Piping Up

Things continue to gradually come together, as the piping is now in place, and the plumber (Rick with Chief City) is wrapping up his work. Today I walked into the store to find him scorching threads into my gas pipes so that they'll fit snugly together and bring the gas service to the oven. He was using an impressive machine I'm confident I'll never see again, and I now wish I'd snapped a picture while I had the chance...

I also found out today once again that if you don't specify every small detail, something will get missed. It's not the end of the world; however, I went with three-phase electrical service for the sake of efficiency, only to find out when tracking down a cut sheet for my air conditioning condenser that one of my main consumers of energy will be single-phase (unless I can prevail upon the HVAC contractor to change that at a reasonable cost, which I presume will not be the case).

On a completely unrelated matter, I spoke in front of Dr. Hosack's Business 100 introductory class on Wednesday. She had instructed me to come in and just sort of tell them about my experience opening a business, randomly touching on a number of important themes. I worry that I may have talked over them a bit, but I tried to hit on some important topics as they came up. Looking back, it would have been nice to have structured some sort of presentation in advance, but I still think it may have opened a few eyes; however, this was a class that meets right after a lot of people have just eaten lunch - from my experience, it's one of the best times for slouching into a sudden nap, and I saw a student or two close to keeling over. I will be the first to admit that I had so much to say that it was hard to keep in mind what might be most relevant to them, although I did manage to get a laugh or two on a number of occasions, which made all the difference. I must admit that despite being only two years out of college, it felt entirely different speaking before a group of students who are, on average, probably six years younger than me. Thankfully, when my impromptu presentation had run its course after about 20 minutes, a number of students had questions that caused me to think, mostly with regards to how I intend to reach the college population.

Since I'm not a huge believer in constant full-page advertising in The Daily Vidette, I've always pegged my hopes on reaching the students via word-of-mouth spreading from one D.P. Dough fan to another. Targeted blanketing of the campus with our menus right now represents the main thrust of my advertising efforts. I've hired a rather diverse staff representing a number of different interests across campus, so their ability to purchase discounted 'zones for their friends at the end of their shifts - as well as score special deals for whichever organizations they may be affiliated with - should work wonders if executed properly. Lacking a massive war chest for an all-out advertising blitz, a read of the book Guerilla Marketing is tops on my list as soon as I can steal it back down here from my parents' house.

I've told my new employees that I will be relying heavily on them to spread the word on campus, while I focus most of my personal efforts on the surrounding business community. With David moving down here sometime soon (it was supposed to be Friday, but walls of snow blowing straight sideways have a way of changing things), we should be able to build significant awareness of the store as we move towards opening.

Finally, I visited Bradley today at Idearc, publisher of the Verizon Yellow Pages, to sign up for a quarterly postcard mailer exclusively dedicated to businesses in the restaurant or entertainment genre. As part of the deal, I'll receive an ad in the upcoming annual Yellow Pages phone book, as well as two coupons in that part of the book. They'll also provide me with a dummy phone number for all people using the card to call in an order, which will ensure that they will be able to accurately track the number of people who call in an order to my store after receiving the card. Best of all, there are only about 20 cards in the clear plastic wrapped package, so I'm not at risk of people not thumbing through the entire stack (by contrast, my experience with the flimsy Valu-Pak coupons - a competing offering which comes in an envelope - has been less than enjoyable, mostly because there are roughly 50 pieces of paper that all cling to each other for dear life, making it a nightmare to sort out the ones you want).

We'll see if this pays off the way I hope it will; it seems like a reasonable bet, though, as it is quite a bit more cost effective than television - which I hope to get into eventually, just not right now - and targets 30,000 households representing both students in apartments and members of the community at large. Visiting with Steve (brother) the other day, he mentioned that he thinks it's a good idea, based on how he feels his Madison, WI store could have better sustained their ridiculously successful opening had they committed to some advertising right from the start.

Anyways, after a few days under the weather it was nice to tie up some loose ends today, including random bill payments and continued progress towards a set of documents that Todd (landlord) is comfortable signing - I think we're very close at this point. I'll find out soon if I'm wrong. I'll be posting recruitment flyers for drivers early on Monday, and hope to resume interviews shortly thereafter. I've received a number of applications in the last week or so, and have kept a lot of anxious applicants in the dark for longer than I'd like; however, once David is down here to help me with the process of identifying how much help we still need, and for which shifts, I think we'll be able to move much more smoothly from here on out.

In the meantime, I am now nearing two weeks until the Great Flooring Odyssey, so I am also committing myself to learning as much as I can about this task in advance. Advice, anyone? Thankfully, I'll have help and I'll have periodic guidance from Mark (contractor's superintendent), so hopefully things will go well. Still, it doesn't sit well that both Mak (handy best friend) and my old man don't want anything to do with flooring. Still, they say heroic deeds are borne out of desperation, and I have no choice but to do this right and not have it cost me a ton of money. I'll keep posting as this develops...

New Pipes in an Old, Old Building