Lynsi Snyder-Ellingson, president and owner of In-N-Out burger, and her husband Sean Ellingson, Co-Founder of Slave 2 Nothing and Army of Love, join the Convene Podcast to discuss the importance of guarding your organization’s mission. In-N-Out Burger is a family-owned business that was established in 1948. Its incredibly simple menu increases the focus on three aspects of the business: quality, service, and values. Hear how Lynsi upholds those three aspects all through the lens of faith, and how the success of In-N-Out has led to the establishment of some incredible organizations led by Lynsi and Sean.
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Guarding Your Mission With Lynsi Snyder And Sean Ellingson Of In-N-Out Burger
Welcome to the show. Thanks, Lynsi Snyder Ellingson and her husband, Sean, for joining us from your offices north of Los Angeles.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Lynsi Snyder And Sean Ellingson Of In-N-Out Burger
In-N-Out, $1 billion-plus in revenue, 360 locations, six states, 29,000 employees, and you’re the sixth president. I don’t know how, but some people don’t know the In-N-Out story. For those people who might live in a state you’re not in, tell us a little bit about In-N-Out.
It was started in 1948 by my grandparents. It was a teeny tiny little stand. It was actually California’s first drive-thru. When I say teeny tiny, I mean very small compared to the In-N-Outs you’ll see today or other restaurants or fast food.
It only fitted about three or four people in the stand.
It was small. The first day, they only sold 57 burgers. My grandmother was basically doing the books. Their house was across the street. They were training people. When it was slow, they would go home. He saw cars pulling up. He’d run across and start helping. He was a very hard worker and meticulous about the quality. Something that started in the beginning with In-N-Out is finding the freshest, highest-quality products. We serve burgers, fries, and drinks. That’s it.
It was keeping it simple and not compromising. Something about In-N-Out is that from the beginning to now, we continue with those things that my grandparents started. I don’t do the books. I don’t live across the street from one store. We have over 370 stores. It’s crazy sometimes when I think about it, thinking of what my grandparents must have thought, having a few stores, and then where we are now. For those of you who don’t know, it’s still family-owned.
We’ve tried to stay true to all of the things that my grandparents would have wanted that we’ve had since the beginning. Times have changed, but our menu has stayed the same. We do have some secret menu items that people like to talk about. That’s stuff that was created by the customers ordering it. We don’t use freezers. There’s no reheating anything. You’ve got the freshness part. You’ve got the quality.
We put a lot of attention and detail into training our associates. That’s our In-N-Out family. It’s very different from a lot of other places. I lost a lot of my family, everyone on my father’s side. I lost my dad. I lost my uncle. My grandpa died before I was born. My grandmother died when I was in my twenties, pregnant with my first child. I lost them, but I gained this In-N-Out family that I’m trying to take care of. We’ve got our work cut out for us. That’s a little bit of an intro, trying to wrap it up quickly.
Why In-N-Out Didn’t Drift From Its Core Mission
A friend of mine, Peter Greer, a brilliant writer, author, leads an organization called HOPE International. He wrote a book called Mission Drift. We’ve all talked about this, but Peter encapsulated it well in his book. He talked about many organizations that have drifted from their original mission. Maybe talk about how In-N-Out didn’t drift from its mission because it hasn’t.
My grandfather died in ’76. My uncle became the president. He was only 24. He and my father were completely raised immersed in the business. They lived across the street. They were probably forced to work. They grew up in it. It was in their heart. They knew what their father wanted. It was passed to my uncle. My uncle tragically died in a plane crash in ’93. That’s when my father moved us back down because I lived in Northern California. My dad chose family over all the business stuff. He and his brother fought a little bit. It wasn’t just choosing his wife and daughter. It was like, “I’d rather go with them than fight with my brother and try to run this business.”
That’s the first time in history that there have been issues with family business.
We were up north. When my uncle died, it was devastating. My dad and he weren’t on the best of terms. They’d been fighting. There was a lot that had gone on. It was tough. We moved down south. My father was the president, taking over. Everyone was trying to honor their dad, even though their childhood wasn’t perfect and wasn’t wrapped with a big bow. They loved him. They knew what he and their mom started. My grandmother was still alive. She was the sweetest, cutest little lady. She loved everyone. They felt a great responsibility to honor that.
That’s the same thing I feel. I lost them tragically. I lost my dad when I was seventeen. He struggled with addiction off and on throughout his life. He’d had a lot of surgeries and got hooked on painkillers. That was tough. At seventeen, for me, stepping into everything, getting involved, having trustees, and watching, the only way I could explain it is that it was a God-given protective responsibility. I felt like I knew I had it in me to protect what they had started. They’re not here. It’s heavier in that way. Because they’re not here, I feel it that much more to honor them in the way that we steward the decisions. I go through this little checklist. What would they want? What would they do? That helps me.
Empowering Employees To Act Like Owners
Here’s a thought that I had. There are certain things that we would inherit from a family or from a non-family, for that matter. We inherited this thing. Not everything is protectable or valuable. What is it about In-N-Out, the mission, the vision, and the values from your history of your family that is worth guarding?
There’s a whole lot. Some of the things I mentioned were that there’s not going to be a compromise with the freshness and the quality. It’d be a lot easier to compromise on some of those things. We’re not going to. We’ll take the tougher road, take the hit, food costs, and all of that to continue to give our customers the best, and think about the store and the pride that each manager takes in their store. We teach them to be like owners. We want them to feel empowered to look at their store as theirs and run that store like it’s theirs. That’s a lot of how my grandparents empowered people in the beginning.
Teach your employees to act like owners. You want them to feel empowered and treat your organization as their own. Share on XActing out all of those things, it’s a lot. It’s the freshness, the quality, and the management style of empowering leaders to be owners of their stores. They’re not owners, but to think like an owner. My uncle brought a lot of the training in. The training is what has kept all of those things intact because we had this little motto. Training is our future. If we didn’t have that much intentionality and training, I don’t think that we would have been able to protect all of those things that my grandparents instilled in the beginning. It’s a lot of things.
If I walked into an In-N-Out, which I do many times, your team members are accommodating. They’re friendly. They care about you as a customer standing there. They care about many things at the restaurant. They clean things up quickly, etc. That’s yes, great training. We won’t talk about the great training. That’s a whole gigantic piece. As you train, interact, and work with team members, how do you reflect God’s love for them?
I feel like I have a whole lot of love for them. He makes me feel so loved by the things that I’ve been through. I feel so loved by Him because of so many mistakes that I made. I made so many mistakes. His grace has covered those, redeemed my life, and made me feel whole and special to Him still. Because of all His grace, that love, I feel so much for them. I want them to know that they are cared for, that they are loved, and that they have a purpose. We have BTV, Burger Television. Each period, we go over different training things and updates in the company. We show some stuff about the events we’ve had and lots of different areas we can focus on.
I always have a message in there. I try to take that little bit of time and connect with them. Sometimes, we talk about more challenging things or their personal life. If they’re struggling, you can ask someone at work. You can talk to them. We have an open door. We have a lot of places they can go. We want them to feel like they can talk. This is their family. This is a safe place to come to. One way people feel loved is by feeling understood, trying to provide that there and encourage them in days where it’s tough. They need some TLC. We’ve taught on servant leadership with our managers. There are a lot of biblical principles we try to teach so that we can reach people and that they can feel God’s love.
One effective way to make people feel loved is by feeling understood. Share on XShaping Leaders Rooted In Christian Living
We watched a video in a Convene training session. For those who didn’t know about In-N-Out, we explained that quickly on Convene. We’re a peer-to-peer mentoring group where we learn together one day a month, plus some coaching. There are hundreds of executives who are involved in Convene from coast to coast. We watched a video in a training session, which I wasn’t going to talk about, but it’s pretty fascinating. To make a very long story short, there was a girl in the video. This was a Casting Crowns music video. The girl had an illicit tryst the night before in a bar. She came to work the next day. Everybody ignored her, and people gave her a cheap tip and a tract.
At church, everybody looked askance at her. The question was around, isn’t it too bad that the church looked poorly upon her for her one-night stand? My belief is that it’s not just what happened under the steeple of the church. It’s what happened Monday to Friday. If I might say, at In-N-Out Burger or at any other place in the world where people are working, if someone came to work, and they were looking like they had a bad day the day before, or a bad night the night before, isn’t it the In-N-Out Burger leadership’s responsibility to care for them like Jesus would? Your thoughts on that.
Absolutely. We have hundreds of managers. They all have different styles. They’re all different. They’re unique. We teach care everywhere. We teach taking a genuine interest in the associates’ lives and taking the time to have conversations. They all know that if they see that, they should take them aside and talk to them. There have been countless stories of people’s lives being changed by those conversations, or them being able to be like a mentor and someone that they can go to. It makes me so happy to know that there are people hurting out there and that we have people who are able to be there. They’re not all Christians, but they still care. They’re still providing that talk. It’s a form of love. It just is. It’s great to know that.
In the early days of Convene, I kept threatening to bring this tagline back. We were called the BBL forum, Beyond the Bottom Line, turning the Sunday stuff into Monday stuff. That’s what you’re doing at In-N-Out Burger. You’re taking what is a biblical value set. Maybe we could say what we heard in church, but I’d say what God says in the Bible. You’re taking it from the Bible page into the Monday through Sunday at In-N-Out Burger. That’s great.
Creating Quality Food Products That Honor God
I want to do a quick quote from Dorothy Sayers, a British philosopher, author, and brilliant woman. She said, “In nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as her failure to understand secular vocation.” That’s all the executives we’re talking to in the country right now who are running manufacturing business, software business, private equity business, whatever the case. The church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk on Sunday and to come to church on Sunday.
What the church should be telling him is that the very first demand that faith makes on him is that he should make great tables. It goes on to say that Jesus the Carpenter probably didn’t make a bad table. Somebody bought something from Jesus. The drawers didn’t fit, and the legs were wobbly. Nobody wants to go to In-N-Out Burger and get a cold hamburger and a hot milkshake, or whatever. When you create food products with excellence that honor God, do you feel that?
I don’t think I thought of it that way, but I like it. I feel that this is something God has protected through all those tragedies and through everything. The way He’s helped hold it together and keep it going, I feel like it’s important to Him. There are a lot of things for which we might pray for something. Sometimes, I go, “This must be so small on the scale of things for God. This is silly, I’m even praying for this. It is burgers, fries, and a drink,” but I do feel like it’s important to Him.
I know that it is because it’s tied to people. He loves people. I know ministry for everyone is about people. It’s about loving people. He does care that we try to do what’s best in that industry. We try to do what’s best, serve the customers, and serve them what’s best. There are some different stories I could think of in the Bible where you’re looking at that. I do believe that my focus is on both what we’re doing, the operation, and the people, and everything behind the scenes. My calling is mixed into all of that.
God cares that you are doing what’s best in your chosen industry. Do your best in serving your customers. Share on XI worked for ServiceMaster, a $9 billion company, for about twenty years. We had four values. Honor God, help people, pursue excellence, and grow profitably. Our President Bill Pollard, who’s still very much alive, used to say, and I want to apply this to In-N-Out, “If we don’t have excellence in what we do in hospital management, and we don’t make a profit, we don’t have a company to honor God and help people. We are called BK, bankrupt.”
We need to pursue excellence and deliver value with hamburgers, fries, and drinks. We need to be profitable, or we don’t have a company to honor God. Imagine if God said, “I’m going to make Monday through Friday a complete waste of time, so people can make money and give it to a mission organization.” I don’t think God said that Monday through Friday is a waste of time. That’s why the Bible says, “Do all to the glory of God.” When you make great burgers, fries, and drinks, you honor God.
Combating Human Trafficking And Substance Abuse
Sean, I want to talk a little bit about Army Of Love and Slave 2 Nothing. Talk about that because we’ve talked about the fact that making great burgers, fries, and drinks is important. Some of the things that you do with the vehicle that God gave to the family are working with things like human trafficking and helping employees. I’d love to talk about that.
Within In-N-Out, we have an organization called Slave 2 Nothing that Lynsi and I started. We had it heavily on our hearts at one point. It is recognizing the platform that we had to not only influence and encourage our associates and care for them, but outward from our company to society, our local communities, and hopefully one day, even further than that. We recognize the lack of the fight for people who were being trafficked and how taboo it was to even talk about it at the time. Nobody was talking about it. People were very unaware that it was happening in their backyard.
In addition to that, the overlap with the substance abuse and how personal that’s affected both Lynsi, her father, me, my brother, and so many of our friends growing up. We’ve seen so many people. I have another brother who was on heroin, homeless. It’s been prevalent. We recognize the need for us to take the stand and to create an organization that could help combat both of those at the same time.
We saw the overlap again with our other organization, the In-N-Out Burger Foundation, which helps with children in the foster care programs. We saw the issue of a lot of the children that were falling through the cracks from child care into trafficking and into substance abuse. We felt like this was the full circle completion to help combat everything from childhood, going into adolescence, and adulthood. We felt that it was the right time to do it. We started the organization. We’ve been growing every year.
The In-N-Out Burger Foundation that he mentioned was started in the ’80s by my uncle. My grandmother and my mom actually helped out quite a bit with that. We’ve been doing that for a long time. My grandmother loved children so much. She was very active in the community to give to different clubs and organizations. The third part of our mission purpose statement is assisting all of our communities to become stronger, safer, and better places to live.
The verse for me that comes to mind is, and I’m paraphrasing, “If you’ve been given that much, then you better be faithful with it, and you better give back.” I feel that was already in the mission purpose statement, not with a Christian mindset that was put there. We believe that every community we’re in and everywhere we have a store, we’d better be making a difference and impacting them. There’s the In-N-Out Burger Foundation fighting child abuse, and then Slaves 2 Nothing, which was started in 2016.
The focus for Slaves 2 Nothing is to create, educate, and assist in solutions to eliminate human trafficking and assist individuals and their families to gain freedom and healing from substance abuse. We have a good team that is going out and vetting these programs with their financial records. They’re going personally on site to some locations to inspect some of the facilities that we support.
They do a good job, making sure that every dollar that we raise for the organization is very well spent in combating these things. In 2021, Slaves 2 Nothing granted a total of 96 awards totaling $1.7 million. We’ve been growing and growing and raising a lot of money to fight both of these issues here, substance abuse and human trafficking. We hope to grow further outside of our local communities and tackle this issue nationally and hopefully, internationally.
Giving Birth To New Leaders Through A Discipleship Platform
Thanks for doing that. That’s important. Lynsi and Sean, you founded an organization called Army of Love. Tell us what that’s all about.
Army of Love is our ministry. It’s two parts. One part is that you can come to this website. You can find that there’s a whole discipleship platform where you could enlist. Because it’s the army, you could enlist. There are seven modules. They’re very lengthy. This is not something light. You’re going to get into a lot. It’s great. There are questions at the end. You would be provided a mentor and someone who is keeping track of your progress and working with you. It’s to train, unite, equip, set free, and deploy. That part of it is to create a bunch of soldiers in the Lord that can be equipped for the work of ministry.
The other part of the site is that people can come for help. If they’re going through marriage issues, depression, or whatever the issue is, we could have a soldier work with them and be there for them. We’re in the process of getting the instant chat on there, too, so someone can get help immediately. It’s something God put on my heart. It was a time in my life when I was like, “With all these failures, all these things going on, having gone through divorce, I want to be used by You. My life is a waste if I’m not used by You.” I filed for the 501(c)(3) for the name, the status, and everything. Ironically, it didn’t go through. It took a long time.
It went through a week after we got married. When the Lord gave me the name, I hadn’t met him. When we met, I found out he was in the army. I was like, “That’s interesting.” The whole military theme meant a lot to both of us, and applying that to the kingdom here, because it is a battle for sure. There’s a lot. Just reading our mission, let’s bring together followers of Christ for training and empowerment in order to help them discover their God-given identity and fulfill their purposes by utilizing their gifts to serve others. Deploy this army of love to minister directly to and provide resources and referrals for people in need. The vision is to unite and equip the body of Christ to minister and bring healing to broken-hearted and hurting people through Christ’s love by the power of the Holy Spirit.
What a great outworking of an organization to use the prophets to create something like that. Sean, were you going to say something?
We’re here for individuals who visit our site who need help, but we’re here for churches as well. We’d love to support different organizations and rehabilitation programs, with their discipleship, if they’re a Christian organization. If they’re not, we’d still like to help them. I wanted to put that out there that we’re available for companies. We’ll help anyone.
If somebody wanted to find out more, where would they go?
ArmyOfLove.com, or they can email Info@ArmyOfLove.com, but this is completely separate from the business and everything. This is our ministry. We have some amazing brothers and sisters in the Lord who work with us. We would love to have anyone who is tuning in. Check it out. If anyone wants to enlist or share with anyone else, it’s fantastic. We’d love to have more. We call ourselves a church without walls.
Why In-N-Out Cups Have Bible Verses
We talked about the twin important legs of the stool, which are using the prophets of a firm to do something for the community and the world. At the same time, as we talked about, it’s important to make great hamburgers, fries, and drinks so that you actually have profit to do something with. We’ve got a few minutes left, but I would be remiss if I didn’t answer the question that everybody is asking. They want me to say, talk about why there are Bible verses on the cups. What is the reason, the rationale, that when you have a drink cup from In-N-Out or a fry boat, there’s a verse on the bottom or the side?
My uncle, Richie, actually started it. It was only a couple of years before he died. He accepted the Lord a couple of years before he died. My grandmother was raised in the church. Harry, my grandfather, was not. He accepted the Lord on his deathbed. I’m happy to say that they were all saved before they died. Harry was not a believer, lived a very tough life himself, was abused severely, and then, in turn, abused my dad and my uncle, which is why the In-N-Out Burger Foundation was created.
My uncle finally faced that. When my uncle got saved, I think it was on his heart to say, “We’re a family business. This is a piece of who we are. This is something we can do because we are a family business. I want to put these verses here.” He put them on the drink cup and the burger wrappers. Later, when we had to maybe fix the color on something or change the little In-N-Out logo and do something here or there, I was like, “Let’s put a verse in the fry boat.” Everything that’s come in since then, we haven’t changed the coffee cup. We got new coffee and the kids’ hot cocoa, which hot cocoa wasn’t a new menu item. A lot of people thought it was.
I saw it in a picture from the ’60s. It was an older photo. I’m looking at the menu, and I’m like, “Hot chocolate. When do we have hot chocolate? That wouldn’t be a new item. We should bring hot chocolate back.” That came back. We put scripture on that as well. We try to hide them in other little things. We have an inflatable fry boat wrapped for the pool. We even have one on the bottom of there. I couldn’t tell you the exact reason why my uncle picked the verses he did. John 3:16, you can probably understand why. I actually have them here. People ask me this, and I never have them all in front of me.
I’m glad I have them because I forget how many things we put them on as well. Proverbs 24:16 on the French fry boat was put there at a very significant time in my life after God picked me back up, from the sin that I had allowed in my life as a Christian. That verse is, “For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity.” That was a verse I wanted to encourage people with because I feel like I’m probably not the only Christian who feels like they let God down. I should fold up shop and quit, because how can he love me? There are others. I always tell people to go check them out. It’s like a little scavenger hunt.
Do Not Grow Weary Of Doing The Right Thing
Many business owners don’t do anything. If they’re a public company, they’re afraid to do something. There’s much we can do. You’re using the vehicle of In-N-Out to make a difference for the kingdom of God. The foundation is doing great work with people who are involved in things that they don’t want to be involved in or are enslaved in. I’m very grateful for what you’re doing.
I’m sure many people around the world are grateful for what you’re doing and thank you very much for taking the time. Let me ask you one last question before we go. Speak to the business leaders out there who are struggling through this time of COVID-19. Their revenue may be up. They’re going crazy. Their revenue may be down. They’re not feeling great about it. What encouragement would you say to them from your platform of business owners?
I would say that don’t grow weary while doing what’s right. Don’t give up on the good fight. Don’t compromise. Don’t stop trusting God. Maybe you need to trust God more. There are so many things going on in this world. It’s a time when we don’t compromise our values either. We should stand up for what we believe in, what’s right. You might face a lot of persecution in doing that, but it’s worth it because God backs people up when they do that.
Do not grow weary while doing the right thing. Do not give up on the good fight and never stop trusting God. Share on XI know that we have to take time, whether it be marriage, with your children, time alone with God, or getting away. It’s so important because the busyness and the responsibilities can be a burden and can drain you at times if you don’t make sure you’re keeping up those other areas, because those areas are very important to the Lord. It’s all about the relationships. At the end of the day, it is making sure you take a check on the pulse of whether it’s your marriage, your family, or your relationship with the Lord and the time that you spend with Him.
Lynsi and Sean at In-N-Out Burger, thanks for taking the time to be with us at Convene. We’re grateful for your speaking in the lives of thousands of leaders who are tuning in. We will continue to keep you in our prayers as you grow the company.
Thank you so much.
