Jack Groots Blog

5 Budget-Minded Ways to Market Your Store

Jack — Wed, 30 May 2012 18:33:37 +0000

5 Budget-Minded Ways to Market Your Store Marketing is so much more than an ad, a brochure or a TV commercial. Marketing encompasses, and is the most successful, when it includes categories such as guerrilla marketing and connecting with your community. Go ahead and spend money on advertising if you must, but learn and employ strategies such as these and you’ll benefit more, spend less and see the effects multiply for years to come. Below are 5 easy and effective ways for you to market your business in real and tangible ways and get your community to know you exist. Create a Coffee Raid [...]

How To Expand, or Not Expand, Your Store

Jack — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:00:04 +0000

This building is ugly Let me expand on that. Both buildings are ugly, the original and the addition (can you guess which is which?). But, I am not here to discuss my lack of art appreciation or your disagreement with me. I want to talk a bit about your business and what to do, or not do, when it is time to expand. Many years ago JP’s opened in 1993. By the time we had been in business a few years we had many day parts when we could use more seating. Of course a busy time for many [...]

How Saving Money Can Cost You Everything

Jack — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:30:01 +0000

Tacos al pastor, the best! There is a Mexican restaurant in my town I love going to. An authentic Mexican restaurant serving these stinking addictive tacos called tacos al pastor. If you’ve never had one you need to. And make sure you get one – or six – the way God and little old Mexican women intended them. Corn tortillas with fabulous marinated pork, chopped onion and cilantro…that’s it. I happen to splash on a generous portion of freshly made fiery hot salsa verde, but that’s because I like pain (although I do go a little less authentic getting [...]

20 Reasons Why You Must Quit Your Day Job to Open a Coffee Shop

Jack — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:54:13 +0000

A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road. The Chicken says, “Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!” Pig replies, “Hmm, maybe, what would we call it?” The Chicken responds, “How about ‘Ham-N-Eggs’?” The Pig thinks for a moment and says, “No thanks. I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved!” An old story, I know, but effective nonetheless. The pig literally has skin in the game, but the chicken can walk away. Over the years I’ve worked with a few clients who wanted to open a coffee bar, but to minimize risk, keep cash flow [...]

Know Who You Are and Benefit From It

Jack — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:24:45 +0000

The Author My wife is an author. She has been published half a dozen times and has moved progressively in a positive direction (each book goes higher in sales numbers). Her books have received starred reviews by both Booklist and Publisher’s Weekly and her last book won the Christy Award. She has a well-known and capable agent and last year she signed a contract with a large and well-known publisher. Know Thyself Ever since we were married I have told my wife, “One day I’ll have 4 words for you: I – told – you – so.” You see my wife has a [...]

Staying Relevant In A Changing Market

Jack — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:00:07 +0000

Relevant (ˈre-lə-vənt) Definition: closely connected or appropriate to the matter at hand: having social relevance. With today’s educated consumers, constant competition, increasing coffee prices, workforce issues, aging equipment, easy access to review websites and more, staying relevant is essential to ongoing success. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today. To start, let’s look at a few stats: What is the survival rate for new firms? “Two-thirds of new employer establishments survive at least two years, and 44 percent survive at least four years, according to a recent study. These results were similar for different industries. Despite conventional [...]

Is The Customer Is Always Right? Or Is The Customer Just Stupid?

Jack — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:02:24 +0000

Is the customer always right? The old adage is the customer is always right. Well, what if they’re wrong? Flat out wrong. How do you handle that? Or better yet how do your employees handle that? Because they handle customer interaction on a daily basis. Everyone knows the customer is not always right. The real issue is how businesses respond to customers when their expectations are not met. I don’t need your money I’ve told customers I don’t need their three dollars today, I need their three dollars everyday…for the next year. Or five years. And that’s absolutely critical in the coffee [...]

Time out

Jack — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:19 +0000

I am taking a short time off from blogging for the next couple of weeks. With my son getting married, Coffee Fest NY, training and taking a short vacation I am going to be too busy to write quality and effective content. Thank you to all who read this blog and gain value from it – I appreciate your support. I will be back to my normal Wednesday post in a couple weeks. In the mean time, I hope to see you at Coffee Fest NY!

The foundation of a great coffeeshop is teamwork and family

Jack — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:00:23 +0000

Nothing could be better than being too busy to write a quality post this week…as my oldest son is getting married and its been a bit busy. So, a quick, proud moment showing some pictures of my oldest son Evan, his two younger brothers, Grayson and Riley, and his soon to be bride Becca, affectionally known as Becca Lou. They are getting married Friday February 17th, and then immediately leave together Saturday for a short “honeymoon” back at the DLI in Monterrey CA. To connect this to the intent of this blog (gotta connect it somehow, right?)…it takes teamwork to raise a [...]