At Caffe Culture this year much of what Hugh and I will be doing is talking about marketing.
In our coffeeshopquestion survey (which if you haven’t filled it out yet - please DO!) the biggest issue so far is an inability to attract new customers. Therefore this will be a major part of our talk.
One [...]
Today’s Guardian has yet another story about the closure of pubs and clubs.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/06/bars-pubs-bust
We’ve talked about this many times and in many formats but it continues to be a great opportunity for coffee shops. The reality is that the big three historical centres of a community are all disappearing:
1. Churches - as a nation we really [...]
Completely agree with Johnny … Some great points.
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 [...]
Hugh and I were kindly invited by Jeffery Young of Allegra Strategies to 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 [...]
When we first set up our businesses we are 100% convinced that we can and will do a better job than the competition. We list out the factors that we will do better, that we’ll relentlessly focus on until we have this wonderful business that clearly offers a “superior experience”. We smirk, snigger and discuss [...]
When I visit any coffee bar or restaurant I always have a question in my mind and I believe every single customer does exactly the same thing - whether they realise it subconsciously or not. That question is:
Do they really want me to be here? Do they really give a s*#t that i’ve [...]
I’m just back from nearly three weeks in the US and spent considerable time in New York - it is, as ever, just about the most stimulating city on the planet.
I saw some amazing retailing and some inspirational restaurants but I have to say the quality of the coffee bars (that I saw anyway) wasn’t [...]
I’m increasingly obsessed with this concept since it applies to such a large extent in so much of our lives.
Why does Tiger Woods want to keep getting better at golf for example? What drove Michael Schumacher, despite so many years at the top of Formula One, to still work harder than anyone else and [...]
Tomorrow evening in the US Starbucks are closing all their stores to retrain their baristas. They’ve pulled together some nifty new milk frothing techniques and changed a couple of the rules in terms of pulling shots. It’s their latest attempt to get themselves back on track after a pretty dismal year.
All round the world cool [...]
On Sunday and Monday of this week Hugo and I were speaking at the Hotelympia show in London. Ultimately both talks went very well and we had good audiences at both but it was a graphic illustration of the need to have a strong “reason why” in terms of promotion. There had been very little [...]
