Powering Franchise Excellence:

Jeff Walter (00:00)

Hi, and welcome back to the podcast. I’m Jeff Walter, your host. Today I have Jason Moss of Batteries Plus from Batteries Plus. Jason is the vice president of store development and training operations at Battery Plus, where he leads the strategy and execution of all training programs across the system, from onboarding new franchisees to delivering ongoing education to stores and team owners. Jason ensures every member of the network is equipped with tools and the knowledge they need to succeed.

 

In addition to overseeing site selection, construction, and operational support, he has developed scalable systems that empower both franchisees and corporate teams to be successful. His leadership has been pivotal in fostering a culture of operational excellence, continuous learning, and long-term growth throughout the brand. Jason, welcome to the Training Impact Podcast, and thank you for agreeing to be a guest.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (00:46)

Hi Jeff, it’s pleasure to be here. Glad to do it.

 

Jeff Walter (00:49)

So why don’t you, let’s start off, give us a little bit about Batteries Plus, what they do, how many franchises y’all have and what continents and where in the world they are. And then how did you end up as vice president of store development and training?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (01:06)

Yeah, Jeff, we started in Wisconsin. We’re Wisconsin Midwest based company. Started in Green Bay, Wisconsin, right? The home of the Packers. lot of us Batteries Plus employees become Packer fans really quickly. And, you know, we’ve got

 

Jeff Walter (01:20)

That could be worse.

 

You could be in Madison. I’m in Ann Arbor. But I imagine you got a lot of Badger fans up there too.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (01:26)

yeah, it’s in our blood. You become a member real fast. I’m not from Wisconsin,

 

but you join the clubs quick.

 

Jeff Walter (01:34)

That’s right. I’m

 

sorry. You’re going.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (01:36)

No, have about 750 stores nationwide. in all but. In fact, we just signed a new franchise agreement in Rhode Island and that leaves us with only Delaware as the remaining state missing a unit. even Hawaii.

 

Jeff Walter (01:47)

Okay.

 

So you saved the two biggest

 

states for last.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (01:55)

That’s right.

 

That’s how it works. You know, even Hawaii, we’ve got a new franchisee out there too, and Puerto Rico as well. So we’ve got a pretty expansive network of stores across our system. 80 % of our stores are franchise owned a little more than 80%. About 600 of those are franchise owned. We’ve got about 300 franchise ownership groups in our system. And we’re, you know, the nation’s largest battery and

 

Jeff Walter (02:15)

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (02:21)

Taylor, we also provide a number of services which we can talk about as we go here. But it’s one the things that makes us unique is our service that coincides with the products we sell. we also provide device repair, phone tablet repair. We do key fob programming, key fob cutting. We also have other auto related products and device repair and key fob related products as well. then Storm, you know, Storm

 

preps and survival gear is one of our big products as well. do a lot of backup battery power. Self-sustaining power is a huge market and that’s really where we reside.

 

Jeff Walter (02:58)

And so how did you end up as a vice president of store development and training?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (03:01)

Yeah, you know, it’s funny. We were talking a little bit before. It’s not something I certainly ever set out to do. It wasn’t something that I thought about ⁓ in a while. But, know, my career has been, you know, I started off as an entrepreneur when I was going to school. I started a carpet cleaning, turned into a water disaster and property management business. It grew into a relatively large thing. And, know, I spent most of my days bringing on new employees and trading new employees.

 

and building that business. I learned very quickly about systems and processes and operational importance and excellence. And it became kind of a passion. I ended up selling that business to a local competitor and then went back to school. I loved data and analytics and went back to school, did a master’s degree and came to work as batteries plus in the real estate and development department and quickly expanded into operations and helping to ⁓

 

set up our new franchisees for success, And now we now essentially expanding that into even managing the entire training for the entire system, not just for new stores. And that’s how we got here. It’s been a little bit of a surprising road, but here we are.

 

Jeff Walter (04:09)

Well,

 

so going back, so how ⁓ old were you when you started the ⁓ cleaning business?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (04:14)

Oh boy, you’re taking me back. I’ll date myself a little bit here. It’s been about, so that would have been… I was, you know, early in my college. I think I was probably 20, 22, something around in there, about when I did that. So, yeah, it’s been a minute.

 

Jeff Walter (04:17)

I, it’s like that, like right out of high school or something or.

 

Uh-huh.

 

And how

 

did that go from a carpet cleaning business to a disaster recovery to property management? when you said that, it felt like three separate industries, right? You were like, yeah, I went from this to this to this and built a business as all the way to competitor. like, it’s kind of like, well, I was making hamburgers and then I decided to open up an oil change place and I got it.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (04:46)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (04:58)

How did the business evolve from one to the other? That’s just interesting.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (05:03)

Yeah, surprisingly, there’s actually a lot of a lot of synergies in those businesses. know, mainly, you know, as carpet cleaning, a lot of the equipment we use into clean carpets can also be used to remove water. And so you expand naturally into water mitigation. then, of course, once you dry something out, now you got to build it back and that becomes the next the next step in the process. And so once you’ve, you know, kind of managed a little bit of construction business and putting, you doing a lot of that

 

Jeff Walter (05:15)

⁓ okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (05:31)

put back from a flood. You know a lot of property management and real estate is very synergistic as well. lot of the maintenance that goes into that becomes a pretty quick thing. you know just as any entrepreneur would someone presented me once with an opportunity to do something. We took it and realized we could do it and scale it pretty easily and then we just kind of kept going from there.

 

Jeff Walter (05:54)

That’s very,

 

and how has that, I mean, that’s really fascinating. You start with a carpet cleaning business and you go, well, as long as I’m doing that, I can add some responsibilities and some capabilities and now I can do disaster mitigation. And then as long as I now have the capabilities to do that, a lot of property management is not disaster mitigation, but it’s along the lines of property maintenance and when things go bad. And so let me add a set of responsibilities above that and take on.

 

you know, ever more value added roles within that property sector. how is that applied? What lessons have you learned there that you’ve applied to what you’re doing at Batteries Plus?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (06:31)

Yeah, I mean it’s a great question. You know, we all, mean, batteries plus is…

 

Maybe a little different business, the principles are the same there. mean, at batteries plus, we don’t just sell batteries, right? We sell every kind of battery and those batteries have, you know, these batteries that go into an auto, right? So when you come in and get a battery change that batteries plus, you can also get your windshield wipers replaced. You can get your car, your new key fob added, right? Most people, I mean, it’s very common to only have one key fob, right? So recognizing like, hey, people are coming in and they have this need.

 

Jeff Walter (06:39)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (07:05)

of, oh, I would love to have a backup key fob. I get my battery changed in my key fob all the time. Why not get a new key fob while I’m here? I get my battery changed all the time. The wipers are two steps away. Why not get new wipers while I’m here? I’m buying a new backup generator. Why not get some flashlights while I’m here too? A lot of our products and services work very well together and provide the next need that a customer would have. They come in for one thing. We likely have something else that would

 

go along with that, the first product that they’re looking for.

 

Jeff Walter (07:34)

So is

 

vehicle batteries kind of the bread and butter and then other power systems have kind of like expanded there and then gone vertical into like wipers and keypops? Is that kind of the core or?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (07:48)

Yeah, our

 

core business is battery power, right? So self-sustaining power. And I would put lighting in that core category as well. We provide light bulbs. as that world has expanded, it’s much more of a commercial application for us now. I mean, you know.

 

Jeff Walter (07:52)

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (08:06)

We have franchisees out there who are doing complete building, relighting from old incandescence to new LED panels in their ceilings. We have huge projects that we do, multi-million dollar projects of lighting in buildings. We do that pretty consistently across our system. But yeah, and then we go vertical from there in lots of different ways. There’s so many applications. I if you were to even look in your own home, there’s so many things that

 

run on battery power or could run on battery power and it’s only expanding more and more every day.

 

Jeff Walter (08:37)

So how long ago did you join Batteries Plus?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (08:40)

So I’ve been at Batteries Plus for six years. I’ve been training operations themselves for a little over a year now. Made a lot of progress and still have a nice plan to go forward still.

 

Jeff Walter (08:42)

Okay.

 

And

 

at what point did you take on responsibility for franchise training?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (08:58)

Yeah, it’s been a little over a year, so just the beginning of 2024.

 

Jeff Walter (09:02)

And what are you trying to accomplish with the training program? How do you know you’re doing a good job or how do you measure success? What are you trying to accomplish with the training program?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (09:13)

I mean, Jeff, that’s probably a complicated question. We’ll get through it.

 

Jeff Walter (09:16)

Well, it was very easy

 

question to ask. Might be a complicated answer though.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (09:22)

We, you know, look, one of the things that really sets us apart at Batteries Plus, right? If you talk to, you know, look, first of all, look at our medallion scores, right? If you have somebody that comes into a Batteries Plus, they’re typically looking for something, right? And I would say, you know, in a vast majority of those situations that it usually has a question associated with the product they’re looking for. Why do I want to buy this particular product over that? Or what do I need to ensure that I’ve got the right product for my boat, for my ATV, for my car? How long does

 

going to last, it going to work in my situation. There’s a level of expertise that is associated with every one of our products. There’s a choice, like do I need to buy an OEM, is an aftermarket going to work for my phone? All of these things that requires a certain level of expertise, it is very unique to our retail store. People don’t just come in to get the product they need.

 

Jeff Walter (10:10)

Right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (10:13)

They usually need a question answered that is associated with that product too. so it’s, you know, we, we kind of, we talk about, look, we’re the power, we’re the experts in charge, right? That’s our, that’s our motto. If you were our slogan and you come into our store, you need to be able to have that question answered by us, by an associate who knows what they’re talking about can provide you the right, the right information. So you can make an educated choice about what you need, because a lot of, a lot of our

 

Jeff Walter (10:18)

Okay.

 

I like that.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (10:40)

product, it powers things that are necessary for our lives. And if you don’t get what you need and that breaks down in a month, or the battery isn’t lasting, or it isn’t the right type of battery and isn’t going to give you the power that you need, you could be in a real problem. And so it’s essential that they have an experience associated with an expert. And that’s something that our stores, it really sets us apart as a brand to be able to provide that expertise to our customers. And if you go into

 

Jeff Walter (10:57)

Okay.

 

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (11:09)

say one of our competitors and you don’t get that answer, it would be expected that you come into a battery plus you’re going to get that answer every time.

 

And in most of our associates, we have a lot of associates in our stores, Jeff. It’s one of the greats. I love this about Batteries Plus and the training thing. Since I’ve taken over training, I’ve met so many employees that are passionate about what they do at Batteries Plus. It’s kind of a, know, we unknowingly had this advantage in our stores. It just happened over the years because of our business. We have associates who work in our, who worked in our stores for 20 years and they love

 

Jeff Walter (11:42)

Wow.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (11:43)

working here at Batteries Plus. They love somebody coming in and being like, I need to fixed my phone. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. And they love taking that in the back room and figuring it out. They’re very technical minded and they love being able to answer the questions for people that come into our stores.

 

Jeff Walter (11:57)

So, so then

 

a lot of technical know-how is, it’s almost sounds like it’s a strategic differentiator for you to make sure that your associates, your franchise associates have, well, you know, have all that technical know-how. Cause also you mentioned a bunch of different applications of batteries and not just on the phone, not just on the laptops, not just on the cars and ATVs and all that. But you know, that’s a, you know, there’s a big difference in terms of technical knowledge on what you need from cranking a

 

⁓ you know an f-150 to you know replacing a battery on your laptop, you know, as a to very or you know, or some other rechargeable on a you know consumer device

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (12:35)

Yeah, now that and it’s a technology is changing, We, you know, with the expansion of the lithium market and lithium going on around the world, our ability, the type of power that we’re able to provide is different now than it was even two years ago or five years ago. Right. And so that technology is constantly changing to and our associates and our and our owners across our system have to be knowledgeable on all of that, too. Right.

 

Jeff Walter (12:59)

Yeah.

 

So, so let’s talk about usually what we’ve seen usually in franchise training is, know, there’s an onboarding process for new franchisee and then there’s the ongoing. So it helped take us through what is the onboarding? You know, I’m a new franchisee. I decide, you know, I’m in Ann Arbor, but I’m going to open up the Wilmington Delaware Batteries Plus, because I want you to get your 50th state in. And, and what does that as a new franchisee and

 

my initial set of employees, what does that onboarding training look like?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (13:31)

Yeah, well first Jeff, let me tell you, we’d welcome you in anytime to Delaware. Happy to you get that going real fast. there you go. Well, yeah, we have we have. Look, we have a wider range of.

 

Jeff Walter (13:38)

Yeah, my sister lives on the East shore of Maryland, so Wilmington’s only 45 minutes away.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (13:49)

training offerings, right? We have instructor led training, have virtual training, online training, we have multiple events. We just finished an event here at our corporate headquarters office, a big train the trainer event where we bought in above store leadership and talked about not just how to run a batteries plus, but how to teach your associates how to run the batteries plus, right? And be able to expand that knowledge. We have lots of different ways that we do training. We have a ⁓ field sales training team dedicated to training.

 

Jeff Walter (14:10)

Right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (14:18)

training our associates and our owners across the system. But from an onboarding perspective, if you’re a new franchisee, there’s a few touch points you get with the training team. The first is you are, all of our franchise owners come to Pee-Wah-Kee, Wisconsin to visit our training center. We have a dedicated building to training center. They receive two weeks of instructor-led training. Now we have two types of businesses, again, very complicated.

 

Jeff Walter (14:27)

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (14:44)

business with a lot of technical stuff. So we have a week dedicated to commercial sales and a week dedicated to the retail side of our business. Because our B2B is a huge part of our business and it takes a special skill set and it’s a special knowledge of different types of batteries and selling techniques, right? And so we’re training on all of those things as well. They come here, they learn the commercial, they actually get to go back to their market and start selling commercially before their break.

 

Jeff Walter (14:50)

Okay.

 

Yes.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (15:11)

and mortar opens. It’s one of the unique advantages of our brand.

 

Jeff Walter (15:13)

Oh, interesting. So,

 

so, you know, basically while you’re building out the brick and mortar there, they’re, they’re out there trying to build a commercial book of business. That’s being, it’s being delivered, you know, satisfied from a warehouse or something, you know, remote to the,

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (15:25)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. ⁓

 

And we, know, there’s lots of ways we do that. But, but yeah, you’re able to start building your book of business before you even open your brick and mortar. It’s a huge advantage for our owners that come in, but. Yeah. For then they come back and do the next week of retail training before they open their brick and mortar when that’s ready to go. In the meantime, they, from a new store owner perspective, you also get training in the field, right? We can provide them with a local owner. have, we have what we call our ambassador.

 

Jeff Walter (15:34)

Interesting.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (15:59)

They might they are willing to work with new franchisees and help coach them. We also can put them we have a corporate a vast corporate portfolio as well. So 129 I think now 133 locations in corporate right now. So we have we have a pretty good corporate. We will often let them go work in a corporate store if they want to have a manager train them and we have corporate stores they can go work and they get that too. But they also are provided a commercial coach our commercial team.

 

send someone to their market and helps guide them through goes and does business with them. Learn how to have those conversations, what type of batteries they want to be talking about and focused on in their market. They also get training from what we call our field sales training team. So they have a member that goes out and focuses on retail when their brick and mortar opens. They spend two weeks in their store right after opening and basically help answer those questions that come up that, oh, you what do do about this watch battery that I didn’t think about?

 

or didn’t remember from whatever training, right? So they get a lot of touch points. We also have a very expansive online catalog on our LMS we call the Battery Plus University.

 

So they can access any of that anytime. And then our new associates have a really, a very strong onboarding program that we’re getting ready to release here in the next month. They have it now, but we’ve updated it and really focused on that technical knowledge. I’m very excited about that. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (17:25)

What does that look like? yeah, I was like, so I’m

 

a new associate coming on. What’s the, what’s the new onboarding program look like?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (17:33)

Yeah, so it, you know, obviously a little different, you know, we’re training our franchisee owners. They they’re not, we’re not just training them to run the battery store. We’re training them to own a business too. Right. And then of course, like I said, there’s, there’s multiple, you know, facets to that business. But from a new associate, you know, coming on what, know, we need that, that experience and, know, it’s probably very cliche, but like, you know, you, always hear about the, Chick-fil-A people come in and we have, we have,

 

Quick trip here in Wisconsin if you’re anybody from the Midwest, know the quick trip But if you go into a quick trip every as you’re on your way out, they’ll say see you next time You know, know to chick-fil-a they have very they train their associates to have the same experience everywhere they go, right? And now we don’t have a catchphrase like that But we do have specific questions that need to be able to answer that are to happen all the time, right? So our associates need to have those answers right away And being able to train them on that is it comes from a repetitive nature. There’s an interactive

 

program with their store manager. So there is an online training or virtual training program that they’ll go through that is mixed with instruction booklet with their from their store manager who will walk them through the store afterwards. So they might take a module or two. It can be done in a lot of different order, right? It really is, you know, we might have a busy day on the store and the store manager needs to be on the floor taking care of some customers. It allows flexibility, but the store manager

 

Jeff Walter (18:41)

Okay.

 

Right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (18:57)

would be able to do activities with them on the store floor. So they get some experience doing it and they’re also learning it online.

 

Jeff Walter (19:05)

So, and so the online is all like self-paced e-learning type stuff with some quizzes to make sure you got comprehension. that the way I like to get it?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (19:15)

Yeah, yeah, there’s…

 

Our instructional designers have done a great job implementing all different types of activities to help retain that knowledge. mean, we have a team here that, you we have two great instructional designers. We have a director of learning and development. We have an instructor led full-time associate who manages and leads our instructor led trainings across the system too. And our instructional designers spend a lot of effort on making that content, you know, using techniques and methodologies.

 

Jeff Walter (19:22)

Right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (19:42)

repetitive learning and hands-on activity is coincide with that learning so that they are able to retain that knowledge to you, right? It’s not just to watch this video and then you’re good to go. There’s activities they complete to help retain that knowledge to you.

 

Jeff Walter (19:55)

And

 

is there just one type of associate or are there different types of associates or on different tracks for different types of associates or how does that

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (20:05)

Yeah, great question. Currently, there’s not much. We have a lot of training in our organization. ⁓ Getting into our future plans here and our future goals, I’m very excited about too. Currently today, we have what we call successful startup. You come in, our new associate program is going to be released here. I’m hoping by the end of August. We’ve still got some work to do there, but we’re getting very close.

 

Jeff Walter (20:13)

Uh-huh.

 

Okay. Yeah, that’s cool.

 

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (20:34)

a wide range of positions across our system to ensure that that’s going to be a productive session. know, franchisees even have been heavily involved in the creation of that content. And I’m just very excited about how that’s going to change our associates experience with onboarding. But, know, store managers have a lot to learn to, you know, now you’re getting into like, how do I manage an associate who doesn’t come in on time? How do I manage an associate who didn’t answer the phone the best way that time? Right. Or how do I train

 

these things to how do I as a store manager how do I ensure that this experience is the experience my customers have every time they come into my store right so we will be developing content on that too and really focused on training the trainer when it comes to that our store managers have different responsibilities you know we talked a little bit about in the franchise system training is a little different than if you’re just corporate because you know I can’t go to a franchisee and be like hey you have to train all your employees to

 

to do this, right? We have brand standards, of course, that we expect our customers to be able to experience when they come in our store, but the reality is I have to motivate our franchisees to want to be trained, right? That’s something that we have to help them understand the value of. And so there’s an added complexity to our training, and we overcome that by involving them in our training creation, right? If I have 30 franchisees that all help to provide content

 

build out the content, they’re gonna go back and tell the other franchisees, hey guys, this is gonna work, it’s great, I was involved. That plays in huge, and not to mention, I mean, that’s who we’re working with, right? We need that to work for them. But, yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (22:08)

Right.

 

Well, so is there, you know, well, you hit on one of the core, you know, key issues with franchise training. You know, is, you know, you can’t say, Hey, new associate, have to take this training because we corporate the franchise or say you have to. So it sounds like one technique you use is like, okay, make sure you get the franchisees involved in the training creation process. So you’re not just having a

 

I was interviewing one guy who used to work at some of the, think was Denny’s and, ⁓ Buffalo Wild Wings and ran a bunch of stores there. it was like, the training guys were just off on their own theoretical hypothetical and had no in-store experience. And so he would say they’d have to, ⁓ I forget the term you used, but they’d actually have to bring somebody in to translate that into something that the associates could actually make it actionable.

 

And he had a name for it. was like an adjudicator or something. And I was like, that’s bizarre. So you’re attacking that one way by involving them. Are there any other incentives or rewards? Why would I, as a franchisee, to spend my money training that person? ⁓

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (23:19)

Yeah,

 

I mean, it is the question that I think about all the time, Jeff. You’re, mean, it’s, it’s the complexity of franchise training that is different, you know, it’s very unique to our industry. When you’re in franchising, it’s something you deal with, but I, you know, the best way to overcome it is by including them, taking their feedback, getting their buy-in. I tell my team all the time, guys, we could, we can create training and, and it would win awards at training, whatever, you know, in conference.

 

Jeff Walter (23:48)

Right, right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (23:49)

would be the best thing that anybody’s ever seen. But if the franchisees think it’s dumb, it’s worthless. It’s useless. They won’t touch it. They have to feel like this is going to add value to them. So we have to show them how it has value. And the biggest way you can do that is by including them in the creation. And the end users have to be involved. To your point, my instructional designers, they go down and work in our store. We have our training center is above. It’s in the same building as our Pee-Wah-Kee store here right now, 20 minutes.

 

Jeff Walter (24:18)

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (24:19)

from our headquarters.

 

Jeff Walter (24:20)

man, so you got a lab right there.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (24:21)

Yeah, they go down and work next to our manager. They’re great managers there and Jeremy and Brandon. They’re great employees who know how to run a batteries plus and they are there to teach it. also use our field sales training team on a regular basis. They’re the guys out there setting the stores. Our field sales training team. They have all worked and managed and run stores successfully for decades. I don’t think there’s any one of them that hasn’t worked in a batteries plus store for more than a decade. They know this brand. They know how to run it.

 

Jeff Walter (24:25)

awesome.

 

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (24:50)

to be successful, and that’s what they’re teaching, right? So they provide a lot of input too. The other way we do it is, mean, know, look, to that point, they have to be motivated on their own to do this, right? And I think that one of the best ways to do that is competition. mean, gamification is a huge, we’ve seen a lot of success there. We recently just did, I’ve got the flag behind me here from our recent championship. This year we had our inaugural plus games. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (25:17)

Yeah.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (25:18)

know, John Seeker, our COO, kind of came up with this idea and we ran with it and really built it into something special and we did a six month, seven month competition over the entire system, franchise system. We did three months of really focused on sales training. So we had a competition at the store level. Each store participated. They had metrics they had to get. They had trainings they had to take. They had to get certain scores on the quizzes. It was a very comprehensive, I mean, we worked on it for months.

 

Jeff Walter (25:35)

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (25:47)

to build it, but it was so cool to see these franchises getting cited about. were texting other stores in their market, like, what did you guys get on this? We’re getting this. I mean, it was a really fun competition and it involved stores across the country. Then we narrowed it down to the top 16 stores out of that group. And then we did an in-store competition doing, they had to, some technical stuff here, but you had to wire batteries for a golf cart.

 

Jeff Walter (26:06)

Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (26:15)

in series and parallel, which is the different, you can wire different batteries together in different ways to create more power. So they had to do things like that. They had to repair a phone and, you know, in doing this all in a timed relay. And then the top eight stores we brought up to our training center in Pewaukee and did an even bigger competition. You know, it was just a ton of fun. We had all these associates coming up that had worked at Batteries Plus and it was so great sitting in the room with them and listening to them talk about the things that they love about

 

Jeff Walter (26:18)

Yeah.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (26:43)

batteries plus me one of them you know and then once they won the top so the top four teams ⁓ we put them to our convention in Las Vegas we paid for their whole trip brought their whole team in helped staff their store while they were gone we did a big competition on our stage our convention stage with all of our franchisees present

 

Jeff Walter (26:48)

Yeah.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (27:01)

And it was just amazing to watch them get so excited about this and I can’t tell you how many times I heard an owner say like I you know, we had over a hundred and Ninety of our stores participate. So obviously we left a few that didn’t didn’t jump on the bandwagon But I talked to so many owners that were like I wish I would have known How big of a deal this was and I should have had my employees taking care of this

 

Jeff Walter (27:24)

Were the corporate stores

 

eligible to participate? Okay.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (27:27)

Not in this one. We really

 

thought this was a franchise store, we did a separate, I should say our chief retail officer, Burn Doyle and his team did a great competition among the corporate stores, a little separate. It’s one of the things that’s unique about our franchise brand, but it was related to our convention. I’ll tell you though, from a system perspective, the gamification just really drove a lot of participation in our training and our

 

our accessing our Batteries Plus University, our online training program was over 60 % increase in use. We had way more people logging on than we had seen in the past. So it was a really very successful event. We’ll definitely be doing it again.

 

Jeff Walter (28:00)

wow.

 

So, what

 

did you say, it again every couple of years? ⁓

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (28:09)

Yeah, the expansion of it.

 

Jeff Walter (28:10)

That’s a lot to do every year.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (28:13)

Yeah,

 

I think we’ll do a smaller version every other year and the same type of big version every other year. Our conventions every other year and we’ll likely try the big version in with our convention. We’ll do a smaller type competition every year. Again, it really, you know, our associates, it was really fun to see associates taking bragging rights, being the winner over a certain category, right? they, I talk about this too, one of the untapped ways that we,

 

Jeff Walter (28:23)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

yeah.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (28:42)

At Batteries Plus, have so many owners who are so knowledgeable in this business and being able to share their knowledge with each other really drove a ton of learning and you could see it in our stores. It was great.

 

Jeff Walter (28:54)

That’s really,

 

so, so, so, you know, mixing the ad, you know, what you’re doing today and what you’re, where you’re evolving. So, you know, we talked a little bit about the new franchisee, but now we’re talking about the, the associate, but where I’ve always found in franchise training, I’d say most franchisors do a really good job on onboarding franchisees. You know, it’s, like bread and butter. It’s a, it’s very manually intensive, a lot of instructor led training and

 

Where I’ve seen most franchisors kind of fall flat is on the associate train, the onboarding and ongoing training of associates. A lot of them tend to adopt the train-the-trainer model. They’re expecting the franchisee to train, which of course they want to. They have a vested interest. I was speaking at the IFA World Conference down in a couple months ago.

 

I saw that and I was like, well, know, the problem with that, and I love what you guys are doing. So the problem with that is that frontline employee is the brand to the customer. And you’re kind of outsourcing that to the franchisee who obviously has a vested interest, but he’s not the brand. Right. And so by having that direct thing, like what you’re doing with batteries university, ⁓ batteries plus university, is you’re directly impacting the.

 

the face of the brand to the customer, that endpoint employee. so, if I can kind of make sure, let me see if I just got what you just said, because I want, you know, so I come on board, I’m a new associate, I go to Batteries Plus University, and there’s a bunch of courses, a bunch of, you know, I would imagine depending on what my store is selling, because I would imagine not all stores sell everything, you know, so there’s, you know, 10 different categories of things my store is selling.

 

And so I’m going through that online learning and really acquiring knowledge, right? like auto, you know, car batteries, ATV batteries, you know, phone battery, you know, the different categories of things that my store is focused on, you know, the bread and butter of my store. And after I acquire that knowledge from, you know, the online university, which is, you know, a huge cost-effective way of delivering it. Um, then my manager is kind of doing the on the job training.

 

It’s like, okay, now you understand this, let me show you around the store. And that’s where we get, you know, one thing that’s always been challenging across the board is skills development. Because still development is all about practice and coaching. Right. And it’s hard to do that in a, you know, although with AI, there’s some, you know, possibility of that, but traditionally hard to do, right. It’s very manual intensive. So then, so is then my, my manager is doing that kind of on the job skills training thing with me, like.

 

Some of the things you talked about like wiring up golf carts and stuff like that, you know, taking that book knowledge and I’m applying it to, and they’re watching me do it.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (31:39)

Yep. One of the so a store manager would be as each associate and this isn’t the way it is today. This is way it’s going to be in a couple of months. Right. So we can talk next year and talk about how successful it’s been. But, you know, from a feedback perspective in the store.

 

Jeff Walter (31:47)

Okay, yeah.

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (31:54)

What we would what we’re doing we’re ⁓ a manager would have a manual and essentially it’ll take the act It’s essentially an activity book that they’re going to go through in the store You know find these ten items and you know find the item that has these specs right find me find me four solutions for this question for a customer Right and they could go around the store and find those items You know hey this you know do these draw these lines where these wires need to go for the series in parallel? That’s our series in

 

parallel training, right? They have to draw connections like this is how you would wire this, right? And so there’s a there’s a booklet that they’ll go through. It provides a hands on training, but we need that manager to be involved. I mean, you have to have the manager walking them through the store and doing that hands on training and asking those questions. And, you know, it’s just in order to scale that we have to be able to provide the manager some sort of guide, you know, to go. Right. And so that’s what we’ll do there. But, you know, your earlier point, you know, we

 

Jeff Walter (32:23)

All right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (32:50)

can’t rely on our brand is so dependent on the re on our us being experts in our store we can’t rely on it just happening in its name right with any stuff quick

 

Jeff Walter (32:58)

Yeah.

 

When the manager

 

goes through that hands-on training, is that captured or is batteries plus then sitting there going, you, Ms. Associate, you’ve done your online training and you got your badge for that. And now you’ve gone through your practical training or your hands-on training and you’ve gotten your, is it being tracked or is it just like.

 

Okay, manager, just do it whenever you can get around to it.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (33:28)

No, manager would go back in and complete the, and mark that it’s been completed within Batteries Plus University. So they provide that extra badge to them, university.

 

Jeff Walter (33:36)

Okay. Yeah. then,

 

um, and then is there any, you know, one thing that was interesting, and I heard it from a couple of them franchises, is there any, um, physically, and then what is the, does the, does the associate get anything different or, you know, are they, you know, did they, are they at an elevated state or what, what, what, how, like one thing that was cool, my, my, my nephew, my 15 year old nephew, it’s really interesting. He went to work for Chick-fil-A.

 

He’s a kid in high school and, ⁓ and they have a really neat program where there’s, these nine skills. And when you finish them all, you know, you get to take the word training off your badge and you go from like a red shirt to a black shirt or you actually wear a different color uniform. And then, ⁓ cause he can’t drive yet and he took, he was far away. My sister, encouraged him to get a job closer to home. And so then he went to work for Dunkin Donuts and they don’t do any of that.

 

You know, it’s like, here’s the manual kid, right? And it was interesting to hear him and my sister, you know, just, talk about the difference in motivations. He was very motivated at the one because they had this training program and he wanted, he wanted that, you know, I think it was a black shirt, you know, or he wanted that, you know, I want to get rid of this color that says I’m a trainee and get that color that says I’m trained. And then at Dunkin Donuts, was like, you know, whatever.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (34:49)

you

 

Yeah.

 

⁓

 

Jeff Walter (34:57)

And so do you

 

guys do anything in those lines or how do other battery plus people know that that particular associate is trained?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (35:06)

Yeah, it’s a great question. We have, you know, we used to a while ago, you would have a pin for each level, right? And I’d like to bring that back. I think there was a lot of value in that currently today. And I want to be clear, I didn’t make this up. I somewhere I heard it from someone. So I don’t know who. And I’m sorry, I can’t give that person the recognition here. But we we have the three levels. Learn it, learn it level, which is really

 

just that entry level. These are the courses like, hey, you’re learning about batteries. This is what you need to know to work in a store typically takes place within the first 30 days, right? You kind of reach that level across each category, right? And there we have 10 different categories that you learn in our business. And once you reach that learning level, then you, know, I would like to provide that pin to them so they can wear it on their name tag and have that level of certification. And then there’s a, there’s a master at level and an expert level, right? And, and the

 

Jeff Walter (35:48)

Right, okay, great.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (36:03)

The expert level is really something, you know, I will tell you just a great example. Our Plus games, we created these modules specifically for Plus games where our associates, I had associates who had worked at Batteries Plus for 15 years. They told me they learned stuff taking those modules. And you would think, can anybody who’s been doing the same job for 15 years still learn something? And it just, there is so much to know within our industry and you can continue to learn and learn and learn, which again is what our associates

 

Jeff Walter (36:20)

Yeah.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (36:31)

love about it. They love that they come in someday, it’s gonna be a little different phone or a little different problem and they’re learning every day and we get to facilitate that through our LMS and our programs. But I would love to have to your point, I think it’s very important to have competition style and some sort of status that comes along with your education and it kind of shows that you’ve worked hard and you’ve become who you’ve become through this problem.

 

Jeff Walter (36:49)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting.

 

I was talking to another gentleman and, ⁓ and they were in the restaurant business, but it was that same kind of Chick-fil-A thing, but they added the third level kind of like, might be along your lines, but it was like, learn, do teach. like that entry level was like, okay, I learned it, you know, before I learn it, I’m in that trainee mode. And then I get the visual and, and, you know, customers don’t know.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (37:10)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (37:21)

I like the pin or the different color shirt or something that says, okay, I’m now, I’ve learned it. And then there was a do it level where it’s like after you demonstrate a proficiency in it, but across all those, you know, dozen or so skills, then you got that. And then that qualified you to teach it and you became a teacher and you could, like you were saying, you have the store managers or franchisees do the, you know,

 

The teach it level was these people were now qualified to be able to certify other people. And it was really interesting. And they were saying, you know, and this was in the quick service restaurant business, that their turnover was teeny. I mean, that’s a sector that has tremendous turnover and their turnover was very, very, very small. And it was kind of like what you were talking about with the learn it master, you know, master expert.

 

Uh, and so, and, and those visual and P and he was saying, it was interesting to get my nephew and my sister’s perspective as a, an employee, but as a training manager, he was like, you know, those, those visual status symbols become very important within the community, right? The outside world doesn’t really know what that pin means or that colored hat means or whatever, or that, you know, but it becomes, you know,

 

And he said, and secondarily, the thing franchisees loved about it also is there are people knew who to go to if they had questions about something. Because they visually could see that, oh, that person is an expert in that domain. And it was really interesting. you know, so that’s fascinating. I love that. I want to circle back to the games because that is really cool. I haven’t heard something specifically like what you’re talking about.

 

It’s interesting because like I said, the challenge we’ve always have, especially in the type of training we do is that skill development and skill development is very, it’s practice and coaching. so I really like what you talked about the games because there seemed to be a couple of different levels there. If we can go back to that, which was like, okay, there’s like,

 

the, to get to the next level, you really had to learn it. Right. Like you said, just saw all, then, and then what point in the, in as you went from the, you know, a couple of hundred franchises that participated to the, um, I think you said, you know, there was an intermediate level than the 16, the eight and the four. Um, like when, when did they have to do it? You know I’m saying? Like when did that, when does the, how did that kick in or is that always part baked in from the beginning?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (39:52)

Well, in some parts, right? One of the, mean, look, our stores are…

 

You know, we have we need to have a selling culture in our store, right? A lot of people come into our store. They don’t realize that, you know, we sell flashlights or, you know, you may not know this, but a lot of our stores have weather radios are very common, popular item that you wouldn’t think that is at batteries plus. But a lot of people come in to buy a power station when there’s a hurricane or a tornado or whatever, they may want a weather radio as well to go along with that. So a lot of people don’t realize that we sell a lot of these things that go in tandem with

 

Jeff Walter (40:09)

Well done.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (40:26)

our stuff. So having a selling culture within our stores is one of the aspects we have to train on.

 

And teaching our associates to do that. So that was kind of the first level was really focused on understanding the metrics that we use to identify selling culture. They had to do that in the first three months. And that was one of the things they had to do. The other were for online modules that they took that had specific education points. And there was quizzes and different activities they had to complete there. But the actual hands on relay style

 

competition started in that we kind of built it out like a a March Madness NBA brand in the suite 16, the final eight lead eight whatnot. And so that sweet 16 was an in-store competition. We sent a judge. We sent our above store leadership into the store with a stopwatch. And it was cool. We actually did it all on the same day across our entire system. And ⁓ they they had a stopwatch and they were texting each other in the stores back

 

Jeff Walter (41:04)

Yeah, yeah, it sounds that way.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (41:26)

of work like hey we’re getting started and they were trying to give each other you know tips about which activities they were going to do so they could try to get the leg up but it was really fun and and they had to you know do the build the batteries or put the batteries together they had to do some merchandising activities and some specific skills that we have in our store level those were hands-on and then we you know sent some videos out and showed showed people what it was like and and let let the rest of the system watch that as well we did the same thing with the elite eight little different set of skills that was

 

Jeff Walter (41:54)

Right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (41:55)

and a little program, a key fob they had to do. And they had to change a battery out, install a battery with some other unique things they had to do. And then of course, once they got to Vegas, that was a lot more fun. mean, they had some really neat activities, but it was a lot more of a show there. one point, we to change the Yeah, yeah, we were just having a good time. So they changed the batteries out in a remote control car and raced it through a course.

 

Jeff Walter (42:15)

Yeah, the Final Four.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (42:24)

in the room with all of our franchisees they had to put together a commercial bit and then race it back to a representative of the company and have it be right. I it was just a little more of a show but it was a lot of fun and very cool.

 

Jeff Walter (42:33)

Well,

 

so then if, you know, if, if, if I was a franchisor and I just try and I’m trying to learn an effective technique, it sounds like you put this plus games out there in order to participate. There was a certain level of training you had to complete. I think that’s what I heard you say. And then that qualifies you to participate in the games. Is that.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (42:53)

Yup.

 

Correct.

 

Jeff Walter (42:58)

You know, assuming your

 

store, I mean, first off, your store has to say, Hey, I want to participate. And then as an, as, but then as an individual participant, you know, Hey, you have to take these courses and complete this so that, you know, everybody here has some base level of knowledge and that qualifies you to play.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (43:15)

That’s it.

 

Yeah, you everybody was invited to participate from day one you could do the module the sales and the Competition from day one we took the modules if you took the modules that was you had to you had to pass the quiz and the top scores the certain there was a whole scoring system based on the average of your store and that kind of thing and then the top 16 scores between the sales and the Learning the online learning efforts those top 16 scores were advanced to the next level

 

Jeff Walter (43:44)

Yeah. Very

 

cool. That’s, that’s so cool. I have not, I’ve been doing this a while. Yeah. Might’ve been, might’ve been, might’ve been nearly two thousands. Um, and, uh, and, and, uh, I have not heard of an Olympic style or, you know, a, uh, March madness type of, I mean, a lot of companies do things like that, but, but like integrated with the training program and then showing skill proficiency. Really interesting.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (43:49)

No.

 

you

 

Jeff Walter (44:11)

I think that’s brilliant. I really think that’s brilliant.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (44:11)

It was,

 

we found it would just be a huge success and credit to, it certainly was no small effort. There was a lot of people here that really put forth a big effort to make it happen, but it really went well. I expect based on the response, more franchisees will participate next year, a significant more and really excited about it.

 

Jeff Walter (44:31)

Yeah. And

 

I would imagine, I mean, I’m just listening to, I got to imagine your retention rate, your franchise employee retention rate has got to be on the low end of the spectrum for the industry

 

one of the top reasons people leave within the first 30 days is they weren’t trained. And one of the top reasons they leave within a year is they realize nobody else is trained either.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (44:54)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (44:55)

And

 

so, have you seen that show up in the employee retention rates of your franchises?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (45:03)

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think our retention rate can be even better, Jeff. And I think I think you nailed it, though. The better our training is, the better retention we’ll have. mean, I think especially in an industry where having knowledge is so essential to your success. Right. If you ever come in and you don’t know how to answer their question, not going to feel good about yourself every day. And training just plays into that. They have to be able to answer those questions. And if they can answer those questions, they’ll feel very successful and it’ll become even

 

Jeff Walter (45:18)

Yeah.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (45:31)

fun and passion job for them and that’s what it is.

 

Jeff Walter (45:32)

Yeah. And it, and it sounds like it creates,

 

it really, um, ties into the whole culture, you guys, you know, the whole cultural norms you’re trying to establish within the network of, you know, excellence and knowledge and, know, and, which is what your brand is standing for, which is really interesting. So just shifting gears a little, I think you got a good understanding of what the program looks like today and in the near future when all this gets rolled out.

 

What would have been the biggest roadblocks to your being sick, you know, that you’ve had to overcome and how did you overcome them in doing all this? I mean, it sounds like you have a leadership team that’s behind this. That tends to be a big roadblock in a lot of organizations, but what roadblocks did it has the team faced and in the training and yeah, what’d you guys do to overcome it? And then are there additional roadblocks that you’re still working on overcoming?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (46:25)

Yeah, I, you know, to your point, our leadership team here, I mean, you know, Scott Williams, our CEO, John Seeker, our COO, I mean, they are two gentlemen who understand the value of education in our business, right? I mean, just the fact that our logo kind of says it all, the experts in charge, they understand that that’s what we represent, right? And so understanding the training to your point, having that leadership support is a huge benefit to me.

 

Jeff Walter (46:40)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (46:53)

We couldn’t have put an event on the Plus games without that support.

 

And the other roadblocks that we’ve had to overcome, would say, it goes back to that point of like, I can’t just create a training, Jeff, and then put it out there and be like, here you guys go, use this, and trust me, it’s gonna work. There has to be a buy-in in our system, and that is probably one of the biggest roadblocks we’re overcoming. I think we’ve had a lot of success. I think we got a long way to go. But it’s not just training.

 

Jeff Walter (47:10)

Right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (47:22)

that has to show that we have to have the support of our franchise system in everything we do. They have to believe that what we’re doing is in their best interest. And that comes from sometimes just a simple matter of, hey, I was in the store with so and so, and we were talking about the troubles that he’s having and how we’re going to help support that. And it may not be training related. It might be like, hey, I’m having trouble getting this product. And our merchant team working with a new supplier in

 

Korea to make sure we get that that isn’t a hundred percent tariff to on from China, right? the even those small things that that our team does wins the hearts and minds of our franchise system and and that can play into whether or not a training program is successful right our franchisees have to feel like we have their best interests in heart and All of those factors can play into whether or not our training is successful I believe we’re doing that very well, and there’s always going to be more work to be done there

 

Jeff Walter (47:56)

Right.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (48:18)

much we do on that.

 

Jeff Walter (48:19)

Yeah. You know, I’ve had clients that have brought in performance metrics in and done the analysis of training versus performance metrics. And I’m a big believer in that, but one of the simplest techniques I’ve seen one of my clients do is they did, you know, because with the metrics you could sit there and go, a trained staffer can sell, you know, sells twice as much as an untrained or a trained franchise, you know, sells twice as much per square foot as an untrained.

 

or, you know, what are you know, and that’s nice, but that’s, you know, kind of, you know, hard to get, right. But, um, one of the more interesting things that, uh, one of my clients does is they do it NPS score for the training program. And they, they, uh, ask their, their network, you know, you know, and at zero to 10, would you recommend the, you know, 10 being highly zero being not at all, you know, would you recommend the, uh, the training program to another franchisee?

 

And they, and that’s how they gauge their success in terms of whether or not, you know, they get that systematic feedback of, we hitting the mark with our training program? And I, when I heard that, that was a number of years ago, I was like, that’s a really brilliant, simple way of, you know, making sure you’re attending to the, to the, you know, the audience. And they would send that to the franchise owners. you know, cause a lot of training programs tend to just ask the student.

 

You know, and it’s like, you know, did you like the training? know, always, know, listeners will have heard this 10 times already, but I always think of that as like, what’s kind of like asking the recruit coming out of basic training, if they enjoyed basic training. it’s like, the point of basic training was not for the recruit to enjoy it. was to build a war fighting machine. Right. So, but, ⁓ you know, I just threw it in. was, it, I thought it was just a.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (49:57)

Yeah

 

Jeff Walter (50:03)

Another one was brilliant simple things to get that feedback. So, you know, it’s interesting.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (50:07)

Yeah, I think

 

that’s spot on, right? Again, to your point, we have to have their input and their knowledge and their buy-in. It’s paramount.

 

Jeff Walter (50:15)

So you touched on the future, know, everybody’s talking about AI, but what’s the, you know, we talked about the immediate future, but what’s your vision for the long-term future for Battery Plus training and getting those guys, are you looking at things like AI or skill development or bringing in performance metrics or what’s the future hold or, you know, are we going to do a Plus games and get televised on YouTube? ⁓

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (50:41)

Hey, I would

 

love to do that job. That’s a dream. You know, we it’s funny we talked about

 

Jeff Walter (50:43)

You know.

 

I tell you

 

what, next time you do a Plus Games, you’ll have to call me and we’ll bring the cameras out at the end and we’ll do a podcast on it. I’ll do a podcast on your Plus Games.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (50:54)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, let’s do it. They, mean, yeah, I mean.

 

I think there’s so much more for us to do from a training here at Batteries Plus and we’re on the path. We’ll continue to do it. We have some new members of the team getting started here too. I’m really excited about the future of training at Batteries Plus from an AI perspective and technology implementation. One of the cool things I would put out there, our technology team has just released on our, what we call, what’s our point of sale system, right? So our proprietary system

 

system that only our stores do. They have a new chat bot that they just released on there and we are uploading content from our training systems within there. So if they have a question, a lot of times you might have a question when a customer is right in front of you, you need to answer fast. You can’t be like, hold on, let me go Google that for 20 minutes. You need to be able to know that right away. there’s just so much to know, so you got to figure it out. they can chat that question and get an answer right back that pulls content from all of our training.

 

materials. And it’s been wildly successful across our system and even a lot of our modules that were, know, our online modules are being, you know, uploaded, the content’s being uploaded into that. So instead of me having to be like, I know I took that module a month ago or whatever, I can go just ask our chatbot that question and get the answer, get the content from that module and have the answer right in front of me.

 

Jeff Walter (52:07)

you

 

And that’s within the POS system, so it’s right there in front of them.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (52:26)

It’s so easy for them to access and it’s just been being able to have access to that education or to that knowledge quick and easy is a game changer for our system. I’m really proud of those guys. They putting that out there. It’s been huge. It’s been really cool.

 

Jeff Walter (52:28)

Interesting.

 

Very,

 

very, very, very, that’s, we’re, in the process of adding that to our platform. Exactly what you just said, being able to take resources and training content. And so that anybody can go do the chat bot and get that immediate thing. And then the reference to the resource of the course, you know, if you need to go deeper, but having an appeal POS right at that point of contact with a customer, that’s brilliant. That’s really brilliant. That’s really cool.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (52:57)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (53:06)

And so, and so how do you, so you’ve got that support. How do you see the program evolving or beyond that or, or, you know, what’s the next step for it? What’s the next turn of the screw for you guys?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (53:18)

Yeah.

 

Well, look, like I said, we’ve got our new onboarding program coming out here. We’re finishing up our manual. We’re finishing up the last few of the modules and then we’ll have a review period with our franchise system. You know, I’m really excited about this. be a huge step. In the last year, we’ve updated completely our LMS. you know, we went away from our old LMS, put a new LMS in place, updated the brand to Batteries Plus University. We did our Plus Games competition.

 

our onboarding plan and we’ll continue to add position specific trainings. That’s probably the next step after that. And then we’re also implementing a wide range of instructor led trainings that are regional based. Currently we get our instructor led trainings other than special events, you come to Pewaukee. So if a new franchise store wants to hire a new store manager, they can send them to Pewaukee and do an instructor led week, it’s free.

 

Jeff Walter (53:52)

next.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (54:12)

We don’t charge franchisees to use that anybody can send and we have you know 10 to 20 people in that class every month

 

And they can set people up. was just over there yesterday and I think there was three people who were not new franchisees in that class and it’s common to see that. And but I want to we want to expand that too, right? We have a lot of store managers who would love to be trained and led even more and interact more with other store managers. So we’re we’ll be implementing more regional based instructor led trainings. know, hey, we’re coming to Denver Market. Anybody who’s within driving distance wants to come over for two days.

 

Jeff Walter (54:27)

you

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (54:47)

have these people and these people talking about these categories. We’re one of our field sales trainer just put together a great store manager content curriculum and it’s a two-day event. We’re going to be doing it in a couple markets here in September. I’m pretty excited about that and I’d like to see that effort expand even more just so we’re getting more touch points and expanding the opportunity for our franchise owners and store managers and associates to interact with each other. Here’s something I do.

 

works well for me that you may have not thought about. And it’s one of the levers that we can pull, I think, to spread information quickly across our system.

 

Jeff Walter (55:24)

Yeah, you know, along those lines, when you start looking at some of those other roles, there’s something Marriott did. Again, I love these simple things that are not complicated, but are highly effective. They used to do a big, you know, manager training, bring everybody in for three days, you know, and bond. And basically there’s a lot of partying going on and all that, not a lot of learning. And then COVID hit.

 

And they, they replaced it with, instead of everybody coming in for three days to some location, they played, they replaced the exact same training with meeting one hour a week for like six or eight weeks. or every other week like that. And virtually because it was COVID, right? Nobody’s traveling and all the interesting thing they found. And so this is like, you know, it’s like one of those things like, I wish I had thought of this, but it was by pure accident.

 

But one of things they discovered, as you’re looking at it, something to think about, because it’s so easy to do, is it turned from a instructor-led class where the instructor’s saying, okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the people trying to absorb it, and then they go out to dinner and drinking all night and come back the next day hungover. It went from that to more of a facilitated session over like a two-month period.

 

where they would say, okay, know, this week’s session is on, you know, handling difficult client situations, right? Customer situations. And here are some techniques. And then when they got together virtually a week or two from then, the instructor who really became a facilitator was like, okay, Jason, you know, how’d you apply that technique? What’d you experience? You’d be like, well, I tried it this way and it worked, and I tried it this other way and it didn’t work.

 

And then other people would start jumping in. Long story short is over the eight week period, it turned into a mutual support group of people across the network who never knew each other, bonded more than they would have ever bonded when they got bonded more than they used to bond when they got together for a three day offsite session and continued to stay in touch with each other over the years to support each other.

 

And so, you know, one of the thoughts that come to my head is as you’re looking at expanding beyond the associate onboarding and looking at the manager jobs or things like that, it’s such a, you know, when you think about it, it’s such a simple technique, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s zoom based instructional training and you just spread it out over, you know, a long period of time. And then you turn it into like an exit, like, like you guys do, you do an exercise, right? This week it’s this.

 

Let’s go all, let’s all go practice that and report next week. Yeah. So, so I just throw that out there. I thought it was brilliant.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (57:50)

Yeah, I think that’s, I love

 

that. And I mean, that’s what we’re trying to get to, right? Is that that interaction and the ability for them to share information amongst each other. So I think it’s a great idea. And maybe we should, maybe I should change it to instructor led to facilitator led. But yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s so. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (58:06)

Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, the,

 

the, the woman that was presenting, she was, it was at the Brandon Hall conference a year or so ago. And, uh, and she was like, yeah, like our instructors actually became just facilitate, they became facilitators, you know, and they would give a piece of knowledge and the, and, know, give the exercise. And then really people just learned from each other was really, she said it was really eye-opening and completely by accident. Right. was, you know, it’s just cause you know, COVID hit, nobody’s traveling and

 

Nobody’s going to spend three days on a Zoom call, right? So they broke it up. so, you know, hey, this was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. You know, is there anything else about the program you want to share with everybody? Or I think we’re pretty comprehensive.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (58:37)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, I think we’re comprehensive. will say there’s probably other things we’re doing. know.

 

Like we have lots of other virtual trainings that go on all the time. We have a train and retrain event that our commercial team puts on just for training. I think overall what we’re trying to do is just bring knowledge to people faster, more efficiently, and more to the point and provide that medium for them. And like I said, I think we do that pretty well, but I’m really excited about the future here at Batteries Plus 2.

 

It’s been a great thing to be a part of for such a cool organization that relies so much on knowledge and education.

 

Jeff Walter (59:28)

Thank you for sharing that. I love the Plus games. I love doing these because I always learn something new. And I love to learn things. I’m a curious guy. But I find a lot of people in our industry, we like to learn things. So outside of work, do you like to learn the most about? What things kind of tickle your fancy when you’re not doing store development or running store development and picking out new locations and…

 

redesigning training programs. Yeah, you just have a few things on your plate, but I think that could, but it, you know, it’s, it’s so interesting because it makes sense given that entrepreneurial nature of years before where you’re like piling things on like, okay, yeah, he’s just keeps buying responsibilities on, but what do you like to, what do like to learn about?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (59:55)

This could be right.

 

Yeah, I’m, I mean I have three kids, so those guys keep me pretty busy. You know, between their sports and their school. I’ve got a set of twins, boy-girl twins that are 12.

 

Jeff Walter (1:00:13)

How old are the kids?

 

Okay, off.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (1:00:18)

They’ll

 

be 13 here in a couple of months. And then another little girl who’s 10, she’ll be 11 in a couple of months. we’re just, we’re at a fun age. It’s a busy time, but it’s so much fun. just, they can’t do enough activities. I feel like constantly one of them is like, can we go do this? we go do this? And so we’re just trying to keep up with them and make sure I use that time wisely. you know, from a hobby perspective, I love to get outside. I mean, you know, I lived in Utah.

 

Utah before I lived here. Beautiful, beautiful place to be outside and Wisconsin’s not much different. mean, the sunsets we have here in the Midwest, the trees, the waterfalls, the lakes, mean, Wisconsin’s just a beautiful place live and I love getting outside and hiking. from, you know, things I love to learn, I’m a pretty big do-it-yourselfer. my wife will probably, you know, I’m sure she’s right now mad at me about some project to have it finished, but we, I love watching a YouTube video.

 

Jeff Walter (1:01:04)

Yeah.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (1:01:12)

And I’ve said to myself so many times, I could do that. I might get in there and start tinkering around a little bit. But I do love a home do it yourself project. And that’s probably the thing that I love to do and learn the most.

 

Jeff Walter (1:01:26)

I, I, I,

 

I, you know, it’s interesting. I, when I was a young man, I was a programmer and my, the VP that ran my office used to mow his own lawn. And I was like, yeah, I’m a 22 year old kid. I’m like, my God, what are you doing mowing your own lawn? Like that’s the bane of my existence. I never want to mow my lawn in my life. And I asked him once, said, you why do do that? And he goes, well, you know, we’re in software and it’s very, you know, non-tangible. And, know, you don’t know when you did it right. goes,

 

Like the lawn, it’s a physical thing. I can see it. I know what needs to be done and I know when I’m done and I can see my results and it’s very tactile. I’ve over the years as I’ve matured, you know, I, I, my dad was always a DIY guy, but more because, you know, we didn’t have money to hire somebody to do anything. and so that kind of ethos got to me, but I, I enjoy it for that same reason. You know, I’m in the software business.

 

It’s very, you know, non-tangible. It’s just a bunch of electrons floating around a screen. Um, and, uh, and, so, uh, I, I, my, my next product and I love the YouTube it’s awesome. So, and I was just, uh, talking just this weekend, my next project, I have one bathroom, I’ve been in my house for 25 years and I have not redone the master bath. I’ve redone all the other baths, but the master bath and, and, and it was a, you know, original build.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (1:02:37)

Alright.

 

Jeff Walter (1:02:41)

So it’s got that nice high quality, contact grade stuff in the master bath. Everything else, that’s on my list, is to go in and then, but I love learning me a good new DIY as well.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (1:02:48)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, sounds like you

 

just scheduled your Saturday football.

 

Jeff Walter (1:02:58)

Well, I have a couple of light fixtures that went out and, ⁓ and I was like, ⁓ you know, I’ll just get somebody to do it. And he’s like, ⁓ you know, and he’s like, no, it’s not the switch. You need a new light fixture. So it’s like, okay, I’ll go get the light fixtures. And then I might as well like redo the floor and pick out a new and rip out that 1990s tub.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (1:03:14)

You know. That’s a dangerous start. hear you though.

 

Jeff Walter (1:03:23)

But, but it’s fun. It’s

 

fun. It’s fun. And your kids are a great age, man. And they’re like, I imagine super active doing million different things and, you can learn a ton, ton from them, you know? So, but Jason, thank you for your time. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. So I appreciate it. I’d love to, like I said, Hey, next time you do a plus games, I’d love to come to the finals and.

 

If you wouldn’t mind me setting up a camera, I’ll do an episode on the Plus game. So I think that is so cool. And not because, yeah, it’s cool in its own right, but also as a technique of doing skill development and getting the entire network excited about it. It’s just, that’s such a cool way of doing it. I just, I love things like that. So thank you for sharing that.

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (1:04:05)

Yeah, I’ll definitely

 

keep you in the loop and we’d love to have you help out and be a part of it.

 

Jeff Walter (1:04:11)

Yeah.

 

So, all right. Anything else you want to share with the audience before we bid our adieu to them?

 

Jason Moss of Batteries Plus (1:04:17)

No, thank you, Jeff. It’s been a great conversation. I leave even more excited about learning than I came in. So thanks for the time.

 

Jeff Walter (1:04:24)

And

 

thank you for your time and sharing everything. And thank you to everybody out there for listening and watching. And stay tuned. We’ll have more coming up in future episodes. And sounds like we’ll be doing the games in some time in the future. But again, thank you for listening and watching. And thank you, Jason, for ⁓ sharing everything. It was great.

 

And.