future is a big obstacle, and can be overwhelming. A useful technique I learned from the Marines is to break up each piece so it becomes more manageable (i.e., recruitment and retention, supply chain, marketing, product development, technology, etc.). Once you have a set of manageable pieces, you can tackle each one individually.
Most importantly, you must remain agile — especially in the face of uncertainty. Things are changing on a day-to-day basis so you must reset your mindset to be open and receptive to change. When you don’t adapt to changing conditions, you become stagnate and cannot grow. Just remember, solutions can evolve and improve as things change.
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times to remain committed to growth and progress?
Adhering to your Cultural Beliefs. During the pandemic, it was important as a company that no matter what the circumstances that we didn’t veer from our core beliefs and we used them as a filter for every decision.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
Showing lack of respect and appreciation for employees — In difficult times, many companies look to layoffs or furloughs or headcount reductions first to help meet numbers or satisfy shareholders because sometimes it is the easiest path, but that short-term fix could hurt long-term.
Not listening to the customer — In difficult times, sometimes companies ignore what customers are telling them because sometimes the truth hurts or it is too much trouble to fix what is broken. If customers feel ignored, they will stop providing you feedback or worse yet, never return.
Blaming forces beyond your control — There will be recessions, natural disasters, pandemics, inflation and regulations, etc. Many companies jump on the defensive and blame these factors for their poor performance. It is how you respond as a company that should be the ultimate focus and control the things that you can control.
To avoid these mistakes, I am a big believer in the service-profit chain where a high-quality product plus employee satisfaction, loyalty and productivity leads to a strong value proposition and satisfaction among customers which ultimately drives profits and growth. When the service-profit chain is working, great performance follows.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.
Marco’s achieved its $1B in annual systemwide sales milestone amid uncertain and turbulent economic times. Here’s how:
People-First Approach: While tech and innovation reign supreme, Marco’s credits its success to its People-First approach to business. Customer empathy is essential in building an exceptional customer experience. Billion-dollar companies have figured out how to make the most of the relationships with their customers by understanding basic truths about being human. Strive to establish a positive emotional connection with customers — it will lead to consistent and reliable results you’ll be dependent on during challenging times.
Prioritize Being Hyper-Local: Especially during turbulence; you must prioritize hyper-local community connection. To your customers and your community, you are not a 1,000-plus franchise chain, you are the mom-and-pop down the street. Knowing your customers, your community and serving them and their specific needs during challenging times will be critical to your success.
Embrace Authenticity: We see it all the time — brands panicking during difficult times and straying from their core. Stay true to who you are as a brand, and simply evolve and remain culturally relevant. You have to find a way to balance heritage with innovation to allow for the evolution of your brand.
Assemble the Right Team & Empower Them to Preform: It is not enough to have a great product and great marketing to carry you through tough times; you’ve got to have the right people. That means having individuals who have specific expertise in each area of responsibility. Once you have the right people, empower them to make decisions. The job of a leader is to collaborate, formulate, and communicate a clear strategy and vision and then allow the proper freedom to let the team carry it out. This will, in turn, foster a culture of accountability and propel your company forward no matter what setbacks previously faced.
Let Core Values Guide Your Business Decisions: By prioritizing core values, leaders are able to build teams with the right people in the right seats to actualize the company’s purpose well into the future. Marco’s has relied heavily on core values and cultural beliefs to guide decision making in its 40-plus-year history which has led to ongoing double-digit growth. By maintaining your future-focus on core values, culture has the power to unify your business and inspire accountability, innovation, and resiliency.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Place a value on relationships and people — that’s what really matters.
I learned this from my father, who passed away when I was 22-years-old. He was a hard-working blue-collar man who would wake up at 5 a.m., grind at work all day, and then come home and support his family. Losing him was impactful and this lesson taught me that beyond money, technology, and innovation, the secret weapon to success is relationships and people.
How can our readers further follow Marco’s Pizza?
For more information on Marco’s Pizza franchise opportunities, visit www.marcos.com/franchising/.
To browse our menu and product offerings, visit www.marcos.com.
To learn more about the Marco’s Pizza Foundation, visit www.marcos.com/foundation.
We also encourage those interested to follow Marco’s Pizza on our social channels — LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Tony Libardi of Marco’s Pizza: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.