NOTE: This post was originally written as a guest post for Jim Kukral, whose book Attention: This Book Will Make You Money features a prominent excerpt from my blog post “Stop Trying to Monetize What Isn’t Interesting.”

You have a product or a service to sell.  Maybe it’s a widget.  Maybe it’s a cause.

Maybe it’s you.

But why should anyone care?

Well, let’s start with something people do care about:

Birds.

Dead Pelicans Equal Cheap Media Buys

Tyler Cowen, who writes the deft economics blog Marginal Revolution, recently posted some sobering statistics about the estimated numbers of birds killed by the BP oil spill:

Number of birds killed by the BP oil spill: at least 2,188 and counting.

Number of birds killed by wind farms: 10,000-40,000 annually.

Number of birds killed by cars: 80 million annually.

Number of birds killed by cats: Hundreds of millions to 1 billion annually.

So why are we so inundated with images of (and concern for) spill-related bird deaths when the numbers of non-spill-related bird deaths are so much higher?

Because we have pictures of those birds, which makes them specific.

As Dan Ariely, author of the book Predictably Irrational, explains on his blog:

First, it is a singular event with a precise beginning. Second, while the tragedy was ongoing (and we are not yet sure if it has ended or not) it seemed to become more desperate by the day. Third, we have a single organization that we can villainize… And fourth, the Gulf is so much closer to home (at least for Americans).

So, in order to generate more public interest in a statistically marginal event (at least in terms of pure numbers), our frustration at the Gulf oil spill has been maximized by:

• Specificity
• Simplicity
• Visual reference
• Raw emotion
• Relatability
• Proximity
• “Heroes” and “villains,” and
• A ticking clock

In other words, the Gulf spill “works” because it’s a marketable issue.  (Or, seen another way, as a classic stage drama with a three-act structure.)

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of birds killed by traffic or windmills aren’t nearly as concise — or as easily-simplified — of an issue, which makes it much harder to convince us that those tragedies are somehow even more worth our attention.

How Does This Translate to Business?

Simple:

People are human.  We all want to care about things we recognize as being important.  And, even better, we want to engage in situations where we have a chance to make a difference.

If you’re passionate about a cause, how can you encapsulate that passion in one image that tells your story?

If you’re passionate about your business, how can you distill that passion into one answer to a question that’s on everyone else’s mind?

People are desperate to find things worth caring about.

But it’s up to you to make it easy for them.

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I recently had an epiphany: the busier I am, the happier I am.

That’s not just because more work = more profit.  It’s because I’m slowly understanding an element of my own personality that I’ve never taken seriously.

I’m a lazy workaholic.

What I mean by that is:

• I multitask.
• I procrastinate.
• I love collaboration.
• I enjoy being involved in numerous projects.
• I respond best to a variety of ever-changing stimuli.
• I work best under pressure.

In other words, the more I’m doing — and the more different things I’m doing — the happier I am because I feel more active, engaged and fulfilled.  (I’m just habitually unable to get ahead of schedule.  Must have something to do with my undying love of naps…)

This is partly because I hold myself to a high standard.  I have great expectations for my own success, and I know I’m capable of accomplishing much more than I usually do.  When I don’t, I often feel like I’m wasting my own time and potential, and that causes me to re-evaluate, refocus and redefine what I’m really passionate about.

Granted, your work style may differ completely from mine.  You may be happiest when you only have one task to focus on — or even none.  But if you occasionally feel like you could (or should) be doing more, here are 3 ways I’ve found to keep myself more engaged, energized and focused on the sum total of my own life.

1.  Go Out of Your Way to Meet Interesting People.

In high school and college, everybody is interesting because everybody is new.  You’re still figuring out the “types” of people there are in the world, and because so many of your experiences are shared in groups (classmates, roommates, coworkers, family), the collective memories of your actions resonate big and loud in your subconscious.

And then you graduate, and you get a real job, and finding new stimuli becomes a chore.

These days, I freelance, which means I could go an entire week without interfacing with anyone other than my girlfriend and my dog.  Sure, there’s email, phone calls and Twitter.  But as someone who thrives in a group dynamic, I can’t feel entirely fulfilled when the only incoming stimuli I’m reacting to are pixels.

The fewer people I interact with on a daily basis, the more static and placid my own ideas become.  The fewer opportunities I have to learn, or be surprised, or challenged, or grow.

Find people who excite you.  Find people who motivate you.  Hell, find people who infuriate you.  Tackle them.  Stick to them.  Pick their brains.  Argue with them.  Find a common ground, or find that you have no common ground at all.

Try to understand each other.  Work together, or compete.  At the very least, drill deeply enough into who they are that you learn something about yourself in the process.  If you don’t seek out reasons to perpetually redefine yourself, you start to forget who you are.

2.  Make It a Goal to Experience Something New on a Daily Basis.

When we first adopted our dog, Rufus, I told Ann that I wanted to make sure he got to experience something new every day.  It could be a new kind of food, or a new toy, or a new route to walk or a new person to meet.  To me (and clearly as a projection of me), I felt like allowing Rufus to fall into a stale routine would rob him of the opportunity to experience as much life as possible, and that would make us pretty lousy dog parents (in my mind, anyway).

In the beginning, this was easy because everything was new to Rufus.  After two years, it’s a little harder to go out of his (and my) comfort zone, and not every day is as trailblazing as I’d like it to be.  But when I feel like I’m too tired or distracted to walk or play with Rufus, sometimes I remember my original goal and I think, “I have to have five minutes to show Rufus something new.”

And if I can make that kind of time for my dog, I can do the same for myself.  Right?

3.  Admit That Nothing Matters.

Last weekend, as I looked at my miles-long to-do list and tried to feel bad for being behind schedule, I realized something just as powerful as my passion for staying busy:

Ultimately, I really don’t care.

Things will get done, or they won’t.  I’ll succeed, or I’ll fail.  I’ll live a life, and eventually I’ll die, and whatever impact I’ve had or legacy I leave will be up to someone else to make sense of.  I can’t control that, and trying to is an exercise in futility and a waste of energy that could be better spent exploring and enjoying my life.

So why feel guilty?

This line of thought might seem counter-productive to my stated goal of living a more active and engaged life.  It may even seem nihilistic.  But, on the contrary, I find that it helps me avoid wasting time and energy on feeling frustrated or guilty for not living up to arbitrary benchmarks and judgments of success, including my own.

Life is short.  Or it’s long.  Or, if you’re lucky, it’s just long enough.

It’s up to each of us to find our own rhythm.  But I doubt I’ll find mine by running in place.

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Whether you blog for fun or profit, you may want to rethink your motives before your elected officials start doing your thinking for you.

According to the Philadelphia City Paper, Philadelphia bloggers are being charged a $300 business license tax, regardless of whether or not their blogs are profitable.  This means even Philadelphia’s casual blogs will now have to conduct themselves as businesses.

And while this news may initially seem comparable to a health inspector shutting down a 7 year-old’s lemonade stand, the truth is, Philadelphia just might have this right.

After all, social media has been begging to be taken seriously for years.

If you attend any PodCamp or other social media meetup, one of the first questions out of anybody’s mouth is, “But how do I monetize???”

And now that the city of Philadelphia is rewarding bloggers by classifying them as businesses (so they can be taxed, and so the city’s underworked accountants can have something else to do), bloggers naturally do what they do best: they complain.

All of which begs the question: why are you blogging, anyway?

At What Stage Does a Blog Become a Business?

If you’re blogging as a creative outlet, but you have sidebar ads… is your blog a business?

If your blog is a self-promotional tool, but it leads to direct consulting or marketing work… is your blog a business?

If you’ve never written a post in your life, but you employ autoscripts that crawl, steal and repost other people’s content to drive up your SEO ranking so you can charge for more blog ads… are you a business?

I don’t know many people who blog and don’t hope for lots of traffic.  But what do you need traffic for, unless you expect to (even indirectly) convert them into customers?

Do I think Philadelphia is being opportunistic, shortsighted and comically petty? Absolutely.

But if the blogging community tries to laugh this off, I think we miss an opportunity to look ourselves in the (collective) eye and ask a question so few of us bother to answer:

Why are we doing this, anyway?

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I’m fond of finding ways to fund projects that don’t involve traditional investors or advertisers.  One of those avenues is Kickstarter, a crowdfunding resource for creative endeavors.  It lets a project’s audience become its investors.

So I thought I’d give it a try.

The Backstory

In 2003, I created Something to Be Desired, a web sitcom that ran until 2009 and earned a 2008 Yahoo! Video nomination for Best Web Series.

But then, in 2009, I moved to Baltimore, while the show’s cast stayed in Pittsburgh.

As the weeks turned into months, and STBD remained on indefinite hiatus, it became clear that we still hadn’t quite scratched our creative itch. But we also hadn’t figured out a way to streamline the show so it could be produced fast, easy and (ideally) from a distance.

Then we had an idea: why not just create a smaller, faster spin-off?

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you… The Baristas.

The Project

Our goal is to raise $3000 by September 22.

If we do, we get that money to help fund the first stages of the project (equipment, wardrobe, food and drink for the cast and crew, etc.).

If we don’t raise the full $3000, we get none of it because Kickstarter uses an “all or nothing” approach.  (However, we can raise more than $3000.  There’s no limit once the minimum has been reached — as Tom Henderson’s wildly successful punk rock math project can attest.)

The Hook

Since Kickstarter is built around the idea of offering cool incentives to the people who back your project, we thought we’d give our backers the opportunity to help cast the show.

Anyone who pledges at least $25 to help The Baristas get started will receive (among other swag) a vote on the casting of a new role being created specifically for the series: a brand new barista, whose first day on the job will be the show’s first episode.  And the more you pledge, the more votes you get.

Interested?  Check out The Baristas on Kickstarter and see all the other incentives we’re offering to our backers — including t-shirts, DVDs, coffee mugs, and even the chance to have a character named after you.

And yes, once the project ends on September 22 (which is right after PodCamp Pittsburgh 5), expect an armchair analysis of my Kickstarter experience right here on this blog.

Hopefully it’ll include the phrase “completely exceeded my expectations”…

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Last week, I shared what I learned by blogging weekly instead of daily.  Judging by the high volume of traffic, retweets and comments that post generated, people are very interested in what makes someone else’s blog tick.

One comment that caught my eye was from Virginia Nussey, who said:

I shared your findings with my readers and one had a question, and I think the answer would open up this discussion in an interesting direction:

“any correlation between subject matter of posts vs. search trends/volume for those topics of the two time periods??”

When I tried to answer that question, I learned a few more things about my blog — and I noticed I have one post that’s become unusually sticky.

Even Small Numbers Tell a Story

Let’s examine the Top 10 phrases that drove traffic to me during my weekly blogging experiment:

Those terms would be:

1. justin kownacki (119 visits)
2. socialnomics ebook (93)
3. socialnomics review (33)
4. talk less do more (21)
5. successful coffee shops (19)
6. words that don’t mean anything (16)
7. how to be more productive (12)
8. tolerating you (12)
9. www.justinkownacki.com (11)
10. kownacki golden rule (10)

What does these numbers tell me?

1. Obviously, not much of my traffic comes from searches.

That’s fine, because I don’t do much SEO, nor do I have a system in place (ads, ebooks, etc.) to profit off search-driven visits.  Most of my traffic is driven by word of mouth, or by people specifically searching for me.

2. My blog bounces like a trampoline.

6 of those Top 10 traffic-driving phrases have a bounce rate higher than 60%, which means visitors aren’t interested in reading anything more from me than that particular result.  (And, with 4 of those results higher than 90%, some people don’t even want to read that.)

Again, this makes sense.  Because my blog isn’t specific to one topic, anyone who does stumble across it is unlikely to linger for long.  Also, phrases like “talk less do more” and “how to be productive” indicate that people are searching for general lifehacking tips, not multiple posts from the same author.

But…

3. To know me is to love me (for at least 3 minutes).

Visitors driven by 6 of these Top 10 phrases spent more than 1 minute on the site.

Of those 6 returns, 3 of them (“justin kownacki”, “tolerating you” and “www.justinkownacki.com”) spent more than 3 minutes on the site, and had a bounce rate lower than 50%.  This means that more than half of the people who came here looking specifically for me then took the time to poke around.

4. One post to stick above them all.

Last year, I blogged a negative review of Erik Qualman’s book Socialnomics.  Since then, I’ve forgotten about it, but Google evidently has a longer memory than I do.

Three of my top 25 inbound phrases (“socialnomics ebook”, “socialnomics review” and “socialnomics ‘erik qualman’ free ebook”) involve Socialnomics.  Oddly enough, people looking for “socialnomics ebook” bounced away after only 11 seconds, at a 96% rate.

But visitors from the other two phrases lingered — 6:45 (“socialnomics review”) and 7:59 (“socialnomics ‘erik qualman’ free ebook”).  And while that’s only 39 total people, those are 39 people who apparently stayed long enough to read (or at least skim) the full review.

So reviewing a book on social media is one way to wrap Velcro around your blog’s long tail.

5. There are some seriously cynical searchers out there.

In addition to “tolerating you,” some of my other Top 25 search term results include:

• marketing bullshit
• marketing douchebag
• bullshit marketing
• how to become a thought leader
• you’re not awesome
• chris brogan is an idiot

You may not please everybody all the time, but you can always count on trolls for traffic.

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Every Thursday at 8 PM EST, David Spinks and Lauren Fernandez host a Twitter chat called #u30pro.  Its focus is to create a network of young (aka “under-30″) professionals, but participants of all ages are invited to join the discussion and share their relevant wisdom.

Last week, the topic involved offices — namely, do we still need them?

With such a web-enabled modern workforce, is there still actual value in requiring people to work in one place for 40+ hours every week?

Making the Case for Tunnel Vision

As many #u30pro participants admitted, working from home exposes a person to daylong distractions (e.g., kids, pets, video games, running errands, taking a nap).  Wouldn’t being stuck at the office be more productive by default?

And yet, in an office, you’re still assaulted with distractions of a different stripe: questions, emergencies, small talk, meetings, upgrades, lunch breaks, coffee breaks, memos…

Is there really any difference?

Yes, But It’s All in Your Head

As I tweeted during #u30pro, an “office” is less important than “a place where you can focus and accomplish your goals.”

And, whether you work at home or in an office, that focus is ultimately up to you.

To help reduce the white noise that can distract you from your goals, consider these tips:

1. Shorter Emails, Less Often

Very few emails require immediate replies, and even fewer emails require long replies.  Check your email when you start work, after lunch, and before you end your day.  Send your replies immediately, but don’t check back in the interim (unless it’s an emergency).

Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week, suggests doing even less.

2. “Got It.”

Two little words that can put an end to an otherwise endless chain of emails.  It lets the sender know a document or message was received without sparking an elaborate and pointless conversation.  (e.g., “I got your message — thanks for such a prompt reply!” ~ “No problem! Glad to know everything worked out.” ~ “Sure did!  If anything else comes up, I’ll let you know.” ~ “Please do!  Although I’ll be out of the office most of next week.” ~ “In that case, have a great vacation!” etc. etc. etc.)

Stop wasting everybody’s time.

“Got it.”

Onward.

3. Block out your time.

Accomplishing the first 3 items on your to-do list by 10 AM is nice, but if those last 2 items linger because you felt like you had time to kill, you’ll still end up working late.

Instead, try this: list every hour of your workday and assign 2 or 3 to-dos to get done in each hour (or , if a project is large or ongoing, in each block of time).

If you get that hour’s work done in less than an hour, congratulations: you’ve earned a break.  (Until next hour.)

Otherwise, even the shortest to-do list can remain undone if you confuse small tasks with the big picture.

4. Schedule “Me” Time, and Defend It Viciously.

If you need a coffee break at 10 and 2, take it.

If you need to surf Twitter between tasks because it helps your mind realign, do it.

And yes, naps are good.

Your work gets done because you’re good at what you do, not because you’re a machine.

5. Close Your Door.

If you have an office, you have the right to close the door.  If your coworkers keep interrupting you anyway, you have the right to lock it.  And if they keep knocking, you have the right to crawl out the window and work from the cafe down the street.

If you work in a cube, the same rules apply, but you may have to be more visually demonstrative.  If you’re not to be disturbed, hang up a sign that says so.  Or run police tape across your cube entrance.

And if all else fails, work with your brow furrowed or your tongue sticking out.  If you look like you’re working hard, other people are less likely to interrupt you.

6. Ignore Your Phone.

If it’s important, they’ll leave a message that you can check when you have time.

If it’s really important, they’ll call back.  (And yes, if the same person is frantically dialing you over and over, that’s a sure sign that something else is about to become more important than whatever you’re currently working on.)

7. Make It Hard to Navigate to Websites Where You Routinely Waste Time.

If you can’t watch one YouTube video without viewing three more, leave your speakers off.

If you can’t tear yourself away from Farmville, don’t bookmark Facebook.

The act of having to turn on your speakers, or to physically type in the address of a website you know you shouldn’t be going to, is a subconscious reminder that you have more important things to do.

8. I’m cutting this list short because you have more important things to do.

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The cheaper it is to create something, the easier it is to profit.

That’s common sense.  That’s business basics.  That’s logic.

So why, at a time when anyone can start a business or create and distribute media from scratch, do we still pursue venture capital and beg advertisers for sponsorships?

Because all of our business fantasies still resemble the sprawling romantic empires of the past, rather than the streamlined and self-sustaining models of the future.  We don’t just dream of succeeding; we dream of winning big.

And that means our dreams are hopelessly out of reach unless we know The Right People.

So let’s change that.

First, Let’s Pretend You’ll Never Be Worth Anything

Let’s start with your prized business idea.  You know, the one you’ve been nurturing for years… sharing in hushed tones, and only with the people you hope you can trust… paranoid that someone else might steal your genius out from under you and run off with it, making millions.

Now, pretend your idea is worthless.

Pretend no one would ever invest a dollar to help you get that company off the ground.

Pretend your entire business plan boils down to “I told you so.”

No investors.  No angels.  No grants.

Would you still do it?

Could you still do it?

(Would you want to?)

Artists: You Too.

Forget ads.

You don’t lay awake at night inventing stories in your head just so someone else can use them to sell laundry detergent.  You create stories because that’s what you do.

But you also have to eat.

Traditionally, that means sacrificing “objectionable” aspects of your creation (aka, “I don’t get it…”) so that a complete stranger will consider sponsoring it.  (“You have an amazing idea?  Great.  But can it sell cat food?”)

Fortunately, you now have choices.  You just have to be willing to work for yourself.

So if you’d rather spend your time creating instead of begging, here are five ways to fix (and fund) your own projects.

1. You Want to Fund an Iceberg? Monetize the Tip.

An iceberg is massive, but ships only see (and react to) the tiny portion that breaks the surface.  Instead of trying to mobilize the whole thing, just focus on the leading edge.

What single portion of your epic idea can you produce, promote and distribute right now?  Which element could force people to sit up and take notice, whether it was connected to a larger system or not?

Find a way to isolate and profitably market the leading edge of your idea and the vast mechanism behind it will eventually come into view.  But if you try to create it all at once, you’ll be overwhelmed, and you’ll never build up enough momentum to break the surface.

2. Think Small(er).

Sure, you can see yourself running a thousand person company.  But how many people do you need to get your idea off the ground?

Yes, you could direct an amazing film with a cast of hundreds.  But how few characters does your story need to still be told clearly?

Too many pieces and the picture falls apart;  too few and the idea can’t support itself.

Find the absolute bare minimum of resources you need to make something compelling.  Once you’ve done that, you can build out, which feels like success.  But starting big and scaling back feels like failure.  Better to cast yourself as the underdog than the target.

3. Crowdfund It.

Investors can provide you with significant funds and resources, but investors also expect to earn their money back, plus a profit.  When you take their money, the clock is ticking.  You’re judged at every step.

So why not get judged once, in advance, and earn small wagers with no strings attached?

That’s where crowdfunding services like Kickstarter and IndieGogo come in.  They let your audience donate to your project in advance. This not only provides you with starting capital, but also a clearer idea of how interested the public is in your work.  (Did you expect to raise $10,000 for a project, but you only raised $2,000?  There’s a lesson there.)

4. Let Your Audience Be Your Accountants.

You make products to benefit the customer.  You create art to entertain the audience.

So trust them with your ledger.

To crowdfund wisely, make your financial goals crystal clear: “I need X dollars to complete Project Z.”  Sympathetic audiences will respond, not just because they’re interested in the project, but because they can see just how close (or far) you are to your budgetary goals.

When your audience understands the direct impact their contribution will have on your bottom line, they’ll be more likely to invest in your plan — partially because you have a plan, and you aren’t afraid to share it.

And if you run into trouble, maybe they can help.  Because you’re all in it together.

5. Make Your Own Merchandise.

If you’re an artist, you probably dream of seeing your work taken seriously.  But you may also dream of seeing your work on TV screens and billboards, or on someone’s t-shirt, backpack or refrigerator magnet.  (There’s no shame in ancillaries.)

If one of your goals is to create work that becomes so iconic in the minds of its audience that they’ll voluntarily pay to wear / share / promote it, do them (and you) a favor: make it easy for them.

Characters.  Quotes.  Games.  Jokes.  Puzzles.  Apparel.  Toys.  Replicas.  The list goes on.  And no matter how obscure your project may seem, there’s a hook in there somewhere that fans could use as a visual calling card to identify themselves.

For example, you’ve probably seen a Hatchet Man car decal and never known what it meant.  Or a Homestar Runner laptop skin, a Diesel Sweeties in-joke t-shirt or an Achewood shotglass, which are some of the creative ways the Brothers Chaps, Richard Stevens and Chris Onstad have been self-funding their respective web media for years.

So instead of trying to shoehorn your ideas into someone else’s ad spend, focus on selling your work your way.  License your creations.  Produce your own merchandise.  Provide tangible goods that your audience can choose to purchase, thereby helping you continue to create the work they already enjoy.

One Last Kick in the Ass

In the history of humanity, we’ve never had this kind of universal access to knowledge, resources, communication, distribution and technology.

If you have an idea, you can start a company.

If you have a story, you can change the world.

Go ahead.  Dream big.

But it all has to start somewhere.

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Last year, I blogged my own 2 cents about How to Run a Successful Coffee Shop, based on my experiences as a regular patron thereof.  (As a freelancer, I spend most days working via laptop at one of many local cafes.)

That post continues to drive traffic to my blog even today — presumably from aspiring coffee shop owners who are trying to boost business and increase sales.  Realizing this, I thought I’d follow up by getting some extra advice from people who actually run cafes for a living.

Thanks to some folks on Twitter (who suggested their own favorite cafes), plus the advice of the owners and baristas at several cafes I personally frequent, here are some business tips from actual cafe owners.  (Note: Each respondent was asked the same 3 questions, for the sake of simplicity.)

What do you wish someone had told you before you opened your current cafe?

“Have more cash in the beginning.  It takes time to build your customer base.”
– Bob Fish, CEO and co-founder of BIGGBY Coffee / @biggbybob / Biggby on Facebook

“I knew this, but thought I could ‘beat’ it: don’t get in bed with your contractor.  Or, like I did, let my lover lead the project.  What a disaster.”
– Bee, owner of Beezy’s Cafe (Ypsilanti, MI) / Beezy’s on Facebook

“We wish we’d known that to succeed in providing top quality coffee, we would need to locate in an area with an open mind towards food in general (e.g. The Strip District).  In our location, we need to serve the stupid drinks and have a lot of options for kids.  We spend a ton on training in coffee, but all that knowledge is useful to maybe only 10-15% of our customers.  The other 85% want dessert drinks.”
– Rich Westerfield, owner of Aldo Coffee (Pittsburgh, PA) / @aldocoffee / Aldo on Facebook

“We have gotten to the point where we have more structure within the cafe by implementing policies and making sure everyone adheres to them.  However, I wish someone had told us that is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for smooth transition during growth.”
– Sunni Gilliam, owner of Teavolve (Baltimore, MD) / @teavolve / Teavolve on Facebook

“I wish someone had warned me that the business would consume my life because I care about it so much.  I need to remember to make more time for family / friends.”
– Jessica Obst, owner, Cafe Latte’da (Baltimore, MD) / @lattedafells / Latte’da on Facebook

“In a small, independent coffee shop, the regulars feel a sense of ownership — maybe more so than the staff.  It’s important to respect that this place was ‘theirs’ before you got there and it will still be theirs when you leave.”
– Ashlene, barista, Cafe Latte’da (Baltimore, MD) / @lattedafells / Latte’da on Facebook

“I wish someone had encouraged me to make sure absolutely everything was organized before I got started. Shopping lists, a system to pay bills and record other expenses, where/how to file past reports, etc. Now that I’ve been half-assing it for the last 4 years, trying to tackle the problem of organization is extremely overwhelming.”
– Victoria Dilliott, owner of Affogato (Pittsburgh, PA) / @affogato / Affogato on Facebook

Marketing, service or quality: which do you feel is the key to a profitable cafe?

“You cannot separate these into “the key”; small business means that you will wear many hats.  In my old restaurant days we used to say I am the chief, cook, and bottle washer.  This is why many turn to a franchise (which typically has templated marketing and quality, so that you can work on execution of service).”
– Bob Fish, CEO and co-founder of BIGGBY Coffee / @biggbybob / Biggby on Facebook

“They’re not mutually exclusive by any means.  They have to work synergistically.   My staff giving great service is part of marketing, which is part of quality, which is all service.  The key for us is being able to define parts that matter most and really broadcasting it.”
– Bee, owner of Beezy’s Cafe (Ypsilanti, MI) / Beezy’s on Facebook

“Coffee is pretty much a three block business.  People won’t walk farther than that.  So you’re either part of that neighborhood scene or you’re a destination people will drive to because of something unique that has little to do with ambience. Usually it’s coffee, but could be pastries or food.  It’s not couches or wireless.

As far as marketing goes, word of mouth is still king. This is a business where you’re lucky to have an average sale as high as $4.00.  To buy a $250 ad means you’d need to sell $750-$1000 in goods for it to be worthwhile.  That’s 175-250 cups of coffee.  And that doesn’t happen from an ad. If we were to buy ads, they’d absolutely be for catering.  That’s where the highest profit margins are.  And we’re the best at it in the city.

Other than some laptop warriors and a handful of certified coffee geeks, nobody really pays attention to Twitter or Facebook sites for coffeeshops.  Of the 1180 Twitter followers we have, maybe 25 are regular customers.  Half are from other coffeeshops around the world.”
– Rich Westerfield, owner of Aldo Coffee (Pittsburgh, PA) / @aldocoffee / Aldo on Facebook

“Each element is essential to a profitable cafe.  However, if I must choose just one, it would be service.  The marketing will come through positive word of mouth.  This isn’t to say that the quality of the product can be poor, but it doesn’t have to be ‘mind blowing.’  With the economy right now, customers want to know that they are being appreciated for choosing your cafe to spend their time and especially their money.”
– Sunni Gilliam, co-owner of Teavolve (Baltimore, MD) / @teavolve / Teavolve on Facebook

“I don’t think I can separate quality product and excellent customer service.  My business depends on word of mouth and the cafe’s reputation in the neighborhood.  To maintain that reputation, I need to make sure I’m consistently making a quality product, and that the coffee shop staff are friendly to my customers.”
– Jessica Obst, owner, Cafe Latte’da (Baltimore, MD) / @lattedafells / Latte’da on Facebook

“As a barista, I like to think that I deliver the kind of service that keeps people coming back to the store, and that I make a pretty good cappuccino; but I know that without Jessica’s awesome homemade treats we would not be so highly regarded.”
– Ashlene, barista, Cafe Latte’da (Baltimore, MD) / @lattedafells / Latte’da on Facebook

“I think service is the most important, but seconded VERY closely by quality. Without a good product, people won’t come back, but the first impressions from customer service employees have an even more immediate effect.”
– Victoria Dilliott, owner of Affogato (Pittsburgh, PA) / @affogato / Affogato on Facebook

What’s one recent mistake you made that you’d like to help others avoid?

“A mistake that I think many café owners make is to try and follow or emulate the market leader.  I don’t think it is wise to try to chase them; rather it’s more important to develop your own identity.”
– Bob Fish, CEO and co-founder of BIGGBY Coffee / @biggbybob / Biggby on Facebook

“Keeping underperformers.  Just don’t do it.”
– Bee, owner of Beezy’s Cafe (Ypsilanti, MI) / Beezy’s on Facebook

“The biggest mistake we’ve made in the past year was taking on some staff who were solid employees (good cleaners, showed up on time, etc.) but lousy baristas.  We lost customers due to poor drink quality. And we lost them to a café up the street that totally sucks, but the perception is that we’re “the expensive guys”, so a bad drink here is unforgivable.”
– Rich Westerfield, owner of Aldo Coffee (Pittsburgh, PA) / @aldocoffee / Aldo on Facebook

“Always have reserve funds for the ‘rainy days.’  When we had 2 major snowstorms this past season, it affected the entire service industry.  Many restaurants were forced to shut their doors or cut the staff.  We were not prepared to lose thousands of dollars in sales during Christmas weekend, nor were we prepared to lose thousands of dollars in food.  (We had several holiday parties booked and ordered accordingly.)  We were fortunate to be able to weather the storm; however, we still are not where we need to be financially. ”
– Sunni Gilliam, co-owner of Teavolve (Baltimore, MD) / @teavolve / Teavolve on Facebook

“I am there to meet the needs of the neighborhood and I need to take criticism without feeling hurt.  It’s hard not to take criticism personally when the business is my ‘baby,’ but I am trying to listen to all suggestions now with an open mind.”
– Jessica Obst, owner, Cafe Latte’da (Baltimore, MD) / @lattedafells / Latte’da on Facebook

“Same as Jess: trying to not take things personally if someone doesn’t like the way I make something.  The beauty of working here instead of Starbucks is, there is no manual saying that every product is made the exact same way.  As long as we have the ingredients and I’m confident I can make it the way the customer wants, I’ll try my best to make it happen.”
– Ashlene, barista, Cafe Latte’da (Baltimore, MD) / @lattedafells / Latte’da on Facebook

“Do NOT keep employees on just because they’ve been there for a long time.  If there’s any lack of respect to the manager or establishment, it only fosters bad blood and shows itself in the quality of service, too.”
– Victoria Dilliott, owner of Affogato (Pittsburgh, PA) / @affogato / Affogato on Facebook

Agree?  Disagree?  Have another tip to share?  Leave your own stories in the comments.

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A few months ago, I decided to try an experiment with this blog.  From May through July, instead of posting daily, I would only post once per week.  That way, rather than scrambling to say something relevant 5 times a week, I could invest my time in one good, solid post.

Here’s what I learned from my venture into minimalism.

1.  As predicted, my site traffic dropped off a cliff.

According to Compete, I had:

• 9,900 unique visitors in April
• 11,400 unique visitors in May
• 2,600 unique visitors in June
• July stats not yet available

According to Google Analytics, I had:

• 7,500 page views in April
• 7,491 page views in May
• 3,583 page views in June
• 4,877 page views in July

Finally, my Alexa ranking hovered around 162,000 when this experiment began; it’s currently at 245,546 as I type this.

This overall downward traffic trend is unsurprising, since I was only creating 20% of the content that I usually do.  (In fact, if anything, I should be surprised that my page views didn’t drop by a full 80%.)

2.  Posting once a week does not guarantee a high-impact read.

I initially thought that posting once a week would result in a heavy amount of traffic to each week’s single post.

I was wrong.

According to bit.ly, here are the number of first-week clicks on my bit.ly link for each blog post during the experiment.  (The numbers from my link are listed first, and the total clicks for all bit.ly links to that post are in parentheses.)

• Apr 26 — 220 (1291)
• May 3 — 50 (399)
• May 10 — 72 (155)
• May 17 — 99 (169)
• May 24 — 81 (1671)
• May 31 — 56 (59)
• Jun 7 — 34 (182)
• Jun 14 — 40 (115)
• Jun 21 — 96 (109)
• Jun 28 — 99 (197)
• Jul 5 — 46 (51)
• Jul 12 — 145 (194)
• Jul 19 — 105 (624)
• Jul 26 — 50 (273)

Granted, these numbers don’t reflect RSS subscribers, email subscribers, “walk-in” traffic, etc.  But it’s still worth noting that during the entire experiment only 5 posts got more than 200 clicks in their first week.

Now, let’s look a bit closer.  Here are the topics of the top 5 posts:

• April 26: The Golden Rule for Conferences
• May 3: Sorry Guys: When It Comes to Your Audience, Size DOES Matter
• May 24: I Tweet, Therefore I Am… Empty?
• July 19: 3 Myths About Social Media Debunked
• July 26: What I Learned by Reading Everything

All 5 discuss social media, and since my audience is primarily social media-driven, the success of those posts makes sense.

Also, at least 3 of the posts were retweeted by Chris Brogan, Amber Naslund and other “influencers” on Twitter — which should make a huge impact.  And in these cases, it did.

But even a nod from an influencer doesn’t guarantee a traffic spike.  For example, neither my Jun 7 or Jun 28 posts cracked 200 click-throughs, even with lunchtime retweets from Chris Brogan.

In fact…

3.  There’s no obvious predictor of success.

Now let’s look at the 3 lowest-performing posts not published on a holiday Monday:

• May 10:  The Paradox of Quality
• Jun 14: 5 Reasons NOT to Listen to Your Audience
• Jun 21: The Popularity Paradox: Why Do We Hate Pop Culture?

See the difference?

Me either.

The top 5 posts all discuss social media.  So do 2 of the bottom 3.

At least 3 of the top posts are written in a confrontational style.  So is one of the bottom posts.

And the ill-circulated pop culture post still generated 28 comments, which is a healthier discussion than some of the top posts engendered.

Evidently, I have not yet figured out the recipe for guaranteed traffic.  In fact, the only proven lesson I can extract from the low end of the spectrum is that holiday Mondays are disastrous for blog traffic.  (Nether May 31 nor July 5 cracked 60 clicks.)

However, while the cumulative traffic from these 14 posts would add up to a decent 3-week average, it’s a weak 3 month haul, compared to the stats from my daily blogging days.

Again, this makes sense.  When you blog 5 times a week, you have 5 opportunities to connect with readers.  If you only blog once a week, your post has to be stellar, or else your blog becomes a dead zone for a week.

4.  Withdrawal from Daily Blogging Is Survivable.

Although I really do enjoy blogging 5 times a week, and while I did initially experience “daily blog withdrawal” in the first month of the experiment, I quickly adapted to not having to be relevant 5 times a week.

I was also concerned that my drop in blog traffic would somehow hurt my personal brand, but my Twitter followers have risen in the interim (probably because I’m spending more time there), and so has my overall workload.

In fact, I’m busier now than I was when I was blogging 5 days a week — which, I think, may be the actual takeaway here:

Now that I’m blogging less, I actually have time for all the work I should be doing.

5.  So… NOW What Do I Do?

Continue blogging weekly?

Resume blogging daily?

Never blog again?

Well…

Actually, I’m trying another experiment.

For the next 2 months, I’ll blog 3 times per week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday).  My goal during that time will be to learn:

• If I can maintain (or improve upon) my current workflow
• If 2 extra weekly posts will satisfy my creative urges
• If (presumably) increased traffic creates new opportunities, or if my business operates independently of my blog

And, luckily, I only see one holiday Monday on the calendar…

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Last week, Ian M. Rountree and I started Read It All Week, a challenge to read everything we were subscribed to — especially all the blogs we so easily subscribe to, but never actually absorb.  We did this for two reasons:

• To reconsider why we subscribe to certain kinds of media, and
• To learn how long it would take to actually read everything we’re committed to.

What I Started With

My goal was to read every post published to the 63 blogs I subscribe to in Google Reader.

I wasn’t sure how long it would take, but my guess was around 15 hours.

So, What Happened… and How Long DID It Take?

Here’s how it worked out for me:

• Total # of items read (or, when uninteresting, skimmed) in Google Reader: 560
• Total # of those 560 items that had been shared by others: 235
• Total # of those 560 items I then felt compelled to share: 32
• Total time invested reading items in Google Reader: 496 minutes (or 8+ hours)

In other words, I spent more than one entire workday reading.

About 2/5 of that reading load were items suggested to me by others.

And yet, in that time, I only felt compelled to share 1/18th of what I found.

Sounds like my incoming signal-to-noise ratio is a bit excessive…

What Else Did I Learn?

Well, in no particular order, I came to the following conclusions:

1. I read more deeply when I break my reading time up into smaller sessions.

On days when I made time to check Reader two or three times, I felt more able to really read each post.

On days when I only checked Reader once, I felt more compelled to just get through it.  This led to much more skimming and much less sharing, since I’d invested less time emotionally in what I was reading.

On the days when I felt pressed for time, I also found myself resenting longer posts and highly prolific publishers, which seemed like obstacles between me and “done,” rather than the valuable sources of information I recognized them as during my more leisurely reads.

2.  Most of the information people share is useless to me.

But it’s not the information you (or I) might suspect.

Initially, I presumed that the social media-specific posts shared by the people I follow on Reader would be enriching.  Since I was subscribed to only a dozen social media blogs, I knew I had to be missing something interesting.

Not really.

It turns out most people in the social media field read the same major news sources and share the same information, or variations thereof.  Plus, anything relevant or popular from these channels is usually retweeted endlessly throughout the week.  (For example, I learned about Flipboard from a shared item in Reader, but I would have also learned about it from any of the 2 dozen tweets I noticed about that same article.)

The other thing I realized?  Most social media-related articles are crap.  Some are rehashes of things I already know (which, obviously, is not what you already know, and I get that).  Others are so niche-specific that I’d never make use of the information.  And still others are such common sense sub-101 blather that reading them wastes my time.

So… what information did matter to me?

3.  I need to subscribe to more interesting blogs.

Again, “interesting” in this sense means “interesting to me.”

In my case, I’m drawn to posts about art, literature, culture, science and history.  These are the areas I want to learn more about, as opposed to social media, a field in which I regularly feel overwhelmed by sameness.

Which means I need to adjust my subscriptions.

4.  Consistency is key.

Writing one good blog post is easy; writing good blog posts regularly is rare.

Often, I’ll read one or two good posts by an author and then subscribe to his / her blog.  And then, over the ensuing weeks, I’ll realize one or two good posts may be all they have to offer.

If so, I can’t wait around forever for their next great idea.  My time is precious, and I’d rather not step through a minefield of oysters in order to find your few buried pearls.

(This also explains why some of the blogs I consider most indispensable — like The Rumpus — are group blogs curated magazine-style from the contributions of many.)

Although writing good blog posts is hard, finding good blog posts to share shouldn’t be.

And yet…

5.  I’m confused by people’s motivations when sharing items.

I follow some potentially interesting people on Reader, because I presume they’ll find (and share) articles I won’t.  But again, the social media field is crushed by redundancy.  For example, I follow Chris Brogan, Chris Penn, C.C. Chapman and Steve Garfield (among others) which means I often see the same information shared several times.

In addition, some people seem to share everything they read, which makes me wonder if they’re confusing the act of sharing with the act of glorifying.  It’s as though they can’t separate what they personally consider “useful” or “interesting” from what they feel obliged to help promote because of their relatively impressive reach and influence.

However…

6.  You can learn a lot about people from what they share.

Chris Brogan is a social media maven, but what he shares in Google Reader reminds me he’s also deeply interested in theology and spirituality.  Mike Sorg is a veteran podcaster, but his shared items are a snapshot of comic books & general geekery.  And Mary Hartney is a journalist by trade, but her shared items lean heavily toward art, culture and food.

As such…

7.  I learned to share information more consciously.

On one hand, I want to share information I’m personally interested in.  And because my aforementioned interests exceed the limits of *just* social media, that means people who follow me on Reader are likely to see a lot of shared information about books, racism, economics and underwater sculpture.

On the other hand, Read It All Week made me highly conscious of the way each shared item encroaches on a reader’s available time.  It made me more reluctant to share items, because I didn’t want to sabotage the time & attention of the people who follow me.

Ultimately, I still did share items (because I would have whether it was Read It All Week or not), but fewer than I would have if I hadn’t been thinking about my time and yours.

8.  Believe it or not, I actually learned things.

My Reader, like yours, is full of information both great and pointless.  The trick, I learned, is to skim past the duds and invest in the quality — and, very often, that quality tends to bottleneck in a few sources.

For example, Atlantic Monthly columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates was on vacation during Read It All Week, so he asked three of his most trusted commenters (Brendan I. Koerner, Hua Hsu and Cynic) to fill in for him.  The result was the most compulsively readable blog of the week, covering ground from Shirley Sherrod to LeBron James, what happens when “fringe” cultures are assimilated into America’s mainstream and whether Jack London’s racism should mar his literary genius.

Had I ignored Reader (as I so often do), I would have missed these and dozens of other enlightening and captivating essays (like Kathleen Alcott’s masterpiece from The Rumpus), all because I was “too busy” doing… whatever it is I usually do.

Speaking of which…

9.  I did not go broke while reading.

On the contrary, last week was quite fruitful, business-wise.  I pitched a potential client, spoke at a live event and conducted a social media workshop, knocked out a guest post for Jim Kukral (peppered with knowledge I gleaned from blogs I rediscovered in Reader), and locked down two more business meetings for next week, all while executing the tasks I’m already contracted to do for my existing clients (and having a real life).

So if I can do all that while spending 8 hours reading blogs — which is only half the time I’d originally expected to invest — what am I usually doing that prevents me from staying up to date on the media I’ve subscribed to?

Probably tweeting.  In fact…

10.  What did I miss on Twitter?

During those 8 hours I was reading blogs, I kept a Twitter window open so I could chart how many tweets whizzed past me.  Turns out I missed over 2200 tweets.

That’s more than 2200 conversations I could have weighed in on, but didn’t.

Would engaging in some of those conversations have left me any better informed, connected or enriched than my time spent reading?  Possibly.  But I’ll never know.

And I’m okay with that.

What Happens Now?

Now I clean up my feeds.  (As opposed to Amber Naslund, who prefers to blow hers apart.)

I’ve already dropped from 63 blog subscriptions to 44 — that’s a 30% reduction.  However, most of those were blogs that hadn’t been recently updated.  (Imagine if they had…)

I’ll also reconsider how I follow people on Reader.  Since 2/5 of my time was expended on their recommendations, I need to ensure that their expertise is worth my time and attention.  But the quality and relevance of the items people choose to share is wildly unpredictable, so I can’t judge too quickly.

And, like Bryan Person, I may ultimately subdivide my subscriptions into two camps: what I should read, and what I could read (time permitting).

Because not everything I subscribe to is worth reading, but there are always pearls among the oysters.

The trick is to find them without losing my time… or my mind.

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