Читать книгу Start & Run a Coffee Bar - Tom Matzen - Страница 9

What is the vision you have for your business? Do you want to create a community space where people come to gather in a warm, inviting environment? Or do you see yourself catering to the fast-paced morning-coffee crowd? Are social and environmental concerns important to you? Do you want to make a positive impact at the local or global level? What message do you want to convey to your customers and/or your community? How do you want to differentiate yourself from your competition? Do you see yourself drawing people in using unique foods like scrambled-eggs with Dungeness crab, olive oil cake, or bacon-apple doughnuts with maple glaze? Or do you see yourself promoting quick service at a busy drive-thru?

Do you love art and want to create areas for local artists to display their wares? Do you love music and want to have local music nights? Do you love poetry and want to have weekly poetry readings? Do you love to hear people’s stories and want to have Wednesday night storytelling?

Where do you see your coffee bar being located? What types of things appeal to people in that area? If you lived in San Francisco, you might want to tie in three themes that people in that city love: burritos, bicycles and coffee!

What fun concept(s) could you build your business around?

How serious do you want to be about your coffee? Are you going to provide sampling? Are you going to brew cups on demand using unique one-of-a-kind bean blends? Are you going to get really serious about your coffee and refuse, as one coffee bar in New York does, to offer cappuccinos because the milk overpowers the subtle flavors of the coffee?

If you don’t have a clear vision, spend time creating one ... research what other successful coffee bars are doing, what they are offering, what they look and feel like. Google the Top 10 coffee bars across the country, visit websites, look at menus, jot down ideas that appeal to you.

Recognizing that you will want to create a business that is consistent with your own personal style, the success of your business will ultimately rest on how consistent your business concept is with your specific target market. We will focus more on target market research later in the book but now is also the time to start thinking about the style of coffee bar that will appeal to your specific target market:

Does your target market love social causes? What kind of decor do they find appealing? Are they going to feel more comfortable sitting on an expensive, upscale settee, or lounging in an arm chair you got from the second hand store? Do they like fast service and consistent on-the-run products? Or would they prefer to take time in choosing the perfect, high-quality bean to take home and serve to their friends and family? How important is taste and quality to your customers? How important is value? What is going to keep your customers coming back to you regardless of economic conditions? What concepts are consistent with today’s trends? What concepts are going to withstand the tests of time? What concepts, styles, product and services are going to foster loyalty?

As you continue reading this book and doing additional research, you will want to come back to these questions again. The idea is to fine tune your concept into one that appeals to you on a personal level as well as to your target market. You may find that you have to be somewhat flexible in order to give your business the best chance for success. For example, donating a portion of your profits to help fund a school in Rwanda may not be #1 on your priority list but if, after additional research, you discover that tying in to a global social cause is very important to your target market, makes your customers feel great, builds loyalty and does some good in the world, it may move much higher up your priority list.