Simply over six years in the past, I made a decision to go away my full-time job as an govt director of a not-for-profit group. On the time, I didn’t know what I used to be going to do. Having been born and raised in a lovely historic city, I’d at all times had a imaginative and prescient of proudly owning the lovely little present store that everybody loves. You already know the one – you see it in all of these stunning Hallmark Channel films. I needed our downtown be vibrant and I needed my store to be on the middle of all of it.
After many discussions with my accountant (who adamantly suggested me to search out one thing to place with the present store for the reason that success of a stand-alone retail store is almost unimaginable), my husband and I began on the lookout for that good match to create the imaginative and prescient we needed in our city. In the future, on his travels, he got here throughout a tearoom and shortly known as me to make the suggestion that I open one, to which I fortunately replied, “I don’t like tea.” Nonetheless, the thought was price exploring, and I’m completely satisfied to say that having a tearoom and being part of the tea business over the previous 5 years has been my dream come true. Not solely has my tearoom develop into an vital epicenter of our city, I’ve additionally discovered just a few issues about tea and about enterprise on the whole.
Right here, I’ve mixed my newfound love of tea and my love of enterprise to give you seven secrets and techniques which were important to the success of my tea enterprise and hopefully shall be useful to you, too.
Secret No. 1: Determine and Perceive Your Mission
Everybody begins a enterprise with a dream or a objective in thoughts. Having a mission, a purpose why, is a crucial key to the success of something you do. It turns into your guiding mild, your street map to comply with as you journey by way of phases of your small business. With a view to have a profitable enterprise, you have to be shifting towards one thing. The easiest way to remain centered is to ensure you imagine in your mission and what you want to accomplish in your tea enterprise. It’s additionally vital to comprehend that your mission could change over time. That is a part of the rising means of a enterprise.
Once I determined to open my tearoom, my mission was to create a lovely atmosphere for friends to spend time collectively. Just like the “good ole days,” I had this imaginative and prescient to permit friends to go away the world behind them and to immerse themselves into dialog, all inside a lovely setting. And whereas our mission could shift barely, it by no means ends. It continues to be our most important focus each day, with each encounter and with each visitor.
Whether or not your mission is to carry good tea to your neighborhood, provide a calming environment in your friends to flee the surface world, or to supply a vibrant and lively atmosphere to sip and chat, your mission is what retains you centered and continues to maneuver your small business ahead.
Secret No. 2: Know Your Product
I keep in mind the primary day I opened my tearoom to friends. I used to be so excited and eagerly awaited my first friends. I keep in mind getting my friends seated and one of many girls requested me if the tea she needed contained Rooibos. I checked out her with a clean stare and advised her I’d verify (by the way in which, she was ordering a rose black tea). I shortly went again and appeared on the tea substances after which knowledgeable her that it didn’t. I knew little to nothing about tea once I began, other than giant business merchandise discovered on the grocery retailer cabinets, however that didn’t cease me from studying as a lot as I might about my product.
Clients will typically ask you the craziest questions, and as knowledgeable in your chosen business, you must know the reply (granted you may’t know all the pieces, however you must know the place to search out the reply). This lends credibility to your small business and likewise exhibits the shopper that you simply take your store and your job severely.
Along with you realizing your merchandise effectively, having a group that is aware of your product and understands what your institution provides is among the most vital elements of your small business. Your group is your entrance line and most frequently who your friends are interacting with after they go to. It’s vital that your group understands what they’re promoting (tea, expertise, and so forth.). Your group is usually your organization’s first impression to the general public, and in the event that they don’t perceive the merchandise, friends could not return. Educating your group may be invaluable. Enroll them in a tea program (corresponding to World Tea Academy), present that you simply care about them and their data, and they’ll additionally really feel extra assured along with your friends.
Secret No. 3: Perceive Your Market
One of the crucial vital instruments to making a profitable tea home is knowing your market. It’s so vital to consider the place you might be positioned and what’s vital not simply to you, however to the market you’ll serve. Should you present items or providers that your market is searching for, you may be profitable. Should you don’t take this into consideration, it will likely be arduous to drive friends to your institution. Don’t assume that as a result of it’s one thing you might be searching for that it’s one thing that individuals in your space are searching for. Understanding what your market wants after which fulfilling that want will virtually at all times breed success.
Once I appeared to open my tearoom in my historic city, they didn’t know they wanted a tearoom. What we did wanted was a chic institution for lunch time that accepted reservations and made friends really feel pampered. We had a need to fill that want by making a spa-inspired design for our friends (as an alternative of the standard Victorian or floral décor). From the day we opened, and nonetheless in the present day, our first-time friends who go to usually say, “I can’t imagine that this stunning place is in downtown New Port Richey [Florida].” To which our response is, “That is what you must count on from New Port Richey.” Immediately, our city has stunning institutions all through that didn’t exist 5 years in the past, together with present retailers, breweries, a wine bar and eating places, all of which cater to what our market desires – magnificence.
Secret No. 4: Embrace Your Visitors
One factor I’ve observed about our space is that, whereas tea has develop into extra “most important stream,” there are nonetheless lots of people who don’t learn about tea. After we opened 5 years in the past, a lot of our friends’ solely data of tea was of what they might see on the grocery store. And but, when many go to a tea store for the primary time, they’re usually overwhelmed and reluctant to ask questions. We make it some extent to welcome every visitor that enters our store and to acknowledge them when they’re taking a look at our teas or tea-ware. We wish them to really feel welcome and never intimidated by our choice. By doing this, we’re in a position to make them really feel welcomed and educate them on the identical time.
Along with serving to them with tea, we additionally attempt to get to know them as folks. Many occasions, when having fun with tea in our tearoom, they may inform us tales about their household or what they’ve happening of their lives. We love this private expertise with our friends and make it some extent to ask them how they’re doing and the way their households are doing the subsequent time we see them. We work arduous to recollect their favourite tea whereas within the tearoom, and try to have that private reference to them. By embracing our friends, they develop into invested in us, and us in them. They don’t seem to be only a identify on a reservation or a sale in our register. The mutual respect and adoration between us and our friends has developed right into a partnership that has additionally develop into certainly one of our strongest advertising and marketing and outreach packages (phrase of mouth advertising and marketing).
Secret No. 5: Market Your Enterprise
I’ve had many enterprise house owners ask me why they don’t have the enterprise quantity they need. Once I hear this, I immediately ask them about advertising and marketing. What are they doing to market their enterprise? Oftentimes, I’m met with a jumble of issues that always results in some minor social media and phrase of mouth from mates. Once I ask why that’s all they’re doing, they usually say it’s due to price. Sadly, to ensure that anybody to know you exist, you could market your small business. Whereas I perceive that is usually the primary place companies lower funds when occasions get tight, I’m right here to let you know that I believe it’s the final place you must lower. With out advertising and marketing and promotions, folks will fail to comprehend your small business exists.
There are numerous cost-effective alternatives to market and improve site visitors to your small business. Our tearoom at present publishes a publication each different month. It’s out there in print and e mail and is distributed to over 900 of our present friends. This helps preserve us within the forefront of their minds and supplies them with a direct tea useful resource of their native space. We additionally ship out postcards for numerous actions and promotions, and we ensure that our native media sources obtain all of this identical data, in addition to our elected officers, and metropolis and county representatives.
By maintaining ourselves within the forefront of our neighborhood’s thoughts, they’re extra apt to go to or consider us when on the lookout for a pleasant place to go to for tea when friends come into city or after they need to meet up with a good friend. In addition they keep in mind our tea model and order on-line or cease into our store after they want a present. It’s important to place your self within the entrance of your friends’ minds in order that they proceed to assist your small business.
Secret No. 6: Be Constant
One of the crucial vital elements of my enterprise is consistency. I’m not simply speaking about what my enterprise does, however the way it acts. Consistency encompasses many areas together with: the message we ship to our friends, the cleanliness of our store and tea room, the good service friends obtain when in our tearoom, our hours that we’re open, and the record goes on.
Inconsistency can kill a enterprise. Think about if a visitor comes for a cup of tea and the primary time they go to it’s the very best cup of tea they ever had. They purchase their tea and loose-leaf tea to take house. They’re excited as a result of that they had an important dialog along with your group and discovered all about their tea earlier than they drank it. Now think about your visitor returning every week later, your group barely acknowledges them, shortly makes their tea (which by the way in which is barely heat and has little taste as a result of it was rushed). The visitor, feeling extra like a “quantity,” questions if they may return once more as a result of they might have made the identical cup of tea at house. Their fantastic first expertise is now not within the thoughts, however slightly now they keep in mind their most up-to-date expertise, which wasn’t good.
Or think about you put up your hours as 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. however when a visitor arrives at 3:45 p.m. to purchase a present for a good friend and you might be already closed, will they return? My guess is they may in all probability look elsewhere for his or her present subsequent time. Even a loyal visitor of a few years can develop into deterred by a enterprise’s inconsistency.
Being constant in service, in your message, and in your procedures is of utmost significance if you wish to create a protracted standing following amongst your friends. Sure, ensuring all the pieces is good takes time, nevertheless it exhibits your friends you actually care about what your small business represents and that providing them an excellent expertise / service / merchandise is vital to you. When you can’t be good each minute of each day, striving for being constant is vital to the success of any enterprise.
Secret No. 7: Be Open to Altering with the Instances
It’s no secret that 2020 was a 12 months that many people want to overlook, particularly these of us in enterprise. Nevertheless, one factor 2020 did for me was reinforce the necessity for me to revaluate my enterprise and permit for it to alter to fulfill the dealing with occasions.
For instance, once I opened my tearoom, the one factor I vowed I’d by no means do was provide our Conventional Afternoon Tea as a to-go choice. I at all times felt that as a way to actually embrace and benefit from the tea expertise, you needed to be sitting in our tearoom with our stunning environment, delicate china, and ground size linens. Not solely that however, would folks nonetheless come to the tearoom for tea after they might get it to go?
Then our state shut eating places down in March 2020. There was no extra tea in our tearoom and we didn’t know the way lengthy it will final. That result in me reevaluating our enterprise and altering my stance on providing our service to go. The choice got here after a number of lengthy weeks of making an attempt to determine if we might present an important tea service for our friends to take pleasure in in their very own setting. It turned evident to me that due to the stress brought on by the entire closures, folks wanted tea. I didn’t have the power to offer them that fantastic, stress-reducing expertise in my tearoom, so I wanted to supply them a technique to chill out and take a while for them among the many craziness at house. It was in that second that I modified my stance on one thing I stated I’d by no means do.
Providing our to-go providers was an excellent resolution for our tearoom, and it jogged my memory that I ought to by no means say by no means. With the ability to change – to do what’s greatest for our friends and us – is one thing that we as enterprise house owners have to always concentrate on. If there’s a want and we now have a technique to fill it, we are able to change to make it occur. Change is tough, nevertheless it’s obligatory, and we should at all times be open to it, whether or not we select to do it or not.
Over the previous 5 years, I’ve loved enlisting the above secrets and techniques to make my tea enterprise a hit. These keys have led to us being named “Better of the Finest” for greatest tearoom within the Tampa Bay space by readers of the Tampa Bay Instances and “Better of the Bay” in 2019 and 2020 by Tampa Bay Journal.
Whereas these keys have labored for my tearoom, it’s vital to do not forget that each enterprise is totally different and the secrets and techniques to your success could also be totally different than mine. Whether or not working a tearoom, a brick-and-mortar tea store, or a web based retail area, these seven secrets and techniques are positive that will help you construct a powerful basis so you may have success for years to return.
Kelly Hackman, proprietor of The White Heron Tea & Items and Driftwood Tea Firm in historic downtown New Port Richey, Florida, is a World Tea Academy Licensed Tea Sommelier and Licensed Tea Specialist, and he or she’s additionally an Etiquette Advisor. Hackman has created a singular tea escape at her tearoom, which has assisted in reworking her city’s historic panorama and assists in drawing friends to the world from all through the Southeastern United States. Go to The White Heron Tea and Items on-line at TheWhiteHeronFL.com and Driftwood Tea Firm at DriftwoodTeaCompany.com.