Tag: sales

What is Marketing?

The dictionary says marketing involves promoting and selling goods and/or services. Pierre told me over and over that he was Marketing. When we first opened, Pierre spent some time taking free pizza to the businesses around us to let them know we were open for lunch and dinner. Since we were in a relatively undeveloped area, that didn’t take much time. Pierre gave free coffee to coaches and parents to let them know our coffee was good and encourage them to buy from us. That was definitely a good start. After that, we saw little evidence of him doing anything.

Our building was right next to a bunch of baseball diamonds. I took pizza to the owner one day and told him we would like to advertise to their teams. He invited Pierre and me over for a tour and gave us 3 options – give him flyers to put in the tournament packets, pay to put up banners, or take over their food stands. Pierre never did any of these. We did get a little business eventually but not much. I also researched online and found a list of local clubs with their phone numbers. I gave it to Pierre and asked him if he would call one a day to let them know we could do club meetings and parties. He said he would call at least 2 a day, but I don’t think he ever called any. He did bring in 1 private party in 2.5 years and he paid for a bunch of his friends to come watch a football game once.

We finally got our liquor license in October, 2015. Kyle was all gung-ho to get the bar hopping, but not much happened. Kyle got Pierre to spend about $200 on some signs, but Pierre never got the city permits to hang them. It was clear Pierre’s idea of marketing meant to doing nothing. I got the sign permits in less than 2 weeks. Kyle and I partnered with the Allen Americans so our name would be on the banner during their games. Kyle and I started finding places to list our bar online. Kyle and I started contacting groups to let them know we could hold meetings and parties. But it’s hard to do all the day-to-day business and marketing too. Pierre could have done all of this from the comfort of his own home at times convenient for him and yet he did almost nothing.

Every once in a while, Pierre would man the cafe so I could do something else. If I came in that day, I would find him sitting in the bar talking to students and parents. He didn’t set up for business by turning on all the machines and prepping the stations. I guess he made a few sales because people would come to me later and say they needed to pay for some food because the cash register wasn’t working when Pierre was there. Who knows how many people didn’t come back and pay, as Pierre made no list or notes. Nothing was broken, Pierre just didn’t want to remember his training on the equipment.

Pierre told me over and over, that we just didn’t understand his role. He was Marketing. Obviously, that didn’t involve sales. And if you ask me, it didn’t involve promoting either. I partnered with a guy who didn’t put in his seed money, didn’t work in the cafe or bar, and didn’t promote our business. Mistake, mistake, mistake. I’m an idiot.

Trust Your Partners, But Verify

Because we opened in such a rush, we didn’t have a POS system for the first couple weeks. Pierre lent us his iPad that he used for his businesses, already set up to accept credit cards and everything. He said he set up a separate account for the cafe and showed us how to use it for our sales. It wasn’t as good as a cash register when you have a line of customers, but it worked.

Choosing a POS system was easy. HarborTouch was the only one to call us back. Getting set up is straight forward but it takes some time to add your entire menu, even when it’s small. Then you have to set up your employees and train everyone. It was a good system and did what we needed. It’s amazing how many companies do not respond to your inquiries, but hound you months later to switch to their system – meaning they expect you to switch out your system, reenter all of your menu, retrain your people, and somehow merge your sales figures for the year.

We returned Pierre’s iPad, but didn’t see a deposit from him. I checked several times and finally asked him when we were going to get our credit card money that had gone through his iPad for the first couple weeks. After a couple reminders, I finally saw a deposit for $900+. It seemed like we had made more money than that, but every time I asked Pierre, he said that was it. He never showed us the figures in the iPad. He never gave us a report. He never gave us anything to verify this number. Was it correct? I have no way to know. I do know we made more credit card sales than that on every single tournament weekend after that. For us to make less than $1,000 in credit card sales for 2 weeks of business including a tournament weekend feels wrong.

My big mistake here was not seeing the writing on the wall and leaving the business right then. If your partner has to be reminded to deposit money into the checking account and doesn’t provide verification of the figures, there is something very wrong and you should cut your losses and get out. Run away as fast as you can.