First of all congratulations to all of you who made the list. Clearly these things are important and sometimes a pat-on-the-back by the media is as important as a few extra pounds in the till. Much as Hugh and I often rant that “it’s all about the money” it is clearly equally all about a strong sense of personal pride that you’ve done a great job!
For those of you who didn’t make the list and perhaps think you should… I may well agree. These lists, while often very well put together, are clearly flawed. Very often the judges have commercial relationships with some of the winners and it’s almost impossible to cover all the great coffee shops out there with just a handful of judges. I know that if I was judging such a list I would struggle not to put many of my own clients on the list. So don’t lose heart if you’re not on the list and see what you can do to learn from them.
With that said there are a couple of ideas that I think may be of benefit to you from looking at these lists:
The following is a short video about a guy in the US who is giving away a free AK-47 with every “truck” he sells. The interesting thing is that he is clearly a intelligent guy and actually argues his point relatively well.
For those of us in the UK (and clearly parts of the US too) this is truly shocking. But just look at how much coverage this has got him and how much of an immediate impact it has had on his sales.
Clearly I’m not proposing you try to give away guns with every coffee but there is a huge amount to learn from this. Just imagine how much of a talking point this must be in his local neighbourhood.
What can you do that is outrageous and will grab local headlines?
This is classic “Hustle” at its best as we talk about in the latest module in your “Free Recession Report”
And this is exactly the sort of thing that you need to do to make sure you thrive and survive during these tough times.
The collapse of O’Briens (and Coffee Republic) is to a large extent not very surprising but it comes into acute focus since I go past an O’Briens and an Eat nearly every week in life at a majot UK airport.
The difference and the “DESIRABILITY” between the two of them couldn’t be more marked. For that reason I wanted to discuss these two businesses within the context of the “Desire and Trust” video that we have in our Recession Report. If you haven’t seen this yet make sure you sign up at:
A clip from our Exhibition rantings in Glasgow last month kindly sent to me by our Coleraine friend.
Caffe Culture coming soon with new concepts from our new book … currently with the publishing editors (very fussy folk) and due for release hopefully next month.
Have to say Freddie’s “Aaaayy Ohh” (last 50 secs of the clip is one of my outstanding memories of the 80’s … The control that he has is staggering with such a large crowd - pure genius.
To be fair to Pret - They do do it. And that to me is the difference. So many of us talk about it, quite likely understand it and don’t execute. I love the Dalai Lama’s line “to know and not to do is not yet to know”.
And to be fair to The Hoff … who was first on after lunch .. he is doing it rather well. Loved his wine analogy and the realisation that espresso at £1.50 = an approx £37 bottle of wine in volume terms. How good would you expect and indeed demand a £37 bottle of wine to be ?
Our old friend GaryMac (not to be confused with GaryVee who GaryMac clearly could beeee) was really first class. A top notch review of the latest marketing material out there and very well thought out and articulately delivered … there is life in the old dog yet …
Next up a Cup presentation which was single walled, one colour, leaked and didn’t need a jacket as it was already struggling to keep temp with …. everybody actually. And the lid didn’t fit.
Well done to Jeffrey and the team … and another great central location.
Royally entertained by fabulous designer Mike Leahy (www.leahybrands.com) a good pal of the infamous James Healy who sadly is no longer with the coffee world and has transferred his significant talents tothe innovative cattle feed business clearly taking some lessons from his years of coffee marketing with him as he sells ‘a better feeding solution for cows, people and the world we live in’ Jaysus … now who does that remind you off ?
Finally a great dinner with The Welsh Coffee Wizard himself … who is going from strength to strength … Watch out Pret … Coffee #1 is coming your way. Spotty Dog was with him …. Haha.
Hugh and I were kindly invited by Jeffery Young of Allegra Strategiesto attend the UK Coffee Leader Summit on the day previous to Caffe Culture. These events are always useful from a networking perspective (even though that’s generally an expression that puts the fear of god into me) but there was some great content too.
First up was Darcy Willson-Rymer - the MD of Starbucks. It was a tough day for him, that’s for sure, but I’m not convinced how much of a favour he did himself by treating the audience to a 30 minute press release about how great Starbucks is for the community both locally and globally. It was always going to be a tough audience to impress and I fear he chose the wrong message. But hey - what do I know?
After discovering just how wonderful it was for all of his staff to work with people who had learning disabilities we were forced to sit through a saccharine video where we followed the adventures of a little old lady who visits her local Starbucks every day. Horrendously the music then became a little more emotional and a “four years later” caption was flashed across the screen. It was impossible not to assume that she had died but no - four years on she was just doing the same thing. Visiting her local Starbucks and enriching the lives of the employees as much as they enriched hers. Nice.
Like most of us I actually don’t like to bash Starbucks but when they take themselves this seriously it’s impossible not to start a variety of sentences with “I’m not a Starbucks basher but...”. Those words appeared in at least 50% of the following speakers talks.
Next up we had Rebecca Hemsley of Pret a Manger speaking about training and coffee as opposed to the food side of the business. I was sitting with James Shapland (MD of the exceptional 12 site chain Coffee #1) as well as Hugo and it was enlightening to see how much of the work that we had been doing with him tied in with what Pret do. It’s worth bearing in mind that he is seeing substantial like-for-like growth this year and undoubtedly this is partly due to his relentless focus on great training.
The gist of what Rebecca was saying was this:
* Create great initial barista training
* Create great follow up training workshops (i.e. don’t assume that initial training is enough). These workshops are there to help create buzz. One of my pet rants is that many operators forget just how magical the barista process is to the customer. Clearly Pret are aware of this and she emphasised just how much work and training is involved in keeping this buzz.
* Create a great forum to get feedback from your baristas (even if bad) - and then act on it!
* They have an internal magazine for Baristas - The Bean
* They mystery shop for coffee and generally… a lot.
* They create a “Magic Moments” book which has a variety of crazy things they do to keep up the buzz. e.g. Red Tie day - you get a free breakfast if you’re wearing a red tie or free coffee if you can shoot a basketball into a hoop. It’s easy to be slightly cynical about this stuff 9and it’s not for everyone) but this stuff can be great for certain models (like Prets).
* They show their staff awesome customer service in action by showing Freddie Mercury controlling the crowd at Live Aid. This is a genius technique that I’ve often used in staff training (although not with Freddie… yet…). It totally transforms an employee’s (and ideally a manager’s) perception of how to manage people.
* They really stick to their food principles. It’s hard to argue with this. Many of the big chains really dilute (especially the coffee specific ones) as they grow. I still take clients to Pret as a shining example of how to produce a really great mass produced sandwich.
* Their quality checks are relentless. This is no surprise to anyone who has run a business of any size. It may not be sexy or exciting but the only way to create the consistency is to constantly check the quality (and to be prepared to reject). As I recently quoted in our new book Henry Royce (Rolls Royce) would maintain that “good enough is NEVER good enough”. It’s a great mantra.
* they are offering 99p coffees in many locations outside London in an effort not to be seen as the “posh option”. There is a lot to be said for this but please don’t go adopting it as a knee jerk reaction. It’s a very well thought out part of their strategy and has many influencing factors.
* They give away lots of free coffee to their regular customers. Not in a loyalty card system but as an individually driven reward. But…
* They have VERY strict controls on wastage and costs.
Rebecca finished with another Freddie Mercury reference which I thought was very apt:
“We’re fussy and finicky and have very high standards. If a song can’t be done properly, we’d rather il isn’t done at all. We’re the fussiest band in the world, and we put so much loving into every album.”
There was a slight sense of “heard it all before” amongst the audience for the Pret speech but for me there were some real gems. It may well have contained nothing ground breaking but that’s the case with most successful businesses. It contained a LOT of “we do well because we work extremely hard at it” messages and very often that isn’t what people want to hear.
This year we are undertaking a variety of events at Caffe Culture at Olympia in London.
Firstly we are talking on both Wednesday and Thursday under the title of “Recession proof your business“. This will be on the main stage and is at 1.00 p.m.
We will finally be launching our long awaited “Ten Key Factors” report which contains our top ten concepts that you need to focus on to thrive in a recession. The report also has key input from our most successful clients as well as some of the most highly respected industry experts. Two of these clients are seeing 20% growth during the last year with like for like sales so these are guys you should pay attention to. We will be dealing with four of these factors on the day and then releasing the rest, one per day, after the conference is over.
Each factor will be accompanied by an online video with Hugh and I discussing the key implications and exactly how you can incorporate it into your business to get immediate results.
If you haven’t already signed up for this report make sure you do so at:
What we will actually be doing will hopefully be a little less confusing. We want to try and get some real results for the people who are attending these workshops so the format will be:
15 minute discussion on the importance of systems and my Three Act realisation as to just how important systems are… (I’m a slow learner!)
15 minute discussion on the key factors for marketing your business particularly in recessionary times.
Three 20 minute hot seats. In these hot seats we will deal with any specific aspects that you may be having with your business and hopefully pool our knowledge to get you some great results.
We will video these hot seat sessions and the videos will be made available free to all attendees after conference is finished. You must agree to the videoing of your session in order to be considered for a hot seat since they may be used in the future.
If you wish to book a hot seat - which will be chosen on a first come first served basis - you’ll need to email me directly at John@thecoffeeboys.com and let me know the broad outline of what you would like us to consider. This allows us to spend as much time as possible actually working on your problem and not have to focus too much in the twenty minutes on getting a grasp of your situation.
This is one of the key points that we deal with in our free new report and videos (to be published In May at Caffe Culture). Many operators are allowing the struggling economy to give them something to blame for their poor sales and profits.
Whilst nobody is going to get through the next couple of years without being affected by the economy the key thing to do is to ignore it. To accept complete responsibility for your business and the fact that we have ALWAYS worked with cyclical economies and then to focus on managing and developing a great business that will survive and hopefully thrive.
So while we have lots of great tips and techniques in the report if you can’t get this basic concept then life is going to be very tough - as it clearly will be (and already is) for Starbucks.
Right now just about everybody is focused on the economy and where its going … Banks, Property Developers and related businesses like Estate Agents are experiencing a difficult time.
When the headlines are blaring doom and gloom, it takes a strong mind to stay focused on what matters and that - more than anything else - is what coffee entrepreneurs need. In the Coffee Business there is only one economy that matters … Its Yours.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what “the economy” does, all that matters is what YOU do. This is a battle for your mind. We are all suggestible creatures and its hard not to get swept away with the poor economy message.
And YOUR economy depends on finding and serving your customers. This week the stock market had the biggest one day decline in it’s history - but guess what – a day later people still need their daily hit , still need to go to work, still need to take a break, still need to eat lunch …
Don’t let the headlines pull your attention away from that.
Here are 3 things to consider that should help keep your coffee head together and focused on the opportunities in the days ahead;
1: Economic activity may slow down and decline, but it never goes to zero
Now is the time to focus on building your business when your competitors are in a panic. Down times are great times to start businesses as well. Costs are lower, staff are easier to find and you will be more inclined yourself to make plans to ensure you get through. Many of us have great ideas but fail to action them. Now is that time.
2: There are ALWAYS customers with money to spend
Thousands of successful new business are started in recession. Others grow massively. People still need their Coffee. Now is the perfect time to focus on your quality and taste. Make sure that the customer comes to you to spend their hard earned cash and not your competitor.
• Make sure your coffee tastes better. Do an audit of your competitors and benchmark your products against them. Make it at least 10% better changing whatever is necessary.
• Get the help of good suppliers that add value like great training.
• Above all keep your coffee consistently good so that the regular customer is never dissatisfied.
3: Smart coffee business owners and managers will have good systems & training.
Less start up businesses fail in a recession because they are forced by all their advisors and the banks to have a good business plan in place.
It always, always comes down to good planning and action. All the lovely strategies and ideas are useless if you don’t do it. So make that investment in new equipment now if it is going to improve your quality & taste. This will radically improve your ability to sell more to a more discerning customer.
Smart coffee business people are flexible, can adapt to the times, and find today’s opportunities. If you always do what you’ve always done that doom & gloom economic monster can catch you very fast …. but only if you let it.
To receive our free report and videos on the ten things you must concentrate on to survive the recession make sure you enter you name and email address below.
