Five questions that you should think carefully about running a coffee shop

Many coffee enthusiasts around the world hope to one day own their own cafe, serve customers an exhilarating drink, and then live happily. But only a few visionary coffee dreamers seriously think about how to run a successful cafe.

Many startups seem to be overly obsessed with the quality of coffee and store decoration, which are self-evident important conditions of practice, but this is only one aspect of running a store. In fact, many professionals worry about these very important basic conditions, such as the setting of product prices, menu planning and staff training.

There is no doubt that coffee owners must have a lot of enthusiasm for boutique coffee, and even be fascinated by it. However, running a successful coffee shop is no easy task, and if you don't think carefully about the location of the store, this thorny little problem can kill you miserably long before you sell your first cup of coffee.

How to evaluate whether a person can run a coffee shop? new coffee makers are advised to think carefully about a few questions to make sure they really understand the investment. It is hoped that this will save a small number of blind suitors who only see the dream of milk vapor bubbles.

Question 1: are you patient?

Patience will be the first thing you need to run a coffee shop. All the obvious things test the patience of newcomers-picky customers, lazy employees and difficult machines, problem groups are too numerous to prepare-and sometimes even the business philosophy itself can be the biggest cause of frustration.

Running a coffee shop requires a huge investment of time and money. Although the industry makes some people a lot of money, many retailers spend a lot of time getting a small return. You must be prepared to work for free until you start to make a profit.

Question 2: is your investment plan practical?

You must prepare a pragmatic investment and profit plan, and you must have a fairly clear idea of how much your coffee business plan should invest.

The financial problems of preparing to open a new cafe can be tricky, but in any case, the combination of individual funds, bank loans and so on must be carried out as soon as possible. Realise your business philosophy and personal use of existing funds, even if you do not have a large number of cities, you can still become a small-scale cool cafe owner.

Question 3: what kind of customer layer do you want to serve?

Understanding your customer needs is the key. Targeting the main clientele you want to attract will help you make decisions in every process of menu making and even choosing a store location.

For example: if you are targeting busy passers-by, a community cafe that serves hand-made coffee is definitely not your ideal business model; on the contrary, a coffee shop selling fast food next to a mass transit station would be a better choice. You need to think carefully about how your consumers will view your store space.

Question4: do you have a suitable store location in mind?

This is a cliche question, but location is really the key! One of the first points you have to keep in mind is to find a place with the right guest floor. For many newcomers, this can be a challenging phase; it takes time to find the right place and has to deal with lawyers and landlords.

Even so, newcomers can focus on the needs of the customer layer near the community to meet the needs of your neighbors. To start the coffee business by meeting the needs of community customers is one of the broad roads to success.

Question 5: are you ready to be creative in marketing?

Many new entrants think that as long as they bring out coffee, customers will take the initiative to patronize. Unfortunately, things are often not as simple as you think. If you don't do marketing, don't expect your career to improve. Coffee owners need not only shrewd low-cost control, but also high-impact marketing to build a cafe's reputation.

You are the goodwill ambassador of your cafe, and you must take this as your goal to successfully run your cafe. There is no such thing as a silver bullet plan, and every marketing plan must meet your unique needs of targeting customers and your business philosophy. In any case, by mastering low-cost control and developing marketing strategies based on customers, you can successfully run a cafe-before you take a chance, make sure you have a pragmatic idea of what you are about to do.

Article source: coffee time machine