Food Business Coach Tracie
Jul 29, 20224 min
So you have secured the perfect location for your coffee shop, you have a knack for getting people through the door, and developed a menu with delicious products that keep your customers coming back for more..... Easy peasy, said no cafe owner ever!!!
Now it’s just a matter of keeping everything running smoothly, how difficult can that be, right?!?!?!?!?!?!? And without losing your passion or your god damn mind in the process.
The only desired outcome you want to chase and secure from owning a cafe that not only makes it past the intensive, high octane, continuous tweaking and trouble-shooting first year but continues to be a successful cafe year in and year out, growing in popularity along the way!
We now know that starting a cafe is only half the battle. The real challenge becomes how to run a successful cafe. Those details tend to be wrapped up in layers of mystery because small business owners prefer to bring that wisdom with them to the grave! Sharing amongst small business operators isn't as popular as it MUST be. Sharing allows businesses to grow and improve at a faster rate. Remaining isolated ensures a slow painful death and debt!!!
First, we must set some parameters on what success really means in terms of cafe ownership.
Success can be measured in many ways, but the most commonly agreed yardstick for a cafe is whether it is profitable or not. It is that simple. But even within that statement, you must uncover more again.
Generally, more profit equals more success. Profit is a hugely important factor, but it should not be the only litmus test for success. For example, if your cafe is profitable but you are putting in 80/ 100 hours a week in order to make it profitable, it becomes harder to call it a success. It is hanging on by gritted teeth because you are spending too much time in the business keeping it afloat and rejecting and neglecting the truth.
Did you know that the top coffee shops across the world can earn up to 85% in gross margins, but smaller venues tend to hover at around 2.5%. This is where realistic expectations and tangible measurements MUST come into play.
What if we look at a combined measure for what success looks like- A combination of profit, your own personal happiness as owner/ operator, and how much satisfaction you bring to your customers and STAFF. Now that ensures a well-run business that is, once you have your systems in place to ensure repetition of offering and standardisation across the board.
Three areas you need to review:
The actual vision of HOW your cafe will operate is up to you and your desired end result and business goals, but the on-the-ground, day-to-day tasks should be delegated to a competent and committed manager.
It would be great to find someone that already knows how to run a cafe successfully, but there is a great deal of value in promoting an in-house superstar to the ranks of management. Don't underestimate the potential of this move but it is a tricky one if you don't have your systems already in place. Knowledge and expertise is required to get it to a certain standard and overburdening an inexperienced staff member with such a heavy task could have a reverse effect. I speak from experience. I have seen too many businesses tread water badly due to ineffective and non-existing Cafe Management structures. This missing link ensures stagnation and slow death!
If you’re just getting started, you might not have the budget to hire a full-time manager, which means those duties will fall on your shoulders. This is the perfect time to clearly lay out how you NEED your cafe to operate so that one day you can train someone else to take over. So actively task your team the duty to log every task and write your systems. You then check and amend their work. This blueprint is the operational manual for your cafe- the most important part of your business.
It’s wise to invest time in REAL training. A haphazard approach to upskilling will ensure a poor delivery. Your team members require investment, upskilling and access to key tools to do their best work. Your new manager then becomes the person who trains future staff and future managers for you. This means you are making the time and space to ensure you spend more time working on the business on not just in the business.
If you constantly get caught working the tools in the business, that is your fault. There are missing links that the team need that you may not have considered yet so take a look and be honest- how are you showing up for your team? What tools and training are they missing?
Questions-
How do you measure success?
What does success look like to you?
PART 2 is out soon so keep your eyes peeled....
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Tracie Daly