In this insightful conversation, Megan shares her dynamic journey through various Fortune 500 companies, high-tech ventures, and diverse industries, showcasing a career dedicated to scaling retail businesses and fostering innovative cultures.
As the driving force behind Soapy Joe’s operational success, Megan unveils her strategic leadership approach, emphasizing the significance of building effective teams and cultivating a forward-thinking environment.
In the midst of a record-breaking year marked by the opening of Soapy Joe’s 21st location in San Diego, Megan delves into the company’s commitment not only to environmental sustainability but also to community impact.
With over $2 million donated and 120,000 free washes benefiting veterans, healthcare workers, schools, hospitals, and more, Soapy Joe’s stands as a beacon of corporate responsibility.
Join us in this exclusive interview as Megan Ragsdale provides unique insights into leadership, achievements, and the thriving success of Soapy Joe’s amidst the challenges of today’s dynamic business landscape.
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Megan Ragsdale: My name is Megan Ragsdale, and I have been the Chief Operations and Development Officer at Soapy Joe’s for 3 years. My career spans multiple lines of business in global Fortune 500 companies as well as a variety of industries, from high tech to CPG, retail, energy and telecommunications.
Throughout my career my focus has been on scaling retail businesses, cultivating more innovative cultures and building effective teams. I joined Soapy Joe’s as an executive coach and transitioned to lead the organization operationally so that the founder could focus on expansion and capital investment.
It has been a record-breaking year for us as we just opened our 21st location in San Diego. Here at Soapy Joe’s, we pride ourselves not just on our contribution to the environment, but to our community and members as well. Over the past 12 years, we have donated more than $2 million and 120,000 free washes, benefiting communities such as veterans, healthcare workers, schools, hospitals, firefighters and more.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Megan Ragsdale: My greatest achievements have been winning San Diego’s Top Workplace in 2022 and 2023 while opening more sites than ever before, growing our member base, and keeping our customer satisfaction score above a 4.5.
These are the metrics that indicate if you are putting out a great product and if you’ve done your job as a leadership team to create an environment in which all team members can thrive. We could not be more proud of these achievements while in such a massive period of growth and scale.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?
Megan Ragsdale: The number one reason why people leave organizations, their direct manager, hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve been in business. That is why we prioritize listening to our employees and investing in our leaders. We handpicked our entire executive leadership team and carefully curated every single new leadership team hire to meet our criteria: high EQ, empathetic, self-aware and able to lead on day one.
We built a best-in-class training program for incoming managers and internally promote assistant and site managers to ensure that our team can be brilliant at the basics and focus on their top priorities: leading their team with heart and loving the members.
We also matched our reward and recognition program to our core values, our internal North Star, which further reinforces the leadership behaviors we’re looking for from our team. I’m happy to say this investment is working. Our turnover is down year over year, tracking well below industry benchmark.
On our most recent employee survey, 92% of our employees stated that their manager treats them fairly and with respect. ~85% of our employees would both recommend us as a great place to work and are overall very satisfied with Soapy Joe’s as an employer. We work hard for our team, and they work hard for our members.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Megan Ragsdale: Digital services have taken every industry by storm, and here at Soapy Joe’s we expect that trend to continue. Our customers expect the best experience we have to offer, and many of those experiences are now digital.
We have incorporated many digital initiatives into our strategy from monthly online memberships to QR code sign ups. We are capitalizing on this digital tidal wave by focusing our outreach efforts on gaming and augmented reality.
Soapy’s new AR Splash Dash game has multiple sharable moments such as selfie frames, leaderboard position, and appealing for fundraising support that rope customers in and help to retain them.
Our other programs are focused on social media voting on UGC such as pet photo contests, the best car wash marriage proposal, best car wash karaoke video and more. The company’s contact database is enriched, the brand reputation spreads and members feel part of the club.
Belonging to a community of active members is priceless and fostering moments where the Soapy Squad shares feedback reinforces those community connections. Being on the forefront of branded gaming has proven successful in positioning the brand in B2B conversations as well as showing efficacy at the consumer level.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Megan Ragsdale: Right now, like most businesses, we are living in uncertain economic times where prices are going up and consumers are being more protective of their discretionary spending.
The challenge remains unchanged for us: we are competing for wallet space, which means we have to work very hard to continue to earn our members’ trust and business.
We have to be convenient, provide a memorable and consistent customer experience every time, and we need to not limit our customer touchpoints to just the four walls of the car wash tunnel. Our members know that being a part of the Soapy Joe’s Club means so much more than a car wash.
They see us volunteering and donating to the causes they care about, supporting our local sports teams, honoring our veterans, and so much more. This is what makes our members our best brand ambassadors. We help them feel good about how we are partnering with them and the communities we serve.
2020, 2021, and 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Megan Ragsdale: My biggest takeaway from the last few years has been understanding the language of trade-offs and the necessity of continuous adaptation. Businesses need to prioritize the needs that take center stage at any particular time, which means they cannot have it all at the same time.
In order to prioritize business needs, decision makers must have their finger on the pulse of all of the variables at once and determine which items have the most risk and the most pay off. That means that you need to have built a strong foundation of first-party data collection and analysis in advance, which we spent the last several years prioritizing.
Making these decisions is not an easy task, and that is where the need for adaptability comes in. Decision makers looking to be successful in this business climate cannot be afraid to make hard decisions, and that often comes with becoming comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty.
To be adaptable, decision makers have to be quick learners who can respond to the market in real-time. Procrastination and analysis paralysis are the enemies of operating diligently in today’s environment.
What does “success” in 2023 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Megan Ragsdale: A successful 2023 at Soapy Joe’s would mean executing our strategic plan to the best of our ability, acknowledging the fruits of our labors and celebrating our wins as a team in December.
I’m happy to say we are well on track for that! For me personally, I now measure success by how present I am in my life, at work and at home. Ensuring I am not just going through the motions, but really living in these moments to my full capacity.
This interview was originally published on ValiantCEO.
