“Goosey Lucy said that Ducky Lucky said that Henny Penny said the sky is falling.” From reading and listening to the media you can’t help but think of Chicken Little. Okay, well I’ve finally heard enough! I’m so weary of hearing one person after another bemoan the sad state of real estate today [...]

As I’m sure you know, it is difficult to operate a business in today’s economic climate. It is more difficult to operate a start-up business, particularly a restaurant. That’s why I bought a going concern. During the course of my due diligence, I was given P&Ls for the previous six years of [...]

Ok. I closed the restaurant… well, it’s more like I am in the seemingly eternal process of closing the restaurant. I can tell you one lesson: It’s a lot easier to start something than it is to stop it. Buying a point of sale system takes a morning. Selling one takes [...]

In the last installment, I compared the restaurant manufacturing operation with real estate. In this installment, we’ll look at a restaurant as a sales organization. While the back of the house (the kitchen) is all about manufacturing, the front of the house (the dining room) is all about sales. Meeting customers, setting expectations and [...]

So I closed the restaurant after a year. We had grown sales about 20% over the year and were continuing to grow in sales and margin every month, while controlling costs and growing margin, but we were still another year from turning a profit. Because of the down turn in real estate, the [...]

Well, I finally did it. I decided to close my restaurant after a year of hard work, a lot of struggles, and even more soul searching. Over a hundred thousand dollars invested in trying to “turn around” a failed upscale eatery. And as I unwind the affairs of the restaurant, I must [...]

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The following article written by Matt Jones was originally published in Broker Agent News on March 23, 2007. It is presented here in its entirety as it was originally published. While non-commercial use of this copyrighted material is encouraged, unauthorized, commercial use is strictly prohibited.

As I sit down to write this article, I’m [...]

The following article written by Matt Jones was originally published in Broker Agent News on May 22, 2006. It is presented here in its entirety as it was originally published. While non-commercial use of this copyrighted material is encouraged, unauthorized, commercial use is strictly prohibited.
During the past four years our industry has been [...]

The following article written by Matt Jones was originally published in Broker Agent News on March 23, 2007. It is copied in its entirety as it was originally published. While non-commercial use of this copyrighted material is encouraged, unauthorized, commercial use is strictly prohibited.
In seven previous articles, I’ve discussed many aspects of building a growing [...]

The following article written by Matt Jones was originally published in Broker Agent News on December 31, 2005. It is copied here in its entirety as it was originally published. While non-commercial use of this copyrighted material is encouraged, unauthorized, commercial use is strictly prohibited.

Okay, it’s that time again. The old year is over, and [...]