What am I doing with my life?!

[Piedad]

Time to get fired-up on social media … Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Yelp, as you’ve learned, can be a friend, but be sure to respond to most negative reviews with open-mindedness, because defensive blindness is often perceived as being a jerk … if something wasn’t right, apologize and promise to try to do better. It’s also nice to respond to a 5-star review with a short "Thank’s so much for the great review … hope to see you again real soon, Richie B (if that’s not your name, be sure to use the real one). Print and radio media can be disappointing … as I remember your location, I think you have a lot of street traffic … if that’s right, get a cheap chalkboard A-frame sidewalk sign … then think of cute or corny things to write on there, and change them at least once a week … folks love that stuff, and will respond with their feet and their wallets. Here is a link to some images for ideas ideas. https://www.google.com/search?q=cut...ATL5YC4Cg&ved=0CDsQsAQ&biw=1010&bih=492#imgrc=_

 

[Ally38562]

Preston…I totally get where you’re coming from! I’m in the planning stages of opening mine! I have always said I would rather try something and possibly fail, then never try it and always have to wonder…what if? For instance…my husband took over a tire shop 10 years ago. He ran it for 2 years, sales went from $100k a year with the old owner to $150k with my hubs. He talked me into quitting my awesome paying/great benefits/lots of vacation job to “take over” the garage. He does the manual labor, I do the marketing, inventory, payroll, taxes, and everything else you can think of. My first year we went up to $300k, second year $350 and now we’ve done $500k the last 3 years. I knew NOTHING about tires when I took over! But I’m smart, not afraid of hard work and not afraid to take a chance! I figure if I can turn a crappy old garage in the middle of nowhere into the awesome business we have now, I KNOW I can do the same with my pizza dream

 

[pizzanow]

I admire your determination and confidence CG, and I see what you’re saying. Tires and Pizza though… that’s not exactly comparing apples to apples .

 

[Preston]

5 Week update!

Our sales have gone up roughly 10-15% each week. Word of mouth has been the biggest marketing success. Also, having a guy in a pizza costume on the street seems to be helping. It’s bringing in just enough sales to pay for him to stand out there.

The biggest problem we have is letting people know we’re open/that we exist.

Now are slowest day (sunday) is roughly 600.00. Friday/Sat around 1,200 and weekdays are hovering around the 700.00 mark.

I was having to cut staff hours pretty hard the first few weeks, but now it’s enough to sustain the business as is.

We’ve been on the radio for 3 weeks now. I’ve had roughly 20 customers from it. We pay 375.00 a month for Friday’s “lunch hour” spot. It’s one of the most popular stations in our city. They mention us 4 times at 10:00, 4 times at 11:00 and 4 times at 12:00 while giving away 25.00 gift cards during 12:00 - 1:00 . I’m not sure it’s worth it. But if any of those 20 customers turn into long term customers then it was probably a good investment!