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Some feedback please!

Wow.

Withold a critical piece of information so now everyone has to take the time to repost different advice based on reality.

Not cool, IMO.
 
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Sorry if I had wasted some of your time by posting up different advices on ‘different’ subjects. I’m kind of glad it happened that way.

And just want to let everyone know, every bit of helpful information to me was read, and read, and read over again carefully, line by line. None of these posts have gone to waste, regardless if I withheld certain information from you or not. I got to see ALL sides of the big picture, including the sides that may have been directed towards something else.Its all a learning experience and there’s no doubt I’m learning a whole lot.

Now its all on me to make this work with or without the construction, the economy, or the lack of funding because I have all the resources to get me started (and more importantly make it last)
 
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While not ideal, I’ve had a manager and a driver do 1200-1400 in a day many times. I don’t encourage you to be a laborer in your shop longterm, but you need to learn how to be as efficient as possible. If your driver is someone other than yourself, he should be doorhanging nearby, with a cell phone with him and within 10 minutes from the store, whenever possible.

Your dad needs to study the pizza business a little. Advertising is the fuel that runs the engine. An established shop should spend at least 5% of sales into advertising to grow, it’s even more for you. Educate him.

I recommend you do these things in this order:
  1. You become the cook and the phone person for now. You can do it, and you need to do it to learn speed and efficiency.
  2. Hire a driver who can answer the phone, and do basic prep work.
  3. Pour ALL those labor savings into marketing, including menus you send out with every order.
  4. Close your shop one day a week, monday or tuesday for you to rest/market.
Advertising really does payoff and the above will allow you to learn what you need to learn about running an efficient shop and for your dad to learn what he needs to learn about advertising, without any additional money from him upfront.

You could probably add about 1k a week in sales before you even need to consider hiring someone else. Also, your dad insisted on all the best stuff because he wants you to have what you need to succeed. He just needs to be taught what that really is in the pizza business.
 
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This thread reminds me of an Oscar Wilde play.

The father as business partner is a definite material fact which has certainly changed the tenor of advice, and rightfully so.

On a practical note regarding operations, as a hands on guy (like a lot of people in this economy) I live with a hands free headset and cordless phone, as I can continue to prep/make pizzas as I take orders, etc.

If you don’t use a phone headset, you should.

You are just getting started in a tough market, under tough conditions, with the road construction making it even more difficult.

Marketing is important, but even more so is the quality of product and service, as you must develop repeat business ASAP. I am a firm believer in customer loyalty as being the key to success. Marketing may bring them in, but it is the product and experience which brings them back.

Hopefully you have the product to do just that. You must be better than the competition.

I would definitely recommend some promo pizzas to local businesses with flyers/menus/coupons.

Also, I think it is wise to create some margin (as has been already advised) by taking at least a day off to recharge or you won’t last. Frankly, I’ve never more than dabbled in being open for lunch over my 14+ years as I’ve found it to be a waste of time for the money generated. (Catering is a different story. I love coming in and making $250 or so on a special order.) Your market will help dictate this.

You need to make it work and you won’t know for sure for at least 6-12 mos. Many quit with success just past the next mile marker while others press on, dying to quit, but finally achieve success.

No guarantees in the free market.

Best of luck!
 
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In an area with access to businesses, lunch can and should be pretty good business. Certainly good enough to justify a driver on the clock as that is only additional cost when someone is in the store doing preo for the evening. If needed, have the driver deliver from 11 to 2 and then do marketing things or help with prep until 5 when they can hit the road again.
 
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steveo922:
Sorry if I had wasted some of your time by posting up different advices on ‘different’ subjects. I’m kind of glad it happened that way.

And just want to let everyone know, every bit of helpful information to me was read, and read, and read over again carefully, line by line. None of these posts have gone to waste, regardless if I withheld certain information from you or not. I got to see ALL sides of the big picture, including the sides that may have been directed towards something else.Its all a learning experience and there’s no doubt I’m learning a whole lot.
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Ah, I see. It’s all about you and what you want.

Not sure why this bothers me so much, as you obviously don’t see anytrhing wrong with what you’ve done. Bottom line is people wasted their free time responding to you when you didn’t give the full story. The information they posted was not relevant to your situation, no matter if you fell you learned something or not.

And with that I’ll take my own advice and stop wasting my own time.
 
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Yeah, I’m not sure why you’re bothered so much by this either… I didn’t feel it was necessary to mention that in my FIRST post because I did not think everyone would focus on my partner as much as they did. My FIRST post really had nothing to do with my partner, even if he is my father. This thread was for marketing, advertising, to see others success/failure stories, to see what works/what doesn’t work, any ideas, suggestions, tips, advice etc… Sorry I gave the wrong impression but its not like I withheld that while sitting behind a monitor giggling hysterically thinking “oh man, I’m tricking these guys! Little do they know he’s my father!!! Mwhahaha!”

If I learned something (or ANY body reading this thread), isn’t that the point of this forum? Even though you guys figured my partner was somebody else, every post still helped me and was still PERFECTLY applicable to my situation. The only thing that wasn’t as much applicable, was when you guys were telling me to ditch the partner, which technically could happen (which I did think about), but obviously won’t.

What’s done is done. If I had a time machine, I would definitely use it to add that tiny fact in my first post.

Thanks again everyone! I wish there was a way I could show my appreciation.
 
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CMEC:
  1. Close your shop one day a week, monday or tuesday for you to rest/market.
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Probably one of the best ideas of the lot. Until you build this business, you do need a real day of rest. Do NOT go into the store. Go someplace peaceful for a quiet walk. Don’t do anything that requires your attention like watching TV. Let your mind off for a day. Some of your best ideas will come from quiet times. How many times have you heard someone say they had a great idea in the shower or sitting on the toilet. When the brain gets time off, it begins putting things together in ways it could never do consciously.

Try it. At the very least, you will not burn out as fast.
 
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You know, obviously that a great idea and I would be allllllll for it no doubt. But what is the best approachable way to let my customers know that we are closed? Our website is easy, but what about the 100’s of menus that are out there?

Sundays are easily are worst day, bar none. Don’t ask why, but thats just the way it has been. And I already started a half price pizza on Mondays, so I think Mondays would be out of the question. And Tuesday just seems like an odd day to close. I also have specials that say Sunday - Thursday only.
 
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steveo922:
Sundays are easily are worst day, bar none.
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Then close on that day. If you are in a Christian area, they may actually applaud it. Works for Chick-Fil-A.

Yes, you will have to redo menus. Change always involves some cost in time, money, or energy. You have to weigh that against what you hope to gain.
 
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Just get a cheap answering machine that announces your new hours when customers call while closed.

Your labor is your HUGE problem that can be immediately addressed.
 
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CMEC:
Just get a cheap answering machine that announces your new hours when customers call while closed.

Your labor is your HUGE problem that can be immediately addressed.
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See I don’t get that. Maybe if we had no walls that separated the front with counter + terminals from the back it would be a lot smoother. But for me to do that 7 days a week would be insanity. Even tho everyone thinks 200/day isn’t very much, most of it comes around at the same time and it can get tad hectic… The way our store is setup, like Kris mentioned above, requires a person in the front, and a person in the back. For one person to do both, it would require LOTS of walking back and forth and going thru a swinging door thats on the opposite side of where everything is. Everyone knows in the industry, the less walking/moving the better.

Today for example (go figure one of the busiest Sundays yet), one of my girls had quit on Wendesday and I had no replacement. I’m already at $150 and there were times when the phone rang, and rang, and rang some more because I had to attend the pizzas that were being cheesed (and literally 10 seconds away from being thrown in the oven and had to quickly wash sausage of my hands) with the ones already in the oven. And also times when the pizzas were on the verge of being done, yet I had customers in the front picking up pizzas and the phone ringing at the same time. Oh and I had to drive 2 deliveries today leaving the store unattended (thankfully both were within two minutes away). Yeah I handed it with calmness and ease, but its not the way I would like this place to operate.

We had planned from the beginning for having minimal staff, I do not think that is a problem. Which this whole week was none because of my one employee I let go, and the other that quit.
 
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Maybe pie counts would be better than hourly sales.

Maybe you need to change your kitchen layout? We do more than $200 by 1PM every day. That is two hours after we open. Always just a manager and a driver. Often we do $400 in that time. Above $400 it is pretty tough to do a good job.

One way or another, you have to figure out how to do it.
 
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I guess my approach on the whole labor thing would be quite different than the other posters.

As I posted before, you can only cut labor so much. At some point it is the SALES problem and not a labor problem. The situation he described above is a ticking time bomb. Having to leave the store, having the phone ring more than two rings without answering. If you keep doing that you are going to kill any sales you do have.

Not to mention when you start increasing sales you are going to want some kind of staff.

Anyone who answers the phone needs to suggestive sell. Period, this can easily raise your sales with absolutely no investment. You need to start building sales and although concentrate on keeping labor down…you may be better off investing in building sales by using them to make it happen. It is not like you can hire staff to work 12-1 and 5:45-7. But you could do some part timers who do a little prep, door hanging and menu drops.

I would get a couple key PART TIME people. Cross train. Any employee who cannot answer phones, cook and cash out a customer must go immediately and be replaced with two part timers who will.

This allows you to give someone time off if needed. It allows you to staff when busy and send home when you are not. It helps when someone call in or quits.

Prep at this stage should be quick and constant so you don’t need to bring people in for hours prepping. They should be prepping ALL DAY any free moment.

As for needing to wash your hands…have a bucket of bleach water you can dip your hands in and get to the phone.
Every single person should be able to answer the phone. If there is food in the oven the oven tender can at least put them on hold.

There should always be two people in the store who are capable of filling all positions. I believe right now you have 1. You. Your cook doesn’t speak english and your front people can’t cook…truly wasted money.

Kris
 
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$200 per day with a $15 average order is what 13 orders? The early posts talk about a phone person for lunch and another shift for dinner. We are talking about 3 orders per hour.

I agree with Kris that this is first and foremost a sales problem and that you need employees that can both answer the phone and make pizza, but staffing does have to line up with sales and one person in the kitchen CAN do $200 including answering the phone and handling the counter.

A driver is cheaper than a cook. You are working as a driver and paying a cook when you should do it the other way around.
 
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  1. At this point, you have probably 5 to 7 deliveries a day. So, get a driver and train him to answer the phone when you’re making pizzas. You can pay him well if you dump the cook and phone girl.
  2. Get a cordless phone, hook it to your belt. Better yet, get a headset as mentioned above.
  3. Take one of your terminals to the kitchen and enter orders there. Shouldn’t be too hard to move.
  4. Prop open your swinging door so you can hear customers enter.
  5. Grab toppings with one hand to leave your other one clean to answer the phone and punch in orders.
  6. For busy times, you CAN pre-toss and even sauce and even cheese a few pizzas to smooth out that spike.
You need to develop a “get it done” attitude. It doesn’t matter how you laid out your store or whatever else. You need to cut labor in half right now and pour it all into marketing. I would fire a manager if he/she couldn’t do 3 times your business with just a driver. Unless you’re selling your pies for $5 per, you are way underachieving efficiency-wise.

Being in business for yourself will show you how much you’re capable of if you step up to the challenge.
 
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Its funny how fast this thread turned from advertising/marketing to my labor control. I do completely understand the importance of labor control and how food and labor are easily your biggest cost killers. If we had sales, I don’t think we would not be discussing this problem. This cook I have, he’s worked for me in the past, and I’ve grown quite fond of him and vice versa. I take care of him and he takes care of me. He is an unbelievable worker, probably the best out of the 50 or so people that have worked for me. For the 3 years he worked for me at the other place, he NEVER ONCE let me down whether it was being late (even 5 minutes), not show up, sick, emergency, car problems etc etc. I have been known to take care of his 10 year old son as well. I gave him my xbox with like 20 games for free, I’ve fixed his computer that ended up costing me plenty of my time and money, I show him and teach him things if he ever needs any help. In fact, my cook’s birthday is coming up in a couple days and I have some money saved up and I’m going to buy him the Rosetta Stone - which is the best learning software money can by to learn another language. If he succeeds well with it, he could easily be my number 1 go to guy for ALL positions, no doubt. Letting him go is out of the question at this point. I would consider him a key part of my future. Just going to take time. Obviously if it takes too long, thats a different story. But I will be giving him an opportunity of a lifetime and I know he would be unbelievably grateful and willing to pay me back in helping this place grow and not let me down in any way, shape, or form.

Also, I do have a phone person in the morning that only works 11 - 2 and the girls at night only work 5 - 8. The morning person is quite important to me because we get a lot of walk-ins for slices (or just to grab a menu) and she’s so good that most of the time she can upsell to a real pizza or add drinks/apps etc. Not only that, every customer that walks in is attended to and greeted right away. She’s a keeper, and if I were to let her go, I’m not sure how long it would be before I can find a new and better one for only 15 hours a week if sales were to really pick up. And when its slow, shes more than happy going out and handing out menus to people, or finding something to do like help prep or clean something or dishes etc.

I agree with bodega. A pie count would be much more sufficient rather than sales because of the $5 postcards, and the free 12" pizza I offer with every 16" pizza.
 
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bodegahwy:
$200 per day with a $15 average order is what 13 orders? The early posts talk about a phone person for lunch and another shift for dinner. We are talking about 3 orders per hour.

I agree with Kris that this is first and foremost a sales problem and that you need employees that can both answer the phone and make pizza, but staffing does have to line up with sales and one person in the kitchen CAN do $200 including answering the phone and handling the counter.

A driver is cheaper than a cook. You are working as a driver and paying a cook when you should do it the other way around.
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2 - 5 is almost completely dead. 8 - Close is almost completely dead.

I think I have my staff planned accordingly, and minimally.
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CMEC:
  1. At this point, you have probably 5 to 7 deliveries a day. So, get a driver and train him to answer the phone when you’re making pizzas. You can pay him well if you dump the cook and phone girl.
  2. Get a cordless phone, hook it to your belt. Better yet, get a headset as mentioned above.
  3. Take one of your terminals to the kitchen and enter orders there. Shouldn’t be too hard to move.
  4. Prop open your swinging door so you can hear customers enter.
  5. Grab toppings with one hand to leave your other one clean to answer the phone and punch in orders.
  6. For busy times, you CAN pre-toss and even sauce and even cheese a few pizzas to smooth out that spike.
You need to develop a “get it done” attitude. It doesn’t matter how you laid out your store or whatever else. You need to cut labor in half right now and pour it all into marketing. I would fire a manager if he/she couldn’t do 3 times your business with just a driver. Unless you’re selling your pies for $5 per, you are way underachieving efficiency-wise.

Being in business for yourself will show you how much you’re capable of if you step up to the challenge.
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I think the most we had was 7 deliveries a day and that was on Friday night last week. Most days we go with 0 deliveries. Others are mostly 1 or 2. This Friday we only did 4. But had a 600 dollar day…

I do have a terminal in the back, and I do take orders on there when need be.

Its impossible to do sausage with one hand lol.
 
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