Differentiate With Experience & Keep Customers Coming Back

How much does your business matter to your customers? What kind of experience are you creating when they come into your coffee shop?

These are the things Pete Smith and I contemplated on this week's episode of #LocalBites. Pete co-owns Matter More Coffee in Hampstead, North Carolina. Matter More Coffee came out of a need that Pete was experiencing himself. There was nowhere in their area to go, sit, have a coffee, and get some work done. So, Pete and his wife decided to open up a coffee shop where everyone was welcome.

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In this conversation, we covered:

Appealing To The Work From Home Crowd

Surviving COVID Shut Downs

Retaining Customers Through Experience

The Restaurant Worker Shortage

Co-Owning With Your Partner

Appealing To The Work From Home Crowd

How did you get into the coffee world?

I'm one of those owners of a coffee shop that never really had a desire to own a coffee shop. It wasn't some lifelong goal to own one. My full-time job is as a professional speaker. I do a lot of travelling, and I speak at a lot of different conferences. Because of that, I worked from home, and when we moved to North Carolina four years ago, what I noticed was that in this area specifically, there weren't a lot of options for people who work from home to go out and take residence and do a little work. Specifically at coffee shops.

One day, I went back to my wife and I said, what are your thoughts about just opening one? And she looked at me, a little bit crazy, and said "oh."

Now because of the vast 0 years of experience, on anything related to coffee shops and I said I think it will be great. I think it'll be great for the community. I think there's a need for it. I think we would do well. And my wife said, Ok, and that's how we ended up opening up Matter More Coffee.

The group of people that work from home has grown significantly. How did that adjust the way you went about opening your coffee shop?

Somewhat selfishly, if I'm being totally honest with you because I looked at someone like me who works from home but I can't work from home all day every day. So, very frequently I would go out and spend a few hours at local coffee shops in Arlington, Virginia which is where we moved from.

I knew that there was a need for it in our area. My neighbour to the right works from home. My neighbour to the left of me works from home. My neighbour at the time across the street worked from home.

I knew that there was a need for it in our area. My neighbour to the right works from home. My neighbour to the left of me works from home. My neighbour at the time across the street worked from home.

I just knew that in a growing area—and this was prior to even COVID—just in a growing area there were more and more people who were working from home. I figured we need to be able to create something for that group.

Regarding how that impacted our setup, one of the things we wanted to do within the shop made sure that there were outlets that were accessible pretty much anywhere where you sit in the shop. There's nothing worse than bringing your laptop and setting up shop, then suddenly you see your battery start to die and there's nowhere to plug it in. You're like well I guess time to go! Then you fold your laptop up and you go back home.

So one of the things that we really strived to do in the design aspect was making sure that regardless of where you're sitting in the shop you're going to have an outlet close by.

We really encourage people to bring their computers and set up. We want people to stay as long as they want. Which is a little bit different let's say that the restaurant industry, where time is money and so they want you to come in they want you to eat and they want you to get out because they need more people. We take the opposite approach. We want you to come in. I would love it if you were there all day and just hanging out and getting some coffee and enjoying good company. But really make an environment that people want to come to.

Surviving COVID Shut Downs

So that was around 2019?

We moved in the summer of 2018. We decided we were going to open up the coffee shop shortly after, but it took us a long time to find the right location. We had certain parameters that we wanted to stick to. We ended up finding our location in 2019, and then we actually opened our coffee shop—our grand opening was on March 11th, 2020. Which was the Wednesday before everything shut down on the 13th of March.

Tell me what that was like, opening and then everything shutting down two days later?

I remember standing in the middle of the coffee shop when everything is just getting closed, and announcements are coming out and remember just thinking "this seemed like such a good idea at the time."

We didn't really know what to expect. There are so many conflicting stories and exaggerated stories, just knew we had a good idea, we acted on it, and at that point, we just hoped for the best. We remained committed to the task at hand, and fortunately for us, we have a drive-thru window, which was huge, and therefore we never shut down. Now, looking back, in some respects, because of COVID-10, we did fairly well considering the circumstances.

We remained committed to the task at hand, and fortunately for us, we have a drive-thru window, which was huge, and therefore we never shut down.

Are you seeing the community come out and use the space as you intended? 

The interesting thing about COVID is the response to COVID varies greatly depending on geography. We happen to be in an area that was willing to get out and moving and active, perhaps more than some other areas whether it's right or wrong, it's just that's the area we're in. I think what happened when everything first shut down, and you'll recall, I mean people just need to get out of their house. You can only keep people bottled up for so long.

So what we had was a number of people that would just get in their car to drive around, just to get out of the house. They would stop by the shop, pick up their coffee, and continue. The good thing about it is because we were relatively new, we were a novelty. We were something that people wanted to try out.

We also had other shops closed down, either because that was a corporate decision, or because they didn't have a drive-thru. So all of their customers would come to give us a shot. We've been fortunate to retain them, so we've been in an area that has been eager to get out and be part of the community again. We're seeing more and more of that the further we get away from March 20202. It's been wonderful.

Retaining Customers

You mentioned something. You said you were able to get those customers but also to retain them. Tell me about that. 

If you think about the reasons why you go back to familiar places, restaurants, for example, you go back for a number of reasons. Part of it is the quality of the product, for sure. You have to enjoy the product that you're given. So we can never overlook the quality of the product that someone orders.

What will keep people coming back is the experience that they have when they place that order. When they visit your establishment. When you think about it, we may have a two-minute window to make such a difference in that person's life that they're willing to give us a second chance or another change that then allows us the opportunity to start to develop trust with them. The first time, they like the product, and the second time they like the service. We won the opportunity to serve them a second time. When they come back a second time what we're hoping for is the opportunity to serve them a third time, and through that, we start to develop relationships. We start to get to know them. 

I think it's a big key. We really try to move away from the idea of it being transactional and have it much more relational. That's what keeps people coming back. So they like the quality but more than that they like the way we make them feel when they come in.

The Restaurant Worker Shortage

The industry has a big problem right now with high turnover. Do you think Matter More is doing better or worse than the average?

I try not to look at a comparison of how we're doing as it relates to other people. So I don't know if we're above average or below. For us, we always look at how we improve, and what can we do better. 

I know that there are other places that have had severe challenges with hiring people. Some of it is based on the position right, there are certain positions within, let's say a restaurant that is more difficult to hire than others. When you look at something like a coffee shop, man that's a fun job. We're whipping up lots and getting in good conversations. That's a great fun position. It'll attract a certain person. I have noticed a decrease perhaps in the number of applicants. We've never been without applicants to work there. 

I don't necessarily feel the pinch, perhaps, that some other people do. We've been very blessed and fortunate. Good people will typically attract good people, and I think that's a strength that we have. We have really good people at our shop.

It's one of those things where I can teach someone how to make a latte, but I can't teach someone how to be kind. I think if you have the right person, you can teach them the skill set then they're going to attract other people. That's what happened right? We have a number of people who work for us right now. They started out as customers, and they liked their experience as a customer so much that they said "Hey, I saw you have an opening. I'm really interested in working here now."

It's one of those things where I can teach someone how to make a latte, but I can't teach someone how to be kind.

I love it. It means that we did a great job while they were customers and now they get a chance to reciprocate that to new customers coming in. We're fortunate.

You talked about retaining customers. How do you retain staff?

We have to be realistic in terms of who this job is really a great fit for. What I mean by that is you have people at varying stages of their lives that are looking for different things you may have someone who is looking more for a full-time thing more stable where they can really dig in some good roots at the coffee shop and that's what they focused on.

Coffee shops also attract a number of part-time employees. In many cases, this could be high school or college and so there's a certain level of understanding I think that any owner needs to go in and recognize that someone's availability this semester may look very different next semester. If you have a certain number of shifts or hours available in the fall you can't guarantee a similar number in the spring because of their schedule changes or your schedule changes. There's a chance that that person is no longer going to be a good fit for the shop. Doesn't mean they're a bad person, it just means that what they're looking for at that particular time is not what the shop has available. I think there's a natural phasing out of some people that as they go through different stages what you are able to offer them initially is no longer available either on our end or theirs.

It is one of those things where hopefully when they leave we were able to pour ourselves into them both personally and professionally and they leave thinking "Gosh that was one of the best jobs I've ever had."

We want to make it more difficult for them to find a better job in the future. Or at least be able to look back at their time working with us and say "I just grew as a person in such wonderful ways when I was there."

We want to make it more difficult for them to find a better job in the future. Or at least be able to look back at their time working with us and say "I just grew as a person in such wonderful ways when I was there."

Right so even if they don't come back, they'll tell their friends, family or their community.

They move right, or they go to college, and they get a degree in nursing, right? As much as I want to retain them as a barista, their heart is in nursing. But, if we were able to help them in that journey, then we've done our job successfully. Yes, selfishly I would love to hold on to everyone because we're very picky about who we bring on. More than that when you get out of your own selfish desires, you realize that we're here to serve people, in whatever way they deem to be best for them at that moment. That's really what our job is.

But, if we were able to help them in that journey, then we've done our job successfully. Yes, selfishly I would love to hold on to everyone because we're very picky about who we bring on. More than that when you get out of your own selfish desires, you realize that we're here to serve people, in whatever way they deem to be best for them at that moment. That's really what our job is.

Co-Owning A Coffee Shop With Your Partner

You mentioned you co-own Matter More Coffee with your wife. What are the challenges of that?

There are a number of challenges, a number of layers to that question that is challenging. There are a lot of people who are owner-operators and I am not one of them. I opened it up and we have a manager there who, really she's fantastic. She handled so much of the day-to-day operations for me.

As I mentioned before my full-time job is I'm a speaker so there are many many times that I am out of town attending conferences. I just to have that comfort and that trust in the manager and the staff. I don't worry about being out of town. They probably prefer when I'm out of town. So there's that.

My wife, her full-time job is as a teacher so she is not there all the time. I think it's one of those things that just as we have grown within the ownership of the shop, our roles have grown. We look at what our respective ranks are and how can we be responsible for that aspect of running the business. There is certainly a lot of time that's involved in that but I'm a big believer in that the more time we spend on the front end, it allows us to enjoy more on the back end.

I think my wife and I share a similar mentality that way where we'll dive in and get the work done and build that solid foundation. Because we know that it's beneficial in the future. It's been a great experience. I think in many cases it's brought us closer together.

There are also other aspects. I have two boys, or we have two boys, and this is something that they are just going to grow up knowing that in addition to our other professions or other careers we own something that is really making a difference for people. Hopefully, it's something that they recognize as being a valuable part of who we are.