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How many hours do you work per week?

bodegahwy said:
John, I don’t earn a living from owning the store. It is kind of apples to oranges to compare our model to an operator that earns a living from the store. If I needed to support my family just from the store I would be there 50 hours a week. If we wanted a six figure income from the business my wife would need to work there too (she does not work there at all). My focus has been on having the people and systems in place to have the business run well from day to day without my presence. We have been doing this way for over 15 years. For 10 of those years we had two stores. In those days we did occasionally hit 6 figures income for us without working there day to day.

Running the business with a GM so I do not need to be there is not inexpensive in a small store like mine. The business is profitable and I do take a nice income from it, but I would need to add my managers comp to our profit call it a living.

We own and operate two other businesses which also require attention. I spend about 30 hours a week on our retail business and my wife spends about 30-40 hours there. My business brokerage work also takes up my time.
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You are a man of many hats! I have always said I would love to learn about becoming a business broker as it satisfies my need of variety in my work. How did you go about becoming a broker?
 
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1 store - wife and I both 60 each a week minimum.
My other business which is lawn care. 40 to 50 a week. Much less in winter unless it snows. But then I put in more at pizza place.
 
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On average? Maybe 5 hours IN my stores a week. Of course now that I am part of the “Obamacare” employers I may have to reconsider all of that.
 
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Out of curiosity, for the ones that work in the 5-20 hour a week range. Do you have another job, source of income, hobby, etc. ? I have four stores with my sister. I probably work 50 a week and 70% is in my problem store. She works mainly in one store. And the other 2 have solid management. I certainly could cut back and probably only take a small hit in income. But I don’t know what I would do with myself. Admittedly my life would be simple if we cut back to 2 stores.
 
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Pizza is 100% my sole source of income.

I have been doing pizza since i was like 14 and now I’m 31 years old. I started out at a good friends family pizza shop and now i am here. I stay busy even though i only actually work 15 hours a week or so in the stores. I try to be there for the dinner rush as 70% of sales come in a 3 hour window, so my logic is to be there when its busy but this is mostly for my own piece of mind. ( However the last month or so i have only worked in the store like 4 shifts)

The rest of the time i am working on marketing, doing repairs, fixing broken ovens, fixing things that employees break, researching for new store locations, and doing work around the farm etc etc ( we have a mini farm on 3 acres)

I do have a fair amount of free time but i stay busy, Im pretty much on call 24 hours a day for whatever my business needs, If an oven breaks or they get slammed i will be at the store within 15 minutes regardless of what i am doing.

Over the past few years i have come to believe that busier stores like mine and 314’s and Pizzapirates actually run better when the owner steps back a little and lets the employees do there thing with good over site from the owners. There is really no time for slacking off in a busy shop which alleviates a bunch of employee and employee discipline issues.

Biggest thing is make sure your customer service is top notch and your food quality is good and let the business speak for itself.
 
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Joker - does your farm play a role in your pizza operations? Or are these completely unrelated?

Also, you make a good point about the busier operations and yes there isn’t that much time to slack off and cause trouble when you get higher volume, but at what point did you start distancing yourself from the day to day and over what period of time did this take place? Any advice for business owners trying to make that transition?
 
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1 store. been open for 1.5 yrs now. i average around 80 hours a week. i haven’t had a day off in over a year, but i’m ok with it. watching sales grow really keeps me going!!!
 
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MidnightRider said:
Joker - does your farm play a role in your pizza operations? Or are these completely unrelated?

Also, you make a good point about the busier operations and yes there isn’t that much time to slack off and cause trouble when you get higher volume, but at what point did you start distancing yourself from the day to day and over what period of time did this take place? Any advice for business owners trying to make that transition?
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Farm stuff is totally separate, just something i do in my free time. I used to work 60-70+ hours a week for years it seemed but as the business grew and i could afford to hire good help and pay for it and not have it effect my income is when i started to step back a little bit.

If your doing 30-40k a month in sales then you need to be the GM and should not step back i don’t feel or you not going to make much $$ as the margins at that volume are much smaller. At least this is how i did it and clearly it worked however I’m just 1 situation that it has worked for.

I would say its taken me 1.5 years to get stepped back to the level that i am at now, i could have done it sooner but i tried to keep peace with the employees as they can get weird when a full time GM-Owner cuts back and they have to step it up and run the place. So looking back i chose to take my time on the matter ( however at the time this was not my thinking its just what i did but looking back i and from talking to others i can see it was the proper route to take)
 
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@jokergerm - thanks for the feedback! I am more in Lenny’s shoes, just building now, so I probably won’t be “blessed” with this problem for a while, but it is still good to be thinking about. I am constantly asking myself what the proper balance between letting my staff grow and make mistakes and protecting the fragile growth.
 
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Ive gotten my hours down to around 50 or so a week. I also have a partner that works the same. Without him im not sure how many hrs it would take.
 
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