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:
Sponsor for this episode
SpotOn:
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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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