Tag: sign

Backup Marketing

Marketing is definitely not my thing, so I had been relying on Pierre. It became obvious that he was not stepping up and we needed a backup plan. My first attempt at marketing was to purchase Hunt Brothers’ mass mailing of coupons. I don’t think 1 person came in with a coupon. So that didn’t work.

My next attempt was the RTUI grocery store cash register receipts. I used to like the coupons on the receipts so I thought that might work for us. I asked the salesman for recommendations from local restaurants, but all he gave me were nail salons and 1 restaurant in Houston, which is not nearby. It was an expensive disaster. I finally posted a bad rating on their facebook page and someone called to help me. A director came out for an evaluation. Turns out the receipt coupons only work if you’re in the same strip center as the grocery store or very close by. We were in a relatively undeveloped area so the grocery stores were 2-7 miles away. The director told me the salesman knew this and should never have sold us a plan. Did they give me any money back? NO! And I asked several times. They did extend our service several months and worked with me to design different coupons. With over a year of printing coupons, we got 2, possibly 3, coupons redeemed. It was very disheartening and I felt truly cheated by that salesman.

Kyle and some of the other employees passed out flyers near the baseball diamonds and soccer fields. When we finally got our sign, it was hung on the side of the building facing the baseball diamonds. I think that helped a little. I still don’t understand why Pierre wasn’t actively working the baseball market – after all, we had climate controlled restrooms and beer. Kyle and I set up all sorts of social media pages and events. Pierre still did nothing. Half the time he didn’t even respond to our events or invite his friends.

My biggest mistake here, aside from partnering with Pierre, was RTUI. Never do business with RTUI, unless you’re a nail salon next to a grocery store.

Pre-Contract Discussions

I would like to tell you this story has a happy ending, but it doesn’t. At least not for me. Even now as I share my story, my heart aches and I have bad dreams from all the feelings that come to the surface as I type. I still truly believe if Pierre had engaged and done the things he said, we would have been successful and made some money. You’ll hear more about that in future chapters. Right now, it’s important for me to share a conversation with Todd, the general manager of the building.

Once Robbie and I had a copy of the contract and were deciding whether to sign, I was looking at the space one more time. Todd and I were walking across the lobby towards the snack bar. He encouraged me to follow the instructions in the contract about how to pay our rent. Todd explained that it was best to mail a check to Damon at the corporate office as the contract stated, rather than handing our check to Todd as some tenants had done. Todd went on to say that paying him was an inconvenience as he would have to carry the check over to the corporate offices himself and he preferred not to do that. It made sense. Why wouldn’t you follow the instructions in the contract?

Once again, I brought up adding exclusive food rights to our contract. Todd adamantly refused. I wasn’t happy, but Pierre had assured us he had talked to a lot of skaters and they would buy from us if we carried healthier food. So I felt we could win over the skaters to buy food from us. It’s my understanding the rinks enforced ‘no outside food or drink’ when they were in charge of the snack bars, but once they contracted out the food space they didn’t want to be bothered with policing the food situation. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds likely. Continuing with the cafe without exclusivity was probably the biggest mistake I made and you will hear more about it later as we continue with the story.

Todd also told me that he would add our cafe to his letters to the hockey teams when they were coming for a tournament. He said some teams might want to schedule a party or team lunch while they were here. Todd also said once we got our liquor license we should offer a deal to the adult teams to have pizza and beer in the locker rooms at the end of their games. These sounded like great ideas and good support from our landlord.

Pierre warned Robbie and me over and over that Todd was not to be trusted. I believed Pierre, but I wasn’t overly concerned because I didn’t think we would have to deal with Todd much as long as we paid our rent on time. Another huge mistake on my part. That will become quite clear as we continue on with the story. I lost so much in this endeavor – money, dignity, friends, confidence, time, health, etc. To this day, it takes everything I’ve got just to walk into that building. Thank goodness I no longer have any reason to go there.