How Many of you work at your store fulltime.

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
21

As we’ve all seen before, there are from time to time spammers that will fill a subject line with something that is supposed to get us ‘excited’ and entice us to visit their nasty sex sites.

Well I have to tell you… THIS is what excites me ! The thought of a successful self-sufficient shop where I don’t have to be here 80 hours a week is what does it for me. There’s nothing worse than running around putting out operational ‘fires’ when you should be able to plan and envision the next 1-2 weeks.

I’ve always talked about ‘taking the leap’ and just hiring a 3rd manager to take the majority of my hours and get out more to market. What it comes down to is whether or not I can generate 15.5 more orders a week just to stay even and not cost myself more money.

j_r0kk style:

[b]3rd Manager @ $7.50

30hrs X $7.50=$225 per week
$225/$14.50 ticket average=15.5 orders needed[/b]

So if I can generate 15.5 orders per 30 hours of marketing that I do I’ll break even. The good thing is that the majority of the 15.5 will be ‘new customers’ that will begin to order on a regulart basis(if the mgrs do their job) and begin to grow the business.

btw sometimes I just use this forum to work out stuff for myself. I apologized if I put anyone to sleep. :smiley: This would be an example of just that.

22

I think you woke me up more. 15.5 more orders a week. I know it sounds easier than it is. lol

23

You aren’t including food costs in the calculation. Assume 30% food cost, now you need 22 more orders to pay that managers salary.

Matching taxes, unemployment insurance and workmans comp will probably take another 3 or 4 orders… :slight_smile:

24

Yowza.

So we’re saying that in the 30 hours a week that I’d be out marketing, I’d need to generate 42 more orders to see positive results ?

I’d think that with each week that number would go down due to the repeat orders you’d be getting from the newly harvested customers. So week 1 I’ll need 42 but week 2 I might need 38 and so on.

Am I right in my thinking ?

How the hell am I going to generate 42 orders in one week ??? lol

25

:smiley:

Give me a week or two, I’ll come up with the proper calculation accounting for repeat customers, etc…

26

I’d rather you calculate how I get 42 orders !! lol :shock:

27

At the risk of being a smart @ss . . . . DOORHANGERS!!

Remember that we are talking about 42 new ORDERS. Existing customers reorders as well as new customers. Get those once a month guys to bang up once more a month. Get those occasional guys to pony up two or three extra times a year each. Get those groups to come in for parties on little league game nights. Really, look at how many customers you have in your database, and figure what percentage needs to order an extra time each month to get 168 additional orders. I’ll bet it ain’t that many . . . and then the new customers you’ll be herding in with your 30-hour a week marketing plans . . . . start making room for that extra oven now :lol: Seriously, the medium to larger markets could make it work. Mine would take two extra days in the week to happen this year.

Sure some of those new customers will hang on to be weekly or bi-weekly for you, so that will help in future efforts to maintain and move past it.

Now we see the brilliance some guys have of a rolling campaign across the area they service. Hit just part of it each week, and you get a chance to pull in waves of added orders instead of all bunched in one timeframe.

28

Hey I hear ya brother. I come from the same school of thinking. Doorhanging is a given. We do 30-40 hours a week. In fact, we have one of the most organized doorhanging systems with fancy maps and everything.

We have this because during two previous pizza jobs when I worked for ‘the man’, I had great success in raising sales just by establishing a solid doorhanging program. The problem is that doorhanging is a lot less effective out here in this city of 55,000 where I decided to open my first store. Kinda like shooting pool with a rope.

There are 35 listed pizza shops just in my delivery area and people have become numb to finding coupons on their door. Of course, we won’t stop, and we are in a final cycle of Monster Magnets. So my thinking is that our biggest opportunity is hitting the businesses and hotels hard. That’s where we are at.

When you say ‘doorhang’ to us it’s like teaching Catholicism to the Pope.

29

In a town with pop. of 12000, what do you guys think the average is I should be doorhanging a week? Right now I work about 65-70 hours. But its small enough area where if I need to do something I just leave and have cook call me back if there is a delivery. If I need to do something at home, I just go do it. Same with doorhanging I just go do it and leave the worker here. Right now I do about 500 a week. Hiring a new guy to work some afternoons so I figure I could have 2 of us out there. Is there such a thing as too much?

30

Right now I work about 50-60 hours per week. But, not one of those hours is spent as an hourly employee and there are no times that I HAVE to be at the restaurant. It took almost 3 years to get here…

For the first 3 months I was there open to close, seven days per week. Eventually, one of my guys stepped into the role of assistant manager, and I was able to get out of there for some day shifts while he watched the place.

Pretty soon, he was running the days by himself and I never had to be there. I turned food ordering over to him during that time. I would work on marketing and accounting during the day, and work as the night manager from 4:00pm to Close, 7 days.

Then we found a part-time night manager. I still remember the first night I left that store to him… it was pretty scary. He only covered two nights per week, and I still had the rest.

By the 18 month mark I had an assistant manager closing every night, but I was still there for many of them. I would get them through the rush and then take off and let the manager close. I usually was out by 8:00pm or so.

Today, my original daytime assistant manager is the General Manager. He takes care of all day-to-day operational items. I could never step foot inside the actual store and everything would run just fine without me. He does all ordering, scheduling, hiring, firing, etc. I spend all of my time doing marketing, accounting, vendor meetings, menu planning, etc… plus laying the preliminary plans for our second location, which we’re negotiating the lease for now.

I still spend a lot of time at the store of course, usually in the daytime. And I’m always there on Friday and Saturday nights, but not as a scheduled cook. I cruise the dining room, talk to my employees and customers, and just generally oversee everything. The GM is also there every Fri and Sat night, along with some really good assistant managers. The important thing is that I don’t have to be there… if my wife and I want to make plans there’s nothing holding me back.

This was my goal all along. When I first opened, I planned on having managers run the store by the 6th month. That was way over-optimistic! But, it wasn’t that much longer I suppose. It really comes down to if this is what you want. I know a lot of you LOVE working in your stores. I’m not so fond of it. I’m much more drawn to the business side of things, and my goal is to be a multi-unit operator.

For those of you reaching for this goal, there’s three major things you need:

  1. The right manager. Find somebody you trust with your store and start training them. Once you think they’re ready, you can’t be afraid to give 'em the keys. Let them handle a shift a week or so while you stay at home. Keep your phone nearby just in case, but RELAX.

Something you probably don’t want to hear… the right managers will cost you MONEY. Don’t hire somebody at 50 cents more than your cooks and expect him to be a great manager. There’s a reason he’s working for nearly minimum wage with high school employees. I learned this lesson the hard way, repeatedly. My managers (and especially my GM) are compensated VERY well. My GM also gets a cut of the profits.

  1. Systems. Make sure you have a system laid out for EVERYTHING. Opening, prepping, how to make a pizza, how to resolve customer complaints, how to close… everything. You can’t leave the knowledge locked in your head, and you can’t expect your employees to figure it out on their own. This was one of the first things I started working on when I opened.

  2. Training. Your managers need to know how to do everything you do if you really want to not be “at the store.” If you have a night off and can’t go more than 5 miles in case they call you, you might as well just go in. Make lists of everything you do throughout the week, and then make sure your guys are trained on how to do them.