Candy Bouquet News Room
Franchisee News
Franchisee of the Month: May 2008
CBI 553/5530 - Jeff Cardin and BethAnn Grout-Cardin
Home Based
Boise, Idaho
We decided that we would like to run a home based business in addition to our regular jobs since we had a fair amount of extra time. We purchased an existing franchise in June of 2007. Now we have zero free time!! But we are enjoying the business and our sales have increased.
We split up the duties in the Candy Bouquet Business. BethAnn does all of the ordering and creating. I do the marketing, credit card processing, Quick Books, bill paying and filling the containers. Whomever is free does the deliveries, takes phone orders and watches for internet orders.
Our biggest customer has been the hospital gift shops in our territory. We do It’s a Boy/Girl, Smiley Face, Popcorn Boxes, Get Well Parfait Sundaes, Soda Glass and seasonal Candy Bouquets for them and they all sell really well. We have had good sales with a local florist as well. Realtors and Mortgage Companies like Candy Bouquets as closing gifts so we anticipate more sales there when the market improves.
I must admit that the success to our business is BethAnn. She is very creative, fast and efficient. She hasn’t had to use a recipe since training. Her favorite thing is when she gets to be creative. This works great for phone orders. Get a price range, theme and type of candy from your customer. She gets great comments on all of her Candy Bouquets, but especially these.
Outside of Candy Bouquet we enjoy date nights, time with our two daughters, movies and riding our Harley Davidson. We just bought a ski boat and hope to find time this summer to use it but not too much as we want to keep increasing our sales!