TS Bank is excited announce that applications have officially opened for REV (previously know as TS Bank Tank) In celebration of our this upcoming event, we decided to get some insight from our top three winners from last year. This blog features Tom Mulholland, owner of Mulholland Grocery. As pictured above, Tom took home $5,000 from this event last year. We caught up with Tom almost a year later to see what's changed and what advice he has for those interested in applying for this year!
Tell us about your business.
Mulholland Grocery is a fourth generation store, located in Malvern, IA. We're a full line grocery store, specializing in high quality fresh meats and steaks, homemade fresh and smoked sausages and other homemade items. I purchased the store in 2008 after having worked the previous two decades in Omaha, as manager of the meat department in Omaha’s finest independent grocery store, Wohlner’s Grocery.
Tell us about your experience at TS Bank Tank (now REV).
My experience with the TS Bank Tank competition was a great one. I was able to meet a number of other small businesses at the different events, and have had the opportunity to follow-up and be in contact with a few of those since. I’ve been in other events like this in the past, and they certainly do open your eyes to small things about your business that you might not have noticed previously. Win or lose, I feel that anyone that does their best in a situation like this is going to learn tremendous things about their business and themselves that they may not have known or acknowledged earlier.
How did you use your prize money? Has it changed things?
We used our prize money in a couple of ways. A nice portion of the prize was used as employee bonuses, because I would not be where I am today without the great employees that I have working for me. We’ve been open for 8 years, and the crew that I have now is the best that I’ve had in that entire time. We also used our funds for some special advertising opportunities that brought our product line in view of people that were unaware of us previously, and we gained a pretty fair amount of business from these opportunities.
Has anything else changed within your business?
Our name and recognition seems to be growing, and our catering business has steadily grown with this recognition, and the catering is the highest profit area in the business, so that’s a welcome addition.
What advice would you give anyone who plans to apply this year?
Anyone wanting to enter the REV competition should take the time to look deep and see what really works for their business, and what doesn’t. When you really think about what you can do, or do better than your competition, this is when you really get the chance to shine, and improve your bottom line. This introspection isn’t something that you might do otherwise, but take the time, and make the most of it.
How can someone get in contact with you or buy your product?
Our business is located on Malvern’s beautiful Main Street, but we also get many customers that have found our website, and called or messaged us from that. It’s a great way for people to learn about many of the products that we produce. We also gain many customers from our newspaper ads, and especially from our advertisements and live radio interviews that we do weekly on KMA radio from Shenandoah.
Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to be a part of your event last year, we sincerely appreciated it, and the help that we received from the TS Bank and all of the great employees that we worked with.
Tom Mulholland
Mulholland Grocery
Generations of Quality, Pride, and Friendliness
Tom Mulholland, Owner
409 Main Street, Box 429
Malvern IA 51551
(712) 624-8448
Fax (712) 624-9041
For more information about REV and to apply for this year's event, click here!