Great story. Thanks for Sharing.The problem I had when I was 22 was that I was naive. I figured I would walk in and everyone would just do what I needed them to. I would be rolling in dough in no time. Then store did $3500 a week when I bought it for some reason that looked good. Here’s how it really went.
Got rid of the second half of the crew within a couple of months and hit 10k a week a couple months after that. We did that just by “answering the phone”. Not because I new what I was doing. It was total chaos for 2 years. Always short handed and hectic. I never took a day off and I was there open to close every day for the first year. The second year I got a guy to run the store Mondays and Tuesdays. I’m glad I did that life adventure as a 22 year old and not a 51 year old.
- Half the crew quit first week
- Other half didn’t quit because it was too prosperous to steal stuff from the store.
- They stole the hobart dough hook so we couldn’t do dough
- They broke into the store by sliding down the hood exhaust.
- The store was apparently the local drug dealers main office. I had to chase him away
- Every piece of equipment was broken and or outdated and needed replaced
- The previous owner owed everyone and his brother some money. They all stopped by.
- The reason they only did $3500 a week was because they either turned the customers away, or didn’t log down order and stole the money. The store was actually doing 7K a week. So that was a good thing.
Wow that’s horrible I cannot stand thieves! Been pretty lucky thus far, only 2 in 4 years.The problem I had when I was 22 was that I was naive. I figured I would walk in and everyone would just do what I needed them to. I would be rolling in dough in no time. Then store did $3500 a week when I bought it for some reason that looked good. Here’s how it really went.
Got rid of the second half of the crew within a couple of months and hit 10k a week a couple months after that. We did that just by “answering the phone”. Not because I new what I was doing. It was total chaos for 2 years. Always short handed and hectic. I never took a day off and I was there open to close every day for the first year. The second year I got a guy to run the store Mondays and Tuesdays. I’m glad I did that life adventure as a 22 year old and not a 51 year old.
- Half the crew quit first week
- Other half didn’t quit because it was too prosperous to steal stuff from the store.
- They stole the hobart dough hook so we couldn’t do dough
- They broke into the store by sliding down the hood exhaust.
- The store was apparently the local drug dealers main office. I had to chase him away
- Every piece of equipment was broken and or outdated and needed replaced
- The previous owner owed everyone and his brother some money. They all stopped by.
- The reason they only did $3500 a week was because they either turned the customers away, or didn’t log down order and stole the money. The store was actually doing 7K a week. So that was a good thing.
I owned it for 3.5 years and tax returns showed increased income each of the three tax years, the final of which was $200K. I sold the store to another franchisee for $625K completely owner financed, front loaded on the loan. So far, it’s been paid down below 50% way ahead of schedule.Curious, how much did you sell the shop which did 1.5 million in sales?
What was the net profit at that store including the owners salary?
100% owner financed? That sounds extremely generous of you to do that.I owned it for 3.5 years and tax returns showed increased income each of the three tax years, the final of which was $200K. I sold the store to another franchisee for $625K completely owner financed, front loaded on the loan. So far, it’s been paid down below 50% way ahead of schedule.
I’m not really sure what is the norm but this was certainly an odd situation. This location of our franchise is one of three in this town, and serves the the bulk of the students from the rather large university here. It is the flagship store of our small franchise and the owner of it always seemed to drive the marketing and pricing of the three locations in this town. Because I had another store across town that I had owned for many years, selling to someone that would be successful and wouldn’t rock the boat was more important than a big down payment. I sold it to the person who owned the third store in town and who I know quite well. I was confident that little would change in the way our company ran in this town and structured the payments so that if I had to take the store back over a year down the road, I would be well compensated for my trouble.100% owner financed? That sounds extremely generous of you to do that.
Is that the norm in your neck of the woods?
Great stuff!Reading Pirates story reminded me of when I bought my store in '93.
Lots of similarities but not in the bad ways, really. Store was doing $3000/week and was, according to Dominos, the worst in the system. Though many stores… back then… weren’t do much more. Regardless, we broke $10,000/week AWUS but not before I nearly worked myself into the hospital. Never been that sick before or since and that was many years ago. We averaged $11K/week the next year and 12k the next. Good numbers back then.
Sold the store that year. Bought it for $20k which was the cost of the ovens.
Ha! 10 years with the damn things and I still can’t get that to happen. Went with the battery powered ones that area rechargeable but… they have to get plugged in to be re-charged! Duh!“Hey, how about we start plugging those car tops in now?”
Great stuff! Very inspiring!Marketing- lots of it.
Great ops… much of it sounds basic and a given but… fanatical ops.
Anybody who rec’d a pizza over 30 minutes got an apology postcard and/or a phone call.
We would door hang all day- meet every business.
I was there every day and every night… you gotta be there.
I was young… remember that.
That was a different time- no cells… no computers, no internet… but much is the same.
Fanatical attention to every detail is what got the results… PSI. Product, service, image.
I will also mention that for the first 6 months I gave away lots of food. Not free pizzas but 35-40% food cost which was high then.
And like Pirates… we started doing some of the basics that just got stopped. I remember saying “Hey, how about we start plugging those car tops in now?”