Joker, you are already doing well more than the average Domino’s. For the moment, be proud of that. First and foremost, you should be making pretty good profit off of $16K and you need to make sure you are maximizing this. Secondly you need to understand that after 18 months you are still at the early stages of your growth curve. You will likely have plateaus sometimes followed by small declines but hopefully your overall pattern is still going up. If you are in a decent size town, there are still many who have not tried your pizza even after 18 months. We have been here 23 years and I still run into people that haven’t tried our pizza. Growth will continue with time as long as you keep your quality of product and service up. Lastly, stop worrying about Dominos and their sales. Keep your sales growing and keep improving your profit. Worrying about them will do nothing for you. Would you do anything different if they were only doing $10K per week and you were at $16K?
I’d be thrilled that Dominos is doing so well. This gives you more customers to steal away from them. Obviously, your town loves pizza. They just need to try a good one and make the switch to yours.
It is about marketing…Chains usually out spend independents by a large amount and get way more bang for their buck because of volume and shared markets…
The Big Chains that open around here do big business…right up to the day they close. So, obviously they NEED to do HUGE business to cover their costs. This means that you shouldn’t be worrying about beating them in sales - you just need to beat them in profits.
Dominos has been around longer than the average age of their customer. That means EVERYBODY has heard of them and have been hearing about them all their lives. As a new business, you have not reached even name recognition with 20% of the people that live in your area.
Concentrate on quality and service and keep plugging away at the marketing.
There are different ways to market your business. What type of oven do you use? Deck or conveyor. Use things such as that to describe why your pizza is different and unique compared to the other guys. Worry about the competition but don’t worry about them. You need to build your brand and let it speak for itself. If you want a cheap pizza go to Dominos but if you want a real authentic pizza come to your place.
I divide the pizza sector into 4 categories nowadays. It used to be 3 and BIG 3 Occupied the middle 70% of the marketplace. If you are trying to compete in their sector you will either have to create a buzz or accept that they will do better.
I compete in their market and 1 of my shops is beating them and one is not.
I have inside information from my local Dominos. Too many employees or ex employees working for me or them now.
I believe the better sector if to compete for a true independant is the newly created one. Chains like Marcos and Naked have created their own new space. They are only focused on Papa Johns (who is still in the BIG 3 Sector) and you can compete there or go to the next level which is usually not occupied by “chains” at all.
