When Community Becomes Your Competitive Advantage

For years, many brands treated customer relationships as a simple equation: deliver a product quickly, keep prices competitive, and call it a day. If the food was hot and the line moved fast, that was considered a win.

Today, that is not enough.

Consumers are looking for something deeper. Research shows that many Americans are actively seeking more personal, human connection with the brands they choose, not just another transaction. Employees are saying the same thing. They want to feel part of a community at work, not just show up for a shift and a paycheck.

On this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Heather Neary, President and CEO of Taco John’s, a fifty six year old quick service restaurant brand with a strong footprint in small towns across the upper Midwest and beyond. Heather brings decades of experience in franchise and restaurant leadership and is leading Taco John’s through its next chapter of growth with a focus on guest experience, franchisee success, and the kind of community connection that cannot be faked.

Community Beyond The Drive Thru

At the most basic level, guests come to Taco John’s to eat. They want tacos, potato olés, and a quick, convenient meal. Heather is clear that if the brand stops there, it has missed its real opportunity.

She reminds her team that every drive thru interaction might be the only human contact a guest has all day. It might be the one positive moment in a difficult stretch of life. A friendly voice, a genuine smile, or a small act of care can shift someone’s entire day.

In many of Taco John’s small town locations, crew members know guests by name and by order. They recognize voices in the drive thru and greet customers like neighbors, not anonymous tickets. That kind of familiarity is not a script. It is the product of years of being rooted in local communities and seeing guests as people, not as throughput.

Community, in Heather’s view, is not a marketing campaign. It is the accumulated weight of thousands of small, human interactions that make people feel known.

Leading With Authenticity, Not A Script

Heather describes herself as radically transparent, direct, and consistently the same person whether she is with her family, her friends, or her team. She does not believe in putting on a separate “leader mask” for work.

Her leadership shows up in simple habits:

• Doing what she says she will do

• Listening to understand instead of listening just to respond

• Spending real time in restaurants, not leading only from the corporate office

• Remembering personal details about people’s lives and circling back

When an employee engagement survey revealed that people did not feel they knew her as well as she hoped, she did not spin the results. She booked one to one conversations with every employee and is doing it again, even with a full executive schedule. Those conversations are not about checking a box. They are about building real connection and trust.

Authenticity, for Heather, is not a leadership style. It is a commitment to show up as a whole person and invite others to do the same.

Systems That Make People Feel Seen

Heather is honest that good intentions are not enough at scale. In a franchise system spanning many states, culture and connection have to be designed, not left to chance.

She pays close attention to the locations that struggle. High turnover, inconsistent management, absentee ownership, and negative guest comments are all signals that something is off beneath the surface. Instead of jumping straight to reprimands, she looks at the full scorecard and asks what is happening in the culture of that restaurant.

Some of the most effective practices she champions are surprisingly simple:

• Providing schedules at least two weeks in advance, which shows respect for hourly workers who are juggling school, childcare, or multiple jobs

• Recognizing crew members by name when positive guest comments come in and sharing those shoutouts across the system

• Celebrating small life moments, like graduations or new cars, with pizza, cake, or local gestures that feel authentic to each owner

These small systems and rituals communicate a clear message: your time matters, your work matters, and your life outside of work matters.

Heather also embraces the reality that not every franchisee will lead in the same way. An operator with one restaurant in a rural town will show up differently than an owner with dozens of locations in multiple states. Operational standards must be consistent, but the way leaders recognize, celebrate, and connect with their teams can and should reflect their personality and community.

Purpose That Shows Up In Crisis

Purpose can easily become a soft word that lives in slide decks and annual meetings. At Taco John’s, Heather works to keep it grounded.

She thinks about purpose through the lens of legacy. How will employees feel when they say they work at Taco John’s. How will guests remember the brand when they think back on tough seasons in their lives. How will small towns describe Taco John’s role in their community over decades.

One recent example made this tangible. During a period of economic strain tied to a government shutdown, Taco John’s decided to run a free meal promotion across the system, offering bean burritos and small potato olés at no cost, no questions asked. The idea surfaced on a Wednesday evening. By Thursday at noon it was in motion, and by Friday it was live. Franchisees executed locally, and corporate matched the effort with donations to food banks in the same communities. Vendor partners later reached out to help offset costs after seeing the impact.

The promotion required long hours and operational complexity, but it aligned perfectly with the brand’s purpose of being a genuine community partner. It was not launched because it looked good on paper. It was launched because it felt like the right thing to do.

That is what purpose looks like in practice. It clarifies the “yes” in moments when action is needed, even if it creates short term strain.

Scheduling Time For Gratitude

One of the most concrete leadership practices Heather shared is remarkably simple. Every Thursday at nine in the morning, she has a recurring calendar block titled “Gratitude.” It has been there for more than fifteen years.

During that time, if she has not already expressed appreciation during the week, she writes handwritten thank you notes, makes phone calls to franchisees and team members, and intentionally recognizes people who have gone above and beyond.

The lesson is clear. Gratitude will always be crowded out by urgent tasks if it is not given a place on the calendar. Scheduling thank you notes or calls does not make them less genuine. It protects them from being swallowed by the pace of the work.

In a world where leaders can default to quick emails and emojis, a handwritten note or unexpected phone call stands out. It is a tangible expression of care that people remember for years.

Five Cs For Building Community As A Leader

Looking back on her career, Heather often talks about five principles that guide her approach to leadership:

• Consistency

• Communication

• Collaboration

• Culture

• Kindness

She knows “kindness” does not actually begin with a C, but she includes it anyway because it is that central. These five Cs show up in how she runs meetings, sets expectations, gives feedback, and holds people accountable. They shape how she thinks about franchise partners, crew members, vendors, and guests as interconnected stakeholders in the same community.

The message to emerging leaders is straightforward. You do not need a complex framework to build community. You need clear expectations, honest communication, shared ownership, intentional culture building, and a commitment to treat people with real kindness, even when conversations are hard.

Key Takeaways

• Community Is Built In Moments, Not Campaigns
  Drive thru greetings, remembered names, and small acts of care add up to a powerful sense of belonging for both guests and employees.

• Authenticity Travels Further Than Persona
  When leaders show up the same way in every setting, people learn to trust that what they see is what they get.

• Simple Systems Communicate Deep Respect
  Two week schedules, recognition rituals, and life event celebrations are not fluff. They are structural ways of telling people they matter.

• Purpose Guides Fast, Hard Decisions
  Clear purpose makes it easier to say yes to the right kind of generosity, especially in moments of community stress or crisis.

• Gratitude Needs A Place On The Calendar
  Blocking time to say thank you is a practical way to keep appreciation from getting squeezed out by urgency.

• Kindness Belongs In The Scorecard
  Consistency, communication, collaboration, culture, and kindness are not soft extras. They are the foundations of sustainable performance.

Final Thoughts

Community and connection can sound abstract until you watch how they show up in daily operations. Heather Neary’s leadership at Taco John’s is a reminder that you can run a disciplined, performance driven brand and still put people at the center.

When leaders listen deeply, design systems that honor real life, and let purpose shape their decisions, they do more than build a strong business. They create places where guests feel known, employees feel valued, and small towns feel proud to have their sign on the edge of Main Street.

Check out our full conversation with Heather Neary on The Bliss Business Podcast.