Corporate Specialty Coffee Concepts
Are you happy with the bottom line of your Coffee Concepts?
Would you like to increase sales and customers rate of return?Though the choice of a location is the single most important element for the success of a retail coffee business, there are many other reasons why a coffee shop may be serving over 1000 espresso based drinks a day, while another, just a few doors down the street, merely manages to serve 50 drinks.
To put it simply, a coffee concept (no food except pastries) that does not generate at least 50% of it's total revenues from espresso based drinks did not position the concept so as to maximize its sales.
If a prospective new customer finds an extensive, confusing menu, slow service, poor tasting drinks, he or she won't return, and the vast majority of drinks sold will be brewed coffee. This may have very little to do with the equipment or coffee beans used, and everything with effective marketing and proper preparation techniques.
The other reasons why a coffee shop does not sell enough espresso based drinks, besides a poor location, are:
1. The owner or the manager does not drink or believe in the espresso potential himself or herself. It is very hard to convince your customers to try your espresso based drinks if you do not like them yourself, and I don't mean a "latte" drowned in some flavored syrup.
2. Because of non-existent or ineffective marketing strategy, the business does not know how to attract new, non "espresso educated" customers, or how to capture existing "espresso users" from the nearby competition.
3. The work area was designed improperly, making it awkward and time consuming to prepare drinks efficiently and promptly.
4. A menu that does not make any sense to a new customer.
5. Prices that have no relation to the perceived value of the product.
6. Poorly trained employees, with no clue on how to prepare a drink properly and efficiently.
7. Slow service.
8. Bad tasting drinks due to improper preparation techniques, wrong coffee grind, poor equipment maintenance, lack of proper employee training, or wrong kind of coffee used for the intended purpose.
9. Poor, non-existent or confusing "Espresso Image" and marketing of the product.
In order to increase sales, speed up the service, start attracting more customers and have a better weapon against your competition, you must enhance your "Espresso Image". All of the above, except a poor location, can be corrected.
HERE IS WHAT WE WILL DO TO INCREASE YOUR SALES AND CUSTOMERS SATISFACTION:
1. Arrive at your location and observe your operation. We will check: equipment lay-out, menu and pricing, customer order and pick up area, drink preparation techniques for taste and speed, signs and any other promotional material.
2. We will suggest how to reposition your equipment (if needed) for speed and efficiency of operation, (some times all it takes is to move it a few inches) suggest menu and pricing adjustments so as to focus on espresso based drinks and implement some effective. little cost marketing techniques to attract more espresso customers.
3. Present a mini-espresso business seminar to the owner and selected employees, which will include in depth drink preparation techniques for best taste and speed.
4. Work with your "baristas" on line, serving drinks to actual customers and improving their new skills.
All of the above may be accomplished in about a day and a half, and if implemented, you will notice an increase in sales and customer satisfaction within a short time.
As a few years ago a coffee bar could get away with slow service and improperly prepared drinks due to lack of competition and a standard of comparison, this is not the case today.
In some parts of the country you will find two or three coffee bars within the same block, and the customer does not have to put up with poor service and lousy drinks any longer. Regular brewed coffee, no matter how good it may be, is not going to attract customers or retain their loyalty if they can get the same thing in a more convenient place to them. To survive and prosper, you must develop a strategic difference from your competition, and the most effective way to do that is by implementing a viable espresso concept, which may require a different approach, marketing and drink preparation techniques.
My book, "Espresso Business Success Program" shows how to increase your espresso sales by applying some proven and effective principles developed and refined for the last thirty years by me and my clients.
I will be happy to talk to you without any cost or obligation:Alex Fisenko - 503 590 9423 after 9 A.M. Pacific time
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