This is some of what I told them:
Start offering napkins & paperplates with every delivery. They’d be the only store in the area doing that.
Change up their dough. Every pizza place in the area either has a frozen dough shipped in or a par-bake. They have a frozen dough. They also have a walk-in cooler they are not utilizing
Remove the sugar from thier sauce recipe. Their sugar ratio is out of this world. Add basil, oregeno, & garlic.
They are on the lake. The lake is slowly dying. There is a local organization that is trying to save the lake, and they take donations. Offer one night out of the week where a percentage of the profits go to that organization. Also, change the store’s decor around. A local historian has a ton of original photos from the 1910 era when the amusement park was up and operating. I told them to get copies of those photos, blow them up to poster size, and hang them on the walls.
They offer a unique variety of carni food. No one in the area does that. They are from a carni background, so it was only natural for them to offer the fair food. Not a single person knows about their deep fried oreos though. Or their fresh fair cut fries, elephant ears, philly cheese steaks, etc. These are really high profit items too, but they are buried on the menu where no one can see them. Redesign the menu, and advertise the carni food separately.
Fire several people. The one guy was habitually late for work. I’m talking an hour or more. They kept him on though because they “liked him. He’s a good friend.” A few times, they drove to his house and dragged him out of bed. The kicker was he got paid for his missing hours. Other employee problems they had included employees hanging out in front of the store smoking, smoking inside the store, employees not wearing their uniforms or shaving.
Every single customer the third business owner ticked off, offer them free food–specifically, the deep fried oreos. If you’ve never had deep fried oreos, you are missing out on heaven.
Both schools in the area get thier pizzas from Domino’s. I told them to go after those contracts for school lunches.
Offer trades in advertising with the local video rental store.
They are less than two minutes away from a community college. I gave them the name of the student affairs officer, the dean (who I know personally) and several of the student organizations.
…I, of course, had more, but I’d figure I’d wait and see if they could handle the above first and go from there. They of course couldn’t even handle the paper plates and napkin thing let alone the rest of it. Their solution was to bring in beer, and cigarettes, and they are currently working on their liquor license.
…anyway, I walked.
I’ve been lurking around this forum for a long time. This has been my first time ever posting though. Mainly, I think, after re-reading through this thread, I think I was just so frustrated with the hotel situation and then these guys on top of it not listening to my advice, I really needed to vent. I appreciate everyone’s feedback. With out this opportunity to complain and have some good natured people who are familiar with the business to slap me up side the head a couple of times, I think my wife would have killed me!
