School contracts or church contracs

Still, you should consider whether you CAN use the core ideas.
It sounds to me like you are trying to beat Little Ceasers at cheap pizza. That’s not a winning plan.
You are INDEPENDENT, right? Do something they CAN’T. Like make a GOOD pizza, and sell it for a fair price. If you market it well, even hardworking low income families will pay a fair price for a better pizza.
You don’t have to sell gourmet for $30 a pie, but you also do NOT have to be the lowest price. That’s no how people buy, really.
Pick a couple things to sell them on. Yours is better. Yours is fresher. Yours is healthier. Yours is friendlier. Make up some combinations no one else has.
Here’s one I’ll give you for YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, that I bet will prove me right: Make HUGE POSTER, and BUY AN AD in a paper that all your penny-pinching customers read and offer this:

LARGE UNLIMITED TOPPINGS $10.99 THIS WEEK ONLY.

You’ll sell more $10.99 pizzas than you ever did at $5. Will they cost you twice as much to make?

Good luck!

YES!! And I’d still love the returns. My customers woul top out at 9 items probably, and my profit margin would be STILL be higher than the $5 pepperoni pies if they all took 9 toppings. TWICE the margin

1 topping at $5.00 = 2.05 profit margin
9 topping at $10.99 = 4.45 profit margin

And I get the added bonus of not undervaluing my product and staying in the same market position I am the rest of my life.

I think what most of us are arguing in favor of is Market Position, which is where in the ‘vertical’ lineup of the market we operate amd brand. Many of us try to position ourselves higher in the market than the economy pizza joints and avail ourselves of higher price points to reduce the need for insane volume requirements. Lots and lots of things go into positioning yourself in the marketplace, like your advertising look, your shop atmosphere, quality of product and how you conduct yourself in the marketplace through branding and marketing style.

I am great guns in favor of competing with the low price, high volume leaders if you have the processes and plan to complete effectively. But I suggest that you do that . . . and only that. If you are positioned with a higher quality product and market your business identity as a service oriented, good qulaity product, community involved, expert in the industry, then playing the small price/cheap ingredients game will confuse the customer base and make them think you are competitors for the cheap guys. Once you lose your identiy, it will be difficult, painful and expensive to get it back.

We are working through that multiple personality disorder ourselves in trying to develop an upscale casual dining arm of the shop. So many people love the pizzeria side of the shop that we are struggling to get people to think of us as a restaurant. SOOOO, we are launching this summer a new identity and new brand name: “Niccolo”.

It is in the same building and will use the same kitchen and staff probably. We will just have another brand to market and create identity as an upscalish sit-down dining experience with a mediterranean menu and atmosphere along with wine menu and such. We get to capitalize on our reputation as restaurateurs AND gain a higher positioning in the marketplace. Diversification using a separate brand name we hope will work for us.