When we were living down in the Houston area, we liked to stop in at Connie’s Frozen Custard for a frozen treat every now and again. They have tasty frozen custard treats, and while not good for my blood sugars, were always enjoyable. As we were getting ready to move away, we told them they needed to franchise out and open some in our new area. This was always met with a response like “maybe we’ll do that.”
Well, up here in our new area, the local ice cream and burgers place just shut down. Like, within the last week or two. I was driving by and looked over and saw that the lights were off. I thought maybe it might be a one-time thing, maybe they had a family emergency or something and had to close for a day. But then two days later, the lights were still off. Then the other day I was driving by and there is a sign saying the place is for sale or lease.
Why would I want the place if it went under? Well, for a number of years, the place did pretty well. Then two years ago the owners wanted to retire, they sold the business, and the new owners just never recaptured the patronage.
Out of curiosity, I called the realtor handling the property to ask them how much the place was going for. For just under five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000.00) I could buy the shop. Leasing it would be a little more in my budget, only two thousand three hundred and fifty dollars ($2350.00) per month. Well, in my budget if I had an income stream that brought in at least that much each month.
I figure the shop would make a great place to open a Connie’s Frozen Custard. It was already a popular spot for ice cream lovers in the area. Focusing just on custard treats instead of a full menu of burgers, sandwiches, and the like, would make it easier to keep up with, as well as keeping the place clean. It has a nice indoor and outdoor area for patrons to eat their custardy treats. And there is enough room that I could have a small area to set up several bookcases and sell books.
So, how do I plan to get customers? I think I’d take Jim “Mattress Mac” McIngvale as a role model in that case. He started Gallery Furniture about forty years ago, with almost nothing, then proceeded to build GF into a multi-million dollar per year business.
How did he do that? Carpet bombing advertising. You couldn’t turn on the TV or radio without a Gallery Furniture commercial coming on. He had one running at least once a hour, twenty-four / seven. He also did sponsor spots on the local Saturday night wrestling show. He went into schools and did anti-drug talks (this was back when the whole “war on drugs’ campaign was running rampant in the States). Everyone knew who “Mattress Mac” was and that “Gallery Furniture saves you money!” (their catchphrase). Of course, he backed it up with a lot of hard work too. He got started working in a furniture store in Dallas. He’d buy furniture from his boss and bring it down to Gallery Furniture on weekends, then work selling furniture in the Dallas store all week to pay for it. His wife ran Gallery Furniture until they were established enough to do Gallery Furniture full-time.
Maybe I could do a crowd-funding campaign to raise the startup money. What do you think, my Hordeling?
If you’d like to support my efforts, why not buy me a chocolate chip cookie through my Ko-Fi page? https://ko-fi.com/jhusum