No matter who you are, and how much experience you possess, it is highly unlikely that you will succeed or maximize your level of success in the specialty coffee industry without the help of some very important professionals. You need to have a strong partnership between yourself and all the professionals on your team. Everyone needs to work together to formulate the strongest possible program for your business. In this chapter we look at how professionals can help you achieve your business dreams and goals.

Consultants to the specialty coffee industry
Consultants to the specialty coffee business, like ourselves at Bellissimo, provide you with an opportunity to learn from our mistakes, successes, and real-life experiences with hundreds of clients. Good consultants can provide you with valuable information. For example, they often know who in our industry is honest, and who is not. Who is proficient and professional at what they do, and who is not. Which manufacturers have good reputations for producing dependable equipment, and providing excellent service, and those that do not. A good consultant can also help you find those companies that produce the highest quality food products, with proven consumer acceptance.

If you are a newcomer to this business, your lack of information may cause you to make some very bad business decisions. Consultants, with their knowledge and expertise, can guide you through the building, learning, and growth processes of your new business.

Using professionals offers another important benefit: They can provide you with objective advice.

You have a passionate vision in your mind of your desired business. You can imagine your coffee bar in vivid detail, the multitudes of customers you will be serving, the smells of the fresh baked pastries and coffee brewing, the music that you will have playing-you are emotionally involved with your dream. Your emotions may tend to sway your best judgment.

The professionals do not really care about all of these factors except for how they might relate to the success of your business. Your consultant will help you look at projected numbers, working designs, operational systems, equipment and vendor selections, etc. Hopefully they will use their experience to look after your best interests. A good consultant can prevent you from making those critical, costly, emotionally-based mistakes.

Saving on equipment costs
Consultants can often save you money by allowing you, through their contacts, to purchase equipment at a better price than you might be able to negotiating on your own. Consultants often have business relationships with equipment companies who will give the consultant's clients a good price, primarily because they want the consultants to bring them additional business.

Some companies are the direct importers of the equipment. Because they make high-volume purchases and, because they are purchasing the equipment directly from the manufacturer, they will usually be able to provide you with the best price. When you purchase equipment from someone who is two or three middlemen down the line from the manufacturer, you will undoubtedly pay thousands more than if you were to buy that equipment from the importer.

Navigating the potholes
When we talk to our consulting clients, we always ask two questions. The first is:

Have you ever been in business for yourself before?

If the client says No, we get a bit worried. The next question we always ask is,

Have you ever managed a food-service business before?

And if the answer is again, No, we tell them that unless they are extremely astute, and do a lot of homework, there is a high probability they may fail in this business.

We always tell people:

The coffee business is food service! This business is very complex...not unlike a juggler with 50 balls...if you drop any one of them, it can affect the performance of your entire business.

If you are about to embark into the world of specialty coffee, you will benefit from the experience of someone who has traveled the same path hundreds of times.

Help in site selection
An obvious example of how you can benefit from the help of an experienced consultant is in the matter of site selection.

Imagine what happens if you pick the wrong location...spend $150,000 on your dream espresso caféé, and then find it will not produce the income you need to pay yourself a liveable wage. Then, to add insult to injury, your business will not even generate enough revenue to debt-service itself! It goes almost without saying that a mistake made in choosing your location can be very costly.

The few thousand dollars you spend on a consultant to keep you from losing a few hundred thousand could be the wisest money you will ever spend.

We highly recommend to people who have not had prior business experience, or food-service management experience, that they use a reputable consultant to help them make these types of critical decisions. Even those who own businesses can benefit with good advice about the coffee industry.

Bellissimo Coffee InfoGroup offers a full range of consulting services, video training and business manuals to help you open your coffee business. Visit espresso101.com to learn more about the company's products and services.