A Drive to Succeed is What Keeps Famous Toastery’s Robert Maynard Moving Forward

Robert Maynard always thought working for himself would be an easier route than working for someone else. After becoming one of Famous Toastery’s founders and leaders in franchise development, he quickly learned this wasn’t the case. Though, his passion for seeing franchisees succeed and achieve their own dreams became his main focus and motivator.

“A bad day working for yourself is better than a bad day working for someone else,” said Maynard.

After Maynard’s co-founder and longtime friend Brian Burchill paid for him to make the trip down to Charlotte, he saw the opportunity Burchill felt so strongly about. Though he never thought he would find himself in the restaurant industry, there he was alongside his best friend with an exciting opportunity to take a chance on.

Burchill and Maynard set out to fill the void of better breakfast in Charlotte to start. What they ended up with was a concept poised to grow across the Southeast as skyrocketed. After eight years, the brand decided to go the route of franchising because they knew what they had was different than anything else on the market.

“We saw something that wasn’t saturated and that it was an untapped market. We knew the way to continue our success was through franchising,” Maynard said.  

With Maynard’s background in banking and real estate, he proved to be the perfect fit to run franchise development and sales for the brand, finding qualified prospects to own their own Famous Toastery restaurants. His attitude and his drive have always propelled him forward, and over the years, he has always strived to achieve bigger and better things. With that, comes a new set of challenges.

“Everything is easier said than done and this business is not for the weak-hearted. If it was easy, everyone would do it. If you’re a driven person, you’ll work hard no matter what you do. I want to see other people succeed around me, and I’ll stop at nothing to make that happen,” Maynard said.

Although Maynard works very hard to achieve success for the brand, he knows there is much more that can be done with a team rather than by one single person. He explains that when hiring new members of his team, he hires people that are not like him in terms of personality or skillset. This ensures that he’s never done learning.

“You have to be willing to listen. There’s always room to learn more and grow and you must have an open mind to do that,” said Maynard.

Instead of focusing on what is working, Maynard would rather focus on how he can make things better and more efficient as a business. If you spend your time patting yourself on the back, he says, someone else will be there to do a better job than you.

“Be obsessed with success and not just for yourself, but for the franchisees,” said Maynard.

Today, as Famous Toastery continues to grow outside of its home-state of North Carolina and throughout the U.S., some of his most proud moments with the brand are those where he sees a new franchisee open their restaurant.

“Seeing the emotion franchisees have when their store opens, when they’re making money, and running their own business makes me very proud. You are making their dreams come true and seeing someone who gave up everything to open their own restaurant succeed,” Maynard said. “That’s what drives me every day.”