Slaying Coffee Giants
How Autumn Pruitt is taking on Big Coffee, one cup at a time.
We all enjoy our Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks during the holidays, let’s not pretend we don’t.
But, when you think of a good coffee experience; from a barista who truly cares about the craft, you probably have your favorite local coffee shop in mind. Something different about the atmosphere, the foamed milk, and the richness of specialty coffee makes you want to slow down and enjoy the moment.
A 2021 survey of 250 coffee drinkers cites that 66% of respondents choose Starbucks purely out of convenience. However, the study also found that respondents were more likely to spend a longer time at their local coffee shop.
How does a small coffee shop stand out against a giant like Starbucks?
We sat down with Fruitful client, Autumn Pruitt; Founder and Owner of Omaha’s Hardy Coffee Co. to talk about the foundation of excellence she’s built Hardy Coffee on and how having the flexibility to pivot allows for the local business to breed innovation.
According to Pruitt, “You shouldn’t have to trade excellence for convenience.” This sentiment drips through every facet of the business, from its employment brand; to how guests feel in one of the four locations, to the bi-weekly education that keeps Hardy producing the best small-batch roasted beans.
To hear more about how Hardy Coffee Co. is delivering excellence one cup at a time, check out our interview with Pruitt on episode 18 of Growing a Fruitful Brand.
Ep. 18:
Slaying Coffee Giants
Automated Transcript
Ben Lueders:
Hey, welcome to Growing a Fruitful Brand, where we discuss how to create and grow a brand that makes the world a better place, for you, your customers, and your employees. I'm Ben Lueders, founder and art director of Fruitful Design and Strategy, and on this episode, my co-host, Raj Lulla, interviews our longtime client and friend, Autumn Pruitt. Along with her husband, Luke, Autumn founded Hardy Coffee Co, an Omaha-based coffee roaster with four thriving coffee shop locations, all across the metro area.
Our first office was actually located right above the Benson Hardy Coffee shop, and I'm proud to say that I was the first paying customer at that location. I ordered a traditional cappuccino and it was delightful. We helped brand Hardy many years ago, and have worked with them on packaging, merch, and signage projects ever since. In this conversation, Autumn and Raj take a little trip down memory lane together, and also explore what it's like being a local coffee company trying to differentiate themselves from the big coffee brands, like Starbucks. How do you make sure that your customer experience stays consistent across all of your different locations, and how can constraints actually drive your innovation? I hope Autumn's story of local excellence and approachability inspires you on your own business journey.
Raj Lulla:
Autumn, thanks for joining us on Growing a Fruitful Brand.
Autumn Pruitt:
Raj, so good to be here.
Raj Lulla:
We've known each other for a long time, and back when we met, you were in high school, I had just started college-
Autumn Pruitt:
Just a couple years ago, right?
Raj Lulla:
It feels like it.
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah.
Raj Lulla:
And so, at that time, you obviously were in school, we were both in school, and then I left town and then came back, and you were running bakery that has bloomed into a series of successful coffee shops. So can you just tell us that story? How did that come about, from going off to college to coming back and starting a bakery and then a coffee shop, how'd that all go?
Autumn Pruitt:
Slowly and bumpily, but well... I went to school in East Tennessee and moved back to the Omaha area and started working in a bakery, because I thought it would be a really good idea to make sure that I actually liked doing the thing, instead of just starting my own business. And so, yeah, worked in the industry for about a year before I had the opportunity to buy that shop from the previous owner, and jumped in with both feet. I was my only employee for the first bit, and then started building a really great team of people... At the time we were just subleasing the bakery from what was then Aroma's Coffee House, but about a year and a half later we had the chance to buy the coffee shop as well, and it felt like this really great opportunity to say, I hear baked goods and coffee go well together, what would it look like if we could really help control the customer experience for both sides of that building?
And so, that began my journey as a coffee professional, opened a second location in the Benson neighborhood about a year after that, started roasting in 2015, and opened another location in North Omaha about four years ago, and most recently opened a drive-through location, which was a whole different ball of wax, as they say... So, yeah, that's the journey in a nutshell. So it's about, man, we're coming up on 13 years in February, which blows my-
Raj Lulla:
Wow. Congrats.
Autumn Pruitt:
...ever loving mind, when I think about it a year at a time, but altogether it's gone pretty fast.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. You experienced something that not a lot of brands do, but is not terribly uncommon in some ways... So you started with two brands, which is the unusual part, but I would say it's not as unusual to inherit a business from a parent, or to take over from a founder, or whatever, and then be stuck with, I don't know if this feels completely like us, I don't know how married we are to it... Now, you were, again, were juggling two brands-
Autumn Pruitt:
And then we threw in a third.
Raj Lulla:
Well, so... Oh, that's true. Even before Benson, right?
Autumn Pruitt:
Mm-hmm.
Raj Lulla:
So tell us about that, starting a third brand, what was that?
Autumn Pruitt:
So we started Bliss Old Market Bakery, and then we purchased Aroma's Coffee House, and then we started a roasting under the brand Hardy Coffee Company in 2015. And internally it felt like that all made sense... We knew who was in charge of what, and who supplied products where, but every time we talked to a customer about it, their eyes just immediately glazed over. And so, we started taking note of that, to try and figure out how to clarify our messaging to make sure that we didn't lose people before we ever had the chance to sell to them.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. So you're opening this second shop in Benson, and that's kind of where Fruitful and Hardy Coffee Company started to grow up together, because we were in that same building.
Autumn Pruitt:
Literally neighbors. Yeah.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. And so, what was the process of deciding on what that second shop would be called, because of course, we don't want to carry the Bliss Aroma Hardy confusion into a new neighborhood. How did you go through that process of deciding what the dominant brand would be, and therefore the brand that would live on?
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah. So we actually did carry the chaos into another location, both Benson and downtown were Aroma's Coffee House for the longest time, and we were roasting under the name Hardy Coffee Company from another location. And initially the idea was to say, we know we want to roast for our own shops, but we also want to wholesale to future clients. And so, we worry that people might not be interested in buying directly from competition, and so the idea initially when we worked with Fruitful is, how do we create a different brand, that we can have our roasting expertise, that can still be on the packaging, but the actual physical locations are a different brand. And so again, it all made sense internally until you started talking to actual people.
And we made the decision to really pick a brand, to pick a horse, to say, this is the one that's going to carry the entirety of who we are, every location, every piece of the business, let's clarify that messaging... And so, Hardy Coffee Company was what we chose. Hardy is my maiden name, and so that meant a lot to me personally, the way that my parents had helped invest in and start the business... By invest in, I mean blood, sweat, and tears invest in. So that meant a lot to me, but it's a real word too. And that's one that's easy to pronounce, it's one that I think resonates with people in the Midwest... We're sturdy, we're resilient, and we are okay doing hard things.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. And I remember the initial brand rollout video that had the bison or buffalo in it, and talking about that, sort of the hardiness of Midwesterners, the willingness to go out and subfreezing temperatures to get a cup of coffee-
Autumn Pruitt:
Even today.
Raj Lulla:
...to start your day. Yeah. Including today, yes.
Autumn Pruitt:
Mm-hmm.
Raj Lulla:
You watch though, when this comes out a month from now it'll be 75 because that's-
Autumn Pruitt:
Speak that into existence.
Raj Lulla:
...Nebraska. Yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
That sounds great.
Raj Lulla:
So you start to establish the permanence of this brand, and it sort of begins to take everything else over... And so, one thing I really like about your story is that you put the customer first in all of this. It's like, it's fine that we had it all figured out our way, but when the customer's confused, nobody's really winning at that point. So, kudos on that, I think that that was a really great move... And now going on four shops, right?
Autumn Pruitt:
We have four locations plus our bakery and roasting lab.
Raj Lulla:
And then you're also, you have coffee in many other locations too... About how many shops do you think are carrying, or other businesses carrying that right now?
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah. We have we roughly 40 wholesale account, and so those are different businesses, restaurants, coffee shops... Just organizations that are serving our coffee. And we always say that we want to provide excellent coffee and the support to serve it well, so it's not just the product, but we come alongside for training and consultation too, to make sure that they feel great serving a great product.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. So you got a clear brand together, and four shops, and then 10 times that amount in people who are actually carrying the beans as well, and serving coffee in the Hardy way... That must be really satisfying to see that brand at this point now?
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah, if I take enough time to sit and think about it, it really helps... But we have an incredible team of people, that have worked alongside each other every step of the way. I feel like it's very common to hear, right now, that you just can't find good help... That's the mantra. Especially in the food and beverage industry, it feels like there's signs on every door, about how you just can't find good help. And that may be true for other people, but that has not been my experience. We have an incredible staff of people, people that have been with us for years and years, people that are only there for a short season, but I think regardless it's people that want to do a great job, that are excited to work for a small business, that also put the customer first, and it's been so much better to do it with a team than by myself.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
It's funny when you have that hindsight.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, and I think that speaks to your brand being more than just an external marketing tool, that you've really built that brand internally as well. It's not just great coffee, it's not just a great environment to consume that coffee and those baked goods in, it's also a great place to work. And brands have those facets, it's the consumer experience and the employee experience, and you've cultivated that well, so well done.
Autumn Pruitt:
We have by no means arrived, we still have-
Raj Lulla:
Oh, for sure.
Autumn Pruitt:
...all sorts of goals and moving that way... But yeah, I think as an owner/operator you want to build a place that you want to work in-
Raj Lulla:
That you want to be, yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
...and so, thankful for a team of people that make that true.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. So, you came back from college, wanted to be in the food and beverage space, and you entered an industry where there are some giants-
Autumn Pruitt:
Couple.
Raj Lulla:
A big green one in fact. So, what are some of the challenges of entering a space like coffee, where there's Starbucks, and you're trying to build a brand where there's already a really dominant player there?
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah. I think there's hard things that go along with that. I think one of them is quite honestly price point... It's one of those things where regardless how much better your product may be, the care that you put into it, or the quality of ingredients, you can't charge much more than what the giant is charging.
Raj Lulla:
Sure, yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
People have come to expect that a latte costs about this much, and you have a little bit of wiggle room but not much. And so to say, we either need to figure out how to be more efficient in other areas, or we need to figure out how to sell more than Starbucks... And I think just to figure out what your North Star is, to say, even if we have a smaller profit margin, I'm not going to compromise on quality. And so these are the areas that we'll figure out and be creative around.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. So, you move into that space, and you're trying to build a brand, and there are these dominant players... Are there any advantages, and it seems kind of counterintuitive, but are there any advantages that small businesses have over entrenched players like that?
Autumn Pruitt:
Yes. I would say, and it might be the only advantage, is just the ability to change direction quickly. And I think that the flexibility that comes with being small has really been highlighted in the last three years, but it's always been true. So, it's one of those funny things where it feels like we keep getting better at working ahead... All through COVID, we started doing a lot of gift boxes, and really updating our online store with fun offerings, and doing more events... And so we realized, okay, if we're going to do this then we need to make sure that we're at least two months out, to make sure our team's on the same page, and then we get the messaging right... But we could do it on a Tuesday and still have it fulfilled on a Saturday if we really had to. We could make it happen with our team.
Raj Lulla:
That doesn't mean call her and ask her to do that, just in case you're wondering.
Autumn Pruitt:
But you think of Starbucks... It's a global company, and I can't even imagine if they were to push out a new product, how much time it takes to get the supply chain in shape, to make sure that they have all the ingredients, to make sure that they have the right colored cups, to make sure that they are doing everything to get multiple continents on the same page for what that rollout looks like... It blows my mind. And so, I think that the agility of small is an advantage that we have figured out.
Raj Lulla:
Along those lines, recently you had a promotion that you did, over Thanksgiving, over Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, that kind of came together in that way... Can you tell us about that?
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah, I think Small Business Saturday is such a lovely idea. It's this idea to say, you got Thanksgiving, you got Black Friday, we're giving so much attention to large box stores, let's make sure we give a day to the small guys...
Raj Lulla:
Yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
I love that. I wish it could be in March and instead of the weekend after Thanksgiving. We've just had our Superbowl, and the bakery with the hundreds of pies, and then you're trying to be creative, and be present, and you've already hosted your family at your house all week too... And so, it's a funny thing that we are grateful for, but it somehow catches us off guard every single year. And I had that experience this year, where it was two months out we thought about it, and then it just kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed, and it was literally the week before Small Business Saturday, and I was on a call with a friend of mine, I was like, "I've missed it, I've missed the window, we don't have time to get it over the finish line."
And she said, "No, you haven't, it's still in the future." So, in the next 30 minutes we brainstormed these ideas. I had already had a couple ideas in mind, and so we just flushed it out, to say we could do this, or that, or these things together... And so, we came up with the idea to do family pictures at our shops, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And so, for us, it was an opportunity to invite people in, we showcased a couple of different menu items that were going to be on our holiday menu, but mostly it was the opportunity to partner with local photographers, to create a space and experience for our customers that they also were probably too busy to set up on their own. And so, it came together last minute, but it was so rewarding, and it was one of those reminders to say, don't count yourself out just because it's not necessarily in the same timeline that you would prefer. I think to remember the one advantage of being a small business is to be creative on a whim and figure out how to make it happen.
Raj Lulla:
Well, another advantage you have is that you have that local network.
Autumn Pruitt:
Two advantages, you're right. I like that. Keep going.
Raj Lulla:
Because just having photographers who will take your call, and even knowing who to reach out to, or who to reach out to who might know somebody else... I would argue that there are a lot of Omaha creative businesses whose first office was probably Hardy Coffee Company.
Autumn Pruitt:
Same.
Raj Lulla:
But those relationships are another huge part of being a local business, being a small business as well.
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah, you're right. Our three staples at Hardy Coffee, we want to be, excellent, local and approachable. And so, I think the way that whole event came together, was a reminder of that's what we're striving for, and I think customers snip it out... If you say those things, but you don't demonstrate them, there's a real desire for authenticity in the human spirit, but it feels like especially right now. And so, I think to say, okay, we're local, that means we're going to find local people to partner with, we're going to pay them real money, and we're going to figure out a way to also make your local Thanksgiving really special.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. I'd love to dig into those things just a little bit with you, those three pillars of your brand... Excellence, there's some obviousness to that, right? Serve great coffee, serve great baked goods... Is there anything else in the area of excellence that you really kind of focus on as a team?
Autumn Pruitt:
I think consistency is one of those things, so-
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, 100%.
Autumn Pruitt:
...you can have the best ingredients and product in the world, but if you don't execute it every time, then it doesn't matter... Customers don't know that they can trust you, they don't know if they need to wait for the right barista to be on shift before they show up, and people will choose a lesser product often, if they know that it's consistent. And so, we would drive really hard for that, to say, how do we make sure that we're following the recipes, the way that we're making things is the same on a Monday as it is on a Friday, and that we aren't going to apologize for those expectations.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, that's great. So, excellent is one. Local, you talked a little bit about... In what other ways are you local?
Autumn Pruitt:
For one thing, I am from Omaha. And so, I think there's this piece to say, our owners, Luke and I, my husband is Luke, we are both from the Omaha area, and it just feels like... When we were trying to figure out exactly where we wanted to open a shop, we thought about everywhere but here, at first. And then there was this opportunity to say, I don't know that Portland needs another coffee shop. I think that there's the opportunity to really move the needle, to create physical space, in a community that we already know and love, and then to grow up together with other creatives in the process.
Raj Lulla:
I like that you mentioned that, growing up with other creatives, because Sharon over at Arbor Street Studios originally was painting signs-
Autumn Pruitt:
She was originally a Benson shop manager at Hardy, did you know that?
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. We haven't seen her behind the counter... We spent a lot of time down in Benson. So, there's Sharon, I know that other artists have come out of actually working at Hardy-
Autumn Pruitt:
So many.
Raj Lulla:
...And then, like I mentioned, our office originally was right above Hardy, then right behind Hardy, right next to Hardy... We've had a few. Even in the same building. And we kind of joked that we would have to sometimes send the intern next door to grab the coffee, because otherwise Ben would run into every artist that he knew, and then come back two hours later with a bunch of ideas but-
Autumn Pruitt:
Not a lot of work-
Raj Lulla:
...it's a little hard to get stuff done when it's so full of creatives... But it's a wonderful reputation, and that goes to approachable too. So Starbucks has their thing about being the third place, public living room, what's Hardy's take on being approachable?
Autumn Pruitt:
We are coffee professionals, and so it's very important for us to know our craft. I just came from a two-hour training with our lead roaster, that we do every other week with our shop managers... We're working on sensory development, and we're always learning our lineup better, and we're understanding all of the elements that make a great cup of coffee. But when somebody walks in the door, we never want them to feel like they aren't cool enough to be in one of our shops, and so, we need to have all the answers, but we need to be smart enough to know whether or not a customer wants them.
And so, I think for us, the approachability is to say, we're uncompromising on the quality, but we need to be a place where everybody feels welcome. And I think that that's a tension that we manage... It's never going to be one that it's never going to be a problem we solve. It's this thing to say, these things both matter and they're going to be in conflict with each other, but we need to hire people that understand when to lean in and when to give people space and how to keep learning new things without cramming them down someone else's throat.
Raj Lulla:
It's good enough for coffee snobs, but you don't have to be one to enjoy our coffee.
Autumn Pruitt:
That's a great tagline. I love that. Hardy Coffee.
Raj Lulla:
That's great. And that is really important, because I think as soon as you said that, there were shops here, and in other cities that I've walked into and gone, oh my gosh, my mustache isn't waxed, I don't belong here...
Autumn Pruitt:
Same. Oh my gosh.
Raj Lulla:
I didn't ride my unicycle in here...
Autumn Pruitt:
And I think those three things for us, excellent, local and approachable, it's a three-legged stool. It would be so easy to be approachable and local but not excellent, or to be excellent and local but not approachable. And so, we're trying really hard to do all three-
Raj Lulla:
But what a great combination of things... And that's, going back to what we originally talked about, it's all in the service of the customer, because like you said, if it's local and approachable but not excellent, then the customer doesn't have a good experience. I think that's one of the main downfalls of local coffee shops. You walk into it and it smells of stale milk, for whatever reason, and the tables aren't wiped down, and that kind of stuff... And it's like, ah, I don't necessarily want to support the big guy, but I don't want a dirty table either... And so-
Autumn Pruitt:
Great customer service starts with a great product, and everything else flows from there. And so, it doesn't matter if you smile at the person and greet them so warmly, but then you serve them something terrible, then the customer says, that was a really nice person, but they don't say, what a great company. But if you have a great product that is then served by an enthusiastic person, that sees you, and takes care of that process, it's a completely different experience.
Raj Lulla:
It's almost sociopathic to smile while handing somebody something subpar... It's just like-
Autumn Pruitt:
But so much of the time you don't control over it.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, that's true.
Autumn Pruitt:
So much of the time the person at the counter wasn't responsible for making it, and then they still have the burden of trying to-
Raj Lulla:
Deliver it.
Autumn Pruitt:
...pretend as though it's great. And so, I just think that we do our very best to get rid of that tension.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. This is a masterclass in branding and business by the way, because those friction points, those tension points... It doesn't matter if you're in coffee or IT, or whatever... That is what makes a difference between a repeat customer and not. And you can take that lesson to any service-based industry, any product-based industry as well. So we talked about the advantages that you have against a bigger brand, how do you stand out against a bigger brand? Is there anything you've done to position yourself so that people pay attention?
Autumn Pruitt:
I think a lot of it is those grassroots, think of it on a Tuesday marketing ideas, where you say... We had no budget when we started, much less than a marketing budget, in 2010. And so, every time that we came up with a new idea, we thought, what's the free way to tell people about this? And it's one of those things where, I think it was Craig Groeschel, I heard a talk he did a couple years ago, where he talked about instead of thinking outside the box, what does it look like to think inside the box? And the idea that constraints actually drive innovation, they drive creativity... Where if you have a budget to get whatever billboard you want, to put a commercial on any television channel you can access, then I think you just spend the money and you don't necessarily get the most out of it.
Raj Lulla:
Oh, yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
Where I think for us, because we were forced to be creative, we really created relationships and true customer loyalty that has stood the test of time.
Raj Lulla:
Sometimes those constraints of not having the budget, or even not knowing what to do, it makes you be creative... Okay, what's the highest impact thing that we can do for the smallest investment?
Autumn Pruitt:
And it's interesting... We have the type of business where the product really does speak for itself in a lot of ways, and so if I have the choice between running a Facebook campaign, is that what that's called?
Raj Lulla:
Yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
Okay. Or dropping samples off to the fire station, to say, we're so glad that you're in our neighborhood and we just had these extra cookies today, would you like them? You're still spending something... It's the cost of that product, it's the cost to make it, but you're actually connecting with real humans and you're letting them literally have a taste of what you do. And for us, that's just been... Anything that's word of mouth, or acts like word of mouth, is such a better fit for us to be able to grow the brand. And I think our membership program is a huge piece of that too, that's something that we started, good grief, seven years ago... So, I'm looking at you to-
Raj Lulla:
Because I was there.
Autumn Pruitt:
Because you were there. At the time, you had recently been working at Barnes and Noble, am I making this up?
Raj Lulla:
It was just a couple years after, yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
And so, they had a membership program, and you were like, "I have an idea..." And I listened, because that's what you do when nice people with good ideas share them with you. But it was the idea to say, what would it look like if you were to invite loyal customers into a membership group, where they would pay something upfront, but you would be able to give them that value back in product over the course of a year. And for us, it solves so many problems.
Our cashflow in January is just always tragic. It's right after the holidays, everyone's on a new budget, and they're on a new diet, and it's cold outside... And so, how do you front load some of those customer interactions in January that then take place throughout the rest of the year? And so at this point, our membership program, it's a $75 investment, but customers get a free drink every single month, another one for their birthday, they get 15% off of every purchase when they come in, online, or in store... They get free coffee refills when they're in the shops. And so, it's this way that we really signal to each other... Oh, you're a regular, and we're so glad you're here, and thank you for keeping our doors open these last almost 13 years.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. And the way that that's priced and valued, people can do that math really quickly, because it's like, okay, well, I'd normally spend $5-ish on a cup of coffee anyways, so just those 12 free ones right there, that's $60 off of that $75-
Autumn Pruitt:
Make it 13 for your birthday.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, exactly. So now we're up to at least $65, and if you have the fancy stuff in the coffee on top of that, you might be even closer to breaking even. But then the 15% on top of that, all of those extra things, and I know that there's times you do exclusive events, tastings, all those things... You get to support a local coffee shop, but it's not a charity, you get something out of it, and you really belong somewhere. I've seen people post their year after year key chains all lined up, and it's so satisfying to see... That it's not just a purchase, it's not just an impulse buy, it's something that people look forward to, it's a sense of community... And you do, you learn the barista's names, they learn your kids' names, and it's a place of belonging. It really becomes that place that you can return to.
Autumn Pruitt:
Okay, I've thought of a third advantage of being a small business. I imagine that the CEO of a very large corporation does not have a lot of interactions with the actual customers anymore. And for me, I still run all of the social media, I still send out the newsletter, my husband is behind the bar, at every shop, every week... It's this opportunity to say, okay, a lot of the really pivotal decisions we made early on in the business were because we were listening to our customers, and we don't want to lose track of that. And so, I think the bigger you get, you have the opportunity to only hear the things you want to hear, or only hear the things that people want you to hear...
And I think that, as hard as it is to see a negative review, or as complicated as is to keep track of all of your regulars, it's so helpful, and it's so important, and honestly, that's also just the much more rewarding part of the job. And so, I think that still seeing a lot of those direct messages and being responsible for communicating to a lot of people, that keeps you grounded and it helps you continue to innovate. And so, having a database of our members, and people that we're reaching out to consistently, that's just been a really great way to test ideas, and to say, what do you think about this? If we were to do this, what would you say? And I think we should do even more of that in the coming year.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, that's something we've been talking about in our 2023 predictions, is that I think local's going to be really big this year because-
Autumn Pruitt:
You heard it here first, folks.
Raj Lulla:
Local events, people pulled back on their kind of conference budgets, those types of things... And so, those local gatherings, those local routines, are going to be all that more important, when people are maybe traveling a little less, or certainly traveling for business a little bit less, and need that coffee shop to go to, or just need that break to reset... And a great coffee shop is a wonderful place to do that.
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah. I always had a little bit of a beef with people that do budgeting tools, because my product is always the first on the chopping block... They're like, for the cost of four coffees, you could do this. And I'm like, hey, back off, we're offering so much more than the product. You get to rent a table all day long for a $3 brewed coffee if you'd like... Dave Ramsey, get with it, man.
Raj Lulla:
Calling them all out here. So, the membership program, it's so good to see that surviving and thriving, and really helping... I'll bet it would be fun even for some of your customers to hear how important that is to you-
Autumn Pruitt:
Oh my gosh.
Raj Lulla:
...and the interest has grown year over year, I saw somebody on, I think it was LinkedIn, say, "Oh, I'm going to buy my first one this year."
Autumn Pruitt:
Aw, thank you.
Raj Lulla:
Whoever it was, hopefully you did, if not, there's still time.
Autumn Pruitt:
Well, and a huge piece of that is that we keep tweaking it too. And so, a good friend of ours, two years ago, built an app for the membership program. Or before it was a very grubby piece of paper that you kept in your wallet... By the time the year was up, this punch card was spent. And to say, how do we digitize this? How do we make sure that it's not just for the calendar year, but you get 12 full months whenever you purchase? It's this process to say, I don't know how to build an app, I could probably figure it out if I had lots of time, but we know people that can get there much faster. And so, it's a guy that's on our team now, and he was able to help really thrust that into this century, which was helpful.
Raj Lulla:
I think that's such a great point as well for building a brand, is that you don't have to have it perfect the first time you do it-
Autumn Pruitt:
Straight mercy, yeah.
Raj Lulla:
...and in fact, I would argue that it's better not to have it perfect before you launch it, because then you have the opportunity to get feedback from your customers, and go, hey, we don't really like the grubby punch card. Okay, cool, it's something else this next year, or we'll laminate it. But then you also, you have it done, and it's making revenue for itself, to help invest in itself, as opposed to being paralyzed by perfection or the illusion of perfection. You probably wouldn't have known what app to build if you just said, oh, we definitely need an app because that's the way the big guy does it... You wouldn't have known what all to put into it, you would've wasted a lot of money getting there, and had something this customer still wanted tweaks on because you didn't ask them before you launched it.
So, whatever anybody's doing, starting a business, this is one of the things I tell people... I get asked all the time about how to start a creative business, and some of it is just launch. You're not going to have it all perfect, you're not going to have all of your invoicing system down, and your accounting systems and all those things... You should get them right, don't get me wrong, but you should have a bias towards action, and then refine as you go. Because that's really how you get started in building a brand. If you wait for perfect to come along, or for it to arrive at perfect... She's 13 years in here, and saying, we still want to improve. That's the spirit of an entrepreneur.
Autumn Pruitt:
And it's always so humbling to look back at posts from... It felt like social media was pretty new when we were using it 13 years ago-
Raj Lulla:
It was, yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
...and we were cutting edge by posting pictures of whatever cookie we were decorating. But to see the progress that the product has made over the years, it's just so much better... But if I hadn't made those first cookies, we would've never made it to this batch. And so, I think it's just that reminder of, you got to set your ego aside, make sure it's good, but know that it's going to keep getting better.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
If you care. As long as you keep showing up.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. Speaking of that, what are some of the keys to surviving and thriving? The restaurant and food industry is difficult. You mentioned consistency earlier, I know that's a huge one. What are some of the other things, you mentioned that you teach other people how to run great coffee shops, what are some of the kinds of things that you teach?
Autumn Pruitt:
Just to get the fundamentals right, for any business, you have to know your numbers, you have to be able to know what months are hard, and how to prepare for that, and how to not get in over your head... We barely avoided some disasters along the way... To say like, let's learn from that, let's keep moving forward, let's keep improving... The improvement's not just in the sugar cookies, it's in every area of the business over the last 13 years. But I think having a really clear understanding of your numbers, and then getting to the point, sooner than I did, to share those numbers with your team. I feel like in a lot of ways it was... It was COVID.
We had a location that didn't make it, and that whole process was really hard, but eye-opening, to say, okay, I can keep trying to fix this on my own, or I can come to the table, very open-handed with my team, to say, this is where we're at, and this is where we're going without change, and this is where we need to go if it's going to make it. And it was another reminder of, this is better with a team. This is better... And it's awkward and it's embarrassing because you want to be a competent, confident leader, but all the people there would so much rather have the information... And the reality is they have ideas, they have knowledge that I don't have, and so if you're able to open up that conversation, to be open-handed with the things you know, and to be open-minded with the things you don't know, I think that it made a huge difference for our business.
Raj Lulla:
So, consistency, willing to listen to others, bring your team in... Those are great things. And I really love mastering the fundamentals. That is the thing that, again, we get asked a lot by people who want to be creative professionals... How do you get started in business? And I always tell them that your love of the art will keep you good at art. You're always going to want to improve your brush strokes, or learn how to do that thing in the computer, or get a better camera gear, or whatever... But you're never going to sit down and go, it really just lights my fire to learn QuickBooks today.
If you discipline yourself to do those things, your love of art will carry you into the rest. With coffee, you're always going to want to make a better cup of coffee, a better baked good, the recipes that started Bliss and then were carried on into Hardy... I know some of them came from your own family, and so it's generational, just a love of the food, and you're going to want to continue to get better at that on your own. But the dollars and cents, the training schedules, all of those things, those are the fundamentals that are so important to get right in building a good business.
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah. This is something that may be unpopular, but I think that if you really love baking, don't start a bakery... Go work for a small business where you can do that full-time. Because every small business desperately needs that person too. But don't start a business because you like a task, start a business because you want to make an impact on the world, and to be able to do it and in small creative ways using that thing that you love. But, a lot of times people ask me, don't you miss baking? Don't you miss that?
And I still am in the bakery for major holidays, I'm in that space all the time, but I get to bake at home with my kids now, and when I'm at work I get to do other things, that help our bakers do that, and help us sell to more people, and help us partner with more wholesale accounts... And I think that, yeah, it's an unpopular opinion, when everybody's like, just go do it. Go do it... Well, don't do it if that's not what you should be doing, there's so many different ways to do it well, but there are easier ways to make money.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah.
Autumn Pruitt:
Being an entrepreneur, there are easier ways to make money, so don't do it unless that's the only way you can imagine moving forward.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, that is so good. Because beyond that, you talk so much about your team, you also have these retail spaces... And when you jump into being an entrepreneur for the love of the craft, alone, then you don't realize how many people are counting on you. Between a landlord who's keeping a shopping center alive, the staff that you end up having work for you, and if you fall down on those business fundamentals, then a lot of people get disappointed. It's not just your own dream, you go, oh, I guess I just don't like baking as much anymore... You end up hurting a lot of people. Owning a business is a sacred responsibility, when there are people who are counting on you. As you've mentioned, you have your wholesale accounts, and you are now teaching other coffee shops how to be coffee shops... That's amazing.
Autumn Pruitt:
Doing our level best. I think for me, it's just one of those moments where you're like, what have I learned? What do I wish somebody would have told me? How could I have gotten from there to here so much faster, and with less scar tissue? How could that have happened? And so, I think for us, people have asked us to franchise so many times, and that's just not the way that I plan to grow our business, but this is a way to say, we can be a wholesale partner... You don't have to have every piece of your business look like ours. You can pick your own name, and have your own interior design, and be able to set your own menu... But if you would like some pointers on how to be successful selling specialty coffee, this is the playbook. We can help in all of these different areas... Take it or leave it, but if you take it, I really think that you'll be able to be successful faster.
Raj Lulla:
And that is huge, because we all know the statistics on businesses not making it out of the first year, the first two years, first five years... And if you have somebody who's been doing this for 13 years, willing to give you their playbook, then even a really sizable investment in that makes a lot of sense. We talked about this when we were doing some brand strategy for your consulting, where it's just like, how much would it have saved you to know what you know now? It's like, even if you're just able to pay yourself, and even a really modest salary of 50 or $60,000, moving into those first couple of years, then, if you invest five figures in that training, to avoid going 2, 3, 4, 5 years... When that you compound those, that's 50, 150, $250,000 that somebody gains by starting from second or third base, rather than starting from home, reinventing the wheel, let's mix all the metaphors... But having to learn it all the hard way when somebody else has already done that.
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah. And I feel like I'm a very open book about the mistakes we've made, because, I don't know... I just think there's no use pretending that it was easy or that we don't still have our challenges, but I think our challenges now are better than they were before. Because we keep learning, we keep changing, we keep adapting.
Raj Lulla:
Well, if somebody is interested in starting a coffee shop, or just finding excellent baked goods and coffee, where can they find Hardy?
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah, so we have four locations. We have one in the Old Market area of Omaha, down on 11th and Jones. We have one in the Benson neighborhood, 60th Ave and Maple. One in North Omaha, 30th and Lake. We have a drive-through only on 144th and just off I-80, the Chalco area. And then, you can always find us online, we're at hardycoffee.com. And so, that's a great place to go if you're looking for something from the online store, or you're one of those people that says, I am interested in wholesale coffee... You can always set up a consultation there, and we would love to talk to you.
Raj Lulla:
Last time I was in your store, we picked up one of those... And this is not a paid promotion at all, this did happen. But one of those Airscape containers that you have, that keeps the coffee really fresh-
Autumn Pruitt:
[inaudible 00:42:28].
Raj Lulla:
...because I'm a much bigger fan of grinding the coffee ourselves at home, and then storing it, but all the other containers, they were letting air in and the coffee was getting stale... And the interesting thing about that was that both had the cool Hardy buffalo on it, and it was slightly cheaper than it was on Amazon... And I was like, oh, I'm sold, 100% right now, sold-
Autumn Pruitt:
Win-win, is was what we call that.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah. And all of your products that you have available online, all the great coffee merchandise, and treats... Definitely, look them up, we enjoy them. Autumn is definitely going to be back with us, as long as she says yes to this weird dog and pony show that we have here, because this is just the beginning of the wisdom that she has to share with-
Autumn Pruitt:
So much wisdom.
Raj Lulla:
...business owners.
Autumn Pruitt:
Look out world.
Raj Lulla:
And then we are also going to be doing some events in Omaha, I'm speaking it into existence right now-
Autumn Pruitt:
Happening...
Raj Lulla:
...to help small business owners. Like I said, I think this is going to be the year of local, and so partnering with other organizations, these are the advantages that small businesses have, and we're going to make sure that people have access to the resources they need to make it through some weird and wild economic times, so-
Autumn Pruitt:
There will be coffee for the weird and wild times.
Raj Lulla:
Yeah, definitely. I think for the weird and wild times, you have to start with coffee, for sure.
Autumn Pruitt:
Honestly.
Raj Lulla:
Autumn, thank you so much.
Autumn Pruitt:
Yeah, it's so good to be here. Thanks, Raj.
Ben Lueders:
Thanks for joining us today on Growing a Fruitful Brand. If you found today's show helpful, don't forget to subscribe and consider sharing it with someone who might also enjoy it. If you'd like to work with Fruitful on a branding, website, or messaging project of your own, you can always reach out on our website fruitful.design. So until next time, don't forget to grow something good.
