Posts Tagged ‘how to start a doughnut shop’
Marketing Your Business to Increase Sales
May 26th, 2010 | 
Author: As you are aware sales are the lifeblood of any business. Without sales you do not have any money to support your business for yourself. This is especially true in the donut business or any food related business for that matter. It is very important to have a good marketing plan and plan of action for how you will market your donut business.
We plan on focusing on one venue at first then branching out to other areas to market to. This way we can focus our attention on what works for the particular market we're working with. What works in one market will not necessarily work in another. We have learned that from our online ventures over the past several years. Hopefully we can secure a spot at one of the local recreation areas/mall in our area. It is an outdoor mall concept that is very popular in many of the bigger cities. I believe the outdoor mall concept is the wave of the future, as I've mentioned several weeks ago. I actually like the outdoor mall better than the enclosed mall it just seems much less depressing. I was in our local mall today and I am just surprised that is still open. A lot of the malls similar to this one are closed in medium-sized cities. I walked around and just feel depressed, there's no light coming in and looks dated it is just overall not appealing to me. I believe outdoor mall concept is dying quicker than most people believe. There is a spot open in the mall that would be interesting to put one of our doughnuts shops in, and I would not even begin to imagine how much that would cost. If we were going to do something like this it would be in the center aisle of the mall where there is the most traffic. But like I've mentioned before, I just do not believe this is a good idea. We are going to stay away from malls. The place we are talking about putting in downtown Huntington is basically a concession cart. If the rent is not too high that we may be able to pull it off.
If this does not work we are thinking about marketing to churches. We are going to get a database of churches and send a mailing telling them that we will set up shop in their church and sell our doughnuts. We can split the profits equally and still be ahead. I think there is a lot of money and selling doughnuts to churches, especially at their social events. I am very eager to market to this group of people. I think it will be very interesting, to see what happens. In the end marketing is a very important part of your business plan. Be sure you have a good marketing plan as well as a business plan before you start in your ventures.
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.....
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.
Should You Start a Donut Business in a Slow Economy Part One
As you drive home from your current job do you ever wonder what it would be like if you would not have to do that anymore? You may think that you are lucky to even have a job when so many people do not have one. After all, these are bad times and having a job is a good thing and knowing you have a paycheck coming in is definitely a plus. You may even have the chance to move up in your company and make more money.
You may have often thought about starting your own business and all of the perks that come along with it. You could take advantage of the tax to deductions, Be your own boss, and all of the other things that you always hear about working from home or having your own business. It is true, when you work for yourself you do not give Uncle Sam an interest-free loan while you earn money, you pay the tax man after you have already earned it and take out your deductions. The doughnut business could afford you a lot of deductions and peace of mind knowing that doughnuts will always be in demand and people love them. But you question the timing of starting your own business. You have reason to be afraid, change is always a hard thing to do.
You have all of these things going through your head, But how could you live with yourself if your family lost their home and their life savings because of your business venture. That would be a very difficult pill to swallow, especially if you have a family. You feel trapped and go to work daily Thinking about the way life could be. It is much easier to be told what to do and how to do it than venture out on your own and try to make something of a business. You have probably heard all the horror stories of opening up a food related business. One of the good things about having a donut business, especially a small donut business, is you are selling one product and the overhead can be quite low. We will talk more about that in a bit. Stay tuned tomorrow and we will continue our discussion about starting a good business end is poor economy.
Posted in Starting a Donut Business | 
Tags: business opportunitiesdonut business plan, donut business, donut industry, donut shop business, donut shops, donut store, doughnut business, doughnut shop business, home based businesses, how to make extra money, how to make quick money, how to open a donut shop, how to open a doughnut shop, how to start a donut business, how to start a donut shop, how to start a doughnut shop, open a donut shop, open a doughnut shop, opening a doughnut shop, start a business, start a donut business, start a donut shop, start a doughnut business, start a doughnut shop, starting a business, Starting a Donut Business, starting a donut shop | 
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Getting Capital for your Donut Business
You have an excellent donut recipe, You have a location and an audience to sell your too... and you are certain that they will sell very well. Now you just need to get equipment licensing and other things rolling in order to get your business started. Yet found a great place to get equipment, but you have found that it can be very expensive. If you do not have any money saved but you are financially secure, i.e. you have enough money to make ends meet. Then he may want to get the capital to run your donut business from other sources.
Do you have good or decent credit? If so, then you may be able to get a small business loan from your local bank. Local banks are usually easier to deal with than big banks that just look at numbers. Credit unions are excellent places to get loans for $10,000 or less. If possible attempt to get a loan at a bank that you frequent often. You may be surprised how easy it is. They will want to know what the money is for of course and what you intend on doing with it. This will help you get the necessary capital that is required to get your business venture up and running.
If getting a loan from a bank or credit union is not an option, Have you considered borrowing the money from a family member? Maybe you can borrow the money from a close friend who could possibly be a business partner? We explained the differences between a business partner and a venture capitalist and a previous post. But to summarize, when someone invests (capital) in your company they will have little control over the day-to-day operations of the business. It is simply your responsibility to pay the loan off when you start to make money, or whatever arrangement that you may have with the venture capitalists. Having a business partner can be a sticky situation if you are not careful. The business partner in your donut business could be difficult to work with or have different ideas on how things should be handled. As previously mentioned you can pay a higher rate on the loan than giving 50% of the company to someone who will not be actively involved in it. Be very careful about taking money from people and the contracts that you sign.
The business partner model has worked for us and our situation, but it may not for you. Assess your needs and what everyone brings to the table before you make a decision. This lone decision Could mean the success or failure of your venture. Not to mention the overall happiness that you will have our not have by going into the doughnut business.
