Chickens are coming out my ears....
My future Husband Michael is the very proud owner and 7 day a week committed operator of a Flame Grilled Chicken Takeaway on the Central Coast of NSW. He seems to have worked there like a little oompa loompa 98% of my knowing him...the 2% being the time I kidnapped him and had him slaving away on the Station up in Queensland...he is in a word a Workaholic.
Having run businesses in the past I have always been afraid of the accounts side..mainly due to the complexities around growing up and hearing my father say how difficult that side of things was as well as studying business and thinking that I'd rather work more to pay someone to balance the books than try and nut it out myself. However Michael does everything himself when it comes to the books...even doing them all in pads and not using a computer...for that I have total admiration and have totally changed my opinion of business. He makes it so much simpler than I had always thought and makes me want to get back into it. However working so hard in the business I reckon he has neglected a few things... like sweets so after harassing him to get those Macadamia and White Chocolate biscuits in a Jar on the counter I decided to take the bull by the horns and make the one thing my mother taught me how to cook..Creamed Rice. I have to admit I did have a little help from my many facebook friends who gave advice and hints and tips...and within hours we had sold out of the first batch and have sold out of every batch ever since..and you know what doing a few sums on this the creamed rice pays for a whole new staff member..which means I get more time with Michael...to help me set up my new ventures...
When I say Michael does everything in his shop, I mean he does everything (as well as having a great team of shop assistants and wash up lads) so if you were to call in at any time he may be frying bacon to a crisp for the Caesar salad he just made, serving a family of 8, to de-fatting and spiting chickens to scrubbing the floors. Being the week before Christmas things are insanely busy as people all want catering for their work and family functions, it is only getting busier....
However maybe it was due to the weather or Christmas being on a Sunday but this year the Christmas Eve orders (everyone getting roast chickens for their Christmas Day lunches) were well behind last years. So he decided to hire one of the orange information back lit banners, which we found out was pretty damn expensive, so, remembering an idea about dressing up in a Chicken Suit to sell anything but Chickens I bastardised from a book 'Marketing 101', whereby I used realistic pigs to market my lamb (Mr Pig says 'Eat More Lamb'), I thought of getting a Pig Suit to Market his Chicken Shop and get the orders up.
When I went back to the Costume shop after doing errands to pay for the Pig Suit the owner gave me vastly different prices to the shop girl I had spoken to earlier, so rather than pay an insane amount I asked about a shitty looking chicken suit...which after a bit of haggling I got for a reasonable price for the week that was much cheaper than any other option....and hey why cant a Chicken Suit be used to Sell Chickens?
So racing against the clock and the inevitable Christmas Shutdown I had some banner signs made up from some blokes who were terrific (as they dropped the 342 things they had to do before closing to get my job done) and presto by Rush hour Friday afternoon we had the shop full of customers and the Pacific Highway outside buzzing with people yelling out encouragement and tooting their horns at my bad efforts of dancing to get their attention.
We have now surpassed last years orders and any year in the past....all thanks to something very obvious.... selling chickens with a chicken suit :) I think there is something in that.