Trying to Break Even

He's thinking of groupon type of thing, which is crap. A one time 10% discount coupon to let people know of your establishment wont hurt you. Good luck.

>If you're not profitable, you shouldn't be paying yourself
I'm assuming he wants to break while paying himself. I also assume his salary is nowhere near $1000/day

I assume he will be out of business in 3yrs

Agreed, I'll get on it.

Yea I'm not paying myself massive amounts of money. Mathematically if it helps you to think of me living off of some of the capital, it's the same thing. Like, I have to live somewhere.

Stupid logistics question, how do I get these flyers/coupons to the actual offices themselves? Can't just walk in past security.

If you're making more money from catering than the store front, and rent is one of your biggest expenses, why have a store front?

Just do catering, and maybe work a second job if time permits. Bricks and mortar is declining in general, don't stay on a sinking ship.

Might be a little late in the year, but most cities have at least one trade fair for weddings.

Cold calling and giving samples to wedding planners is a good idea. Also look at where people have weddings, and if the host provides catering. If they don't, contact those people as well.

If you're burning through $40k/month your overhead costs are too high to sustain your operation. Eventually you will probably branch out and get enough of a customer base to warrant your storefront but if I were you I would ditch it for a cheaper location, or just work out of an industrial kitchen and ditch the storefront idea altogether (for right now). You yourself said you make the bulk of your revenue from your catering business so focus on expanding that for now. In my humble opinion you bit off more than you can chew. Downsize until your business is developed enough to expand.

>someone who owns a profitable foodtruck and understands the food business

Sorry to hear this, OP. Another casualty of the food and beverage meme. Personally, I'd never touch anything in that space with a 10 foot pole

Saw this post after I made mine. Agree with this 100%.

A lot of people are switching from the traditional funeral, to a 'celebration of life' or some variant, that is held in their own house. Look into catering for those too.

It's a good way to make money on the weekends, and people die everyday. Most weddings are between May and August.

>pic of what it looks similar too
>don't have own pics

This means you don't even have a social media presence. Which is a big deal these days. Especially for the kind of small business you run... It can be the difference between something that becomes a hit and something that does okish for a few years and disappears.

You can't branch out of people can't find you and then become excited on social media.

I understand where you're coming from, but doesn't the store front provide a high level of legitimacy and advertising? One good indicator I've noticed when talking to catering companies is that they're impressed by how well shit gets done and they like that I'm not running some sketchy shithole out in the middle of nowhere. It shows in the way they treat me; they book me a lot more often than they book anyone else. We get catering orders from people that only know us because they walked past my store and saw the display case.

Not trying to dismiss this very reasonable advice, I just feel like if my issue is not selling enough volume, then the last thing I want to do is retreat out of the midtown area into some nowhere kitchen. While a little different, I see my store as kind of the same type of store that sells bullshit mini cupcakes for a dollar a piece. I can't imagine they have too much in store sales, but their thing is that they have a nice display case and people know they come in a nice box for gifts/catering. I can't imagine those stores have expenses lower than mine yet they grow in popularity.

Plus, all emotional reaction aside, ditching the store and then rebuilding the store seems like a waste of money.

Also never heard of wedding trade fairs, I'll google around a bit and see what's up.

Sandwiches are easily identifiable, I don't need some wandering /b/tard make it his autistic goal to fuck with me. I have good pictures. I'm working on increasing Facebook posting but desu with only about 1,500 likes right now I doubt that's what's gonna skyrocket my business.

Great idea, didn't think of this. Not sure if there are specific funeral catering companies but I'll check into it.

I swear that desu wrote itself....

>$500 a day from storefront

At $10 a ticket you have 50 customers a day? Thats it?

It doesn't matter. If you're not profitable, you should not be paying yourself. (as long as you wan the business up and running)

Sleep on a friends couch, crash with your parents for a month or two, there are people willing to help you. (you do have a business, so you should have connections and a network)

Even then, if it's that bad, just live at your store. Sure, you won't be able to shower there, but maybe one of your employees will let you use their shower.

You can't pay yourself if you're not profitable. You have other obligations you NEED to meet. Even then, when you are profitable, you're going to want to put that money back into the business to expand it.

You are your own reason why you aren't successful.

baka desu senpai

You're more likely to have competitors will fuck with your social media attempts than anyone on here...

But fair enough.

I mean not to be crass, but the marginal benefit I get from saving 60 bucks a day on living expenses being put back into my business isn't worth become a mooch. I want to succeed, but I have other options if capital runs out. I don't buy into the whole "if you don't give 110%, you don't deserve to succeed in the cold hard world". Like I'll do what I can to improve, but I'm not sleeping in the fucking basement dungeon office and showering at the local gym. Much respect for those who do, but I don't think my business failing or succeeding is dependent on my living expenses.

If you want to tune out now and say "you just don't really have what it takes" then sure, but I don't care at that point if I'm going to be a bottom feeder showering at my Mexican sandwich maker employee's apartment.

If you are pulling in half a million in revenue a year I don't think lack of sales volume is your issue. Its a shame that all that revenue (and then some) is being eaten up by high expenses and rent. I may be biased because I own a foodtruck business in order to intentionally cut overhead costs, but I couldn't imagine being in the red with that much revenue.

Again, the thought here is that you shed the non-profitable part of your business (your storefront) and focus on the profitable part which needs very little overhead (the catering business).

You are absolutely correct that you may lose some marketing potential by removing your storefront so if I were you I would do like another user suggested and focus on an online presence. Branch out through social media, yelp, twitter, etc. by offering promotions and using your existing customerbase to give you credibility. If your sandwiches really are that awesome you should have no problem getting good yelp reviews. Start a website and spend a little money to get nice photography and SEO as well as the ability for customers to be able to oder online. Get an app built.

Hope some of this helps. It took me a lot of trial and error to learn how to maximize profit in the food industry. If you can, reach out to successful caterers in your area and see if there is also potential for joint ventures.

if you make 500 a day and you're not putting in an extra 12% into your bankroll, just close up shop.

$500 a day in a storefront is shit. You should be doing $1200 at least.

Hey foodtruck bro, it's my absolute dream to open up one, in the process of writing my business plan so I can get a license to trade here and actually organise and put in writing all my ideas.

What tips do you have for someone wanting to go into this industry? Particularly in regards to what mistakes you made/would avoid if you had to go back and do it again.

I'm not sure what part I should be focusing the most on now since I am hoping to get it up and running for next summer.

Lurking and reading as always.

Haha, like I said I would much rather close up shop than be homeless. I do appreciate that advice though, really.

Sure, online is important for sure. We have a good website with nice pictures, but I haven't yet integrated ordering capability into the website. Looking into that, but i don't have shit when it comes to tech skills. Would need to make an investment in that.

By branching out in social media what do you mean exactly though? I really can't just force my posts onto others. I have about 1500 FB fans, and I'm setting up a Twitter. I might try a coupon or promotion just to test the waters on how many people pay attention to FB posts.

As for Yelp, we have 4.5 average out of about 15 reviews so far. Looking great in that aspect. People have a lot of praise. Just not very good at knowing which marketing and advertising mediums to go off of.

also, you should have about a years worth of living expenses set aside with a years worth of operating expenses set aside if youre doing this with no income while youre doing it.

go ahead and close up shop. you'll be doing yourself a favor.

There are online marketing services that shill you on facebook and yelp with reviews etc.
Also, try to find a local youtuber who does reviews on food , someone who has a lot of views and get him to taste your sandwiches

Try that before resorting to coupons

I agree with a few of the other posters. Mass mail a menu to city businesses. Your stuff looks awesome, so make sure there are pictures.

Nobody throws away menus of awesome looking food products.

Better yet, can you hire someone to hand deliver the menus right to the door of businesses at 10am? Catch the secretaries when they are hungry. If they like your shit, they'll spread it to hr, and from hr, it will catch all the dudes who waste the day hitting on hr chicks.

>My own salary

Well, that's a problem right there. If you're not working 80+ hours a week and barely taking enough to survive, you're going to fail.

18 months. That's your death clock. If you're not profitable by then shut down.

4 out of every 5 food services don't make it past 12 months.

Also, if you're focused on catering why do you have a storefront? That shit is expensive and not required.

Really, all you need is a place to put shit together and something to transport the food. Best of both worlds is a truck. Not glamorous but cost effective.

I've been in food services for 10 years now and I'd much rather a food truck than a brick and mortar.

With a physical building you should be turning over at least 200 people a day. if you're not, you really need to hit the streets and whore that place out. Go and talk to people, give them discounts, get them talking. Most of the time people don't go to places just because no one has told them about it.

Also, you need to be costing out everything every day. Daily inventory, daily hours log, daily purchasing. You need that information to help you build a timeline of your costs/profits for your next fiscal year.

I'll look into mass mailing. I meant it though when I said big business. Literal skyscrapers surrounding me, you literally cannot hand deliver anything because they're all on the 8th and 34th floors with security by the door.

Any advice for mass mailing? Never done it. Is it something I can get to big business offices?

Good idea, I'll look into it. Can you message youtubers? Never done it before.

There are companies that print out mass amounts of letters and send them out for you. You'll have to find one.

ITT op makes $500/day
doesn't think $60/day matters
is told it does by multiple smart anons
op doesn't listen bc faggot

good you don't name your business here because I would make it my autist business to fuck w you, op. food looks like a million other faggy tapas places. fuck off and fail faster faggot

Think we found the guy...

Horse and water or something.

baka

Ok, I'm sure there's a courier service that will physically hang a menu on a doorknob for you, but if there isn't, (I really want to charge you for this) email 1% of their workers a menu. If you have trouble getting the data to do that, we need to talk, because it's something I can easily do via linkedin.

Funny thing, the main thing that I learned from my first failed truck is to do things a little less legal. I dont mean sacrificing health and safety, I mean not going through enormous hoops to make sure my truck and equipment were fully up to code before selling out if it. My first truck wasn't even non-profitable it just wasn't profitable enough to warrant the amount of money I put into equipment, tax registration, business license, local permits, health permits, zoning permits, etc. In my experience the rare occasions that you get fined are less than the actual costs of being fully legal, and by then your business is already established enough to shoulder the costs of coming up to code.

My second truck I was just selling custom made icecream cookie sandwiches. It wasn't legal for the longest time because the sandwiches were not prepackaged and there are a lot more strict requirements for non-prepackaged food. Once I knew there was a market, then I eventually was able to calculate the costs of "legalizing" it. This method seemed to work better for me but obviously different locations/areas may be more regulation heavy than where I was operating at.

Honestly it looks like you are on the right track already. I'm not sure if there is much else you can do to market your business, save paying a marketing firm to help you out. Like I said before, I really dont think lack of sales volume is your main concern. Half a million dollar/year revenue business with one storefront is pretty damn good. The difference between you and successful businesses with the same sales volume, however, is they have lower overhead costs and expenses. Cut your costs or you will always be struggling to be in the green no matter what you do.

Pic related is a few businesses with around your sales volume but are able to turn a good profit. I know your marketbase is geared towards more high quality food which increases your food costs but you need to find some way to cut costs somewhere.

this

hire a kickstarter esqe video production company / guy to videotape you and the store, talking about your delicious sandwiches and catering

tell prospects you've shut down the stote to focus on catering

look into advertising via groupon discounts

if you do decide to keep the store, look into making a kickstarter to fund improvements / advertise (with the same professional looking video mentioned above)

look into bar mitzvahs and kosher ingredients. you may want to pick one niche and really niche down into becoming the go to. like, if you picked weddings you'd have a video and written descriptions talking about weddings

what catering would wedding planners / brides to be rather choose? joe schmo's sandwiches or the wedding sandwich company?

this is marketing for maximum revenue that'll allow you to profitably expand from and leave that niche.

catering in and of itself can be considered a niche tb.h

once your comfortable, maybe you should make a sandwich podcast where you review different sandwiches from different places. this builds trust and loyalty like nothing else

make a snapchat and consider editing the snapchat stories of others from each event into your own snapchat. you can have a longish snap from each event made by people enjoying themselves and your sandwiches

you can also pay $5 per hour on having your own geolocation snapchat. a cartoon of the people throwing the event with your logo and with them holding your signature sandwhich

you can also do a food truck instead of brick and mortar. if you're in a big city it's commom for them to be expensive ($16 for a burger and fries from one of my local favorites)

Oops sorry wrong pic

expand you range of products

>get an app built
you're a fucking roleplayer and you don't own a foodtruck

no one cares about fucking with you

mass email as little as possible
work with a soft script that you customize for each

twitter is a no go

you're better off making an instagram with well shot pictures of your staff, your sandwiches, your catering events and your happu customers with only the occasional coupon

it's 'give, give, give, then ask for business'

This. I think OP said he needs $2k per day in order to get in the green. That is $60k/month and $720k/year. That is an insane amount of expenses for a small business when you are pulling in almost a million a year in sales and still seeing no profit.

OP you need to go back to the drawing board and rethink your business model. Either your profit margins are too thin, you are paying your employees too much or you are spending way too much money on rent.

I'm just going to pass Gary along to you

Gary Vaynerchuk: 92Y Talk With Stephanie Ruhle: youtu.be/yPKzoah6A4c

yeah but cupcakes cost fucking nil in inventory. flour water eggs sugar oil. They have distinct cost advantages relative to you.

then don't call it a coupon call it an executive price.

Get a few ongoing lunch contracts. you know every wednesday we have OP Sandwiches. But limit your catered offerings slightly to what is really efficient, but good.
Nah a decent big city restaurant makes a little over 1M a year.

OP went aggressive on everything location, product, staff,
but honestly should have done it in reverse built up the catering business then opened a storefront once everyone knew his name and product.
Sometimes the timing is just not right.

In my city you have to make sure your yelp is on point if you want people to come by

Throw a couple opening celebrations to get the word out.

Free samples

Watch nearly every episode of Kitchen Nightmares and Gordon Ramsey goes off and is like come have lunch at the fucking spot and word gets around.

I'm with this guy too. Cut the storefront and you will immediately be in the green.

eggs, butter, and flour are most likely the three most expensive items he'd have to buy. these three aren't "nil", either.

What country/state do you live in?

Commiefornia lol. The state licenses really aren't too bad though, its the local (city) permits that can be a pain in the ass.

N or S?

South. LA/OC

Nobody knows what mana looked like, but I can guarantee it didn't look like your picture. That is all

I thought it looked like the communion bread desu

thanks man, appreciate that a lot.
I think i just need to just bite the fucking bullet and not try and get every aspect 100% before i start.

I can get you through the door of so many companies...

Yeah, pretty much. It's a lot easier to work that all out after you establish a business model that works. You can always fine tweak it as you go.

Good luck though, bro. Food trucks are a blast to operate.

Yeah? Shoot me a throw away email maybe we can work out some type of finders fee for you for any business you generate.

See this is what happens when instead of doing what is actually profitable some fuckstick decides he wants to be le epic subway ripoff brick and mortar with mana bread :> 1500 wasted a day good work

You shoot yours. I'm not interested in a finders fee. You are going to pay per email address.

>wasted
Seems like he has plenty of happy customers.

[email protected]

Thanks, bro. I don't really need random emails though haha. I can get that from anywhere. I was hoping you had some kind of connections to the businesses. We should prob stop derailing OPs thread though. Shoot me an email and lets discuss.

wew lad, get into a real business instead of selling stupid sandwiches

1) Reduce costs

2) Get sales

Getting sales is like hunting, there's 100 ways to do it. Maybe put out an ad? put a banner in front of the shop? network? social media? promote your company site?

Also just find successful business owners in your area. Network with them. Listen to them. They will help you, and you can help them.

I'm barely following the thread. You're not op?
Anyways, what cities are you in? Was it OC/southern LA?
If you were connected with a few 1000+ employers in the area, and had a chance to do their lunches what would it be worth?

Hey guys OP here, took a break to get some work done.

For anyone who contributed and is still following the thread, I highly value your advice and appreciate the thought put into the comments.

Perhaps I would have been better off starting small with catering and only opening up the store front after a few years of success, but what's done is done.

As a side note, I specifically mentioned 1200-1500 dollars in sales not 500 in sales so I'm not spending 12% of revenue on my own expenses. Also I really don't think some of the posters in this thread understand how reasonable my expenses are. The store is balls deep in the middle of 80 story skyscrapers. My rent is 12k monthly which is the same as everyone else in the area. But just to conclude, I'm not shutting the store down even if it would be a good idea. I have enough capital to last me at least 6 more months assuming my revenue doesn't change (and it has only gone up month by month) and I really am not so attached or desperate that I would cut the shop and continue as an industrial kitchen. I'd rather start over with something else. Investors see it the same way. They wouldn't have funded a lot of it if they knew it wouldn't be a real store. Rich people like to brag about this shit and nobody brags about owning 10% of an kitchen out 40 minutes drive from downtown.

To summarize the best advice I've gotten:
1) Set up online ordering to make it easier for tech savvy office workers in the area to get delivery.

2) Post more pictures on instagram or Facebook and offer deals to get return customers. Hopefully these customers will consider catering for their offices and events.

3) Look into wedding and funeral stuff, as it's a big market. Offer samples to as many caterers as possible. (Jewish events aren't possible because they jews have a lock on that. You know how these things go.)

4) Send out some mail to big office buildings in my area. Easier said than done but I'll try my best and see what my options are.

Cold calling has never hurt anyone.

so you're still throwing away 4-6%? (even though you say in the same OP that you have 500 in sales and then say you have 12-1500 in sales, which is it?)

like let me get this straight, you are literally throwing a good 5% away?

i mean if you won't save a fucking 5% in costs then you're doomed to fail.

>im not shutting the store down even if it's a good idea

>im not desperate

You're desperate to fail.

5) Also looking into food blogs and shit. If buzzfeed or something local can get on my business and we get some good pictures with them, I'm sure store traffic will see a boost.

Actually I was thinking back about why I decided on a store in such an expensive part of town, and how stupid that was, but I don't think I can emphasize enough how many demands the investors wanted. Like this was either going to be a brick and mortar with nice furnishing and remodeling or it was gonna be nothing. I should have used my portion of the starting cash to set up catering beforehand and then got investors on it at that point if needed. Oh well, too late. Learn from my mistakes guys. Catering is a big revenue source and you can make the food anywhere, really.

oh i get it now
you're working for someone else

Literally quoting my original post "Right now I'm pulling in around $1200-$1500 a day". IDK what to tell you man, it's literally in the OP.

Let me reiterate, not desperate to fail, just more apathetic about the possibility. This shop isn't my life. I have skills. I got some investor money and thought what the hell. Seriously having so much fun running the store. I would hate it if I was so stressed about it that I was skipping meals and sleeping on a cot 2 feet from the communal shitter in the basement. I love the way it is now. If it works it works. I consider this my vacation. There's a hope of this turning a profit, and that's nice. It isn't my life though. I hope you can understand.

Yea This isn't 100% my own venture. I have controlling stake but a lot of help along the way. I have backing. Not sure if that was relevant to put in the OP.

We have a storefront which is pulling in like $500 a day, and most of the income is coming from catering. Right now I'm pulling in around $1200-$1500 a day

So you make 500 a day or 1200-1500? do you work another job and that's where this extra money is coming from?

If you don't want things to stop, realize that you're not pulling in any profit. You obviously don't care about getting what you want. How the fuck you even got some investment money I'm not sure, but kudos on divorcing a sucker from his money.

>don't want things to stop
>i consider this a vacation

Seriously, you are your worst enemy. You sound like you suffer from Afluenza

Hey OP.

Congrats on the cool business. You should check out this video by a lawyer who works with thousands of small businesses.

3 attributes of successful entrepreneurs:
youtube.com/watch?v=gTyRQert4JY

He gives lots of examples that I think would work well for your store front specifically.

It's $500 a day from people coming in and buying sandwiches, and another 700-1000 from catering.

I understand your concern but you're not getting anywhere with me. As I've made clear like 7 times already, I'm willing to put in a certain amount of effort and sacrifice into my business. Just because you would put in more doesn't mean my choice is lesser. I enjoy running this business, I think it's a lot of fun. I'm learning a lot. If it fails, I'm not too torn up. I made mistakes along the way but this store isn't everything.

If I'm offending you by taking my circumstances for granted, then I really am sorry, but you keep harping on my attitude and how I approach my business is up to me to decide based on my goals, which aren't the same as yours. Which is OK.

You need to target financial districts. Full of overpaid pretentious faggots who would jizz over your fancy sandwiches.

We're a bit far from foot traffic from the area, but one of the wealthy investors (even after I disclosed the state of the business) insists she wants to bankroll a second physical store down in the financial district. I won't turn her down, and I have the management capacity. This would require no additional investment on my end luckily, and it would be an arrangement where all catering would still be combined, so I'm not competing with a franchise or anything stupid like that. We'll see where it goes.

DESU I feel like a sandwich whore to these people. And I kinda like the fun of it.

Ok, see where that goes. I disagree with ditching the storefront though like people in here have said, maybe you can keep it after this expansion.

Also, very important, get an Instagram page if you haven't already, Kikebook is dying and its not as easily seen as shit on IG is. Make your page clean, great posts, etc. Instagram is a much better social media tool than Facebook these days. Which is probably why Suckerberg acquired it, he knew FB was dying.

Meant to reply to (you), sorry.

The thing is is that you're coming here asking for help and you have this shit attitude like, yeah, that might be a good idea, but I'm not doing that. Not desperate enough.

Any evidence of Facebook dying? Or is that just your opinion?

I must have said like 12 times that I honestly appreciate your input. I still mean it. I just can't bring myself to do something that drastic and was looking for other advice, which I got. I'm telling you that you're probably right and that you're smarter about this than I would have been. I just don't have the do-or-die attitude about this particular business venture. I laud that you do about your own.

Do you have to pay back the money that you're burning?

Nope, it wasn't a loan based arrangement, they own shares. Actually some are willing to loan the company some money, but I would need to be responsible for paying some of it back if things go south. I have some time before then to keep considering it, depending on where business goes in the summer.

the snapchat idea is a marketing game changer

you place a little ad at the event asking people to snap you. rip them from snapchat, edit them into a video and upload them to snapchat as a story
see:
quora.com/How-can-you-upload-a-picture-out-of-your-gallery-to-you-snapchat-story?redirected_qid=3634210

your snapchat would be a huge marketing tool & it's made by your customers

you can also make custom geolocation filters, so that everyone using snapchat at the event can will have your custom filter. you can probably purchase it for ~$20 total (time and space - get it while it's cheap)

garyvaynerchuk.com/how-to-create-and-use-snapchats-new-custom-geofilters/

This is Veeky Forums and my opinion is fact. No really, many people have deactivated for years who I know, I keep hearing 'its dying' and its just a clusterfuck now. People would rather just have Instagram and Twitter, Snapchat too.

Facebook got too intense, too invasive and people didn't like that. The sole reason they're still around is because of Messenger, they hooked people into Facebook in the first place, waited until a few things aligned then made Messenger, it became a valuable method of cross-platform contact.

>too intense, too invasive

lol you think 95% of people give half a shit about that. I know more than most about privacy issues in the tech age and I still don't give half a shit. Facebook is still the best to keep up with friends on.

yeah, I think it has more to do with the fact that people (especially millennials - and I'm 24) love to project an image & Facebook being so holistic makes it harder to do that

if it had anything to do with privacy people would be using duckduckgo

the older generation seems the most active on Facebook

speaking of which, op should be using Facebook ads and cold messaging linkedin profiles

you can target Facebook ads by [city] --[wedding planners] and design the ad around each

Google AdWords has less roi apparently

if you're legit I'd volunteer for your marketing & if you're in the bay area that would be even better

I've played with FB ads but how could I possibly design an ad to show specifically to wedding planners? Like I can choose age and gender but not much more.

And nah not in bay area, but I appreciate the offer.

I'd assume wedding planners especially would have "wedding planner" or something as their occupation (they have to be in constant marketing mode on social media)

I don't have any ideas for the ads themselves because you don't want me let me volunteer