Sam Oches, Associate Editor
About QSR:
· Founded in 1999, based in Durham
· B to B Magazine (business to business) writes for the industry
· Covers the business side of the fast food industry
· Got its start as a KFC franchisee newsletter
· Thirty-year-old family-owned publishing company (Fine Books and Collections is another one of its magazines, QSR is the primary publication)
· Stands for Quick Service Restaurants (a fancy term for fast-food)
· Encompasses anything that is not table service
o Concessions at a hospital, college campus, sports event
o Fast casual (Panera, Chipotle)
o Quick service (Wendy’s, Chick-Fil-A)
· Audience:
o Jim skinner, CEO of McDonalds
o Bill Morton, CEO of Panera
o Top industry people
o Store managers
o Consultants and lawyers
· Write about:
o Industry News
o Feature Content
o 20 original stories for every monthly issue
o Interns write one story a week
o Advice on how to run a fast food restaurant ( How to do things better, how to save money, how to “wow” your consumer)
· Leading Quick Serve Industry Publication
· QSR takes it beyond the news
· Ultimate goal is to help quick serve restaurants save money and succeed
· Qualified subscriptions based – must be qualified to get the publication and subscribers get it for free
· Three or four features a month, three columns
· Writers go to all the trade shows
· Works three months ahead of time (working on the May issue now) Features start earlier, sometimes. Therefore, they can be working on three issues at any given time between assigning, editing, and printing.
What is a B to B?
· They don’t write about “Top 5 Burgers in the industry”, but “Top 5 Selling Burgers in the industry”
· Audience cares about insights, not opinion
· Talks to professionals and consultants in the industry because they have first-hand experience
· Some trends: healthy eating, local/organic food, sustainability, food safety, social media
· Money from advertising (there’s nowhere else for these advertisers to go)
o Equipment providers advertise
o Those selling franchises
About Sam:
· Just graduated from Ohio University two years ago
· Wrote for newspapers in school
· Learned about business magazines his junior year in a class
· Got an internship in Chicago for an architecture magazine
· Editor of Southeast Ohio magazine, a student-run publication
· Got the job at QSR through Craigslist
· QSR hired him because he had experience at a B to B, at 22 years old
· Uses twitter to follow consultants and get information for stories
A note on freelancing:
· Freelance if you can’t find a job.
· Seniors: if you don’t find a job when you graduate, freelance.
· Sam is always looking for freelancers! QSR pays 32 cents a word.
· Make a pitch, be proactive. Don’t sit around until you find a job opening. Look for work, email an editor and ask if there are any opportunities you can help with.
· Do some research, send two pitches to an editor and they might hire you.
Some quotes:
“Somebody’s running a company somewhere and they need to know how to do it.”
“It sounds dry, but I really like my job. It sounds crazy, but I like it. Business is not entirely boring.”
“Look into B to B publications. Variety and Billboard Magazine are B to Bs. There is a B to B for everything.”
“You need to really shake up your resume a little bit."
“We didn’t suffer from the recession. We’re thriving”
“We’re still doing traditional journalism (all the rules, 3 sources per story), we’re calling people all the time. These people are coming to us and we’re turning it out and making it dynamite for the industry”
“Because these companies are so big and popular, they can’t make a misstep. This is what our industry follows every day.”
“We have to be able to scope out the entire industry.”
“This is an industry we all eat it. It’s fun. I can see an ad for McDonald's and know it was coming two months ago. I can see something on their menu and know it was coming months ago”
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