Ep 53: Nick Bogacz

From delivering pizza to delivering $10M annual revenue through selling pizza, with Nick Bogacz

How does someone without a college education go from five jobs and 80-hour work weeks to building an award-winning pizza enterprise with five locations and over 150 employees?

President and Founder of Caliente Pizza & Draft House, Nick Bogacz joins me in this episode and shares his incredible journey. He talks about falling in love with the pizza business, working his way through different roles in the pizza industry until he felt comfortable enough to run his own business, and finally opening his first location in 2012.

In this episode we discuss:

00:43               Introduction to Nick Bogacz

02:19               What made Nick realize he wanted to have his own business versus working for a business

05:34               Nick explains how the idea of success shifted for him when he opened his first Caliente restaurant, spurring him to grow Caliente into a chain

08:00               Nick celebrates his 20-year anniversary with his wife, and Stuart and Nick reflect on the blessing of having a partner who challenges you to be your best and supports you on your entrepreneurial journey.

10:11               Nick talks about dealing with the challenge of cash flow in his business

 16:02               Why Nick is a huge believer in a positive mindset

17:04               What are the areas Nick had to work on to improve in business?

20:10               Being in the service industry, how does Nick maintain focus and productivity?

21:55               How Nick decides what to focus on and what to delegate

Quick Juice Questions

24:03   Do you currently invest? If so, what do you look for in an investment, and why?

“I invest a lot back into my own company, […] but we also do a good bit of real estate.”

 25:01   What most inspires you? When and where are you most inspired?

“I think I do a pretty good job of day to day, from really being thankful for the things that I’m blessed with. I think that gives me a lot of inspiration.”

25:36   Which book has inspired you and changed your thinking the most?

            “Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.”

25:55   If there’s one last bit of Executive Juice you can share for people who want to get to the top of their property game, what would it be?

“Believe in yourself.”

Quotes

  • “When I opened up Caliente, I thought three things I would be able to judge my success off of — when I could buy a car from this century, when I could buy a little bit bigger house, when I would know how I’m going to put my kids through college.

After the first year of business, I realised that was going to be no problem at all. Then my whole thought of success really shifted. I had to really ask myself, “How do I really judge success?” And the answer became ‘When the people who work for me are able to do the same things for their family that I wanted to do (for mine) and be able to have a career inside my company, […] that’s how I’ll know that I’m successful.”

  • “I believe in focusing on the things that I do really well and then hiring the rest. Rather than trying to take all my bad habits and make them mediocre, I try to take my good habits and make them great.”
  • “I figured out that if I’m ever stuck, I need to get a bigger goal. [..] because I need that kind of thing to just drive after.”

On how Nick maintains focus and productivity

  • “One of the things I’ve tried to do is focus on three things and, then, hire everything else. Three things I really focus on are the leadership of my company, the branding and expansion, and then the profit and loss of the business. I delegate just about everything else.”

Advice

  • “It’s all mindset. What separates people is the way that they think.

That little voice in your head, filter it out if it’s negative stuff and feed yourself with good, positive energy.”

Books mentioned and Guest’s comment about the book:

 Resources mentioned:

Connect with Nick Bogacz:

2020-04-23T09:04:33+00:00