How a Small Coffee Shop Won My Business (Hint: It wasn’t the coffee…)

I’m working from an area of town I’m unfamiliar with today, so I did a quick google for local coffee shops, and one photo caught my eye:

coffee shop internet speed

They get me. ♥

 

Like most people who frequent coffee shops, I care very little about quality coffee.

Depending on the day, I go to a coffee shop to read, work, stare mindlessly into space, think, relax, chat with friends, or simply to get a break from the kids for 20 minutes while they play (see Sovereign Grounds below).

Sometimes I go to a coffee shop, because it’s the only damn place open at 9 pm.

Never ever ever do I say, “Hot damn — I need a quality cup of coffee!”

What You Are Selling Is Not What People Are Buying

Keurig is a thing…AND coffee shops are a thing…

Successful coffee shop owners know that coffee is not their core product.

Nobody comes to Sovereign Grounds for the coffee…yet it’s ALWAYS packed.

Sell Coffee But Pitch Wifi

Steamship Coffee & Tea’s product is coffee, but what they are pitching is amazing wifi.

What are you pitching?

Toby

[Toby on LinkedIn]

p.s. There is probably a coffee shop somewhere in God’s Great Green Earth that actually wins by selling great coffee — That’s a different story…

Toby Cryns

(who loves peanut butter)