Why You Should Hire from the Midwest

On Monday, I had the pleasure of having lunch with Zane Tankel,who was on NY Report's September 2007 cover. We spoke about a lot of business issues, including a call Zane had with a landlord that resulted in his landlord wanting to meet somewhere for a fight. While the proposed ass-kicking didn’t surprise me (after all, who hasn’t almost come to blows with their landlord at one time or another), another topic of conversation did. Since Zane was on the cover, his company, Apple Metro, which owns the NYC Applebee's franchises, has grown significantly, despite a dismal year for the restaurant industry. Zane hired a new COO who came from the Applebee's corporate franchiser. Since then, the company has been hiring restaurant and district managers from all over the country. In fact, 50% of new management positions are filled by out-of-towners (at a significant expense to Apple Metro). The other half are promoted from inside the company. When I asked why, he had a few reasons including that the company needed a new perspective and that he found that people from the Midwest are hard workers.