Care to Start a Food Truck Business?

Food Trucks

This article is inspired by a friend taking his first step. Food trucks are not just trends – they are staple in every neighborhood. More often than not, however, business slows down and setbacks happen. This is why they disappear as easily as they turn up. Their owners tend to shut them indefinitely or close them down completely.

“Maximus Minimus”, kitchen truck with a pork theme, parked in front of a house on 22nd Avenue E, Capitol Hill, Seattle, Washington, where it was catering an event. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Awakening Your Passion

Despite the difficulties of putting up this type of business, there are rewards which can make the experience definitely worth the effort. Starting a food truck business can awaken your entrepreneurial spirit or give you courage to pursue other passion, like food processing or franchising.

Ensuring Legitimacy

Mobile catering is difficult to set up – but you’ll gain a lot of insight if you’re really interested. You first start off by researching the legality of food truck business in your neighborhood. You may need to apply for a permit or look for specific areas where you can do business. Ensuring the legitimacy of your food truck is definitely important.

Conceptualizing and Customizing

After finding out that your business is viable, it’s time for the fun part: conceptualizing and coming up with creative themes. Will you serve Japanese, Mexican, or Italian? Pasta, pizza, or pastries? The possibilities are endless and you think of many ways to make your truck stand out. You can decorate your panels with decals or you can customize the truck itself.

Setting Expectations

Conceptualizing is one thing; actualizing is another. It’s easy to go crazy with the ideas but you have to set realistic expectations to come up with something that works. Other than checking the legality of food truck businesses, you need to study the costs. You also have to look for financing and maybe create a business plan for your prospective investors.

Finalizing Goals

Successful people will often tell you to decide what you want before working towards achieving it. No matter how great a plan is, it will simply be useless if you don’t have a clear goal. Whatever purpose you have for going into the business, make sure it’s not just about money and success. It’s a proven fact that failing is part of the whole enterprising and entrepreneurial experience. So if you’re not about taking risks, food trucks may not be the best venture for you. 

Mobile catering has been around for decades and many businessmen and entrepreneurs will continue venturing into this type of business in the coming years. If you think food trucks are your calling, don’t hesitate and go for it. When you’re old, you will most likely regret the things you didn’t do instead of the ones you did.

Standing Out in Trade Shows

Trade Show Tips

You made sure to use eye-catching marketing collaterals. You hired more than enough staff to man your booth. You even chose the best and most expensive corporate giveaways for your prospective clients. And yet your booth almost went unnoticed and didn’t get the attention you originally intended.

Trade Shows can be tricky and spending a lot of money doesn’t necessarily ensure results. If you want to stand out from the crowd, the best thing to do is to come up with an effective and flawless plan. When all your strategies are highly implementable, you can definitely expect to achieve any business goal you set for yourselves.

To come up with the perfect plan of action, here are a few things worth considering:

Setting Your Goal

Getting leads, meeting potential investors, and getting media mileage are the common goals for going to trade shows. There’s no guarantee, however, that you can achieve them. Setting unrealistic expectations may only disappoint you or make you spend more money than you should. Check what the trade show is all about and whether its own goals are aligned with yours.  

Knowing Your Audience

Participating in a trade show is useless if your target audience won’t be there. Make sure the people you need to reach out to will be present so your efforts won’t go to waste. Check with the organizers to know if the individual or business you seek will be present. This will also help you come up with an effective plan to lure them into your booth and take time to get to know your business.

Creating Your Plan

A plan of action for a trade show involves more than just choosing the right materials and setting up your booth. You need to decide which message you want to send out so you can create a plan to effectively achieve it. Do you want to make an impression with the crowd? Do you want to establish your company as industry leader? Whatever you want to say, make sure you’re clear about it. This will reflect the choices you will make for everything.

Standing out in any trade show is easy. Instead of just focusing on the tricks and the gimmicks, strategize smartly to accomplish your goals. If you need help conceptualizing and getting new ideas, get in touch with Signs Now Mill Creek. Our company doesn’t just provide signs – we offer consultation services for your overall business success.

Go To The Mill Creek Garage Sale This Saturday

Mill Creek Garage Sale

Are you free this coming weekend? If your answer is yes, then come and join the Mill Creek Garage Sale this Saturday May 4th. Thousands of residents will put their personal items up for sale, hoping to finally get rid of them and make a bit of cash at the same time. Organizers expect an equal number of bargain hunters to come, some even arriving all the way from Canada.

This Saturday’s event is not just for Mill Creek residents and bargain hunters. If you’re a businessman or an entrepreneur, you can definitely look forward to the following aside from finding great bargains. 

Meeting New People

The Mill Creek Garage Sale will provide you with a great venue for socializing and networking. You may meet your next partner, affiliate, or client from the community. You have been networking too much on LinkedIn and spending too much time on Facebook and Twitter. Now it’s time to get some fresh air and meet real people for a change.

Getting Fresh Ideas

Whatever the nature of your business, community activities are great for meeting people and learning about the locale. You can gain new insights about the city, which you will never find in books or the Internet. If you’re looking for something that will inspire your or influence your next venture, why not drop by Mill Creek this weekend? You may come across a useful furniture piece or a trinket you’ll treasure for life.

Helping The Local Economy

Events like this help encourage the flow of goods and revitalize the local economy. Whether or not you can afford to buy brand new stuff, going for old ones certainly won’t hurt.  Aside from your patronage, your presence also means a lot. You can do a lot this coming Saturday, like helping people sell their items; aiding volunteers manage the crowds, or donating your own items to the Goodwill Trailer.

The Mill Creek Garage Sale has been running for over 30 years. It’s held bi-annually, with the next one scheduled in October. There’s actually an interesting story to how the garage sale started. If you want to know about it – and enjoy the abovementioned activities – then join the event!

Hope to see you there!

Related articles

• 5 Tips for Planning a Successful Yard Sale (community.ally.com)

Go Magnetic

Magnetic Signs

For those of you who are tired of the usual signage for your marketing campaign, we suggest you try magnetic signs for a change. This will not only add a distinct quality to your collaterals, but it will also give you more options on how to send your message across and sell your products and services.

If you’re wondering how you’re going to use magnetic signs – and what use it has for your target market – there are actually many, creative ways. Magnetic signs aren’t just meant for refrigerators and you will be surprised at how far they can take you.

Turn cars into marketing machines

Do you know you can stick magnetic signs on cars? Car bodies are made of metal, after all. With magnetic signs, you can turn cars into round-the-clock marketing machines. Whether you’re going to the grocery or heading to the gym, you effortlessly increase your business’ visibility.

The best thing about magnetic signs is they’re temporary. You can remove them anytime without damaging your car’s surface. They also adhere strongly to any metal so you won’t have to worry about your signs falling off. Their materials are also strong enough to resist harsh elements and daily wear and tear.

Accessorize personal belongings

There are many furniture and appliances made of metal. Some of the small stuff your carry – your bag, your portfolio, or your mobile device – also feature pieces of aluminum or steel. These and a whole lot more can be a placeholder for your magnetic signage. You will probably need to create smaller ones so they can easily fit on your clients and customers’ personal belongings.

You may be thinking how you can encourage your target market to use you magnetic signs on their personal belongings. The answer is actually about the design. If you prepare a consistent and well-thought of set of images that go well with your brand identity, you can easily come up with interesting designs. These will make your magnets look more like accessories than marketing materials. 

Decorate buildings inside and out

Other than the items found inside a building, the very walls, windows, and doors often have metal components. If you change the design and customize the form, you can make decorative pieces out of your magnetic signs. They can make your marketing efforts not only successful, but also stylish and subtle. 

If you’re ready to go magnetic and reach your market in a creative and convenient way, call Signs Now Mill Creek at 425-481-4900. We have the right signage solutions to make sure your business succeeds.

No Idea Is Too Small

SafetyTat is a waterproof, peel-and-stick temporary tattoo that allows parents to write their contact details to reconnect with their kids easily in case of separation. It may also be used to provide information about their kids, like food allergy or special needs.

Michele Welsh stumbled upon the idea during one Labor Day Weekend while she was out with her family at an amusement park. To ease her security concerns about her three small children, she wrote her mobile phone number on each of their arms. In case they get separated from one another, the person who finds them may easily get in touch with her.

The day turned out great and the whole family remained together until the end. Michele had to rewrite the number several times, though, because the information on their arms, written using a ballpoint pen, either smeared or washed off. Some parents who saw what she did loved the idea. Eventually, SafetyTat was born and ensuring a child’s safety has never been reassuring for parents and fun for kids.

The founding story of SafetyTat reminds aspiring businessmen and entrepreneurs out there that no idea is too small. Most of the time, it’s often the smallest, overlooked things that give rise to business empires or usher in new eras. Even though SafetyTat didn’t accomplish either, it certainly made a big difference in how parents address safety issues with their kids.

What’s interesting about the SafetyTat is it’s a simple idea. It didn’t involve any scientific breakthroughs or innovations in digital technology. It’s just a sticker – but a sticker that addressed a need and was backed by solid marketing and a strong sense of purpose for its target market.

In a world where it seems everything has been done, there’s always a place for simple ideas. We’re saturated with scientific and technological advancements that it’s sometimes better to go back to basics and bring back the fun in things. If you’re an aspiring businessman or entrepreneur looking for fresh ideas, try turning away from the ambitious ones and develop simple ones instead.

We work towards helping businesses achieve their goals and actualize their own vision for the world.

The Delicate Art of Graphic Installation

Did you know that graphic design involves a delicate art of installation? Advertising materials and marketing collaterals are not simply made and distributed in the ways you think possible.  The way you present them affect their overall effectiveness. If you want to make sure you maximize the potential of your graphics, take note of the following elements of installation.

Appropriation

The first thing you must remember about your graphic installation is it must go well with the object where you’re going to attach them. For instance: if you’re going to post on vehicles or any mobile medium, make sure it easily catches the attention of your target audience. You should make it more ‘appropriate’ by making sure the design suits the space and the dimension available.

You can play with your graphic by utilizing the shapes and the elements of your materials. For instance, you can make a bus look like a submarine or a sandwich, or a shape that looks similar to the product you are selling.  If you come up with something unique and interesting, there’s also a chance that your graphic installation can go viral. This boosts your mileage and maximizes your exposure.

Presentation

The way you post your material and present it to your audience affects its overall effectiveness. If, for instance, your graphic decal has air bubbles, folds, or rips, how do you think people would perceive them? This is why it’s important to have your graphics done by professionals. Employing a do-it-yourself approach to your graphic installations can negatively affect your business with just one wrong move.

Presentation also refers to the choice of materials and elements that go in your graphic installation. You must know which materials work best under the intense heat of the sun or strong gusts of wind. If you’re placing your graphic installation on a vehicle, you must make sure they can withstand the harsh elements as well as the wear and tear due to everyday use.

Location

Just because everyone is posting graphics on buses and trains doesn’t mean you have to do the same. In most cases, you will do better to target a small group instead of immediately going global. So if you’re targeting a locale, for instance, you can just post your graphic on a corner window instead of placing it on every vehicle you can find. This optimizes your campaign and definitely saves you on advertising costs.

Graphic installations are actually versatile. You can place them in any surface as long as they’re smooth. Apart from windows and vehicle surfaces, you can place them on walls or even on the streets. There are a lot of companies that are thinking of different places where they can put their graphic installation. Some are even using them as wallpapers and design elements in their stores.

If you need help with the creation and installation of your graphic materials, you can get in touch with us. We can help you effectively get your message across and elicit the response you want from your target audience. Call us at 425-481-4900.

The Intricacies of Buying a Bankrupt Company

Patrick Dempsey’s purchase of Tully’s Coffee once again made headlines earlier this weekend.  This time, the reports are about his group running into ‘obstacles’ regarding the sale. Quite frankly, we expected this kind of scenario: The company in question filed for bankruptcy and one of the losing bidders is one of the biggest players in the industry.

What we’re witnessing, however, is part of the often intricate process of acquiring a bankrupt company. What Dempsey’s group Global Baristas is facing happens all the time. And if you look closely at the situation instead of simply listening to speculations, you may get an insight or two should you decide to purchase a bankrupt company soon.

Company’s previous dealings resurface

Global Baristas’ main ‘obstacle’ is about the coffee chain’s dealings with Boeing. Tully’s has branches in Boeing facilities and the aerospace company is offering coffee cards privileges through payroll deductions. Although Boeing explains that their deal is a ‘non-issue’ in the negotiation, it certainly makes the process a bit longer.

What you can learn from this scenario is that previous dealings will resurface – sooner, if not later. When you purchase a company, its partners, affiliates, and other key players can affect the speed and smoothness of your negotiations. Whatever happens, you have to deal with them one way or another.

Competitors can strike back

Global Baristas made public about the obstacles it’s currently facing as part of the response to the status conference requested by its two rival bidders. AgriNurture Inc. and Earthright Holdings USA LLC (ANI), together with Starbucks, wants to know how the deal is going and when it will close. The rival bidders also want to know if Tully’s is still interested in the backup bid if the deal falls through.

In most business dealings, competitors refuse to give up the fight. They will always be there in the sidelines, ready to strike when the time is right. In Global Barista’s case, their competitors are using the slow negotiations to strengthen the possibility of getting the deal. So when you win a bid – especially over a global brand – such challenges are inevitable.

Costs can go beyond what you expected

According to reports, Dempsey’s group shelled out an additional $350,000 to keep the coffee chain operating while it negotiates the sale. Tully’s filed for bankruptcy after all and as a prospective new owner, Gobal Baristas has to take responsibility and keep the business running.

If you’re planning to be an investor, you have to be prepared to pay additional costs during the acquisition period. Most of the time, it’s necessary. You have to set a limit, though, or else you may end up paying more and become bankrupt yourself.

In times like these when many companies are up for sale, you will be tempted to invest. The company often increases in value once the economy and the company itself stabilizes. If you plan to invest anytime soon, remember the intricacies we have indicated above. These can help you secure success in your transaction and maximize the return for your investment.