Circle of relatives comes first at Cousins Maine Lobster — the place the group in fact is family members, or simply desires everybody to really feel like family members.
Courtesy of Cousins Maine Lobster
The emblem started a decade in the past, when Jim Tselikis, who was once residing in Boston, went to talk over with his cousin Sabin Lomac in Los Angeles to catch up. “After we have been reminiscing,” Tselikis says, “we learned that each time we have been with our family members, we might have lobster — reside lobster, lobster rolls, lobster mac and cheese.” Tselikis was once in gross sales and had no prior meals or eating place revel in. Lomac had labored in additional than 20 eating places however was once in actual property on the time. Nonetheless, they began to believe a industry by which they might deliver their liked revel in to other folks around the country.
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Out of that, Cousins Maine Lobster was once born. The emblem was once based in 2012, landed on Shark Tank (the place they scored a take care of Barbara Corcoran), and now serves seafood out of greater than 30 vans and just about 10 eating places throughout 18 states. However as Tselikis says, family members nonetheless drives this emblem.
You guys had by no means run your individual industry. How did you get started?
It was once about getting one meals truck off the bottom. A big factor was once managing cash, understanding what to place into the industry to offer it an actual probability to prevail. It is also how a lot you are going to paintings for it. As a substitute of going out on a Friday night time to drink beers, it is dedicating that point to be sure that each piece of your small business is fine-tuned, buttoned up, and safe.
As we began franchising, we did the whole lot shall we to know how to prevail right here. We have been finding out a whole new industry on most sensible of our meals truck industry, and that does not occur in a single day. You are now not knowledgeable in 12 months one, however you be told such a lot through the years. That is the largest piece in all of this. You want to make use of finding out reviews and switch them into doable for the long run. That method, when the following spherical comes, you assert, “What did I be told? How am I adjusting?” It is steady.
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How has being family-focused impacted the industry?
We did not pass to industry faculty. We simply sought after to create a industry that may be a laugh and significant. Our principle is, “If we develop with folks that we accept as true with which might be blood, or as as regards to blood as conceivable, they would possibly not allow us to down and we would possibly not allow them to down, as a result of we are all in in this undertaking in combination.”
In terms of franchising in particular, we had 2,000 requests after Shark Tank, however we handiest awarded 10. We would have liked to ensure we selected the correct other folks, and we in point of fact do name them members of the family. We selected folks that we knew would run a really perfect industry, but in addition other folks whose lives we might wish to know about. Our dating with the franchisees is like, “Your son simply graduated from highschool? Your daughter simply were given married? Let’s seize a drink and discuss it.” To me, that is the way you construct a in point of fact sturdy basis — when everybody is simply invested in every different.
Having now labored with such a lot of franchisees, what recommendation do you’ve got for others who’re eager about purchasing a franchise?
To be a franchisee of a emblem, you want to shop for in — now not simply actually together with your bucks, but in addition into the truth that this franchisor has executed this. They have got this type and toolbox and the enhance to make you a hit, and it is purchasing into that direction as opposed to doing it by yourself.
It is also about having an open thoughts. We pay attention to our franchisees. It is not us as opposed to them. It is very harmonious. We all know we are not best, so if they have got an concept, or in the event that they see one thing out within the box and wish to deliver it to us, we are all ears, as a result of we all know we will at all times toughen. So if a franchisee is available in and says they do not know the whole lot, however they are keen to be told and we will teach them, they’re going to achieve success.
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