Building a business is no easy feat. It requires a long process and a strong determination to achieve success.
In fact, in business, we must be prepared to face the risk of failure. Therefore, not everyone dares to dive into the business world.
Owning your own coffee shop may be a dream for many coffee enthusiasts. To be able to savor the aroma of coffee in your own shop is a satisfaction and a daily mood booster.
We must admit that having a coffee shop business is considered cool nowadays. Especially when seeing your coffee shop bustling with customers, it's a pride of its own.
Before you really dive in and open your own coffee shop, you should be aware of some skills that should not be underestimated by coffee shop owners:
1. Choosing Quality Coffee Beans
The key to an attractive coffee menu is high-quality raw materials.
With various types of coffee available, especially from within the country, you need to learn to recognize the characteristics and how to choose coffee beans with the quality standards that best suit your business needs.
You also need to establish relationships with coffee maestros who truly understand the ins and outs of Indonesian coffee, including with farmers or suppliers.
Read also Indonesian Coffee that Goes Global
2. Processing or Brewing Coffee
Even if you are not the one brewing coffee to serve to customers, it's good to know how each menu in your coffee shop is made.
This way, you can identify the critical points of each menu and easily make decisions when problems arise related to the taste of that menu. You can take barista and coffee brewing classes to hone this skill.
Read also Effective Tips for Choosing the Right Barista for Your Coffee Shop!
3. Customer Service Oriented
When starting a coffee shop business, it is very important to have this skill. Understanding and the desire to provide the best service to customers have a great influence on the advancement of the coffee shop business.
This skill includes the ability to understand customer desires, patience in dealing with customers, and openness to criticism.
Read also 7 Strategies to Build Customer Experience
4. Digital Marketing
In an era where social media rapidly unites the market, it is very important for you to master the use and utilization of social media as a marketing channel.
Identify your target market and start conversations in cyberspace through digital branding of your coffee shop business.
Read also Effective Marketing Strategies for Coffee Shops
Join digital marketing seminars and classes that are widely available today, or take online classes if you find it difficult to make time for face-to-face learning.
Read also How to Apply Digital Marketing for F&B Business
5. Good Communication
If you are leading this business directly, you also need to have this skill. Good communication is not only implemented with customers but also with the internal team working with you. As a leader, you must be able to explain your vision and desires to the team.
As a result, your team can execute those desires well. This internal communication must also be two-way, so you must also have listening skills. Especially if you are not directly involved in the business, your employees surely have input and want to be heard.
6. Creativity
If you want your coffee shop business to grow or continuously develop, then make sure you have this skill: creativity. A profitable business must follow market trends.
For example, the current trend is coffee with brown sugar, but it's not guaranteed that this trend will last until next year. Following market trends can be a good start, but you also need to have creativity to become a trendsetter in this field.
That way, your coffee shop business will never die. One way to develop creativity is to always seek as much information as possible.
Think about what is currently trending in society. What are they enjoying right now?
For reference, you can look at this article; 12 Contemporary Drink Ideas
After gathering various information, this is where you start to create trends that are currently popular. Also, look for coffee menu information from abroad, as it could become inspiration and be applied domestically.
Creativity is not limited to menu development alone. You can also break the mold by creating a unique coffee shop concept.
For instagrammable interior design ideas, you can look at this article:
11 Contemporary and Instagrammable Cafe Interior Ideas
Basically, customers in the millennial generation era love to try something new and want to be different from others.
In addition to selling taste, you can also sell the 'experience' of having coffee in your shop. You could, for example, create a slightly odd (but still polite and reasonable) coffee shop concept, or a different way of presenting the menu.
You can also get ideas from here: 5 Unique Strategies for Coffee Shops
7. Time and Financial Management
Whether you are an investor, owner, or employee, everyone is required to have the ability to manage time and understand finances.
Even a promising business can fall and crumble without good management. From the beginning of starting a business, time and financial management have already been a challenge.
How do you prepare? How do you calculate the time needed to run all business processes? And how can you realize all the checklist items within the predetermined time frame?
For reference, you can read this article;
How to Make a Budget Plan to Make Your Business Finances Effective.
The same goes for financial issues; you should avoid diving into a business without good preparation and financial arrangement. In the early stages of starting a business, avoid spending all your capital.
Because you should at least have funds to purchase raw materials, create promotions, hire employees, and so on.
Read also 5 Benefits of Using a Financial Note Application for F&B Business
8. Expanding Networking
Without a wide network, a coffee shop business will also experience slow growth.
A coffee shop business owner must also have good networking skills in finding partnerships, collaborations, and even when looking for prospective employees. It's possible that as the business grows, you will expand your business to various regions.
Therefore, networking skills play an important role. For example, when there is a community meeting of coffee shop owners, then you need to join to expand your network.
On such occasions, you can also promote your coffee shop to other owners, thus establishing new relationships.
Well, those are the skills you must have as a coffee shop owner. Keep training your skills so your coffee shop business can grow!
9. Digital Mindset
We are now in the digital era, where almost all matters can be done with the help of technology. You need to adapt and implement digitalization in the business you are running.
Yes, you must seize opportunities amid technological developments, including the use of applications in the business you are developing. This is important because if everything is still done manually and traditionally, your business will grow slowly.
Read also Easy Tips for Building a Coffee Shop
But don't worry, among the many business applications available, you can take advantage of the Opaper application for business convenience. All operational business matters can be handled by Opaper.
From financial reports, stock management, marketing, POS, reservation ordering or self-order, and much more. With Opaper, all the above matters can be done automatically.
Even for online order delivery issues, Opaper can also help. There are many choices of online courier partners that you can use for the smooth delivery of your orders.
With Opaper, you can calculate shipping costs automatically, and Opaper will find the courier for you. No need to spend a lot of time managing online courier orders. Business operations become more efficient.