Short People, Big Tips

or ... Midgets Like Pizza Too!

I worked 3+ hours tonight but only took 2 deliveries. One was to the same house I got a $5 tip at last Monday ... this week it was only 1 pizza so it was just a $3 tip.

The second delivery was my first ever to a legitimate midget! The tip wasn't that big, it was pretty average at $2.50, but I didn't think that would make much of a headline.

I feel like I'm working pretty much minimum wage as a dishwasher ... if things don't improve in the next several weeks, my pizza delivery career may come to an end.

Total miles driven = 18 miles.

Naked Pizza (Worlds Healthiest)

Here is an article from Michael Masterson's Early To Rise newsletter on pizza as a business opportunity:

In 2006, Jeff Leach and Randy Crochet decided to open a business selling healthy pizzas.

Jeff, an archeologist, was an amateur expert in natural health. He knew how bad processed foods are and convinced Randy, a mortgage broker, that they could make a nice living selling a healthy pizza pie.

They spent 18 months and $750,000 researching and testing their product. Then, last year, they opened their first store in New Orleans. Their pizza had a crust made of 12 whole grains, low-fat mozzarella, and a tomato sauce with no additives.

Why they needed to spend $750,000 to come up with that recipe, I can't say. Had they been reading Dr. Al Sears or Total Health Breakthroughs, they could have saved themselves a lot of money.

They called it the World's Healthiest Pizza. And printed on the pizza box cover was a mini "dissertation" (written by Jeff) about how food is processed in the lower intestines. A local marketing guy, Robbie Vitrano, saw their product and convinced them to change the name to Naked Pizza, rewrite their box copy, and advertise on the Net.

Their pizza was tasty -- really tasty, according to some local Internet ratings. And the new marketing pitch seemed to click. Their sales were growing and their reputation was spreading.

Then they took another step. They applied for funding from the Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan, and got the financial help they needed to franchise Naked Pizza nationwide.

Leach hopes to see 1,000 locations or more across the country. It could happen.

These guys wasted a lot of money "researching" their recipe. Still, even with the low-fat mozzarella, it isn't all that healthy.

But what they did really well was find a new way to sell an extremely popular product. And they did so without raising the price or sacrificing quality. In fact, they improved it.

Everybody eats pizza. If you can give people what they want anyway -- cheaply and with a significant advantage (in this case, less guilt) -- you have a product that can catch on.

If you wish you had thought of the healthy pizza idea yourself, don't sweat it.

If you think about it, you can probably come up with your own "spin-off" idea that should work just as well as pizza.

Just keep these points in mind:

• Retail is a very difficult business.
• But fast-food restaurants often beat the odds.
• Healthful foods are becoming more popular.
• Cheap is always better than expensive, especially today.
• A single-item restaurant is the easiest to manage.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

Turkey Night - Sent Home Early

As I've said many times, the night before Thanksgiving is a busy night - moms busy cooking for Thursday that don't want to cook dinner, plus college kids home and getting together.

And we were busy, but we had 7 drivers in the shop. I was scheduled to work from 6 to 10 but got sent home at 7:30. Apparently I've lost all my seniority.

I took 3 deliveries (2 runs), all 3 were credit card payments. Made $3, $7, and $2 for a total of $12 in tips and drove 14 miles. No complaints!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

First (slow) Night Back

Tonight I mostly did dishes, frustrating as our hot water heater is out an we have a "temporary replacement" smaller one. Every few loads I had to wait and let the water get hot again.

We had 3 drivers working so I only took 2 deliveries. One far away to a house, a credit card delivery that tipped $5, and one to an apartment almost right across the street, a cash delivery that tipped $1.

No dangerous deliveries so I'm happy.

Totals 2 hours, 2 deliveries, 11 miles, an $6 in tips.

Another Robbery

This is the 2nd publicized robbery in my town in less than a week. Not surprising, since the newspaper published a large amount that was stolen the 1st time.

This time there was a gang, they used a gun and took the guy's car (or at least his keys).

I have to admit I'm having 2nd thoughts about going back to work even 1 night / week.

Chinese Food Driver Robbed

I'm on the schedule to work again 1 week from tonight. Unfortunately, this morning I read in the newspaper that a Chinese food deliveryman was robbed in our city.

Doubly unfortunate is that the newspaper chose to publish the amount stolen, and it was ridiculously high. I would not carry even 10% of that amount into that neighborhood if we did deliver there, which we do not!