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Bricks and Clicks

Bricks and Clicks

By: Cliff Hudson and Craig Miller
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 What does it really take to lead a legacy brand into the digital era—and keep it thriving? Why do some companies succeed, and others don’t?

Bricks and Clicks is a masterclass in modern business strategy and transformational growth. Hosted by Cliff Hudson, former CEO of Sonic Drive-In, and Craig Miller, veteran strategist and technology leader, this podcast explores how traditional businesses can evolve, innovate, and lead in a fast-changing world.

Each episode features actionable in-depth discussions with visionary executives, digital pioneers, and brand builders who are redefining what it means to serve customers in the age of disruption. From leadership in legacy companies to digital strategy, operational reinvention, and customer-centric innovation, Bricks and Clicks offers candid, practical conversations packed with takeaways you can apply to your own business.

Whether you’re in the boardroom, a member of the c-suite, part of the front-line leadership, or building a business from the ground up, join Cliff and Craig as they talk with the minds shaping the future of business—where physical and digital meet, and transformation becomes reality. Bricks and Clicks is a production of Forbes Books.Forbes Books Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • A Universal Playbook for Brand-Building in the 21st Century

    A Universal Playbook for Brand-Building in the 21st Century
    Dec 2 2025
    Former Sonic CEO Cliff Hudson and tech executive Craig Miller (ex-CIO, Planet Fitness & Sonic) distills five critical takeaways from their series on integrating technology with brand strategy. They argue that genuine customer value creation – driving top-line growth and operator profit – is non-negotiable in the 21st century. Drawing on Sonic’s transformation (from $1B to $5.5B+ in sales fueled by innovations like mobile order/pay), they reveal why technology must be woven into the customer experience, not bolted on. The duo tackles the universal challenge of "messy middles" in complex implementations and emphasizes that their strategic framework – starting with the customer, not the tech – applies across industries. Miller also demystifies AI ("augmented intelligence"), linking it to predictive tools they pioneered at Sonic. Essential listening for leaders navigating digital transformation.
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    33 mins
  • Retooling the Enterprise, Taking it to Scale: Navigating the Hazards of Large-Scale Execution

    Retooling the Enterprise, Taking it to Scale: Navigating the Hazards of Large-Scale Execution
    Oct 21 2025
    Former Sonic Drive-In CEO Cliff Hudson and cohost Craig Miller get together with key architects John Budd and Christina Vaughan to dissect one of retail’s most ambitious transformations: retrofitting 3,500 drive-ins with integrated POS, digital menu boards, and customer tech following the Great Recession. They reveal how the team navigated franchisee skepticism, change management, overnight installations (including a literal dumpster fire), and the perilous trade-offs of scaling complex systems across a fragmented network. Discover why "bad news doesn’t get better with time" became their mantra, how franchisee trust turned skeptics into allies, and why prioritizing progress over perfection was non-negotiable. Plus: how these crisis-tested strategies later shaped Oklahoma’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout. A masterclass in operational brinkmanship—when betting the company meant converting at least 22 stores a week without shutting down the brand.
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    48 mins
  • The Messy Middles: Navigating the Organizational Conflict of Digital Transformation

    The Messy Middles: Navigating the Organizational Conflict of Digital Transformation
    Nov 18 2025
    When legacy brands pivot to digital, the path is rarely linear. In this candid discussion, Sonic Drive-In’s former CEO Cliff Hudson and executives Craig Miller and Eddie Saroch dissect the turbulent rollout of their 21st-century "Integrated Customer Engagement" (ICE) strategy—a web of interdependent tech initiatives from POS systems to mobile apps and data-driven marketing. Hudson reveals how Sonic’s 20th-century "parallel initiatives" model collided with the complexity of integrated systems, triggering what Harvard’s Professor Cantor calls the "messy middle": stakeholder misalignment, operational friction, and fading buy-in. Miller unpacks the ICE framework—Sonic’s "21st-century ice"—while Saroch details the gritty franchisee negotiations required to centralize media spending and deploy foundational tech.

    Key takeaways: Why digital overhauls demand unprecedented collaboration, how to sell long-term ROI to skeptical operators, and why acknowledging organizational conflict isn’t failure—it’s strategy. A masterclass in scaling change when every piece depends on the next.
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    31 mins
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