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In case you haven’t heard the news, Michael Shepherd, owner
of Michael Angelo’s Pizza in
Getting
Involved with the Team and Winning
Michael first got involved with the
team back in 2002, the first year that PMQ took a full team to the
World Pizza
Championship. PMQ hosted the first largest stretch competition at the
Mid
America Pizza and Ice Cream Show. “I got a flyer in the mail telling
about the
competition and thought ‘hey I can do this’ since we had always
hand-tossed our
pizzas anyway,” Michael says. “Luckily, I ended up winning first place
at the
competition.” He won this competition without ever seeing it happen.
He
prepared for the competition by
reading over the rules provided by PMQ and practiced when the store was
slow.
“I really had no clue what to expect being the first time,” he says.
“At the
first competition in
And,
learn he did. Last year, he
placed sixth in the world in the stretch and fifth place in the
fastest. This
year he says there were no surprises. “I knew exactly what to expect
and was
not nervous at all,” he says. “I wanted the gold medal bad and went
into the
whole thing thinking, ‘I am going to place.’”
This
year Michael again placed fifth
in the fastest. His fast pizza making skills probably come from a hard
learned
lesson—the worst marketing idea he ever had. “It was our six-year
anniversary
special,” he says. “You could get a 14” pizza with up to six toppings
for only
six dollars, no limit. We did this three days in a row. It was a
nightmare! I
slapped out so many pizzas that I was sore for weeks afterwards.”
Using the
Team in His Business
Michael says the team helped to
“bolster” and “reinforce” his business. He says that in the midst of
the
down-turned economy his business has grown each year. “In 2002, we saw
our
sales increase 19 percent. In 2003, sales increased 16 percent.” This
year they
are looking at a 14 percent increase over 2003, not including sales
from his
recently opened second location.
Michael
said no one was really crazy
over the team at first because he didn’t do a whole lot with it. In the
past
three years, he’s incorporated it into his marketing plan and now,
customers
ask him about it and follow it. “We do a lot of email marketing and
keep our
customers up to date with what has been going on, especially this year
via
emails with photos,” he says. “Plus, we’ve nabbed the front page of the
paper
five times, had at least 5-10 other mentions and photos in other
papers, been
on the local NBC news twice, had a mention in USA Today and some
footage on
CNN. The chamber of commerce has also been keeping the town up-to-date
by
including info in their newsletters and emails.”
Michael
also had a secret weapon
hiding in his store—his younger sister, LeeAnna. He had her come to the
Michael
says he got LeeAnna and some
of his other staff involved with the team “as a marketing ploy.” “I
knew that
LeeAnna was really good with dough, and a few of my other staff were
pretty good
as well. I had the experience of what to expect at the competitions and
was
able to give them the heads up. I felt we had a pretty good shot at
getting
someone else from our store on the team, and if we did, we would be
able to
milk even more press out of it. What are the odds that two people from
the same
shop would make the team, let alone be brother and sister? And, it
worked, our
customers wanted to know more and more. We’ve been having people from
one to
two hours away coming to see us and try our pizza. The Food Network
special
really helped. The most important thing that I think the team has done
for us
is it has earned us a ton of respect from our customers.”