It’s Founder Friday! I am very pleased to be presenting a conversation with someone who I have wanted to have on a Founder Friday for quite a while. Not just because he has been quite successful, but because in the course of achieving that success he has created a model of a healthy and resilient business through rooted and wise …
Here’s some good news…Burnout is usually a result of a long string of unaddressed stressors that build up until they reach critical mass. Why is that good news? It’s good because it means with a few shifts of our thinking and approach we can address…
When we think about coffee roasting we generally assume that roasting happens once green coffee leaves its county of origin taking much of the coffee’s value along with it. But there is a growing movement of entrepreneurs who are keeping their coffee’s value right at home by roasting at origin and shipping direct to shops and consumers. 25 years ago …
It is a blessing and a curse. Being in a position of management or any type of authority means you likely can see when things are wrong or don’t quite fit the ideal. That is a valuable skill set that is worth cultivating. As a result we tend to skew…
What is professionalism? Is it aprons? Using the right greeting? The way the space looks? When it comes to coffee shops and coffee professionals we often use metrics that are more surface than substance and the result is that we create an experience that misses the mark when it comes to making real connections and, I would argue, misses the …
On some level we all can justify ignoring customers in our coffee shop. Seems pretty crazy right? I mean, why would we do that knowing how important it is to give a great experience to the one keeping the lights on?And yet it happens all the time….
Who is driving our career? Most of the time we attribute our careers current state to outside forces or fate. Rarely will we consider that we ourselves are the primary driver of our success. The good news is that there are lot’s of things that we can both do to take control and start really steering thing in the direction …
Don’t hire someone with experience! At least that is what I hear quite often. The idea being that you won’t have to untrained old habits. I many people’s mind experienced employees are more of a pain than they are willing to deal with. But…
Have you ever thrown your hands up in frustration and said something like, “Why won’t my staff listen to me?!” I get this type of question a lot from people attending my lectures at Coffee Fest. Managers and owners alike have this moment often. I know I have. We desire nothing more than generating buy-in and to be at peace …
Sample roasting is a critical part of any roasting operation. But sample roasting is not simply used for finding defects or even just for making purchasing decisions. It is also very important to use as a tool to illustrate what a coffee can do and where it fits in your line up according to your’s and your customers tastes. Today …
