Opinion/ Tourism: winning a battle but losing the war

from Agron Gjerasi

This hot Albanian summer, with tourists "beyond" expectations, reminded me of a distant summer in Boston, USA (where I have lived for more than 30 years)...

It must have been the summer of 1996 when I was working at Chicago Pizza, a pizzeria in Malden, a town on the outskirts of Boston, owned by Oktay, a Turk in his forties who had no passion or dedication to his work. What he did was he earned a minimum of about $3,000 a month, and he made grapes and plums every Sunday at the casino.

One day, Kerim, a Turkish friend who owned a big pizzeria in the same city and was very successful in his job, earning over $12,000 a month (in the pizzeria business here in Boston at least), comes to visit. What is the weekly turnover, and how much is the monthly profit?

After drinking a couple of glasses, Oktay asks him how he managed to go from a small pizza place like ours, with the same profit, to this new pizza place where he earns 3 to 4 times more in two years. Since I was also at the table, they were forced to converse in English.

As you know, Kerimi begins the story. I opened the pizza place at the same time as you, about four years ago, and I was earning enough to support the family without overdoing anything big. I worked with dedication and commitment, and regular customers loved me and kept coming back because I cooked food with love and treated them with respect.

I had a small oven that made four pizzas at once, like yours, and there were rarely more than two pizzas in at a time, except at peak lunch and dinner times. In a word, I had the opportunity to do more, but the clientele had to increase. What did I do? I estimated that I had the guts for more and handed out flyers every week for about ½ year in the neighborhood where I worked, within a circle of no more than 100 meters from the bar. I advertised very favorable prices for certain hours of the day when I had the opportunity for more work. In the meantime, I added two more workers.

The ad did the trick. My phone started ringing much more often, almost all day (I worked 12 hours a day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.), and my income doubled.

When I saw that I had the opportunity for more, but the oven's capacity and the bar's space did not allow it, I sold the bar and bought a new bar nearby, with much more space and an oven that could bake up to 10 pizzas at once.

After making sure the old customers stayed loyal, I sent out ads in a circle up to 200 meters from the pizza place, then 300, then up to 3-4 miles, and here I am now, with quadruple my income and starting to buy houses and rent.

Let me, oh God, I live! I pray to God only for health that he fulfills all the others.

Oktay follows his friend's example the next day with a "small" difference: He distributed advertising flyers throughout the city!

And when the endless calls for orders started, we didn't have time to breathe. The oven and the staff could not handle them. Some pizzas were delivered unfinished, some burned, some went to their destination after 2 hours, when people had lost their appetite, and some others.

The phone didn't stop ringing until Oktay was forced to leave it open to get busy.

What can I tell you? Real chaos!

The first week's profits went from $3000 to $10,000, the second to $7000, the third to $3000, and the fourth to less than $2000. While the complaints and insults were endless, what did the driver hear when he took the food home?

He who has ears to hear, let him hear... it's a true story and a lesson for many in business.

As our people have said so beautifully, "Stretch your legs as long as you have a quilt," or "The big crowd will leave you alone," as we say from Elbasan.