Starting a Coffee Shop?

A recent Hub Question from Earl S. Wynn was, "What tips would you recommend to someone wanting to open their own coffee shop?" I thought this deserved a full Hub article, rather than just a quick answer. And we will add a few other contributions on this subject from other Hubbers.

Before I became a Business Coach, I was a Business Broker - I helped small business owners sell and buy their businesses. One of my clients was a very successful coffee shop owner, who owned several coffee shops. He asked me to find him another one he could buy. Having found one that was available for purchase, my client brought a fold up lawnchair and sat a few doors down on the opposite side of the street for three days, from opening time to closing time. He was studying, not only the traffic going into the coffee shop, but, more importantly, the traffic flow and volume of people passing by. This told me that, for this successful coffee shop owner, the volume of traffic that passed the coffee shop was the most important factor in his decision to purchase and the price he was prepared to pay.

As a matter of fact, he decided not to purchase this coffee shop because it was on the wrong side of the street. The coffee shop was situated so that it received some early morning sunshine, but from late morning on, it was on the shady side of the street and, for the rest of the day, most passers-by simply walked on the brighter side of the street, away from the shop.

Of course, this is just a coffee shop and this wouldn't apply to other businesses, would it?

Well, I believe it would. Obviously, all the shops on the sunny side of this street would have more potential customers walking by than the shops on the shady side of the street, no matter what they were selling. But what of other locations, factories, office-type businesses, service businesses?

I think the lesson here is not just in physical location. Before any business can be successful, it must have a constant flow of potential "passersby." Whether you are a business on Main Street, in a business park or on the internet, you must have customers who will see you even when they are not specifically looking for you.

Metaphorically speaking, it doesn't matter what kind of business you plan to start, you must hang your shingle out where people can see it, and there must be lots of people who can see it.

Frederick Pearce

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