Leadership and management are things we talk a lot about, but what does it take to actually make them a real process in the cafe? Most of what is in a job description is either unreasonable and poorly though through, or it is good but there is no real commitment from owners to see that it takes place. Today on …
I can hold an average weight business card in the furrow of my brow. Kinda proud of that. However in my career my natural resting face has inspired a lot of “interesting” assumptions. Now, to some degree, there is a limit to what I can do, but in my work I want to make sure that what I want to …
I love cupping coffee. It is a great way to assess a coffee and learn how to identify defects, attributes, and nuances that allow you to make decisions about buying coffee and how to maintain consistency in roasting. But the issue we have in a lot of coffee is that cupping, a practice designed for the above scenarios, has been …
“Don’t get left behind!” It feels like every post trying to sell you on a product relies on fear in order to make the sale. The idea of marketing to “pain points” as they say in the biz, is not entirely wrong since we do in-fact want to provide solutions for real needs. But where things go a step too …
Today we are surrounded by content and it is expected of every customer facing brand to strive to create a brand persona and content to reinforce your values and attract others who share those things. The bi-product of this dearth of content is the underlying sense of anxiety, disconnect, and lack of grounding as it seems the more we produce …
Feedback is all around us. From the customers, staff, and the business itself, we can only make great decisions for the coffee shop when we practice listening to understand. Trouble is we often avoid listening for fear of what we will hear, or because we falsely think we know what someone thinks or that their opinion cannot be helpful due …
It’s a common belief that there are not enough hours in the day to do the work that we need to get done in order to run a good coffee shop. The truth of the matter is that, more than a lack of time, this feeling is a result of poor time management. In particular, not having appropriately set and …
In our pursuit of optimization, analysis, scientific rigor, and financial success, we may find ourselves wondering, “where is the life in all of this?” Could it be that in dissecting every inch of our business, we have inadvertently killed it? Today on Shift Break we will be talking about the need to remain connected to and act from the heart. …
The experience of the customer day-in and day-out is often treated as a given. Something that is expected, but not something that is earned. We work to The real focus of our efforts should be on training and resourcing our staff to deliver a consistently excellent product, space, and hospitality experience every time. Are we truly doing that? Today on …
Changing things in the cafe tends to focus on image and expression. Maybe we upgrade branding, focus our menu, change lighting, furniture etc. But what is even more important in the quest to make positive changes as your grow, it to pay attention to the heart of the operation that supports everything else. Today on Shift Break we will be …
