Christian Ochsendorf is the Owner of three Dunn Brothers Coffee locations in Minnesota, where customers can enjoy classic and specialty coffees made entirely from in-house roasted coffee beans. As a self-made entrepreneur, Christian has been part of the Dunn Brothers Coffee franchise for over 15 years while also devoting his time to building a career as an insurance agent and President at MG Insurance Inc.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Christian Ochsendorf shares his experience of becoming a franchisee with limited experience
- The benefits of becoming a franchisee vs. starting your own business
- Christian shares the key transferable skills of working in two different industries
- How to build employee trust while expanding a hospitality business
In this episode…
In this episode of the SpotOn Series, Chad Franzen is joined by Christian Ochsendorf, Owner of three Dunn Brothers Coffee locations in Minnesota. They discuss what it’s like becoming a franchisee with limited experience in the field, the differences between starting a standalone business and becoming part of a franchise, and the importance of building the right management team. Additionally, Christian shares key transferable skills for entrepreneurs.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show, powered by Rise25 Media. We featured top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world
Chad Franzen 0:20
Chad Franzen here co-host for the show where we feature top restaurant tours, investors and business leaders. This is part of our SpotOn Series. SpotOn has the best-in-class payment platform for retail and they have a flagship solution called SpotOn Restaurant, where they combine marketing software and payments all in one. They’ve sorted everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and subway to small mom-and-pop restaurants. To learn more, go to spoton.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25. We help b2b businesses to get ROI clients referrals and strategic partnerships through done for you podcast. If you have a b2b business and want to build great relationships with clients, referral partners and thought leaders in your space, there’s no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more, go to rise25.com or email us at support@rise25.com. Christian Ochsendorf is a self-started entrepreneur who has been involved with Dunn Brothers for over 15 years, and has also an insurance agency for over four years. Hey, Christian, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?
Christian Ochsendorf 1:16
Doing wonderful. Thanks for having me, Chad.
Chad Franzen 1:18
Yeah, great to have you. Hey, for those of us who don’t live near a Dunn Brothers location, tell me about your location and what the customer might expect from going there.
Christian Ochsendorf 1:29
Dunn Brothers location, fills a little bit of a niche. We are the only franchise coffee shops in Minnesota that roast their own beans right at the store. So we source our beans directly from farmers in all the coffee growing regions, we import them to Minnesota. And then we roast them right at the stores.
Chad Franzen 1:54
Okay, so how did you get involved with Dunn Brothers?
Christian Ochsendorf 1:59
Um, about 15 years ago, my wife and I were looking for an opportunity she was coming out of taking in home daycare, we had three boys at the time. Like being our own boss. So we looked for a franchise opportunity. We looked for a couple different opportunities and kind of settled on Dunn Brothers coffee for a couple reasons. One, it was a Minnesota-based company. So she wasn’t going to be traveling out of state for training. And it seemed at that time, coffee was really coming out and being popular in the mainstream.
Chad Franzen 2:36
And Dunn Brothers has food as well.
Christian Ochsendorf 2:38
Dunn Brothers does have full food menu. Some stores have an AM food, as well as others have a full date food. It’s all freshly prepared. We do a lot of the baking of the breads, and cookies and bakery items right at the store.
Chad Franzen 2:59
So you want to get this let me let me see if I backtrack Are you you’ve been involved with Dunn Brothers for over 15 years. So you’ve owned this one location for the past 15 years.
Christian Ochsendorf 3:10
We’ve had our first location for over 15 years we have added we currently are at a total of three locations right now.
Chad Franzen 3:18
Okay. And are they all in the in a relatively small area?
Christian Ochsendorf 3:24
We have about a couple hours in between driving time. We have some in the metro, the Twin Cities metro area. And then we have our main one in Willmar, Minnesota, which is about two hours to the west of the Twin Cities.
Chad Franzen 3:39
Did you have prior coffee shop experience before getting involved?
Christian Ochsendorf 3:43
We did not. We were both two employees for the most part.
Chad Franzen 3:49
Okay, did you have any restaurant experience?
Christian Ochsendorf 3:52
I grew up working in restaurants, putting myself through college working in different restaurants. My wife had been working at restaurants and a server through college and had been working at a restaurant in between in the nights between daycare and owning the coffee shop
Chad Franzen 4:15
when he decided to take the plunge into becoming a Dunn Brothers franchisee what were the early days kind of like as you got your first location going?
Christian Ochsendorf 4:23
Well, we we opened our first location at the best time ever. We opened in April of 2007. And then the huge recession hit where gas was up to $4/50 then and unemployment was double digits. So it was very interesting on making sure that that stayed afloat and making sure that the business kept operating and trying to grow it in a area that had quite a bit of competition that came in just as we opened as well.
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Chad Franzen 4:54
So describe for me kind of what what life was like for you kind of running that place.
Christian Ochsendorf 5:00
My wife would work there. During the day while I was teaching in a public school setting, I would get off teaching and I would come work the store at night and close it up, so that we could keep our costs extremely low with labor. And watching our supplies quite a bit. So I mean, it was the two of us plus, we got our young kids to involved quite early. So it was mainly a family event.
Chad Franzen 5:27
When did things kind of? I don’t know, when did you feel like things were starting to maybe stabilizer get steady for you?
Christian Ochsendorf 5:33
You know, it took probably about two years. And we got our name out there. People started checking us out, liking the coffee, liking the food. And then Dunn Brothers did incorporate a new food platform where they used to have just prepackaged sandwiches, bakery items, they went to the fresh food, where we were slicing our meats and cheeses and you know, preparing really nice food options for people to pair with the great coffee that we have.
Chad Franzen 6:12
Is that Is that still the case? Then with Dunn Brothers? They have more fresh food items.
Christian Ochsendorf 6:16
Yes, yeah, today, and they keep trying to introduce new items that you know, they have a corporate chef who is doing a lot trying to find new products that people are going to like that pair with the food.
Chad Franzen 6:30
I’m sure that’s attractive to customers, but how does that affect your kind of like operations?
Christian Ochsendorf 6:36
Well, through the pandemic, it really is helped where people were able to not only get their coffee, but get some food items, whether it’s breakfast, or lunch or evening meal all in one place and not having to run to different places. And, you know, once they tasted the food, it’s kept him coming back now, once we reopened.
Chad Franzen 6:58
So you have you have two other locations? What When did you know it was kind of time to add to your portfolio.
Christian Ochsendorf 7:06
We were able to pick up existing Dunn Brothers stores, people were wanting to retire had other options. And we were able to buy them at the right price. So that was the biggest move for us as we knew what it would take to make them profitable. And where we bought them at was able to, you know, cash flow right away for us.
Chad Franzen 7:29
So they were kind of already operating. But is there a difference in you know, operating one compared to three?
Christian Ochsendorf 7:35
Definitely, you have to I mean, finding the right key employees, especially when I’m two hours away. If there’s something that goes wrong, I’m not getting there to be able to fix it like I would when I’m living right in the same town. So you have to find managers that you can trust and that have a passion to run a store as if it’s their own.
Chad Franzen 7:56
Are you still teaching?
Christian Ochsendorf 7:58
No, I that’s where I got into insurance. We needed something a little bit more on the salary side to support a family of five and teaching just wasn’t doing it for us. So I was able to take an opportunity to start working in the insurance industry.
Chad Franzen 8:17
How do you balance your involvement with Dunn Brothers, and then also your ownership of insurance agency,
Christian Ochsendorf 8:23
I try to make sure that my insurance agency gets my attention when it needs to because I have a very specific times of the year where I have deadlines. I count on my wife quite a bit for the one location here in Willmar. And then also, you know, I’m able to talk on a daily basis to our managers if need be. and work through any issues that they might have. So the cell phone while I’m driving to clients for insurance helps out quite a bit as well.
Chad Franzen 8:56
Are there any similarities to operating multiple coffee shops and owning an insurance agency?
Christian Ochsendorf 9:04
Dealing with people? People skills are huge in both industries. And being able to talk to people and connect with them is something that both industries I think, definitely need and if you want to succeed are going to have to do
Chad Franzen 9:20
What do you find most enjoyable about owning and operating your Dunn Brothers locations?
Christian Ochsendorf 9:26
having the freedom to design my own time, putting my time where it needs to be where, whether it’s family, I take the time to do family stuff, and if it’s time to work, I do time to work. So I mean just the flexibility of being able to be able to spend time with the people you love.
Chad Franzen 9:47
Have you found that staffing is pretty consistent or is there as an alarm a lot of young people who stop in and then head on out elsewhere.
Christian Ochsendorf 9:55
The retail coffee shop business is quite revolving on staff, people come and go, whether it’s students, you know, they’re finishing up, they’re going on to their other careers. So it is nice if you’re able to find somebody who needs day, a second job or a second income that doesn’t need to support the family that likes working in a coffee shop. Otherwise you are using people who are their first time jobs, usually, maybe their second, that are going to be moving on anyways. And you know that going in. So you’re always trying to find quality employees, and you want to keep them as long as you can. Because it does cost quite a bit to train and maintain your staff.
Chad Franzen 10:45
When you when you got involved, you said you hadn’t had coffee shop experience before? Did you learn how to do all that stuff, like become a barista and make every single drink to all those specifications?
Christian Ochsendorf 10:55
Yes, and that’s what that was part of the, the lure of a franchise opportunity is that they had a system, they were teaching you what to do how to do it. So that made it easier. But it’s even a lot different now. From the equipment that we started with, to the equipment that they’re putting in new stores is pretty much all automatic. It’s, you know, push a button, where we are actually, you know, handcrafting, the drinks, and well, and we still do at all three of our locations. But it is definitely changing with technology.
Chad Franzen 11:28
Do you stay so you stay on top of how to do all this stuff, even though you’re kind of you’re running the place from a high level,
Christian Ochsendorf 11:36
I can still make the drinks, the lattes, the frappe A’s, you know, the iced lattes or whatever smoothies. Some of the new menus, I don’t stay up on just because it’s not something I drink or eat or so I mean, the new stuff I’m not up to date on but you know, I still have the skills from when I started.
Chad Franzen 11:57
Sure, sure. How has COVID impacted or changed kind of the way you guys do things? Or has?
Christian Ochsendorf 12:04
It definitely, definitely opened your eyes, you know, when we started in 2007. You know, we understood the recession. I mean, that wasn’t something we were ready for, but worked through it, but we were not expecting the government to be able to shut us down, you know, like they did for everybody. And that really opened our eyes to where we need to definitely think about, you know, we were looking at expanding, you know, into more stores. And at this point, you know, we’re at an age that we don’t need to take that risk anymore. We like what we’re doing. But it definitely opened our eyes we can say
Chad Franzen 12:47
how can people find out more about your Dunn Brothers locations?
Christian Ochsendorf 12:51
We definitely can check us out online. We have Facebook pages for all of our stores. Definitely talk to corporate because there’s there’s a number of stores in Minneapolis, but we are probably not nationwide, but we cover quite a few states with our Denver other stores
Chad Franzen 13:14
Okay, so your locations are in Willmar. And then where are the other two?
Christian Ochsendorf 13:17
The other two is in Woodbury. Right off of Citywalk Drive and then the south end of Uptown in Minneapolis at the corner of Hennepin and 34th Street.
Chad Franzen 13:30
Okay, great. Last question for you. When you go to Dunn Brothers as a customer, what’s kind of your food and drink of choice.
Christian Ochsendorf 13:38
The drink of choice is either an iced latte or a what we call infinite, blacker Totti. I’m a more of a cold drink person. I’ve never been really a hot drink person. And I love the breakfast sandwiches, biscuits or on an English muffin. Waking up in the morning, we make our own egg souffles at the store that are very good.
Chad Franzen 14:05
Oh, wow. Very nice. Great. Hey, Christian, it’s been great to talk to you today. I really appreciate your time and your thoughts.
Christian Ochsendorf 14:11
Hey, thank you very much, Chad. I appreciate it.
Chad Franzen 14:14
Thank you so long, everybody.
Outro 14:15
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