589: Lessons from 30+ years at McDonald’s – with Mike Yontz, McDonald’s Corp

Episode notes

Delighting customers turned this McDonald's fry guy into an owner/operator of 11 franchises Watch on YouTube TLDR In this episode of Product Mastery Now, I'm interviewing Mike Yontz, owner/operator of 11 McDonald’s restaurants, about scaling customer experience, leadership philosophies, and innovation within the McDonald's ecosystem. Mike shares his journey from “fry guy” to owner, the importance of empathy and leadership development, insights into McDonald's collaborative innovation, and advice for maintaining customer focus as organizations scale. Introduction Can you answer this riddle? I'm sitting at a cafe early one morning, working on my laptop. I observe three customers in a row going to the front counter and being greeted by name. As the fourth customer approaches, the person behind the counter says, "Good morning Tim. Here's your newspaper. Do you want your usual?" Where am I? If you answered a local coffee shop, that would make sense. A Starbucks maybe? Not one I have been too. No, this occurred at a McDonald's store. I was shocked. I was also curious who the person behind the counter was that welcomed customers by name.