Dean Lord has the restaurant biz in his blood. He started scooping ice cream when he was 16 years old before going on to a successful career in the IT and engineering field. When he retired, he went back to the restaurant business– this time as an owner of one of the fastest growing bakery-cafes in the country…the Kolache Factory.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- Truett Cathy founder of Chick-fil-A
- Bill Gates
When business started difficulties overcame:
“it took me over two years to find the first location that I could have here that was acceptable by Kolache factory. And even that one was you know they should have more houses around it. I am like they are building it they will be there. That was days and nights, going through weekends sitting there counting cars to go okay seven in the morning, how many cars do I have in the morning side drive coming at me. Loads of time with that”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
It’s My Pleasure: The Impact of Extraordinary Talent and a Compelling Book by Dee Ann TurnerFavourite Quote:
“Everybody wants to save the world, but nobody wants to help mom with the dishes.” P.J. O’Rourke
Recommended Online Resources:
- The Entrepreneur Way – Learn from successful Entrepreneurs with Free Daily podcast interviews that reveal their business success secrets
- Being involved in a business to business group in your local community
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“love your customers and be involved because they respond to that” …[Listen for More]
More About Dean Lord:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Every day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day.” Joel Spolsky, co-founder of Stack Overflow
Other Quotes From the Chat with Dean Lord:
- “owning your own business and driving it to success takes a huge amount of energy”
- “Change is something to embrace and be happy about”
- “If it is working in the beginning maybe make some little changes but don’t just give up on things without really trying them out”
- “Everytime when I talk to customers amazing is the only target we have. I always want it to be amazing for them and if it’s not I want to know why so I can make it right and then I can fix that going forward for everyone else.”
- “One thing I always found out was forecast are always wrong no matter what you have”
- “what am I doing what am I changing in order to continue being successful because it is not the same recipe all of the time”
- “it is not working in the beginning maybe make some little changes but don’t just give up on things without really trying them out. Because I think there is a lot of times when people just give up too soon”
- “owning your own business and driving it to success takes a huge amount of energy as you are living it day and night. You are reading, you are driving, you are talking to people, you are trying to build things, a lot of times you are training different people. It’s huge. And then if you are customer facing like we are you are on all of the time. There is no time for a bad mood, there is no room for other things, you are out there, you are positive and you are making sure that things are going well”
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