Archive for April 2010
The Importance of a Marketing Plan
April 30, 2010 | 
Author We talked last week the importance of having a business plan for your doughnut shop business. It is also equally important to have a plan for marketing. We touched on this briefly a few months ago but would like to discuss it in more detail and in our post today.
Your overall marketing plan should cover 3 to 6 months. You need to determine how much money you're going to commit to marketing your doughnut business. You also will determine how the money will best be spent and be realistic on your goals. After this you will need to determine your target market. Where are you going to sell your donuts and to whom. Who are the people that are most likely to buy your product? Do they have families? Does it matter how much money they make? You do not want to answer every one to these questions. Everyone is not who your target market is, do not fool yourself into thinking this, it is a mistake that a lot of people make. Target different people with different marketing, most of the big companies do this. Your marketing will be different to college students that will be to stay-at-home moms.
Think about how you're going to reach these people, are you going to use a mailing list? Are you going to put an ad in the paper? Are you going to give away free samples? Putting an ad in the paper or using a mailing list could be a start in getting the word out for your donut business. Especially if you want to set up shop there and sell them at their venue, i.e. their church, school or whatever. If you decide to use a mailing list, narrow it down as much as possible. You can buy mailing list of all the churches in your town. A lot of times they will even mail the postcards or letter for you. Don't buy from the first-person that tries to sell you a mailing list, you could get burned very quickly. Pay attention to your marketing, it can mean the success or failure of your business.
Posted in Marketing | 
Tags: donut business, how to start a donut business, Marketing, marketing plan, Starting a Donut Business | 
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So You Are Looking for Donut Recipes?
So you are wondering where to find donut recipes for you new business? View the video for a very good idea. You don't have to reinvent the wheel or invest in an expensive franchise to get "secret" donut recipes.....
The Importance of a Business Plan for Your Donut Business
We have discussed this before several weeks ago but I wanted to bring out a couple more things about the importance of a business plan when you start out your donut business. The business plan of your doughnut business is how investors will see your company if you need them. It also includes your marketing operations and sales process. It is the blueprint of your business.
When you meet what the committees that runs at fairs and festivals in your area or other areas, or you are trying to negotiate a lease for your donut shop, is your business plan that would do most of the talking. Your business plan will let everyone know your projected sales and expenses and what you plan to achieve with your business. You can also look at this later to see if you are actually realizing the goals you have set out in your donut business plan. In your business plan you will also want to take note of who your competition is, this is something that we did not mention before. We will do a blog post about competition and how it relates to your donut business in the next several weeks. Competition is an important factor in how much money you make. But I think everyone knows that, they just don't think about it when they open up their business.
Your business plan will give you focus on your development. It will also provide a logical framework for which you to work and establish goals for your company. Your donut business plan will provide information to investors, banks and shareholders if you decide to go that route. As we have mentioned before, it also will let you know how well you are doing as you move forward in your business.
Not having a business plan, is like driving somewhere you have never been, without a roadmap. Is never a good idea to start or operate a business without a business plan. It is no exception for your doughnut shop, be smart and develop a business plan. The time it takes now to write one will save you a lot of headaches later.
Getting to Know Your Customers
The donut business is like any other business and it is important that you get to know your customers. The more information that you have about what they like and don't like the more money you will make and the less money that you will spend on trying to find out that information. One of the best ways to get know your customers, and this is assuming that you have started your donut business already, is to ask for feedback. We are also assuming that you are catering to small groups of people and doing what we are doing and selling small doughnuts. We also assuming that you do not have a large franchise donut shop. But this will work for those as well.
There's several things you should do to get customer feedback. There's so many companies to ask for feedback from the customers but do not supply an easy way for the customers to give them that feedback. The first thing you should do is make it easy for the customer to give you feedback. Supply them with a pen and paper and simply ask them what they think about your donut business. Provide a website where they can give you feedback on their experience with your company. Maybe reward them for their information. Ask them what you can do to better serve them and provide a forum for them to do that. Take advantage of all the social websites that are available & sign your company up for them.
Organize and track your feedback and let customers know that you plan on resolving complaints and actually respond to their positive and negative feedback. A sickly established a process to adjust each complaint that you receive. Train your employees on soliciting and managing feedback that you get from your customers. The donut business is like any other business and it is important to know what your customers are thinking. A satisfied customer will tell their friends and family about you which will result in much more business. Be smart about your feedback process.
Posted in Business Plans, Marketing | Tags: customer feedback, donut business, doughnut business, how to start a donut business | No Comments »
Importance of Having a Business Plan – Update
I realize we've discussed this before but I found some really good business plans on Ebay the other day and I wanted to share them with you... they are below... a few things to look for when purchasing a donut business plan:
Is it specific to the donut business?
Is it customizable and includes a template?
Does it automatically calculate spreadsheets, tables and graphs?
The above are important to make your life easier when developing your plan.....
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Donut Shop Business Plan Bundle |  |
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US $39.95 | 1d 1h 1m |
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Donut & Bagel Shop Start Up Business Plan NEW | |
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US $19.95 | 28d 17h 33m |
| Powered by phpBay Pro |
|
Donut Shop Business Plan Bundle | |
|
US $39.95 | 1d 1h 1m |
|
Donut & Bagel Shop Start Up Business Plan NEW | |
|
US $19.95 | 28d 17h 33m |
| Powered by phpBay Pro |
Trying Out Different Ideas/Menu Items in Your Donut Business
We have talked before in previous posts about trying different things in your donut business. Questions come up like should I sell coffee? Should I sell milk? Should I sell coffee? Should I sell orange juice? Each one of these has its disadvantages and advantages, just like selling anything else. You need to consider the overhead that each one will give you and the profit that each one could give you as well. You may, depending on the location, be better off just sticking to selling your doughnuts alone without anything else accompanying them. But there are situations where selling drinks could be beneficial.
I think we mentioned this before, we were in San Francisco on Pier 59 I believe (I'm not sure of the exact number) And there was a small doughnut shop on the Pier. It had been there a few years before and I assume that it is still there now. They seem to do very well, even though it was a slow time of year and the traffic was down. There were not a lot of people on that here, buying anything. But the little doughnuts shop had a steady flow of traffic buying their doughnuts. I thought it was very interesting, and that we had seen the doughnut shop before it was not until a year later that we had the idea to have one of our own. But one thing that we noticed is they did not sell any beverages except coffee. They sold a mini bag of doughnuts with about Half a dozen in each bag for three dollars. My partner and I absolutely loved them. Wow, it makes me want to go back to San Francisco, the two of us. We had such a good time, it really brings back good memories.
Anyway, back to trying different things in your donut business. If you have a stand-alone store and offer multiple varieties Of doughnuts, like the big chains, then of course it will be necessary for you to have drinks. He not only will have to have coffee, but you will probably have to have orange juice sodas and other drinks people enjoy in your area. By the same token if you have a large store then you probably won't need multiple varities of donuts. This is just not our business model, we are selling small doughnuts without drinks. Perhaps in the future we can offer a bigger menu. But for us this works out very well. Try different things in your donut business will be depend on your resources, venue and your audience, it is pretty much that simple.
Importance of Having a Good Donut Recipe
Having a good donut recipe is important when you first start your donut business. There are many options when you come to this situation. You will need to have a basic donut recipe before you start your business. You may want to look on the Internet and type donut recipe to begin your search. There are many good recipes some good some bad, of course.
We chose to use little orbits recipe that we got off of their website. It actually was not a doughnut recipe but a doughnut mix so that we ordered from their company. It ended up being very good as you can tell from our taste tests in our videos a couple of months ago. We will be trying several different donut recipes in the future and posting them to our blog. We were so impressed with the little orbit's donut recipe That we did not bother to try anything else.
There are several donut recipes on the Internet that we plan on trying in the future. We plan on even making a donut recipes blog so people have somewhere to go to find out more about donut recipes. There's not only a recipe for the donut itself, but recipes for the fillings that go inside of the doughnuts. Some of the fillings are much better than others, as you probably have experienced from going to other doughnut shops. Personally I can really tell a difference in the fillings of different donut shops. If you want to try a very good donut recipe, check out our ad on this blog donutdvd.com. They really guide you on how to start up your donut business And give you training on how what to do. They also give you the all important donut recipe that can be very difficult to find. Is much better to start with something proven, than to try to find something that people like. You may want to check out their website, they have very good donut recipes.
Posted in donut recipes | Tags: donut business, donut recipe, donutdvd, doughnut business, doughnut recipe | No Comments »
Having Business Partners in Your Donut Business
There are advantages and disadvantages to having business partners in the doughnut business. In this post I will discuss the advantages of having business partners. As you know there are four people involved in our doughnut business and thus far it has not been a problem. The four of us are partners and other ventures, beside the doughnut venture, and we have been successful. I am not saying that we do not disagree on things, actually we disagree on a lot of things, but we end up agreeing to disagree. We are lucky that we all give and just enough and realize the role each one of us plays in the business. Respect is an important part of having a business partner and we all respect each other for what and who we are.
Having a business partner is not always a good idea. You really need to know the person and what they are about. How long have you known your potential business partner? Do they have good credit? Do they have money? What do they bring to the table that you do not have? Can you trust this person? Do they have other interests besides what you are trying to do? All these questions need to be answered before you even consider a person to be your business partner. There are many a horror story of partnerships gone bad. One of my business partners Brothers lost over $100,000 in a motorcycle shop business that did not turn out well, basically went out of business. He mortgaged his home for the money and lost every cent of it. There was no recourse against his business partner because he went bankrupt. It is a sad situation but one that he has recovered from nicely. There is no education like experience, though it can be costly.
So you think you have a potential business partner for your fledgling doughnut business? The question is, do you really need him? What are they bringing to the table that you do not have? Maybe it is money that they have and you do not have. If so, you need to spell out exactly what they want in return. Maybe it would be better if they were a silent investor instead of a partner. I have found a lot of times it works better for both parties if one has money and the other doesn't, that's a person who has the money simply invest the money and gets a set rate of return on their cash. Set up a venture capital deal with someone where they get a guaranteed rate of return. You can afford to pay a higher rate of return, make it attractive to a potential investor, especially considering that you could give up 50% of the business if you became partners. Plus the business partner would have control over your business and you would have less of a say than if they were just a venture capital investor.
Having a business partner can Be a good thing or a can be a living nightmare. Do your research on the person and find out how they will fit in to what you are planning on doing with your donut business. A lot of times not making them a business partner but giving them a guaranteed rate of return on their money Is the best thing to do for both parties.
