New York Charlie
I know exactly what you are saying after experiencing the same thing.
I took over my shop in mid December 2005 ( and very, very green in the pizza industry) and did sales around the low $8K for some months. All looked good to the sales figures shown by the previous owner. We were up 14% on what he had done the prior year.
Then petrol went up from 90 cents per litre to $1.45 in one hit. Sales dropped to high $6K to mid $7K overnight and looked like staying that way for some time. We lost nearly all our drivers because they couldn’t afford the petrol. Not long after along came 3 consequitive months of mortgage rises of .25% each time. Again we dropped.
Did I envisage or plan for this? - NO.
And of course I didn’t allow for the “fool’s tax” that caught me by surprise about the same time.
But my planning before I went into business had contingencies to cover increased sales as well as decreased sales and on the latter it did have a bail out clause - but I forgot to add the parachute for the soft landing
I was really enjoying the new life in pizza and I had to (at my age) make a go of it.
I went back to the basics and went back to my business plan and re-worked my objectives and the strategies to grow the business.
About this time I also found this site and ideas I gained put into practice.
Numerous other variables have arisen since then including losing my manager for 17 weeks after a very foolish activity in his personal time. I needed to re-evaluate again and make contingencies, one me workinghis and my shift for 17 weeks , i.e. 14 hour days, 7 days a week for 17 weeks.
Again I had not planned for this, but again I had to re-evaluated and make changes.
This has been the situation ever since I have had the shop. It was also the same when I worked as a sales manager for amulti national corporation. It is all about tweaking and fine tuning and adapting to the many, many obstactles that fall in your way.
I really empathise with you, but a loyt of the things you mentioned happen every year and these should be in your plans. Some like the petrol increases are unknowns as are major ingredient price increases, but there must be a contingency to cover these.
I’m not bragging or bagging but telling you the real hard facts and saying that you are not alone and you will not be the first or last to feel how you are right now. I think that most of us have been through what you are going through and suffer the same presssures you are suffering now.
To make headway you must have contingency plans in place. You can’t sit there and say, oh this or that is stopping people spending. Sure they are doing it everywhere at some time or another but to get you sales back up you have to look outside the square and find something that will bring customers to you and not the other thousands of food outlets out there.
I am also a firm believer in making your own luck. You find that when you have strong plans, contingencies in place and look at the glass that is only half full and see opportunity rather than see negative in a glass that is half empty, that “luck” will come your way.
I wish I had a crystal ball or magic wand to make everything work well for me all the time. Then I may be able to give you the answers to get you back on track. But until then I just keep on re-evaluating and looking for opportunities and “make my own luck”.
To close on a sad but realistic point, in all ways of life it does sometimes come down to survival of the fittest and sad to say some will fall while others will climb. I just hope that I continue to climb.
Hang in there and get busy taking a strong hard look at your busines from a customers point of view, re-read your goals and objectives and the plans you have to achieve them and get innovative in looking for the secret formula for your shop to go forward.
Dave
