The Founders of Cousins Maine Lobster Grow By Treating Everyone Like Cousins

Relatives arrives first at Cousins Maine Lobster — exactly where the staff truly is family, or just desires everyone to come to feel like household.

Courtesy of Cousins Maine Lobster

The brand name began a ten years in the past, when Jim Tselikis, who was living in Boston, went to go to his cousin Sabin Lomac in Los Angeles to catch up. “When we had been reminiscing,” Tselikis states, “we understood that each individual time we have been with our family, we would have lobster — stay lobster, lobster rolls, lobster mac and cheese.” Tselikis was in gross sales and had no prior foods or cafe experience. Lomac experienced worked in much more than 20 places to eat but was in actual estate at the time. Even so, they started off to envision a small business in which they’d convey their cherished encounter to people throughout the nation.

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Out of that, Cousins Maine Lobster was born. The brand name was founded in 2012, landed on Shark Tank (wherever they scored a deal with Barbara Corcoran), and now serves seafood out of much more than 30 trucks and nearly 10 restaurants throughout 18 states. But as Tselikis claims, loved ones still drives this manufacturer.

You fellas experienced never ever operate your have business enterprise. How did you start out?

It was about finding just one food truck off the floor. A important factor was taking care of revenue, figuring out what to set into the organization to give it a authentic prospect to thrive. It truly is also how a great deal you might be going to function for it. Alternatively of going out on a Friday night time to drink beers, it can be dedicating that time to make sure that each piece of your small business is high-quality-tuned, buttoned up, and secured.

As we started franchising, we did almost everything we could to fully grasp how to thrive right here. We were being understanding an whole new business enterprise on top rated of our meals truck business, and that isn’t going to transpire overnight. You’re not an qualified in calendar year one, but you understand so considerably about time. That is the most significant piece in all of this. You will need to use understanding activities and transform them into opportunity for the foreseeable future. That way, when the next spherical arrives, you say, “What did I understand? How am I changing?” It is really steady.

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How has getting family-centered impacted the business?

We failed to go to company school. We just desired to generate a small business that would be enjoyment and significant. Our concept is, “If we expand with folks that we rely on that are blood, or as close to blood as probable, they will not allow us down and we will not let them down, because we are all in on this mission alongside one another.”

When it will come to franchising exclusively, we experienced 2,000 requests immediately after Shark Tank, but we only awarded 10. We wanted to make absolutely sure we chose the appropriate folks, and we truly do connect with them loved ones customers. We chose persons that we understood would operate a fantastic business, but also folks whose life we would want to study about. Our romance with the franchisees is like, “Your son just graduated from superior school? Your daughter just received married? Let’s get a drink and speak about it.” To me, which is how you make a definitely robust basis — when anyone is just invested in every single other.

Having now worked with so quite a few franchisees, what tips do you have for many others who are pondering about getting a franchise?

To be a franchisee of a manufacturer, you need to obtain in — not just virtually with your pounds, but also into the simple fact that this franchisor has done this. They have this design and toolbox and the help to make you successful, and it truly is obtaining into that route vs . executing it on your personal.

It is really also about having an open up intellect. We pay attention to our franchisees. It can be not us as opposed to them. It truly is very harmonious. We know we are not fantastic, so if they have an thought, or if they see a thing out in the area and want to deliver it to us, we are all ears, because we know we can always strengthen. So if a franchisee comes in and says they really don’t know everything, but they are inclined to find out and we can teach them, they’re going to be profitable.

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