Brett Wiles became a highly successful restaurant operator by subscribing to one simple philosophy…The Golden Rule.
“The most important thing is we have been able to attract and retain some good people,” Wiles said when describing his business philosophy. “We always say we’re in the people business, not the food business. There is no magic or special formula. It is a matter of treating people right.”
That focus helped Wiles become a top operator of Carl’s Jr. restaurants over the past 25 years, with stores based in Orange County and the Eastern Sierra’s in California, as well as Albuquerque, NM.
The Golden Rule led Wiles to make an important change to his cash management system in two of his heritage stores in Orange County last year.
After years of using aging floor safes with limited storage capacity, and having his management team make daily treks to the bank to make manual deposits, Wiles wanted a solution that would protect the time and safety of his employees.
“Our floor safes were great in their day, but were not functional anymore,” Wiles said. “They needed significant repairs. We decided to go with new safes versus spending money on repairs.
“In our Orange County stores most of the managers have been with us for 20 years,” Wiles added. “They did not last 20 years by not taking care of business. The biggest factor for us was the manager’s time. Every minute the manager is out of the store is costly and we wanted to be as streamlined as possible.”
Wiles made the decision to implement the AMSEC CashWizard All-in-One smart safe solution in two of his OC restaurants, while also incorporating armored car pick-ups in those locations.
Along with saving time and improving store operations, Wiles realized an additional benefit to the CashWizard smart safe solution…transparency. Wiles’ team utilizes CashWizard’s comprehensive cloud-based reporting tools to stay constantly connected to their cash.
“One of the main factors that made me go with AMSEC was CashWizard’s cloud-based reporting,” Wiles said. “It is difficult when you have stores in different markets that you cannot get to every day. With the CashWizard cloud, you can go into each safe, see the last time a courier has picked-up, review inventory information and the other reporting it provides. You do not have to spend extra time tracking money.
“Our office staff goes on-line every day and we know exactly what is deposited in the CashWizard safes. We treat it exactly like a bank deposit. As part of our daily routine, it is nice to pull it up on the computer and know the money is there. A day or two can make a huge difference when you are dealing with large sums of money.”
When his people are happy, Wiles is happy. And so far, he is quite happy with his decision to implement the CashWizard smart safe solution.
“Our people have really liked it, “ Wiles said. “For one, they do not like going to the bank. Leaving the store in the middle of a shift is not easy to do, especially when there is a rush going on. The CashWizard is also simple to use. Anybody can put money in the safe. We encourage our managers to train every employee on how to make a deposit in the safe so there is no large cash build-up.
“We have been very happy with our CashWizard experience so far. We are going to add it to a third store in Orange County soon and eventually plan on putting it in more stores, it is just a matter of timing.”