About the author: Cris Bengis oversees national sales, field sales and business development for Front Flip. He is a 12-year veteran of PepsiCo Foodservice, most recently as senior director of sales on the Pizza Hut, Quiznos and Arby’s accounts. Previously, Cris held various marketing management positions for Pizza Hut and the Atlanta Hawks NBA franchise. Cris and his family recently moved to Kansas City from Frisco, Texas. He holds a degree in communications from the State University of New York at Oswego.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“No. This company is going to make it really big!”
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That was my go-to answer whenever someone felt like passing judgment. While I wasn’t 100 percent sure I bought my own story at the time, I was sticking to it.
After 12 years at PepsiCo, I accepted an offer with a startup called Front Flip. The job meant I’d be kissing my life in Dallas goodbye and relocating my family to Kansas City.
I don’t, and never will, have a bad word to say about my job at Pepsi. My colleagues and mentors were all incredible. The work was challenging and fast paced. I worked with many of the major hitters in the restaurant industry, like Arby’s, Pizza Hut and Quizno’s.
When we traveled, we ate well, slept in nice hotels and had great customer dinners.
But that persistent recruiter knew what she was doing. After the tenth call, my curiosity was too big to ignore. I didn’t want to look back at age 70 and regret playing it safe my entire career. I wanted my kids to know, “I went for it,” and took a big career risk.
Monster.com just put out a surprising survey on which generation is the biggest risk taker. In it, Boomers led the pack (43 percent), followed by Gen Xers (40 percent) and then Millennials (28 percent).
I’ll reveal where I fall in just a minute.
Jeffrey Quinn, VP at Global Monster Insights (the company behind the study) said, “This survey revealed that the entrepreneurial spirit resides in all of us and across all generations of workers … whether it’s a direct result of the current economy, or a person’s independent drive.”
What Quinn didn’t talk about is how emotionally draining it can be to take that risk. In my case, I had to uproot a wife and two young kids. We were leaving behind great schools, sports teams and a huge network of friends. I felt a ton of pressure, and still do to some degree.
Luckily, my first encounter with the entire Front Flip team was at a sports bar. I don’t know if it was the beer or the game of charades we were playing, but the energy and excitement in the room was palpable.
But as I settled in and looked around, I was hit with a rather intense crow bar of reality.
The entire Front Flip staff fit around four restaurant tables. My division at Pepsi had about 500 people. There are about 300,000 PepsiCo employees worldwide.
The more striking realization?
I had suddenly become “that older guy.” That older guy with a shaved head. Some of my colleagues were young enough to be my kids.
The strange thing? I’m only 43. At Pepsi, if you compared me to other people at my level, I was one of the youngest.
But it all makes sense. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall median age of American workers is just slightly younger than me—42.3 years old.
A recent PayScale survey found only six of 32 major tech firms had employees whose median age was above 35 years old. Eight of them had a median age that was 30 or younger.
Despite feeling over the hill, I was really excited to join the cause. This was the first night of what I knew would become a wild ride.
My first plane ride as a Front Flip employee was a bit of a reality check that I had moved on from one of the most known brands/companies in the world. No, it had nothing to do with flying coach. I’m a New Yorker and I’m used to cramped spaces.
It was that mandatory “What do you do?” discussion with the person sitting next to me.
During my days at Pepsi, my answer was brief: “I work at Pepsi.” Pretty self-explanatory!
During my first few weeks at Front Flip, it took me the entire flight between Dallas and Kansas City to break it down. Fortunately, I’m a quick learner.
After shadowing our CEO on a few sales calls, the training wheels were off. While Pepsi and Front Flip are drastically different products, the clients and my overall objective didn’t change.
Regardless of what you are selling, you need to be persuasive and solution oriented. As long as you can help your customers fall in love with your product and your company, you are going to be successful.
I love sharing my experiences selling to and working with major restaurant franchisees and corporate C-suite executives. And I encourage everyone on my team to work in the trenches of the restaurant industry. I spent many days washing dishes and prepping food to better understand my clients’ challenges on a day-to-day basis.
I’ve worked at Front Flip for ten months now, and I haven’t regretted my decision once. Especially now that we are hiring more people born in the 1960s.
Today, I look around our quarterly staff meetings and take comfort in the fact that I’m not “the” older guy any more. In fact, we are now a team of seven “older folks.”
I’m not saying we run the show at Front Flip. Not even close. But what we do bring is another perspective. I believe the diversity of our team—on both an age and experience front—is one of our greatest assets.
And that’s just one of the reasons I’m glad I took the risk.
You will always miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, and while I don’t know exactly how this story is going to end, I sure as hell am enjoying the ride.
