My successes.
We started part-time and within a year and a half, we moved into a full commercial facility. Now we serve over 3,000 families and individuals and deliver to hundreds of homes every week.
How SCORE helped.
SCORE was able to help me turn my problems into opportunities, discover strengths and broaden my focus to become more successful. We had reached the point of full capacity in our commercial kitchen and this is where SCORE helped. Our SCORE advisers refocused us to view our operation as a manufacturing operation. As a manufacturer, a business is losing money if it has unused capacity. So we developed a plan to capitalize on our off hours. We are currently expanding to include a night shift which we never considered before, increasing our throughput. With the addition and adding a retail storefront, we can increase our revenue. Unlike a restaurant with a limited number of seats, we can utilize our delivery vehicles to add to the territories we serve and add routes on days we did not previously. Instead of increasing our footprint with a costly expansion, we are "going up, not out".
What's great about my mentor?
My mentors were great in understanding the opportunities lurking just below the surface. We developed a strategy to offer different price points and bundles to increase our average transaction. They also encouraged me to invest in technology, specifically new equipment with more capacity and versatility to cut costs, increase quality, and increase capacity. All are beneficial to the bottom line. So far we have been able to lay the groundwork for these changes and are currently in the middle of physical renovations to manifest the plans we developed. Sales are up over last year and we anticipate a breakthrough year in 2017 once all our plans have been implemented.
How Did Your Business Get Started?
I got started in 2000 after I got out of the restaurant business full time and became a personal chef. I always wanted to cook for more folks and in 2009 it branched off into a part-time delivery service. You see, my parents and grandmother were the catalysts to the idea. They needed my help getting meals together and I soon discovered that there were many families and individuals in the same boat. Busy adults, seniors, and time-strapped people who needed better options for meals than take-out and prepackaged junk.
My mentors
Joseph Waxman
Joe has expertise in sales, marketing, human resources (HR), finance and cash flow management and...
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