Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders

The pursuit of excellence drives us to create very stringent standards for our coffee, service, and businesses. There is nothing wrong with this, except for when it becomes so narrow that it chokes out the life of the café, pushes people away and ends up, creating the opposite result then we intended. On today's shift break we are going to talk about why it's OK to have reasonable tolerances in the café and how having them is actually necessary to achieve excellence in all areas overtime Related episodes: 436: STOP BURN OUT! AND MAKE WORK EFFORTLESS W/ GREG MCKEOWN | BEST SELLING AUTHOR "EFFORTLESS" 435 : ENCORE! IT'S OK TO BE THE BOSS, W/ BRUCE TULGAN 432 : HOW TO WIN IN SPECIALTY RETAIL COFFEE 427 : ENCORE EPISODE: WHAT YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT EMPLOYEE CULTURE W/ STAN SLAP 426: FOSTERING A CULTURE OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT In my consulting work through KTTS Consulting, management and leadership structures are one of the main conversations we have. Working to create clarity, understanding, and systems for success in leadership has a compound effect on the rest of the business. Would you like to work with me 1:1 to help your cafe thrive in quality, operations, and people? Click below for a discovery call and lets have a conversation! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Thank you to out sponsors! Custom branded apps for your coffee shop: www.espressly.co The best and most revered espresso machines on the planet: www.lamarzoccousa.com

The world of coffee trade and commerce is complex to say the least. The difference between a business that succeeds and one that flounders is largely based on how well we know the business of coffee and how we move wisely within it as we establish and grow our shops and roasters. The consistent nurturing and success of our business has a ripple effect that will help the whole supply chain. Certainly it is not overstating the case that, if we want to have true sustainability then we in specialty coffee need to be about the business of coffee as well as the craft itself. But where do we start to gain this understanding? To help us view this world in a clearer light I am thrilled to welcome Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood to KTTS! Maxwell Dashwood's fascination with coffee began in Melbourne, Australia, in 2007. Returning to the UK, he co-managed a coffee events company and opened Colonna & Small's, a Bath-based coffee shop with a focus on curated, changing coffee menus. Maxwell founded and runs the Colonna Coffee roastery, and has recently opened a Colonna & Small's location in London. He also works on different coffee research and development projects. An acclaimed figure in the industry, Maxwell is a three-time winner of the UK Barista Championships and has co-authored academic papers on coffee. He's also the co-author of "Water For Coffee," a study on the impact of water on coffee taste, and "The Coffee Dictionary," an accessible guide to coffee terminology. His most recent book, "The Business of Specialty Coffee," combines his business experiences with an exploration of the coffee supply chain. Here is just some of what we discuss in this episode: The need for business knowledge Maxwell's career development Why write this book? Unicorn business vs the preferable "good" business Various business models Fast vs slow growth Specialty coffee's need for the brick and mortar cafe Sustaining a business to fulfill your vision Links: Buy the book: www.scottrao.com Follow: https://www.instagram.com/mcolonnadashwood/ https://colonnacoffee.com/ Related episodes: 082 : Knowledge and Flavor w/ Cosimo Libardo 335: A Better Business Model for Coffee Farmers w/ Thaleon Tremain of Pachamama Coffee 239 : 5 Best Practices for the Best Small Business w/ Henry Lopez 223 : Building a Financially Resilient Business w/ Andrew Carroll 017 : Founder Friday w/ Jonathan Rubinstein of Joe Coffee: Entrepreneurship | Coffee Business | Hiring | Barista Culture | Growth Hire Keys to the Shop Consulting to work with you 1:1 to transform your operations, quality, and people. Schedule a free discovery call now! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Thank you to our amazing sponsors! Get the best brewer and tool for batch espresso, iced lattes, and 8 minute cold brew! www.groundcontrol.coffee The world loves plant based beverages and baristas love the Barista Series! www.pacificfoodservice.com

The holiday rush is in full swing and many of us (most of us) are trying our best to just survive the frenzy. Shops are full of customers as well as friends and visiting family of our customers and it is a great time to not just survive the craziness but to increase our intentionality, presence of hospitality, and care for our staff and guest in spite of the pressure. Today on Shift Break we will be talking about how we can plan our energy, presence, and lean into ways to make the holiday time more than just a profitable time for finances, but also a time where we are reinforcing our values and bringing the our best selves to the work of coffee. Related episodes: 058 : Holiday Hospitality 254 : Holiday Hospitality Part 2 084 : Crushing the Rush : Tips and Best Practices for Busy Times 111 : Self Care 101: Taking care of yourself while taking care of others 176 : Harnessing Emotions at Work w/ Andrea Hoban of Oji Life Lab Episode 32: Making Order Out of Chaos Episode 57: SOPs FTW In my consulting work through KTTS Consulting, management and leadership structures are one of the main conversations we have. Working to create clarity, understanding, and systems for success in leadership has a compound effect on the rest of the business. Would you like to work with me 1:1 to help your cafe thrive in quality, operations, and people? Click below for a discovery call and lets have a conversation! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Thank you to out sponsors! Custom branded apps for your coffee shop: www.espressly.co The best and most revered espresso machines on the planet: www.lamarzoccousa.com

As the tools we use to craft coffee multiply, so too does the need for companies to keep the machines running well. Service techs are an essential segment of the industry and in an industry based on hospitality and service, it is important that a tech is able to not just diagnose and fix machines, but is able to work with people in a way that reflects the values of hospitality that equipment is meant to help produce. I am thrilled to finally get an opportunity to talk with someone whose history in coffee and mission with his company has been focused on community and a people-first culture from the beginning. Excited to welcome the co-founder of Black Rabbit Service Co., Jason "Double J" Johnson! Double J has been quite a while. Starting as a teenager in the mid 90's, he developed a deep passion for coffee, food, and hospitality. After moving to Portland Oregon in 2001 he worked for a handful of coffee houses (large and small) until finding work as a coffee technician for Stumptown Coffee. After a decade of honing his tech skills at Stumptown he is now a co-owner of Black Rabbit Service Co. Fast forward a few more years, Double J is now the writer, producer and host of Coffee Breath - A food and travel show based around coffee and cafe culture. Today we will be chatting about Double J's career, how he learned the industry and began tech work, the founding and development of Black Rabbit, and how they serve both their clients and their team with empathy and expertise. Links: www.blackrabbitservice.com www.coffeebreathshow.com Listen to these episodes next: RoR # 22 : Master Insights on Roaster Maintenance and Care w/ Doug Graf, Vintage Coffee 240 : What to do before your Build your Bar 238 : Leading, Hiring, and working with your Coffee Tech w/ Hylan Joseph 128 : Terry's Top 10 w/ Terry Ziniewicz : Best practices for how not to kill your espresso machine Hire Keys to the Shop Consulting to work with you 1:1 to transform your operations, quality, and people. Schedule a free discovery call now! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Thank you to our amazing sponsors! Get the best brewer and tool for batch espresso, iced lattes, and 8 minute cold brew! www.groundcontrol.coffee The world loves plant based beverages and baristas love the Barista Series! www.pacificfoodservice.com

We are obsessed with innovation that tends to solve problems that are increasingly inconsequential to the customer. A race to put coffee in virtually any context all in the name of convenience may bring coffee to more people, but what does it do to the value of the coffee when we remove virtually all customer generated investment into the process. Today on Shift Break we will be talking about why a bit of inconvenience is ok and, in fact, may be a needed thing to allow the customer the buy in, personal investment, ritual, and connection with the product we are, in my opinion, rushing to devalue through wasteful mindless mass consumption. In my consulting work through KTTS Consulting, management and leadership structures are one of the main conversations we have. Working to create clarity, understanding, and systems for success in leadership has a compound effect on the rest of the business. Would you like to work with me 1:1 to help your cafe thrive in quality, operations, and people? Click below for a discovery call and lets have a conversation! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Related episodes: Sustainability Series #4 : Consumer BLOG: Getting out of Work 432 : How to Win in Specialty Retail Coffee Thank you to out sponsors! Custom branded apps for your coffee shop: www.espressly.co The best and most revered espresso machines on the planet: www.lamarzoccousa.com

Taking what you have learned over many years of working in coffee and creating your own roasting and cafe business is no easy task. It requires a strong enough "why" and a vision for the people that the roastery and shop wil serve. Cody Gordon did just that with the founding of Cerberus Coffee in Jacksonville, Oregon. In this conversation Cody and I discuss the journey taken from barista, manager, wholesale manager, and finally roaster and owner. We talk especially about the recent scaling of Cerberus, and the impact it has on how Cody and the team can serve their community and make a difference through community, good business, and great coffee. Links: www.cerberuscoffeeco.com https://cerberuscoffeeco.com/pages/the-wizard-cat-project IG: @cerberuscoffeeco Related episodes: RoR #6: Buying Less and Doing More w/ Ever Meister RoR #5: Time and Color in Roasting w/ Morten Munchow of Coffee Mind" 361: Managing Roastery Relationships and Logistics w/ Corey Turner of Andytown Coffee Roasters Subscribe to Roast Magazine! https://www.roastmagazine.com/subscribe Visit www.roastertools.com for a free e-book and the best software to help you run a roastery!

The magic baristas can render from coffee relies on not just their skill and the incredible efforts from producers and roasters, but also on the quality of the equipment they have to work with. Over the past couple decades the quality and consistency of machines has improved in massive ways. Much of the reason for this lies with the way machine manufacturers and baristas have evolved their relationship on to the other. Today we will explore this evolution with the VP of Synesso Espresso Machines, Ryan Willbur! Ryan Willbur has been working within the Specialty Coffee Industry for over 15 years. His career has taken him from barista, to Account Management, Marketing, Sales, and Leadership. Along the way, Ryan has been a competitive barista, a coffee roaster, and has spent many hours learning and sharing about the technical workings of espresso and coffee equipment. Ryan is currently the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Synesso Espresso Machines. In this role, he travels the world, building relationships with customers, and working to understand coffee culture in various markets. From his perspective, people are the core of the coffee industry, and Ryan believes wholeheartedly in building relationships as the best means of doing business. Today we are talking about the how machines, barista culture, and the industry have been shaped by the way we communicate and serve each others needs along the value chain. Links: www.synesso.com Ryan on IG: @RWILLBUR Listen to these episodes next: 238 : Leading, Hiring, and working with your Coffee Tech w/ Hylan Joseph 405: Beyond the Schedule w/ Wil Brawley of Schedulefly 089 : La Marzocco USA General Manager, Andrew Daday : Leadership, Innovation, service, heritage 408: Coffee Tools, Music, and Serving the Community w/ Anita Tam of Slow Pour Supply Co. Hire Keys to the Shop Consulting to work with you 1:1 to transform your operations, quality, and people. Schedule a free discovery call now! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Thank you to our amazing sponsors! Get the best brewer and tool for batch espresso, iced lattes, and 8 minute cold brew! www.groundcontrol.coffee The world loves plant based beverages and baristas love the Barista Series! www.pacificfoodservice.com

Between the moment a farmer hands over their crop, to the moment a barista hands a customer a cup of that same coffee, there is a complex system that will either bring hope and equity to those most vulnerable, or reinforce the hopelessness that is too common with those who cultivate the coffee we love. Today's guest grew up seeing this hopelessness on her families farm and decided to do something about it. I am so excited to welcome to the podcast a leader in innovative trade models and the owner of Peixoto Coffee, Julia Peixoto Peters! Julia Peixoto was born and raised in a coffee farming-family in Southern Brazil watching her father and relatives give their lives to produce the best coffees they could but, when it was time to sell those coffees, they were at the mercy of the ups and (mostly) downs of the commodities market. Julia wanted to do better for her family and farmers in her region, changing the equity of the coffee trading game from the middleman to the farmers, who bear the brunt of the risks involved in farming and harvesting coffee. Julia and her husband Jeff left their promising corporate careers to start Peixoto Coffee in Arizona in 2015 to produce, import, roast, and bring to the market coffees farmed at their own family-farm, challenging the status-quo of the market and the traditional profiles expected of Brazilian coffees. We discuss: Julia's life on the coffee farm The hardships producers face Leaving her career for her higher calling in coffee Developing skill and finding mentors Running a coffee shop with a deeper narrative The first steps in vertical integration The challenges of leadership and importance of systems Having faith that you can figure it out Sustainable relationships and long term commitment Hiring staff to represent the vision and story Links: www.peixotocoffee.com Instagram: @peixotocoffee Related episodes: 288 : The Truth behind Cheap Coffee w/ Karl Weinhold 335: A Better Business Model for Coffee Farmers w/ Thaleon Tremain of Pachamama Coffee 413 : Coffee Education and Training at Origin w/ Fabiola Solano of Soy Barista 348: Founder Friday! w/ Benito Burmudez of Cafe Unido, Panama City, Panama! Hire Keys to the Shop Consulting to work with you 1:1 to transform your operations, quality, and people. Schedule a free discovery call now! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Thank you to our amazing sponsors! Get the best brewer and tool for batch espresso, iced lattes, and 8 minute cold brew! www.groundcontrol.coffee The world loves plant based beverages and baristas love the Barista Series! www.pacificfoodservice.com

The coffee shop environment is filled with more that just coffee. It is a swirling mix of emotions, thoughts, expectations, communication, action, interpretation of actions, and everything in between. In other words...Relationships. The hardest part of coffee is the people they say. And while it may be true, it is also true that people are integral to coffee and to the joy and fulfillment of the experience. On today's annual thankfulness themed Shift Break we will be talking about how the relationships and resources we have now are both a weight of responsibility but also a necessary fuel that we and the business are designed to run on in order to find sustainable success. Happy Thanksgiving! -Chris In my consulting work through KTTS Consulting, management and leadership structures are one of the main conversations we have. Working to create clarity, understanding, and systems for success in leadership has a compound effect on the rest of the business. Would you like to work with me 1:1 to help your cafe thrive in quality, operations, and people? Click below for a discovery call and lets have a conversation! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Related episodes: Thankfulness and Giving Energy to the Positive Priorities and Deep Thankfulness 224 : Essentialism: Focusing on what truly Matters w/ Greg McKeown The Miracle of the Mundane: How curiosity helps our sustainability Thank you to out sponsors! Custom branded apps for your coffee shop: www.espressly.co The best and most revered espresso machines on the planet: www.lamarzoccousa.com

Why do we overcomplicate things? Certainly details matter with SOPs , recipes, etc...but communication to our customers and staff can often be more confusing than helpful in delivering the impact and purpose we intend. The coffee shop is a dynamic place with a ton of inputs and noise swirling together. Having a simple clear way to communicate will help cut through the noise. Today we will be exploring how to do just that, and in turn how simple communication and messages can bring big results for cafes. I am happy to be joined today by author and expert in simple messaging, Ben Guttmann! Ben Guttmann is a marketing and communications expert and author of Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win — and How to Design Them. He's an experienced marketing executive and educator on a mission to get leaders to more effectively connect by simplifying their message. Ben is former co-founder and managing partner at Digital Natives Group, an award-winning agency that worked with the NFL, I Love NY, Comcast NBCUniversal, Hachette Book Group, The Nature Conservancy, and other major clients. Currently, Ben teaches digital marketing at Baruch College in New York City and consults with a range of thought leaders, venture-backed startups, and other brands. In our talk we cover: The reason and ways we over complicate massages What makes a simple message impactful The negative impact of too many words How do we ensure the right result from our communication? Nobody cares and the paradox of choice Applying constraints to challenge ourselves The perception of confidence We can only care about so much Links: Buy the book : Simply Put! www.Benguttmann.com Ben Guttmann on LinkedIn Listen to these episodes next: 215 : Communication and Marketing Master Class w/ Spencer M. Ross, PH.D. 421: Encore Episode: Simple, Powerful, Hospitality w/ Philip Paul Turner 432 : How to Win in Specialty Retail Coffee BLOG: Good Communication is "For Here" 321 : Marketing and Moral Injury w/ Josh Tarlo of Kiss the Hippo Hire Keys to the Shop Consulting to work with you 1:1 to transform your operations, quality, and people. Schedule a free discovery call now! https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min Thank you to our amazing sponsors! Get the best brewer and tool for batch espresso, iced lattes, and 8 minute cold brew! www.groundcontrol.coffee The world loves plant based beverages and baristas love the Barista Series! www.pacificfoodservice.com