I know it depends on how long you have been in business, but what increase do you buget to hit from previous years sales?
pt
From 2002 through 2008 I saw annual increases ranging from 9% to 14%. 2009 saw a 8% decrease and so far 2010 has seen a 6.5% decrease. While I’m certainly not happy to see the decreases, they aren’t threatening the viability of my business. The dynamics in my town have changed a bit with the number of competitors almost doubling in recent years. It would have been extremely difficult to continue increasing sales at those rates, but I’m starting to see signs of things turning and will hopefully soon get back to the growth curve.
I’m pretty much on the same lines with Paul on sales up until 2008. 2009 was the worst year I’ve seen in probably 10 years. My goal was a 1% increase for this year. I’m currently at +1.5% but in order to do that, I’ve had to increase my coupon percentage, work 6 days a week, etc… Basically sell my soul! :). Besides this abnormally warm Minnesota October, which is hurting business pretty bad, I’m ALOT more optimistic about 2011 as it approaches! Good luck!
We bought a failing shop with a great reputation in Fall 'o8. My goal was to double sales within two years. I managed to hit that about 6 months early. We had a new competitor come in a couple months after buying and have a Little Ceasers opening a couple blocks from us in the next couple weeks.
I think that if I stay true to my philosophies of quality food, quality service and fast delivery times, I should have an organic growth of 8%-10%. If I tack on alternative products to adapt to my demographic and market effectively, I expect to grow 15%-20%. However, they are all just projections and there is really no concrete science to any of it, so much of it depends on your business model and local. Since I really hit my stride in Spring '10, my worst month of growth has been 30% in August.
There is no cookie cutter number. Like the other posters, we saw steady and even fast growth from 04, through 05, 06, 07, 08 (99, 00, 01, 02, 03 bounced around) then late 08, all 09 and early 10 combined were a 28% decline from the peak taking us back to slightly ahead of 2005. For the last 150 days we have been slightly up albeit with lower costs so we are doing a lot better then we were a year ago.
You have to take into account wage increases, cost of goods, utilities, rent etc increases and budget a sales result against that.
For us we have a 5% rent increase each year and wage increases for each staff until they reach adult rates, plus mandatory government wage increases. Add to that the ever increasing cost of goods and now our state government has had massive increases on electricity, gas and water.
We need a minimum of 10% increase each year just to stay where we were, so to increase profits we need to look for a 13 - 15% increase.
If you know that you have certain fixed costs increases then you have an idea of what to look for, but the mystery is how are you going to get the increases.
Dave
agreed its all in perspective, we saw a double digit increase last year but along with that we saw a double digit wage increase, and close to triple digit advertising increase. So while we had a great year in sales, it isn’t a true figure of income generated.
This is why the tt is so powerful. Great posts on different approaches.
I don’t know how you do it wa dave with all the regulations.
pt
I think Dave offers a credit app with every order! 
To tell you the truth it is getting harder and harder every year. Costs are going up faster than Clark Kent changing from his suit to Superman, money is getting tighter, spending is decreasing and now we have a Federal Government taht has placed ridiculous penalty rates on wages.
I am spending more and more time looking at ways to reduce costs just so I can make a living for myself.
Just under 5 years ago we took over the shop and were doing $8k per week, pulling a small wage at first. The next year we grew to $10k per week and things were looking rosy. Year 3 we grew again and things looked great until the GFC hit. Year 3 1/2 - 4 we kept our head just above water then sales grew again to the high $11k mid $12k region, but believe it or not we are making less money than when we were doing $11k before.
Wage hours have decreased but wage cost is up. Food control is always being fine tuned and we have actually decreased costs over the last 15 months. Electricity has gone up 40%, Gas 25%, Water 25%, Rent $15k a year up this year with new long term lease. I have been lucky to get some reductions from my main pizza supplier whois already the far cheaper supplier in our state. Our Vegie supplier has a fixed price on tomatos, capsicum and onions all year and this hasn’t changed since we have had the shop. It is all the Government derived increases, and greedy landlords in a tight market, that has driven costs up.
Many times in the past few months I have wondered if it s all worth it.
Dave
gotta agree with Dave on this one. In the UK we’ve rising unemployment, house prices are stalling, major central government spending cuts due to be published today, we’re told to look at pay freezes, cuts in benefits etc, we’ve a sales tax increase from 17.5% to 20% from 1/1/11, fuel duty goes up at the same time and yet on 1st Oct we gave everyone a 2.2% minimum wage pay increase!
So, prices have gone up again. I’ve just decided I’m not covering this any more and every rise goes on the price. Its better in my mind to sell, say, 100 pies and make a reasonable profit on each one than 125 and make very little on each one.
I about had a heart attack when I read this. Ours just went up from 7.8% to 8.8% in July and I thought that was high!