Samuel Gurel, of the Sustainable Coffee Institute, debunks the myths around coffee shop success and talks about why the road to success looks more like understanding the core of your business—your why, vision and values.
SCI What Makes a Coffee Shop
Samuel Gurel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the coffee business podcast. I'm Samuel Gurel. Today we're going to be talking about what really makes coffee shops successful.
This is a... this is a very nuanced subject because you know, everyone would agree if you're in the coffee industry, this is no secret. You would say, hey, well, it depends on if you have a great product. Do you have good service, if the environment and everything is great, if you have a great brand, you're going to be successful. And there's nothing wrong with that, that's very true.
But at SCI we found that that's really not the whole story. While that's true, there's something deeper going on. And what we found is, is that, in reality, the companies that really tend to be able to nail those things consistently, they always have a great location. Every store they open there's great service and even the speed at which they deliver their products - the price, the brand - everything comes together: the music, the lighting, the coffee culture, everything is always well executed. And what we've found is the companies that can consistently do that well in maybe more than one coffee shop - and maybe every time you go in there you have a great experience - we've found that companies that can do that well - it's not accidental. They have business processes, they have built systems, and they have a great management team that makes sure that they can consistently execute on those things. But even that understanding is maybe not the whole picture. What we've found is, is that there's even a layer deeper than that.
And what we've found is is that in companies that have great systems and great processes and are really successful over the long haul - and, Harvard Business School did a study and they found the same thing - they found that companies that were ran based on a strong company, culture and strong values were 760% more profitable.
It's quite compelling. So much so that one author, Patrick Lencioni, says that this is the only sustainable competitive advantage you can have. He says technology and patents and other things like that. People will eventually copy. The only thing that can't be copied is your company culture. So here today, we're here to talk about what is company culture and how do you build a great company culture?
So culture is often confusing and often it's done wrong. So we're going to talk a little bit about that and talk about vision, mission, [and] values today, and what really makes a coffee shop successful and what really makes any coffee company successful. This could be a company at any level, and it really comes down to starting out knowing who you are.
So vision is about knowing where you want to go. And so many companies don't really know where they're going. They don't really want to know where they want to be in five years or 10 years. But if you want to be successful and if you want your team to have a north star, to have a guiding principle, a direction they're going, you have to give them a vision and tell them clearly, this is who we want to become. That could be in terms of how your brand is perceived. That could be in terms of profitability or number stores. It could be in lots of different ways, but they have to know where they're going. Secondly, is the Simon Sinek idea of start with why. You have to know why your company exists. You have to know what is your motivating big idea of why you're doing this thing.
Everyone has deep in their heart, some motivating ideas that get them out of bed in the morning. So what is it that gets you out of bed? What is it that gets you excited? That's really your company's mission, but unfortunately, so many mission statements are written in such a boring way, and in such a way that's so impractical to live out that it isn't motivating to people.
Your mission statement is not a marketing slogan. It has to be stated in non-negotiable terms. Crystal clear: why it is you're in business. It should not be written with any kind of marketing spin on it. It's not meant to sound good. It's meant to be good. It's not decided, but it's the steel, that's something that comes from within you. Something that is deep within your heart.
And then your values. And again, your values shouldn't be things like innovation or excellence. Most companies would all agree they want to innovate and they want to do things with excellence. But what you're really looking for is core values that would be so specific to you that maybe every other company would not agree with. Your values don't change with time. Your values are about what's really important to you. Your values are things that when violated may even upset you. And this is actually sometimes a really good tool to find out what your values are, is ask people around you: when, what values are violated, do you find this person getting upset? And that usually tells you to some degree what their values are.
Another way to think of values is what sorts of things would you insist on doing. Even if it didn't help you make more money. That's a difference between values and strategy. Values are things that you would do even if it didn't help you make money. Strategy is something you decide on. It's not something you discern or distill from within, it's something you decide on of, "how are we going to be successful?" And while values don't change over time, strategy will change over time. Your strategy with COVID, it better have changed. You better adapt your strategy for whatever current world you're living in. And so your vision-mission-values don't change, [but] your strategy and tactics and priorities might change over time.
So the point of today's podcast is really simple. It's not these exterior things of location and service and product that make a business successful. Yeah, those are what make you successful, but there's something deeper that's helping those things come about and those are the systems and processes and management team that makes them happen.
But the way you get good systems and management team is to have a great company culture. And that word company culture can get real confusing so let's make it practical. That's your vision, missions, values and strategy. SCI has found through its research that companies that run their coffee businesses based on their values are more resilient. They're more profitable. They're more likely able to weather storms like this pandemic. So if you want to know what you can do right now to rally your team, to give everyone a greater sense of purpose, then we would invite you: take this journey with us, see how you can build a stronger culture for your team.
As a leader, there's no job more important than you building and protecting a strong culture. So join us on this podcast. If you're not already signed up, go to SCI.coffee, sign up for our newsletter and build a great culture that you can be proud of.