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Ive been opened 8 months and things are starting to pick up finally because of J-rock and every1 elses advice in here. Now I have to start to put my second problem at hand , I had a customer who I guess thinks that I wasnt doingt the right thing when we first opened so now he is literally opening up across the street from me. How do I handle this situation? He said hes doing it different that he will have Gyros, sausage and peppers , basically he runs the street fairs ,and has ice cream trucks and hes implementing that into his store, he also told me that he will make 3000.00 a day at his store, which I really cant see.The only reason I really am nervous is because the guy does have alot of money he buys and rents houses for a living he owns like 22 houses , and used to be a McDonalds manager so he has alot of foood experience and capital .What should I do, and why would somebody want to do this?
 
1st of all take a deep breath…And consider that the comments from your soon to be competitor were designed to rile you up and they worked…It may very well be “smoke and mirrors”…

2nd…You have an advantage you are open and he is not…Be prepared for his opening and try and do a pre-emtive strike…Do some extra marketing…Menus, door hangers, direct mail…Sure his opening will cause a “burb” in your business…But if you are offering your clients good food and what they want, they will be back…

Good luck…Be sure to let us know how things go…

…RCS…
 
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Make sure you do some other marketing like royster said, but the only thing you can do - and do every time, is provide the best service on the street.

If you treat people amazingly well, every time, with no glitches, they’ll stay with you. Take the time between now and when he opens, and make sure that your product is perfect, and your service is the best:

-quality people answering the phones or at the tables if you have dine in

-quality people at the counter or delivering.

-No Mistakes

-Food is on time as quoted - always.

People will try his stuff, no doubt. But he will make mistakes every now and then, and if you make sure that no matter if you’re slow or busy you do it perfect every time, chances are you’ll survive the storm over him.

Good Luck.
 
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tHANX FOR INFO ANY1 ELSE GOT ADVISE I SURE WOULD APPRECIATE IT , ESPECIALLY IF U BEEN IN SIMILAR SITUATION
 
Wish him well and focus on what YOU are doing. Stay true to yourself and your product. I might worry about him if he was not talking so much. Beating your own drum thing I guess… People make the business not the other way around. 80/20 rule? And throwing money at problems don’t make them go away. Which is what these guys tend to do. There are 2 other places in our small town that have pizza. We went into this with the attitude that there is enough for everyone. We look at what the others are doing and we make sure that we are offering things that are different. Whenever a new place opens everyone has to check it out. Then they come back and tell us about it. Don’t get into price wars. Customers know that when they pay $7.00 for a large pizza they are not getting top quality. But sometimes all they can afford is $7.00. The best investment we made was the POS with caller ID. Know your customers. Make it personal.(sp) And have fun! We had a customer that ordered once a month come in and order food to be delivered. He walked the 10 blocks to get here and asked to be delivered home with his pizza! Gave the driver a $10.00 tip. The “Big Guys” would never do this! He now orders from us 4 times a week!! (sorry to ramble)
 
tHANX AGAIN I KNOW JROCK U HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL ME 2 IM WAITING…LOL
 
I cant add to much more but one thing is when you do make mistakes (cause we all do) make that an opportunity to really WOW the person. Keeping customers satisfied is great but if you can keep them loyal that my friend iss the best. The only way to keep them loyal is to wow them every time they order. Make them feel special make them want to come back and then you dont have to worry about the guy across the street
 
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Great advice about just taking care of your own business. I had a very strong new competitor open up 2 weeks ago 1 mile down the road. Don’t know why, but I’ve had my 2 best weeks ever, and I know he’s been rockin’ too. go figure…

Just an FYI, there’s an old story Big Dave wrote once about a similiar situation he had. He closed his store the day of his new compeitor’s grand opening, and put a sign on his window, welcoming the competitor and encouraging everyone to try them.
The new competitor go so slammed, and put out such a bad product as a result, they never recovered and closed soon after.

not sure I’d have the balls to try it, but its fun to think about.
 
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I’ve kind of heard this situation a little more in depth than most of you guys so my opinions are a little biased. I truly think this guy is just giving a bunch of lip service to try to fire up23 up a little.

If he’s going to open up, more power to him. I’ve always believed there is strength in numbers when it comes to having multiple restaurants in a certain part of town anyway (that’s why you see all the fast food places clustered together most times). He’s doing something completely different than you. Also, this guy is a “street vendor” so do you really think his product is going to be anything close to desireable? I mean, I’ll eat 'em at carnivals if I have to, but that stuff really isn’t that great.

up23, you should be glad this guy is thinking $3000/day in business. He might over-extend himself financially because there’s no way he’ll do that with gyros and sausage. Either way, this guy is of no threat to you so don’t worry about it. If he knocks off some of your Bar B Q sales, concentrate more on your pizza sales. No biggie. -J_r0kk
 
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DO NOT, I repeat, do NOT attempt to up your marketing when this guy finally opens. Let him do his opening marketing bit, steep discounts, etc and run it’s course. Don’t try to price match the guy, don’t try to lower your prices, don’t try to do marketing to overpower HIS marketing.

Instead, focus on impoving operations and customer service. If you are hell bent on doing increased marketing, one trick that I have employed at my stores in this situation is to promote that you will accept HIS grand opening coupons. This works well, but only if his promotion is coupon driven- as opposed to him having some big sign in his window that says “$6.99 Large 1 topping pizza” or something. Doing this will mean that you have increased food cost, but it also means they came back to you instead of using their steep discount to try the other guy’s pizza.

The way that you described this guy, he is setting himself up for failure anyways. Chances are he hasn’t the slightest idea how to create a good product (having come from McDonalds especially!) and is probably more numbers oriented than service oriented. Either way, relax, take a breath, and use this time to improve YOUR operations to be best it can be.

Good luck to you!
 
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You might consider phase 2 on his opening day.

By the way, Jim, you’re my hero!
 
I would consider some advise that Big Dave gave me one time. He told me that he used to offer to replace any competitors pizza for FREE if the customer did not like it. They could call his store and he would deliver a replacement. They had to return the uneaten portion of the competitors pizza, and the POS tracked to make sure that customers only tried this once.

If your new competitor is talking trash he is obviousely ready to fight this out, so why not put fliers advertising the offer noted above on the windshield of his customers… I guarentee it will get you some attention.
 
We had a guy who could “do it better” open up a block away from us about a year ago. We ignored him. Made good food, had good customer service, and wore blinders like a race horse.

The other guy closed recently.
 
My Friend

DONT WORRY, I HAVE SAME SITUATION ACROSS FROM ME IS PIZZAPIZZA … YOU KNOW WHO IAM TALKING ABOUT… IT DID TOOK MY SALES AWAY IN BEGANING… TO COUNTER THAT I HAVE A GUY WITH SIGN OUT SIDE DURNING 3 PM TO 6 PM ON ROAD FACING CARS AND COMING TRAFFIC… I DID LOWER MY PRICE BY 30 CENTS PER PIE ON PEPPORONI LARGE TO $ 4.60… CUSTOMERS CAME IN TO DOOR…PROVIDED EXCELLENT ATTIONTION TO THEM AND THE SERVICE… FOR KIDS CAME WITH FAMILY GOT THEM CANDY AND COOKIES…ALSO DID SAMPLE ON PIZZAS WHILE THEY WAITED TO CARRYOUT THEIR ORDER…AND MOST I TALKED TO ALL THE CUSTOMERS THAT CAME TO US…WELCOMIG THEM AND THANKING THEM FOR THEIR BUSSINESS…TO MAKE THEM FEEL THER ARE SPECIAL I GAVE MY BUSINESSCARD AND LET THEM KNOW THAT I AM ALWAYS AVAILABLE FOR ANY CONCERN OR COMMENTS THAT THEY HAVE ON MY PIZZA QUALITY AND WORKERS…
 
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