Excerpt from Bean Business Basics

Bellissimo Consulting specializes in the coffee shop industry. They publish books and videos in addition to their consulting practices. One of their business-building promotions is a monthly e-newsletter of "Retailer Tips," which is usually a "re-purposing" of content they have produced in other formats. I always find their books and other materials to be top notch.

This month's e-newsletter is drawn from the third edition of Bean Business Basics and it's about building a strong staff. If you've ever wondered why I don't like working for other people, here's some insight from Bellissimo, but it echoes my own thoughts...

Teaching Your Employees

It’s also important to constantly challenge and teach your employees. We’re strong believers in the saying that there is no such thing as a plateau. When it comes to personal or professional development you’re either growing or regressing. In order to keep your employees motivated and always moving forward, it’s important to keep them challenged and thinking....

Understanding Your Employees and Accepting Responsiblity

Understand that your employees will be passing judgment on you on a daily basis as to whether or not you are fulfilling your duties and responsibilities as a manager. Most owners find this difficult to accept. After all, what right do your employees have to pass judgment on you? You’re the owner of the business! You’re the one working 80 hours a week! You’re the one that has taken the giant financial risk! They don’t know how many things you juggle, or how busy you are, and how much you actually do. But really, those things are not important to your employees, and shouldn’t be important to them.

What is important to employees are the things that impact them and their job function on a daily basis. Do they have the tools necessary to perform the job at the level that you expect from them? Is your equipment in optimal condition or is it in need of repair? Do they have enough steaming pitchers and thermometers, enough ceramic cups, enough syrup pumps? Do they have the ingredients available to prepare all the items on your menu, all the time?

You need to understand that if you’re out of something, it’s probably not you that’s standing at the counter experiencing the disgust of the customer. It’s your employee that’s being embarrassed. It’s your poor employee who is listening to your customers, hearing perhaps 20 times a day, What, you’re out of chocolate? If you are going to demand professional results from your employees, you have to be professional in your job as well.

Or as Matsushita (founder of the company that produces Panasonic and other brands), "to be out of stock is a sign of carelessness."

Index Keywords: retail