Driving Brand Growth: CEO celebrates each win at Big Frog Custom T-Shirts

Name: Tina Bacon-DeFrece, Ph.D.

Title: President and CEO

Company: Big Frog Franchise Group/Big Frog Custom T-Shirts

Units: 76

Age: 52

Years in franchising: 16

Years in current position: 6

Tina Bacon-DeFrece has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, but these days, she’s applying herself to the science of business.

Bacon-DeFrece is the co-founder, president, and CEO of Big Frog Franchise Group. Florida-based Big Frog Custom T-Shirts is a custom apparel franchise with 76 locations in the U.S. and Canada. Bacon-DeFrece, along with her husband Ron and their late partner, Leeward Bean, opened the first Big Frog in 2008 in Clearwater, Florida.

Bacon-DeFrece has been leading the company since 2016. She served as executive vice president and president before stepping into the CEO role in 2018 when Bean retired.

The brand has been laser focused on expansion, partnering with driven entrepreneurs to bring its custom T-shirts, promotional products, and community support to key markets nationwide.

“We will award 10 new stores this year, and I’d like to see us continue that pace in the coming years,” says Bacon-DeFrece. She says Texas and Georgia are key targets for expansion.

Under Bacon-DeFrece’s leadership, Big Frog is leaning into technology. Whether it’s the brand’s enhanced online design tool, innovative cloud-based point-of-sale system, or new e-commerce add-on to the website, there are multiple ways to move the needle and increase revenue. “Because our concept was founded on using the latest printing technology,” she says, “it is very natural for us to always be looking for better technology.”

LEADERSHIP

What is your role as CEO? Fundamentally, my job is to add value to our brand. This means increasing revenue, improving operational efficiencies, and growing our brand. 

How has Covid-19 affected the way you have led your brand? Covid-19 taught us that open communication is critical to effective leadership and planning. To this day, we do regular bi-weekly video updates to our system. We also try to showcase all the little wins stores experience as often as we can. We learned that keeping morale up and optimism were key to continued growth.

Describe your leadership style. I try to empower employees and not micromanage their daily routines. I try to get out of their way so they can do their jobs. At the same time, I make sure they have the resources to do their jobs. I try to be hands-off and let them use their expertise to better Big Frog.

I prefer to have a culture where we are a true team. Silly little things like refrigerator clean out can involve everyone from our office manager to our VP of operations. My door is always open, whether it’s for a dad joke or to strategize with our newest marketing team member over Instagram. 

What has inspired your leadership style? I’ve read some leadership books, but I’ve learned a lot from my corporate jobs prior to Big Frog. I remember how I wanted to be treated in the workplace, and I tried to incorporate that into how we run Big Frog. My business partner, Leeward Bean, who has since passed, was an amazing mentor, and he created an amazing foundation for the Big Frog culture that I hope I’m doing justice to. 

What is your biggest leadership challenge? Because I am a founder of the company, I tend to interject myself into some of the initiatives. I enjoy strategic planning for growth, but I also enjoy some of the boots-on-the-ground activities that can distract me from some of the higher-level activities. I am working on this, but it’s definitely a fault/guilty pleasure.

How do you transmit your culture from your office to frontline employees? Slack has been a great tool to inject some of our home-office culture out to the remote team members. Our controller loves his dad jokes. We’ll do holiday contests, and we keep each other up to date quickly and easily on accomplishments. It was especially helpful during Hurricane Helene to do quick check-ins. Our annual convention is also a great time to catch up and keep propelling our core cultural components to our corporate team and the franchisees.

How can a CEO help their CMO develop and grow? It’s important to stay on top of industry trends and services by attending conferences, networking, and even attending solution-provider webinars. Not to be cliché, but knowledge is power, and the person driving brand growth should know what works and what doesn’t.

Where is the best place to prepare for leadership: an MBA school or OTJ? As someone who didn’t get an MBA but did get a Ph.D., I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t acknowledge the value of a focused educational degree. The wealth of knowledge that we have at our fingertips has never been greater. There are amazing podcasts, books, TED Talks, etc. where you can learn what leadership is and be inspired by great leaders you admire. I think if you’re prepared to put in the time, OJT is as effective as school, but you have to commit to listening, observing, and learning from other great leaders via mentorship or research.

Are tough decisions best taken by one person? How do you make tough decisions? I am very empathetic, which I believe is a great strength. However, when making tough decisions, I like to run my thoughts past trusted people. I’m fortunate to have an incredible board of advisors as well as team members with comprehensive backgrounds in operations and franchising. Brainstorming and parsing out the pros and cons in these situations really makes the final decision the best one we can make.

Do you want to be liked or respected? I would much rather be respected. The need to be liked dissipated in my late 20s, but the need for people to respect my knowledge and expertise is important. I don’t think I can be a good leader if people don’t respect me. 

Advice to CEO wannabes: Find a mentor if you can. I’ve had amazing mentors in my life. You don’t need to take all their advice, but they give you perspectives that you can’t possibly have yet. Absorb all their life experiences and use that to formulate the type of leader you want to be.

MANAGEMENT

Describe your management style: For my management team, I am hands-off and check in a few times a week to see how things are going. For other team members, I like to play more of a mentor role, where I empower them to think for themselves. We have a few young team members where this is one of their first jobs, and it is fun to watch them learn how to make decisions, set their own goals, and work through problems.

What does your management team look like? We’re a small team with 18 people on board. We have six senior team members handling operations, marketing, accounting, learning and development, and franchise development. They have regular meetings with their teams as well as cross-departmental meetings.

How does your management team help you lead? I count on them to keep their employees inspired and represent the culture we’ve cultivated over the years. We want our employees to be fulfilled, happy, and proactive but not burned out. It can be a challenge, and they need to alert me when we have team issues. 

Favorite management gurus: Do you read management books? (please name): Ironically, one book that I think everyone should read is Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. It has inspired me to tackle those unpleasant tasks quickly and get them off my plate and out of my mind. Start with the Why by Simon Sinek was one of the core principles we’ve used at Big Frog. As a military brat, I really enjoy the various military leaders, including Admiral William H. McRaven, Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, and a variety of Navy SEALs, including Jocko Willink.

What makes you say, “Yes, now that’s why I do what I do!”? When I see franchisees hit their goals, whether it’s sales, profits, or a European vacation, I am ecstatic for them. I love seeing how they grow as entrepreneurs and leaders.

OPERATIONS

What trends are you seeing with consumer spending habits in your stores? The summer was a bit slower than we expected this year. If we look at trends over the past 12 years, it appears that consumer spending in our case decreases during election years. We have seen a nice uptick heading into the fall months, however. 

How is the economy driving consumer behavior in your system? When inflation was at its peak, we did see more careful spending by our business customers. This has improved, but the time for closing deals has increased. 

What are you expecting from your market in the next 12 months? While this year has been somewhat flat overall in terms of growth, we are hopeful that consumer confidence will increase over the next few months. Having a resolution on the election and, hopefully, continued cuts by the Federal Reserve on interest rates can boost spending. 

Are your franchisees bullish or bearish about growth and adding additional units? Overall, the franchisees are excited about the growth of the number of stores this year. We have some fantastic new additions to our system. 

Are commodity/supply costs any cause for concern in your system? Garment production and delivery are critical pieces of our garment decorating process. Events, like floods or droughts in India, can affect cotton production, and this can increase our base cost of garments by as much as 20% and can cause shortages. When there is a UPS or dock worker strike, products can’t be delivered on time, and this causes shortages and upsets our customers. We have a short turnaround brand promise, and this impacts it severely. The dock worker strike that happened in early October may make sourcing products very difficult heading into the holiday season.

TECHNOLOGY

How much influence does your IT department have on your brand? We don’t necessarily have an IT department, but we do stay on top of technology itself. 

How have your company’s tech tools changed over the past five years? Last year we implemented a new cloud-based POS system (over an old desktop version) that allows us to be more flexible than before and perform quoting and sales in the field. It also allows us to have real-time access to support and assess KPIs in the field. Very exciting for us. 

How does technology influence your decisions? We are still a relatively small organization and franchise system, so we look at any affordable technology that can make our lives easier. By easier, I mean efficiencies, project management, communications, operations, and marketing. What can we afford, and how will it move the needle for our stores or franchise development?

Are you using AI? How? We are in the middle of a project with a consulting group that is doing a preliminary study on how we can use AI to improve efficiencies at the store. Our goal is to make the store easier to run and possibly with fewer personnel. At the franchise group level, we are using AI in marketing, communications and learning, and development and training. 

How do you measure your ROI on technology investments? Obviously, increased revenue generation is a huge KPI for us, but the degree of system adoption is the primary ROI we go by. If the franchisees are consistently using it, and they are seeing improvements in their stores, then that is a win for us.

How did/do you create a culture where use of technology advancements is welcome and used? We introduced a new printer two years ago after testing at the home office, and it was eagerly embraced. We tell our franchisees our concept emulates “Jetsons in the Jungle”—high technology combined with green and environmentally friendly processes and ambience.

PERSONAL 

What time do you like to be at your desk? I’m usually at my desk by 8:30 a.m. And I usually don’t leave my office until 5:30 p.m.

Exercise in the morning? Wine with lunch? I wake up at about 5 a.m. and work out in our home gym and then grab a cup of coffee and sit on the back patio with my dogs and let the chickens out in their yard. I enjoy that quiet time before starting the day.

Do you socialize with your team after work/outside the office? Many people on our team are good friends, and we try to do fun things now and then. I do enjoy hanging out with the team. 

Last two books read: I’m currently reading The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. I have a love for ancient history and archaeology. The other book I just revisited was Traction by Gino Wickman because a franchisee sent me a copy. 

What technology do you take on the road? For short trips, my phone and Kindle for reading. For longer trips, my laptop too. It’s amazing what you can accomplish on your phone these days.

How do you relax/balance life and work? We try to plan at least two one-week vacations a year. I’ve started trying to take one Monday off a month to go fishing with my husband. I find that if I don’t book it, then I don’t do it; it all goes right into my Outlook calendar. 

Favorite vacation destination(s): We’ve enjoyed cruising in the past few years. I enjoyed visiting the English Isles last year. The Isle of Man and the Shetland Islands were so remote, and it was such a treat to visit them in my lifetime. 

Favorite occasions to send employees notes: When they’ve completed some project that I know required extra time and effort. I really appreciate their dedication and want them to know that. We also do celebrations for engagements, baby showers, and birthdays—the usual fun things.

Favorite company product/service: I love a good glitter vinyl. The vinyl lasts forever on the shirt and really pops. I have shirts that are 10 years old that still look fantastic.

BOTTOM LINE

What are your long-term goals for the company? Over the next three years, my goal is to add another 50 stores and grow our stores’ revenue by double digits. 

How has the economy changed your goals for your company? Covid-19 definitely had an impact on awarding new stores, and it set us back a few years. We devoted all our energy and budget to helping our stores stay afloat. They bounced back nicely, but it did affect our plans. Currently, the economy caused single-digit growth this year, but we have awarded seven new stores so far this year, so we’re very happy about that. 

Where can capital be found these days? We’re lucky we have an excellent relationship with our local community bank. I recommend that everyone find a local bank that really cares about growing their business. We’ve nurtured this relationship for 10 years, and it has paid off. 

How do measure success? I personally measure success in three ways: franchisee satisfaction, team productivity, and whether my team wants to come to work—I don’t ever want to hear that they dread coming in.

What has been your greatest success? On a personal level, I feel my professional growth over the past 15 years in this business is what I’m most proud of. I’ve worked hard on trying to grow as a person, co-worker, and leader and keep my priorities straight.

For Big Frog, it’s really the amazing growth of our system. We never predicted that our stores could generate so much revenue and profit for themselves when we started this 15 years ago, and they are killing it. It’s very exciting, and I’m proud that our team and systems are a big part of that. 

Any regrets? Personally, my biggest regret is that when my business partner, Leeward, was ill during Covid-19, we didn’t insist on going to see him. He ended up passing away very suddenly that July, and it was devastating for all of us. Life is short, and don’t assume you have tomorrow. 

I will tell you my consistent regret is when I know someone on the team isn’t a good fit any longer and I take too long to let them go. Our team becomes like family, and it’s really hard to make those decisions. But keeping them on can be demoralizing for the rest of the team, and we’ve seen that happen a few times. I really need to make those hard decisions sooner.

What can we expect from your company in the next 12 to 18 months? We expect to add another 10 to 15 units to our footprint. We are also planning to launch a brand-new e-commerce component to our website in the first quarter. That should create additional revenue streams for the stores. We’re still hashing it out, but we’re very excited.