Mad Maggie's Ice Cream

From: Mad Maggie's Newsletter
To: Mad Maggie's Newsletter
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 12:33:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: "The Scoop" from Mad Maggie's Homemade Ice Cream

Opening Today!

Greetings, and a wish for a fast, warm spring, from your friends here at Mad Maggie's Homemade Ice Cream!

Well, the clocks have moved ahead -- a little earlier than normal this year -- and I'm itching to start making ice cream. Construction on our new North Andover store isn't progressing as quickly as we hoped, so we've had time to get our North Reading location ready for business.

I spent last weekend scrubbing the floors, laying on four coats of wax, and doing a general cleaning on all of our equipment, and things are starting to round into shape. We'll be open for business today (Friday), April 6th, but with the weather forecast looking more like "late winter" than "early spring", I don't really expect a ton of business. It'll be nice to be open again though!

There seems to be a cause and effect relationship between me rubbing my hands raw scrubbing floors and the weather turning rainy and unseasonably cold.

We're going to try something a little different this spring. Rather than being open every night of the week, we'll likely close on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays, and only be open Thursday through Sunday. Looking at our past years' sales data, April is definitely not a very profitable month for us, so we'll see if we can keep our staff expenses down while trying to meet the demands of those rabid ice cream-a-holics out there!

More than likely, if we have an exceptionally warm day, I'll open by myself on Monday through Wednesday nights, so if the weather's nice, call first and I'll let you know if I'll be there. Of course, that'll mean you'll have me serving you, rather than one of our super serving team, but them's the breaks!

Mad Maggie's -- In the News

There was a very nice article about us in this week's Andover Townsman, talking about our move into our new location. They didn't get all of the facts 100% correct (I wish we sold 50,000 gallons of ice cream in a year!), but all in all, it was a very well done piece, and we're flattered at the attention.

( You can read the story yourself here )

The North Reading Transcript also had a story on us a couple of weeks back. This one was pretty much a reprint of our press release, so there wasn't a lot of new info there, but again, we were happy to receive the coverage.

The Lawrence Eagle Tribune also is doing a story on us. They called me for an interview a couple of weeks back, but I haven't actually seen the story appear in the paper yet, but look for it to appear in the next week or so.

Birthday Coupons -- Finally!

Those of you who read this regularly know that I've been promising for two seasons now to fix the application that sends out birthday coupons to those on our mailing list who've supplied a birthday.

Well, I've finally got it working reliably, and I've sent myself a bunch of test coupons and things appear to be working correctly. Those of you who had a winter birthday should have received a mailing earlier this week (although I messed up and specified the wrong template, so the message said "Your birthday is coming up!" ...we'll still honor it!) The rest of you should (hopefully!) get your coupons shortly before your birthday. Please let me know if you think you were owned a birthday coupon, but didn't receive one!

New Location Status

As I touched on above, our new location in North Andover is progressing a little slower than we had hoped -- don't they always? At this point, we're figuring that this store will be ready for business sometime in early May, hopefully no later than the 15th.

Our financing is complete, and I've had no end of fun writing big checks to buy equipment and supplies with someone else's money, so it's a little different mindset from the shoe-string budget we've used for the most part in running our North Reading stand. Hopefully, the higher traffic at the North Andover location will support our business loans. If not, I may be looking for someone's basement to spend the winter living in, so watch for that plea in a future newsletter! ;^)

Funny Feedback!

I was doing some web searches on our name a few weeks back, and came across this posting from someone who had visited our stand at some point:

"I've always liked Mad Maggie's and have often recommended it. My wife doesnt' like that they feature teenage girls in skimpy outfits but when you gotta compete with Dairy Queen across the street...call in the re-inforcements!"

I thought this was funny! I've been accused by those who know me of only hiring cute girls for our serving team, but Maggie would never let me get away with that, and she always has the final say on all of our hires. Any of you who've been by on a night when all the boys or a group of rookies are working together know that that's not the case -- we have our share of clumsy, awkward teens!

We base the majority of our hiring decisions on personality -- we want serving team members who are friendly and outgoing and comfortable interacting with our customers. Hey, people are out for a fun, happy, ice cream eating experience, we don't want someone who's uncomfortable dealing with people waiting on them!

Maggie and I always say that all of the girls at the age we typically hire, 15 to 20, are cute just because they're 15 to 20! And they all seem to catch on quickly that being friendly, and dressing cute keeps the customers happy and more likely to drop some change into their tip cups.

I've know I've written about this before, but one of the really rewarding parts of this business for me is watching the awkward, timid kids that I hire at 14 or 15 years old blossom into mature, polished, confident young adults. So, I apologize for having happy, outgoing, attractive kids on the team if that kind of thing offends you. But I assure you, we're growing them that way, not buying them! ;^)

Blonde Joke of the Week

Faithful fan and newsletter reader Michele sent this one along:

Subject: Blonde Winter

One winter morning a blonde was listening to the radio. The announcer says, "We're going to have 6 to 9 inches of snow today. You must park your car on the even-numbered side of the street, so the snow plows can get through." She goes out and moves her car.

A week later the radio announcer says, "We are expecting 10 to 12 inches of snow today. You must park your car on the odd-numbered side of the street, so the snow plows can get through." She goes out and moves her car.

The next week she's having breakfast with her husband, Norman, when the radio announcer says, "We are expecting 12 to 14 inches of snow today. You must park ................." and the power goes out.

Norman's wife is very upset, and with a worried look on her face she says, "Honey, I don't know what to do. Which side of the street do I need to park on so the snow plows can get through?"

With the love and understanding in his voice that all men who are married to blondes exhibit, Norman says, "Why don't you just leave it in the garage this time?"

Flavor News

No new flavor news, as I'm very much in the "hurry up and get the regular flavors in stock" mode.

Last night, I made Vanilla, Chocolate, Coffee, Coffee Oreo, Strawberrry, Chocolate Chip, and Oreo, so if you come by this weekend, we at least have the staples in stock.

I just got word that our delivery came in this afternoon, so that should allow me to work on the Black Raspberry flavors this weekend, as well as maybe one or two nut flavors. If you have a favorite flavor that's not on our menu board yet, make sure to let whomever is serving you know, and maybe we'll move it up on the production schedule!

Staff Profile

My serving team for the upcoming season is rounding into place, and they should be pretty familiar, as we have just about the entire crew from last season returning.

We've already received a ton of applications, as word has gotten out about our new North Andover location, and I have a pile of applications from North Andover teens looking for work.

My plan for the year is to start our ice cream production in North Reading, then transition it up to North Andover once that location is completed. So I'll be spending a lot less of my time at the North Reading location. Fortunately, I have some great help to lean on in keeping the North Reading store running smoothly: Three of last season's team leaders, Mike, John, and Janelle, are going to share assistant manager duties there. And my sister-in-law, Priscilla, who worked as our day manager two seasons ago, is returning to be with us full time. She'll mostly be working at the North Andover location when it opens, but will also be available to fill in in North Reading from time to time. So that'll give me someone to tease.

Hopefully, with all of this help, you won't see a huge change in the service at North Reading, even without me being there nightly to keep the kids on task. If you notice something that doesn't look right, PLEASE take the time to let me know -- I don't want the feel of our friendly little seasonal stand to change!

Newsletter Coupon

Hey, it's a new season, let's start it off with a bang. Tell us that you saw this coupon in the newsletter, bring a friend with you to the store, and we'll give you a second cone FREE with any cone purchased. Obviously, the lower cost cone is the free one, so don't try to pull any of that "fine print" stuff on me -- I only fall for that once or twice a year.

If it's not a real good friend that you're bringing to the store, maybe you can convince him/her to purchase a cone, and you get yours for free -- but I'll leave it up to you as to whether you want to try to sell that to this supposed "friend".

That's it for this week's edition. Hopefully, I'll be sending these out on my semi-regular summer schedule now, rather than my wholly-irregular winter schedule, so clear out those IN boxes, and get yourself ready for a fun season of ice cream.

Hope to see you all soon at the stand!