Posts Tagged ‘doughnut business’
General Donut Shop Questions
February 27, 2011 | 
Author Here are some more questions I have been recieving over the past several months.... I am going to do a posting once or twice a week of all the questions I have recieved.. Don't worry I will not post your name or give any identifying information.. If you don't want your questions published, let me know. You can click on the Ask A Question tab to ask your question.
Richard asks…
I gotta have some ideas to increase sales for my donut shop.. do you have any ideas? Especially around the holidays?
I was trying to ask this on the forums but was locked out for some reason and I have had no response from admin... I purchased an established donut business and would like to find out how to drum up business... and bring more attention to my shop... I would like to keep it clean since it is a family business and town..
John answers:
First I'd like to congratulate you on your donut business.. I should be asking you questions not hte other way around.. 
But how about having some holiday donut decorating classes, how to make donuts and the fillings that go in there... Have some special holiday only specials.. really decorate your store for the holidays.. Maybe you could do somethng for the kids as well.. like have a coloring contest with a prize from the store.. perhaps maybe even sponsor some senior or children's events at your store.. I know that a store (not donut) does that around my area and seem to be quite successful with it...
Linda asks…
I work for ( manager) for a donut shop and need some ideas?
I am trying ot think of things i can bake and sale for halloween i am going to try candy apples but is there anything else u think would be good or u would like to see in a donut shop???
John answers:
I would try anything with nuts and candy corn, add some orange color in there... always a hit..
Robert asks…
I am looking for a donut cutter in madrid?
John answers:
I don't think donuts are cut.
Maria asks…
I am a student and am looking to find out the percentage percent charged on gross sales by a franchise (for a donut shop)
I am doing research for school and am purchasing mock businesses... I chose to start a donut shop.. I am going to use your blog (with your permission) to get some ideas and mention in my assignment... thanks so much!!!
John answers:
That is very interesting... good luck on your project.. We still have a ways to go, but we are well educated (we feel) in the area of donuts.. To answer your question, not all franchises charge a percentage of sales..
I emailed you some links about franchising, specifically donuts, and yes you can use our blog in your research. Good luck!
Posted in Donut Business Questions | 
Tags: bake, basis, bread, business, business plan, candy, climate, customer, cutter, Decorate, donut business, donut franchise, doughnut business, doughnut franchise, doughnut recipe, event, family, flower, foot, General, good, goodwill, halloween, help, holiday, how to start a donut business, how to start a doughnut shop, hte, industry, Information, luck, machinsJohn, madrid, manager, margin, Nuts, orange, percent, permission, Pretzels, prize, project, reason, sale, shop, something, store, student, tab, Thanksgiving, time, town, work | 
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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 32m |
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Donut & Bagel Shop Start Up Business Plan NEW | |
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US $19.95 | 28d 17h 4m |
| Powered by phpBay Pro |
|
Donut Shop Business Plan Bundle | |
|
US $39.95 | 1d 32m |
|
Donut & Bagel Shop Start Up Business Plan NEW | |
|
US $19.95 | 28d 17h 4m |
| Powered by phpBay Pro |
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 »
Getting into Fairs and Festivals to Sell Your Doughnuts
As we talked about In the previous post finding a good location for your donut business is a top priority. We personally are staying away from pricey malls that charge a lot for rent and where the overhead is a lot and the traffic may not be what we expect. I have paid a lot of attention to food places in the mall, people selling fudge, candied popcorn and every kind of sweet you can imagine, and it seems that many do not stay very long. I would love to know the reasoning behind this. One cookie store, actually opened up another small stand in the center aisle of one of the mall coridoors. I assumed that they must be doing quite well to open up another store. But regardless, we do not plan on opening a doughnut shop in the mall.
As we mentioned last week, we are trying to get in a flea market where we can sell doughnuts. I think we might have mentioned before, that we are also interested in selling doughnuts at fairs and festivals. People at fairs and festivals are pretty much a captive audience. Eating tasty foods is almost a tradition at these places. Instead of leaving when they get hungry, they find places to eat there. When you are selling small doughnuts at fairs and festivals, you are also selling convenience.
When you are selling doughnuts at a fair or festival the rent is usually a lot less than if you had a storefront establishment. In addition you are only paying when people, a lot of people are there. When you rent a spot at the mall, you are paying when there might not be very many people at the mall. If you make your business portable, you can travel to a lot of the fairs and festivals all over the country. If you feel financially secure to do so and are not tied to your job this may be an an excellent opportunity for you. Traveling from Festival to Festival is not for everyone, But can be very rewarding monetarily.
It can be very difficult to get your foot in the door at fairs and festivals. There is often times a waiting list just to set up shop. Many times if you have something different such as a doughnut, you may have a better chance of getting your foot in the door. I always thought it would be a neat idea if they had some sort of bidding process for the food vendors, it would be interesting to see how it went. It may price some people out of the market.
The Downfalls of a Donut Business Franchise
We talked yesterday about the benefits of having a doughnut businessness franchise. Today we will discuss the downfalls of having a doughnut franchise. There are many reasons why going with a franchise may not benefit you or be best for your particular situation. The first reason why having a donut franchise May not be the best idea are the very high startup costs. Not only will you have a high startup costs, but the donut franchise will expect you to have a reasonable cash flow and high net worth. These two things alone will keep many people from being able to afford a donut business franchise. Opening a good business franchise usually requires that you have been successful in either another business or your job. Often times you can pool the resources of a few people in order to meet the requirements. It is never a good idea to get into a business, especially a franchise situation, when you are strapped for cash or do not have your financial affairs in order. Another downfall of the franchise system is you lose some level of control over your business. You will be told when to do it and how to do it, after all is not your brand, and you do not own the brand. If the franchise wants you to change the look of your restaurant, you will have to comply with their request. Anything that the donut franchise would want you to do, you will need to pretty much do what they say. You have little if any control over what they may request. You are at their mercy most of the time. Not only will the donut franchise control how you run your business, but they take a chunk of your revenue as a royalty. This royalty is rarely negotiated and is Told to you up front before you buy into the franchise. The cost of doing business under a donut franchise system is very high. You have the cost of the building, utilities and several employees to be concerned about. We want to keep things small and simple, this is why we are going with the single menu item donut business model. The cost or low end of profits can potentially be very high. When you start having to build buildings and being involved in a franchise it gets very expensive very quickly. You will need much more money in order to survive opening a franchise.
Location Advice for Starting a Donut Business
Location means everything, not only in business but where you live. I have seen a lot of businesses go in and out of our local mall. For example, there was a hot dog stand, for lack of a better word, that I had liked to go to work about 10 years. Admittedly, it was not in the food court of the mall but a wave from the buzz. For the past couple years, I would go there by myself and eat a hotdog. At first I would buy a combo meal and eat two hot dogs chips and a drink. Then I scaled back and just bought one hotdog and entry, I always enjoyed their root beer. The people that work there were not very friendly but I enjoyed the food. I always assumed that they did well, since they had been there so long. There was a sandwich place that was there before them that close unexpectedly. I had never been here. I was at the mall about a week ago and noticed that the hot dog place had gone out of business. I would love to have known what caused them to leave. I could only imagine that they were not making any money. It always baffled me why someone would put a restaurant or food placed in a location that a previous restaurant had failed. This just goes to show you that location means everything.
I would say that the mall would not be a very good location for a doughnut business. Their rent on a space at the mall would be tremendous, you would have to sell a lot of doughnut. In addition there's a lot of wasted time at the mall because they are not busy. The best times would be on the weekends when there are the most people. Unfortunately you cannot set up shop at the mall on the weekends. Where I live malls are still a big thing, But everywhere else most seem to be dying out. There is an interesting website on the Internet about malls that are dying. It is contrary to what is happening in our area. But admittedly of the need up any kind of food related business is scary, but other name one... mall is very scary. I would much rather start out small selling doughnuts to churches and schools then to have the huge overhead that a mall environment would entail.
Choose a location that fits into your budget. Have you ever thought about going to the flea market? Seemingly, flea markets do very well in our area. We are trying to get into a local flea market, but it has proven to be difficult. Do your research before you set up shop, it will pay off in the long run. As with any thing, location can prove to be a very big deal. The wrong location can put you out of business or the right location can make you a lot of money.
Posted in Finding a Location | Tags: dead malls, doughnut business, dying malls, Finding a Location, location advice, mall location | No Comments »
Benefits of a Donut Franchise
Opening a donut business can be very frustrating and time-consuming. Going at it alone can be intimidating and overwhelming. Although we have made the decision not to invest in a good franchise, we can see where it could be beneficial. The startup cost and net worth requirements are very high for a good donut franchise. Many times you can pool the resources of two or three people to adhere to the requirements of the donut franchise. These requirements can be very high at times.
One thing the doughnut franchise will give you is support and market research. They will also advertise your store and give you a budget for advertising. Of course they will take a royalty from your revenue, but that is the price of doing business. There are few businesses where I would recommend a franchise, but anything having to do with food, is not a terribly bad idea. Another thing that the doughnut franchise will give you his brand recognition. People will be familiar with the brand and will come into your store simply because they are familiar with the doughnuts that the brand sells. You'll be miles ahead of people getting to enjoy your doughnuts. You will not have to spend years of getting the word out about your brand, because it will pretty much already have been done for you. People are very particular when it comes to food, and if you have an established done that franchise to back to you, you'll be way ahead of the competition. The donut franchise will also give you good ideas on where to locate your doughnut business. They will have extensive experience on where to locate the doughnut shop. This experience can prove to be invaluable, and keep you from making big mistakes.
If you have the money to invest, and are financially fit, then the donut franchise model may be best for you. You'll need to look closely into each one, and decide which one best suits your situation. Some of the donut franchises will require a Hands on approach where others will let you simply be an investor. Again you will need to look closely and find out which one best suits your situation.
Should You Start a Doughnut Business in a Slow Economy Part 2
A lot of potential would-be business owners face the dilemma of starting out on their own on a daily basis. They know that they have a good product, doughnuts, but they are afraid that the slow economy will prohibit them from doing well in the donut business. They fear they will not be able to make it through the very difficult startup period When overhead is high and revenue is low.
The first thing you should do when starting a new business or thinking about starting a new donut business, save your money and get debt that you have currently paid off. If you are overrun with that and have no savings, when you experience bad times in your donut business, they will be amplified. If you are having difficulty making ends meet and have additional bills related to donut business venture You'll be in very bad state very quickly. If I don't give you any advice that you do not take, be advised that you need to have savings and most of your debt paid off before venturing out into having your own business. This becomes increasingly important when you have a family to support and only one income. If you do not do anything else before you start your done the business, get your debt paid and build your savings.
If you have enough money to live for two years saved, then you will have a very significant amount of money to help you when times are tough. Keep in mind you need to have enough money saved to pay your mortgage, utility bills, and any other debt that you may have. These bills have to be paid every month, you really do not have much of a choice.
The next thing you should do when contemplating starting a donut business, is setting up a timeline. You can use this timeline to set your goals of where you want to be and when. You can also use the timeline to develop a strategy for your donut business. Use the timeline to determine the amount of time you'll spend on developing and marketing the business. You will use it to plot times when you will work on the business. Do not set unrealistic goals, like working in the middle of the night if you do not have a history of doing something like that. Setting unrealistic goals when starting your donut business will only push you that much closer to failure. Be realistic and setting your goals And you will set yourself up for success in business.
Another thing you will want to do is analyze the opportunities you have in your area for setting up a donut business. Are there a lot of schools and churches that you could possibly sell your doughnuts to, maybe set up charity events to help push your doughnuts. The more people that taste your doughnuts, the better chance you have of people falling in love with them and wanting them. You want to make sure that there is a market for your business. How many people in your area are selling donuts? Have they been in business for very long? Do you have a unique donut recipe that you can share? Do you have a passion for what you are selling? All of these questions will get you closer to having a successful donut business and keeping you happy And a wave from your job.
