Help a friend monetize his new Hot Dog Cart!

What do horse owners and farmers have by way of problems?

What do the people who shop at the dollar store want and are willing to pay money?

What about the ones that go to the Grocery store?

How about the ones in his office building?

Need that kind of info to decide... Unless you're talking about things with very broad appeal... like losing weight while continuing to eat and behave the way that got you to be over weight. Or finding love/sex.

He needs to not worry about CPA offers or JVs and he needs to worry about how to create a great hot dog, upsell drinks and goodies, and keep a process going where he can attract and serve the most amount of customers per hour.

If he can master those systems MAYBE start looking at something else. But forget about monetizing something before having established a core competence.

If I go to a hotdog cart and get the following, I'm going back:

- a great tasting dog cooked well
- an ice-cold drink
- clean straws in wrappers so I know 100 others didn't have their fingers all over my straw
- clean and fresh toppings
- the owner wears plastic gloves when handling the food, and takes them off to handle money

Basically, if things taste great and are clean, and the price is right, I'll always grab one. 99% of the time I DON'T get something from a street vendor is because things look gnarly.

Some great responses here. I want a hot dog from the hot dog vendor, not a pitch on something unrelated. Maybe he could expand his offerings and sell other food items, or find some way to cater to small events by offering more. We've got a local barbeque guy that does fantastic as he's taken his food from the side of the road to huge corporate events. I've followed him from day one. Had I bought BBQ and then had him pitch me on some odd and end CPA offer, it would have been off putting.

He could sell advertising space on the side of the cart.

Different locations, different crowd: different advertiser. As DABK pointed out, what problems do the customers have? Doesn't have to be related to hot dogs at all.

Advertising over the pub urinal doesn't have to have anything to do with the current visitor's objective to be effective.

Those of you that would revisit a good hotdog stand, would you go out of your way to do so? I've interviewed 5 successful hot dog vendors the last couple of years and prior to that worked with many mobile food vendors, and spent half my life as a food sampler/food demo guy.

From your description he does not have a good LOCATION, which is 90% of the deal. IF he insists on setting up there, he needs some creative thinking.

There is a guy in West Palm beach FL who has a cart in front of a Home Depot, been there for years...another in downtown San Diego, also has been in the game for several years. In Cleveland Ohio, you'll find two carts within a half mile of each other, one at the Wade Park VA, the other at the museums park, just across the street.

And there is a guy in downtown Akron and another in Kent who have been doing it for over a decade.

I agree with the post about overthinking this with CPA, WTF????

KNOW the location. KNOW who comes and goes from the location, he is offering hot dogs, not running a restaurant.

Now, here are some of the ways these diverse vendors make their living. One guy does grocery store promotions...and tie ins. Your client should make friends with the grocery store manager and offer tie-ins..suchj as sampling new mustard, or promoting a brand of ketchup or buns. He could pass out coupons or have a small display (if he is set up outide the stores).

A hot dog is a fast food impulse item. At the stores, weekend DADS will buy their kids a hotdog...on weekends, he could give out a helium ballon to kids.

AND, if he does have a kids deal, make sure the parent gets some WIPES. Not just napkins, but most good vendors will give a wet wipe or have some purell with a roll of paper towels attached.

TOPPINGS increase profits, chili, sauerkraut and the usual...add a quarter to the dog...make more moolah.

Have TAKE home specials...where he keeps the dogs and buns separate. i like the buns which are individually wrapped. 15 seconds in the microwave, the dog is ready to go...good for moms in a hurry.

Have him get the KIDS attention...which is why balloons work so well. Appeal to fast food crowd have a nifty hook, or USP...Erie, PA is known for their hot dogs, so is NY...so make it a dog special to the area regions.

I haven't seen anyone use the internet to sell a hot dog, could be wrong...and haven't seen much in the way of promotion either...keep it simple and have him get in step with the traffic that does come by and have him test different specials, with chips, a drink or take home with a snack pack for kids.

And one guy, uses very nice looking college girls, and he has a line a mile long...he has three carts at local universities. SEE?

Hope this helps.

gjabiz

PS he needs to KNOW his numbers, his profits and have control of his expenses.

I know of a hot dog cart that did really good business. First, it was located on the side of a road that led into a Home Depot. Secondly, there was a nice looking gal in a bikini standing there filling the orders. That cart was very busy. My good friend and neighbor married the hot dog gal.

Sell corn dogs, honestly those things are delicious.

Not sure about actually cooking them or keeping them hot or whatever but when I was in New York I literally hunted the things down and if they were available as much as regular hot dogs I'd have out on a couple of stone that week.

If I found a stand that sold them he'd have made a fortune out of me.