Category: General

Ways to Make Money with the Legalization of Marijuana without Selling Marijuana

  1. Introduce a product like GrainPro
  2. Produce DIY Edibles cookbooks
  3. Create specialized Point of Sale software
  4. Publish an industry e-newsletter
  5. Collect and distribute agricultural advice among growers
  6. Organize dispensary tours
  7. Invent green, earth friendly, lighters
  8. Create consumer reports for smoking devices, vaporizers, etc
  9. Build service connecting new businesses with experienced growers/dispensary owners
  10. Create independent certification program (organic+)

Possible Methods to Meet Someone Important

  1. Find a common contact
  2. Join a shared organization
  3. Email about their recent article or book
  4. Marry into the family
  5. Ask a compelling question at a conference or workshop
  6. Run into them in an elevator
  7. Create something they want to buy
  8. Go to the same barber
  9. Write a series of blog posts about their work. Ask for an interview
  10. Win an Oscar. Thank them in your speech.

Service Questions

This post was inspired by recent Twitter conversations with other local coffee professionals. The catalyst was this tweet, linking to an interview on Eater.com;

If you haven’t read the interview, definitely do!

Out of the Twitter conversation came some questions that stick with me;

– Is there some responsibility to be placed on a customer during a service interaction? Put another way, is it possible for an interaction in a hospitality situation to go poorly, and the fault lies squarely on the customer? Do we (as coffee professionals) need customers to be in a certain mindset for our hospitality to take root? If so, what does that say about our industry?

– What does it mean to serve a customer? Does it mean to provide them exactly what they want, even if you dislike it? Does it mean to exercise expertise and provide them the best thing you can, even if their (perhaps uninformed) desires point elsewhere? How is it good service to sell something you’re not proud of? How is it good service to deny a customer’s desires? Where do good service and business acumen intersect?

– Do we put too much weight on the actual, personal interaction when we think about service? How positive does an interaction have to be to overcome a bad context? A dirty store? Does lovely latte art outweigh a sloppy barista?