Tabor College Business Department News

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Football and Hillsboro Sausage on a September Night

This year I am teaching Small Business Management, and in an effort create excitement for the students, I told them that they had a project for the course. The project required students to start a business and make some sort of profit. As you can tell, the parameters were fairly wide open. They engaged discussed doing everything from doing selling on the Internet to purchasing a pogo stick and selling turns using it.

What they finally decided on was to sell Hillsboro Sausage at the Tabor College football games. So they made arrangements with the Vice President of Business and Finance to stake out a spot just next to the concessions stand. Unfortunately what the students did not know was that the food service has the rights to sell food at football games. Anyone else selling food must have their permission.

After having a discussion with the food service director, arrangements were made for the students to be allowed to sell sausage at the game. Students made arrangements to purchase sausage, buns, and condiments. One student took one of his family’s old grills, painted and repaired it to use for cooking and warming the sandwiches. He also purchased grilling utensils and got grates made for grill. The class was shocked to see the grill after it had been painted and repaired. It looked amazing.

On Friday night, about 4 students went over to the new Tabor College town houses and spent about 1 hour cutting 25 pounds of sausage into quarter pound servings. They then refrigerated their treasure in the fridges in the town houses. Also, the grill along with two picnic tables were taken out to the stadium and placed near the snack-bar near where the sandwiches would be sold the following evening.

The students made arrangements to meet at the stadium at 5:30 in order to begin grilling. I am not sure if they believed they would sell all of their sandwiches or not. They took their first order shortly after the fire got good and hot. Sales for the evening started slowly but soon, all the meat they had initially put on the grill had sold as Hillsboro Sausage Sandwiches. It was interesting to see the dynamics of the students as they hawked their wares. When people came to buy, the students became increasingly excited about the evenings prospects. As people would walk by, one student shouted "Get your Hillsboro Sausage here" just like a vendor at the ball park. The public address announcer, who happens to be a business alum and a one of the two initial purchasers of the sandwiches, promoted the sale over the stadium public address system. When one customer came up and said I want 5, one of the students said wow, we are going to sell out.

As the evening went on the griller worked faster and faster and the sellers worked faster and faster and the money taker worked faster and faster. One pan of sausage, two pans of sausage, three pans of sausage, and finally the last pan of sausage. Just before halftime, the last of the sliced delicious delights went on the grill and shortly thereafter they were all gone. We had to turn people away from the grill as we had sold out before halftime. When the evening was done, the group had $250 in sales.

On Monday, we recapped the events of Saturday evening and put together some sort of final accounting. For all their hard work, the SBM team netted a little over $50 after expenses and sales tax. They had achieved their goal of making a profit. I will be interested in reading their papers on this experience and watching their presentation. I am not sure if they will try to sell sausages again. They can extend the life of their firm or terminate it now because the objective of a cash profit has been achieved. They have talked about selling sandwiches during homecoming over the lunch hour so there is an alternative to the German Buffet Lunch. I shall see just how ambitious these folks are. But I do know that they will have something to talk about at reunions. The story of how football and sausage came together one fall September evening.


NH

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