Amen to J_r0kk and Nickspizza. We have not even opened yet and they have been a huge help as I am sure they will be in the future if we ever get this thing off the ground.
I may not have much experience yet, but I do have the archive list covering about everything ever discussed on this forum. If you need marketing I can post 20 links to help, need info on drivers insurance, ask and you shall receive. Unless Nick beats me to it! 
OKā¦Iāll play the dummy hereā¦explain something to meā¦a few of you are saying that proper planning, studying, learning etc etc will almost insure success and it has NOTHING to do with luck. So, when my sales dropped from about $7300 a week average to $5600 average literally overnight it was my fault? Easter week my sales dropped to $5500 and I have not seen a $7000 week since thenā¦this is somehow my fault? Well, although they are my competitors, I do have some friends that are in the same business in town and they have experienced the same drop. SO, this is their fault? All of a sudden, everyone in our town decided to stop buying pizza? All of a sudden none of have good pizza or subs? Hell, even Dominos sales were off(the managers son and my daughter dated, and one of my delivery drivers and one of theirs are brothers, so I do get some reliable information) How about, gas prices went up, people spent money on easter, gas prices went up, people had to pay taxes(april 15), gas prices went up, parents had to pay for prom, gas prices went up again, parents had graduation and finallyā¦the summer season took hold, we arenāt in a resort area and business has slowed due to vacations, hot weather, and cook outs. Although I went into this business blindly I am far from stupidā¦I have an IQ of 148 and YES, I am bragging! I have learned more in a year in the pizza business than most have learned in five but all of you successful, bragging, business/pizza masters that think that people like fed-up and myself are somehow doomed from the start PLEASE explain to me HOW THE HELL YOU PLAN FOR WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THE BEGINNING OF APRIL!!! Yes, some are undercapitalized and donāt have the money to make it through a tough season or unexplained drops in revenue but not one of you can tell me that you could have had a contingency plan that did not involve BAILING OUT!
ha,ha,ha, i can fully relate ā¦ just sold my business after also a year and half ā¦ also thought about working for someone else but giving it one more shot,in another city. hope it works out me!! and works out for you too. it is nice to know it am not the only one out there, good luck!!!
Been trying not to respond 
Sometimes on the internet written text āsounds differentā than spoken words.
Maybe some of the replies were read harshly maybe they were intended to be that way. Some people have humility, some people do not. Thereās Buddy Ryans and Mother Teresaās all over the world.
IMHO itās never good to see, hear or read about a small business owner going out of business. One can only hope that they recover mentally from their stresses.
Money is money and nothing more. You can get a job and make it, you can get two jobs and make more of it. Heck youāve been working 100 hours for free, right? Dodge creditors, File bankruptcy you can fix money problems the easiest.
Keep your peace of mind. Many great men and women with stellar education and plans have āfailedā before you and will continue to āfailā
Get back some of the closeness of your loved ones that you might have lost some while working on āyour dream.ā
You can look through these archives and many posters will say donāt get into business unless you love pizza or being a restaurant owner.
Itās about passion and love, those are the driving factors. Now take your passion and love and give it to your family and friends.
New York Charlie
I know exactly what you are saying after experiencing the same thing.
I took over my shop in mid December 2005 ( and very, very green in the pizza industry) and did sales around the low $8K for some months. All looked good to the sales figures shown by the previous owner. We were up 14% on what he had done the prior year.
Then petrol went up from 90 cents per litre to $1.45 in one hit. Sales dropped to high $6K to mid $7K overnight and looked like staying that way for some time. We lost nearly all our drivers because they couldnāt afford the petrol. Not long after along came 3 consequitive months of mortgage rises of .25% each time. Again we dropped.
Did I envisage or plan for this? - NO.
And of course I didnāt allow for the āfoolās taxā that caught me by surprise about the same time.
But my planning before I went into business had contingencies to cover increased sales as well as decreased sales and on the latter it did have a bail out clause - but I forgot to add the parachute for the soft landing 
I was really enjoying the new life in pizza and I had to (at my age) make a go of it.
I went back to the basics and went back to my business plan and re-worked my objectives and the strategies to grow the business.
About this time I also found this site and ideas I gained put into practice.
Numerous other variables have arisen since then including losing my manager for 17 weeks after a very foolish activity in his personal time. I needed to re-evaluate again and make contingencies, one me workinghis and my shift for 17 weeks , i.e. 14 hour days, 7 days a week for 17 weeks.
Again I had not planned for this, but again I had to re-evaluated and make changes.
This has been the situation ever since I have had the shop. It was also the same when I worked as a sales manager for amulti national corporation. It is all about tweaking and fine tuning and adapting to the many, many obstactles that fall in your way.
I really empathise with you, but a loyt of the things you mentioned happen every year and these should be in your plans. Some like the petrol increases are unknowns as are major ingredient price increases, but there must be a contingency to cover these.
Iām not bragging or bagging but telling you the real hard facts and saying that you are not alone and you will not be the first or last to feel how you are right now. I think that most of us have been through what you are going through and suffer the same presssures you are suffering now.
To make headway you must have contingency plans in place. You canāt sit there and say, oh this or that is stopping people spending. Sure they are doing it everywhere at some time or another but to get you sales back up you have to look outside the square and find something that will bring customers to you and not the other thousands of food outlets out there.
I am also a firm believer in making your own luck. You find that when you have strong plans, contingencies in place and look at the glass that is only half full and see opportunity rather than see negative in a glass that is half empty, that āluckā will come your way.
I wish I had a crystal ball or magic wand to make everything work well for me all the time. Then I may be able to give you the answers to get you back on track. But until then I just keep on re-evaluating and looking for opportunities and āmake my own luckā.
To close on a sad but realistic point, in all ways of life it does sometimes come down to survival of the fittest and sad to say some will fall while others will climb. I just hope that I continue to climb.
Hang in there and get busy taking a strong hard look at your busines from a customers point of view, re-read your goals and objectives and the plans you have to achieve them and get innovative in looking for the secret formula for your shop to go forward.
Dave
Some people have hit on my point that every1 has started scratching from the bottom to make it or good luck. But either way, dont forget at 1 point every business person was there either in a bad situation or you had to change ur biz plan to make up for some bad luck. Ill give you some insight in the last 16 months my whole biz plan changed when I had a problem with the fire marshall which took up a nice chunk of my 75,000.00 which wound up costing me $29,000.00 to make him happy 6months later,fees,engineer prints,2 New hoods ansul system sprinkler system and exhaustā¦paying rent out of my pocket and then another 2 months for the Health Department who cost another $16,000.00, for ther b.s.new laws, while still paying rent ā¦1800 x 9=? + taxes,insurance, electric, on building before opening. Then getting equipment, remodeling . Remind you this place was already operating as a bakery, and I had talked to the marshall, building Department and Health department & Electrical inspector before buying this and it was supposed to be an eazy process sign some papers, walktrough and we should open. That never came close .My partner had ran a place for 13 years and had great ideas and plans then 1st day of opening he became a complete moron didnt know what he was doing didnt want to advertise , cost me even more $ by stupidity labor, food cost &,worked 8 hrs but wanted to get payed for 16 LOLOL .He decided, no Im lying, I decided he couldnt handle no more, he had to go after 2 months ,then my walkin broke which cost over $4500.00 to fix including new food all went to waste ,fryer couldnt keep up to old came wit the place 900.00,my mixer $300.00 ,New a.c. $900.00, my oven broke($400.00), my other oven just broke $140.00, my freezer inside broke needed new 1 (1200.00) I have made this biz double but not the point to recoop Im supposed to plan for all of this, thats bad luck mixed w/ stupidity or as u guys would say āFool Taxā. But this forum is to help not beat a man w/ a stick while hes down. Theres a difference between reality and sarcasmā¦ humiliating some1, that I do not agree with , humiliating because some1 has had alot of indifferences, bad luck or stupidity:!:
Like I said were all humanā¦
happened on this siteā¦
wow
love roscoe
Well as you say youāve learnt a lot in one year (you say more than most do in 5!). No its not your fault at all. Obviously your market place has suffered by some very strange and mystical occurrences:
people spent money on easter,
people had to pay taxes(april 15),
parents had to pay for prom,
parents had graduation and finallyā¦
the summer season took hold
and business has slowed due to vacations, hot weather, and cook outs
Added to that costs (gas) going up well, hey no business can plan for these things!
In all my years in business Iāve never know Easter, taxes, proms, graduations, the summer and cost increases all to hit in the same year - as you say your just unlucky.
These successful guys just get there by luck but they claim its planning just to give the rest of us something else to feel bad about!
Unless of course Iām missing something as my IQ is way way lower than yours!
Lets hope your luck turns around!
A few points, yes, we are saying that proper planning ALMOST ensures success. Nobody said it always does. You possibly answered your own post with your first sentence. There are always extremes, they are just very rare.
I do not know the particulars of your town, so I cannot speak to why this has happened. I can say with some degree of certainty though, that high gas prices were likely not it.
What has happened since the beginning of April? It seems like the events you mentioned are annual events. If you donāt know how to plan for those then you are in the wrong business. You better find a way to plan for something that happens every year.
As for gas, what coupons are you using? In the very unlikely event that gas is a major problem effecting sales you can use that to your advantage. Instead of a $3 off coupon or whatever, offer a free gallon of gas. Whatever benefit you give to your customers, give it in gas instead. Then they will be thinking that you are fulfilling two of their needs at once. Filling up their tanks and their tummies at the same time. Trust me this works, I ran this promotion after Katrina and Rita hit the gulf area in 2005 which spiked gas prices in DFW a great bit. My sales have never been higher.
Iām a Mensa member myself, but this is not rocket science. Itās basic business sense meets planning.
I didnāt see this post before I replied, but Dave nailed it cold. Nothing that was mentioned by Charlie is something that should not have been planned for.
Guest, sorry to reply in a negative to your posts but there are some glaring inaccuraccies.
Easter happens every year, as does taxes, proms, graduations and summer. I know Iām in Australia and not in the US but hey we are on the smae planet and we have taxes every year, Easter every year, graduations and school balls and as sure as night follows day summer follows spring every year.
I agree there are variables that happen out of the blue such as petrol price increases - and you guys have no idea how cheap yours is compared to ours at around U$6 per gallon. Also ingredients increase and we have had some hefty ones due to the worst drought on record right across Australia.
We have incurred 48% increases on flour, 20%+ on smallgoods and chicken, 35% on seafood and are now looking down the barrel of 25% increase on cheese in the coming weeks. I didnāt know these were coming and cant really plan for them, BUT, you can address them if you have contingency planning in place.
I donāt have a high IQ so I canāt brag that I know more than anyone else, but I put a heck of my off duty time researching, adapting, improving and ālooking outside the squareā to regain any lost ground before my competitors do.
If you think that I just got my sales up and running to the strong grwoths that Iām experiencing by luck alone then you certainly donāt live on the same planet where summer, easter, proms, graduations and taxes fall every year as I do or everyone else on this forum.
As I said earlier I make my own luck by being prepared with strong plans and contingencies. Iām in the same market as everyone else and have suffered some similar occurrances to UP23 except I didnāt have the fire warden issue, but I adapted to the situations and worked out plans to recover. Not all worked and some were miserable failures but I hit some right on the head and rapidly regained then grew on that to where I am now.
Why? Because I had plans and contingencies and I will keep on saying this because without them I would be bankrupt and out on my bare a*#e right now.
Donāt knock people who say they got there because they had plans. Without plans you are like a ship on the ocean without a captain and without a rudder.
Dave
Hey someone who comes off as abrasive as I do. I love it.
I love it mostly because he is dead on.
Charlie, no offense, but someone with an IQ of that high should know better. There are a lot of smart people who completely lack business sense. based strictly off your one post, you appear to be one. You definitely lack the business sense at least.
My head hurts from even trying to make sense of this post.
I read nothing in there that was legit bad luck. I read a bunch of things that are part of doing business. Things that someone who did proper research would have planned for and been prepared to handle.
I got just two things on the whole conglomeration of fortunes in April thing causing drop in overall market.
Iām on board with Dave and some others about planning, but different a bit about luck. I firmly believe that unpredicted fortunes (luck) make a big difference in many businesses. It is strong planning and structure the PREPARE the business to TAKE ADVANTAGE of those fortunes. A poorly established and poorly directed business is simply not well prepared for capitalizing on the fortunes of the marketplace and customers.
If every business in the marketplace saw a drop in business levels after the āperfrect stormā of circumstances and conditions . . . then it is the strongest, most ingenious and best prepared business that would make hay in the market. Proms, Easter, Gas prices, taxes . . . these are all marketing opportunities to the people who are set up to take advantage. The marketing positions for pulling customers in are pretty wide and pretty successful from what Iāve heard from others in markets who have proms happen.
Surprises happen all over the world in all markets. The ones who grow stronger (or survive when others are dropping like flies) are the ones who eventually āseeā the way to use those market influences to their best advantage and increase their market share. I donāt claim to be the one who hits the fat pitch over the wall every time, but we have a decent structure in place that has allowed us to hit a few really good ones that others just couldnāt do anything about.
Nick I guess that is what I am trying to say about making my own luck.
You have a good way of putting it into words.
I guess your IQ is a lot higher than mine. 
Dave
I want to start by saying I am really not trying to be rude. First off when things are bad, the worst thing you can do is make excuses. Excuses wonāt pay the bills! In the past I used to make excuses every time things werenāt going good (too much competition, bad economy, high gas prices, the weather is too hot-people want to cook out, etc.). In the end they were just what they were, āexcusesā. I never wanted to claim any responsibility. It took me almost hitting rock bottom before I finally looked at myself and determine whether I was doing everything that I possibly could do to improve my business. The answer was no. Three summers ago my sales were at an all-time low, bills were stacked up, my power got shut off and I had to beg and borrow to get money to turn it back on. Initially like usual I was blaming the bad times on everything else but me. I used my usual excuse, āItās summer time sales are always low. People are cooking out instead of buying pizza.ā Well to sum it up, that excuse didnāt stop the power company from shutting off my power. At the point I realized that I was desperate. My back was against the wall and I had to do something. I figured desperate times call for desperate measures. I took some money from the weekend sales that were supposed to pay a couple of my bills and I instead used it to buy Kamronās Black Book. I figured I needed to educate myself quick if I was going to survive. Plus, I was already behind on all of my other bills so what did I have to lose. If I was going down, I wanted to go down fighting. I got the book within a couple of days. I read the book in one sitting and it really lit a fire under my butt. I was excited about the business for the first time in a long time. I went out bought some blank door hangers and printed them myself (I couldnāt afford nice ones!). I gathered all of my friends and family together that I could and we blanketed the neighborhoods every day. Within a week my sales were starting to slowly climb. From 1 week of door hanging my sales increased enough to where I was able to pay the bills that I had put off in order to buy the Black Book. I kept up with the door hanging. I then started printing my own post cards and sending offers to new customers and ālazyā customers who hadnāt ordered in 30, 60, and 90 days. This was one of the biggest marketing things I had ignored. The return on investment was great. I also started mailing out the million dollar letter from the Black Book (which basically is a personalized letter introducing your pizza shop, why the customer should buy from you, with an offer for a free order of bread sticks, free 2 liter of Pepsi, and 2 free topping when they order a large cheese pizza. It also has a money back guarantee and you include your menu with it.). When I first started mailing these letters out I was doing all of the work myself and with some help from my family. I was printing the letters and envelopes, folding and inserting them. I was mailing out 1500 a week. It was a pain in the ass but It saved me a lot of money which was something I didnāt have a lot of. The return was absolutely amazing. I was getting as much as a 15% redemption rate at times. With all of the changes I made and the added marketing, my sales were starting to take off. Each week for the first 7 weeks I was breaking my weekly record for sales. I was doubling what I used to do in sales and this was in the summer time. My excuse before was that everybody cooks out in the summer time and donāt order pizza. My excuse didnāt hold true. Iām sorry I wrote so much but hopefully I got my point across by sharing my experience. Like I said before excuses are what they are. They donāt help you in any way but rather hold you back. Instead of making excuses, examine yourself and your business. Develop a plan of attack and stick to it. Start door hanging, send out postcards to your ālazyā customers and new ones, start a new mover program, make changes to your menu, start portion controlling (get a scale and weigh out your ingredients), improve your customer service, clean up your store, send out letters to everyone in your area of business (if you need help with this letter send me a pm or email me), box top, get a website, start an email marketing campaign, etc. The #1 piece of advice that I can give is to continue to educate yourself. You should never stop learning. Before you call it quits, ask yourself one question: Have you done everything in you that you possibly could to give your business a chance at being successful? Just think with all of the time you have taken so far to argue on this forum with people, you could have been printing up post cards and done a mailing this week. I wish you the best of luck. I hate to see people struggling because I have been there and I know exactly how it feels, it sucks!
Roger,
VERY, VERY, VERY nice post. One million kudos to you sir.
-J_r0kk
Dave
Iāve usually a lot of time for your posts but you REALLY did miss the whole point of my post.
I was being (very) sarcastic. Of course these things happen every year, along with every other holiday/celebration/reason to sell.
You must be working too hard:wink:
if i could afford a towel,i would throw it inā¦ :ljavascript:emoticon(ā:lol:ā)
Laughingol: ')
:blink: :blink:
Now Roger is the BUSINESS IQ guy.
Plain and unvarnished truth, Roger . . . I learned from you today; thank you.