Top 10 Most Effective Café Business Tips

In all endeavors, preparation is key. Without thorough preparation, subsequent plans and tasks may encounter difficulties that are challenging to resolve. In the context of café business, meticulous preparation is vital. From a professional standpoint, insufficient preparation in business can lead to various obstacles that are hard to overcome.

So, what should you prepare for when opening a café? Firstly, you must mentally prepare to face the challenges of entrepreneurship, particularly in the service industry such as running a café. You need a resilient mindset to handle potential setbacks, such as financial losses, staff issues, facility deterioration, or competition from rivals.

Secondly, one of the most critical conditions is financial readiness. Whether you have personal capital or rely on loans, having adequate funds is essential. You must be financially prepared for any unforeseen circumstances. If your café is operating smoothly and suddenly faces equipment wear or needs upgrades to stay competitive, you must be ready to invest.

Another important aspect is choosing the right companions. Even if you're a sole proprietor or in business with friends or family, having trustworthy companions is crucial. If you're solo, seek advice from those with expertise in various fields. For example, consult an architect for café layout or a marketer for advertising strategies. If you're in a partnership, thorough discussions among team members are necessary for addressing all issues.

What type of café business do you want to run? This directly affects the design of your café space. Nowadays, customers visit cafés not only for drinks but also to enjoy the ambiance. It's clear that cafés with beautiful and impressive spaces attract more customers than those with basic designs. Therefore, designing a unique space for your café is crucial.

To achieve this, you must first determine the style you want your café to embody. Some popular café concepts include: nostalgic, elegant and refined, charming, garden-themed, etc. Depending on the style you choose, you'll select a suitable location, followed by interior design and decoration. The café space is a key factor in attracting and retaining customers. Therefore, café owners must always prioritize and invest in it.

Everything, from small to large, requires its own plan. Running a café is no exception; you need to have plans both before and after the café's opening.

When you intend to open a café, you should create a detailed plan outlining the necessary tasks. This plan should clarify: what preparations are needed, how much capital is required, what types of beverages to sell, what entertainment activities to offer, how to design the café space, advertising strategies to attract customers effectively, how to deal with risks, and more. The more detailed the plan, the easier it is to execute.

After your café is operational, having a business plan for monthly, quarterly, and yearly operations remains crucial. To ensure the success and growth of your service business, entrepreneurs must stay updated on youth trends and continuously innovate in a positive direction. And for effective and regular changes, a clear plan is still the first necessary step.

'If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together' - This is a principle that every team should remember.

You may be the one who builds the cafe, but the staff are the face of the cafe. Training a professional team is something you must always pay attention to if you want your cafe to leave a good impression on customers. Therefore, equip your staff with the basic knowledge to take care of customers. There are some principles you need to instill in your staff to enhance the image of the store, such as: smiling and greeting customers as they enter the cafe, soliciting customer feedback and choosing suitable seating for them, recommending drinks from the menu to customers, always smiling warmly to meet customer needs, consulting customer reviews on drink quality… Another point to note is that staff must always maintain a moderate attitude and be flexible in handling negative reactions and behaviors from customers.

However, for staff to be able to do this, you need to be the first to demonstrate professionalism in customer service, cultivate good habits to impress your staff with your customer care approach. With this, your staff will always provide the best customer service in the cafe.

Constructing an impressive and suitable menu is paramount for cafe owners. When customers visit a cafe, they not only enjoy the ambiance or participate in the entertainment activities (if any), but they also seek to savor a delicious, refreshing drink that suits their preferences.

The first crucial point is that your cafe must offer a diverse and extensive menu. Customers have various eating and drinking preferences when they visit a cafe. Some may prefer coffee, while others may opt for juice or milk tea. Therefore, to attract customers, you must know how to build a diverse and extensive menu with a variety of beverages. Additionally, the drinks need to be visually appealing, presented in the unique style of the cafe, and ensure quality, aroma, and food safety.

Moreover, focusing on the so-called 'best sellers' is essential if you want customers to have a profound impression of your cafe or if you want your cafe to stand out in the taste of beverages. Furthermore, consider adding some light snacks to your drink menu gracefully. Currently, cafes are very fond of sweet cakes, sandwiches, or snacks like dried chicken, beef, or other snacks.

Advertising is the lifeblood of business; without it, there's only failure. It's essential to promote and strengthen your cafe's presence starting from the preparation for the grand opening. Here are some suggestions for advertising your coffee shop:

First and foremost, utilize all the advantages of social media. Social media platforms are increasingly popular, with almost everyone using them. This is the quickest way to reach your target customers. Invest in reasonably priced advertising packages on Facebook, Instagram, etc. This is the most efficient and time-saving advertising method today. For example, you may discover a cafe simply because a friend on your Facebook list checked in at a cafe, sparking your curiosity about the ambiance, service, and quality of drinks there, prompting you to visit and try it out, right?

Some traditional advertising methods should also be employed: distributing advertising leaflets, hanging signs, posters, banners. Particularly, nowadays, we often see popular cafes using some effective resource utilization methods: inviting customers to try out free samples during the grand opening, distributing discount vouchers, or issuing membership cards, VIP cards for loyal customers.

Marketing for cafes aims to increase brand visibility, attract attention from everyone, thereby increasing the customer base. If executed well and tactfully combining the methods above, your cafe will undoubtedly attract many potential customers.

To retain and attract customers, providing entertainment activities in the cafe is also one of the emerging trends. There are many diverse forms of entertainment for cafes to choose from.

• Firstly, there's music cafes. Depending on the scale, you can invest in a sound system and allow customers to interact with music as they wish or organize regular music nights with professional bands, or even invite your own friends to perform.
• The second suggestion is a Book Cafe. With a book cafe, you can simply invest in a bookshelf with entertaining books that you deem most suitable for your customers. If you want to invest in a more professional book cafe, you should carefully search and categorize the books to ensure diversity and design the reading space to be suitable for different customer groups.
• Board game cafes are a new and attractive trend for young people. The board game selection in cafes is diverse, from card games to wooden horse racing, monopoly ... You should design the cafe with comfortable seating so that customers can sit for a long time and engage in activities easily. Sitting on the floor is also a good idea for board game cafes, sitting on the floor in a large space to gather groups to play board games together is wonderful.

In addition, there are some types of cafes that operate as clubs. Typical cafes: English cafes, travel cafes, cat cafes, tarot card cafes, koi fish cafes. The characteristic of these types of cafes is that the owners must have strengths and passion for the type of business they are in. These cafes are easy to gain reputation in the community, thereby attracting loyal and stable customers.

Investing in additional entertainment activities for the cafe can be costly and time-consuming. However, if you invest properly in this aspect, the revenue and profit of the cafe can be quite significant.

Location is a crucial factor determining 30% of the success of a cafe. Before making a decision, take the time to analyze and consider the following issues: Is the location spacious enough? Is it easy for customers to see and find? Where is the parking? What is the traffic flow and frequency of people passing by at different times? Are there many competing cafes nearby?..

Good locations for opening a cafe are intersections, areas near universities, shopping centers, office buildings, densely populated residential areas,...

Realizing your plan to open a cafe will be much simpler and easier if you clearly define your goals. My advice to you is to sit down, grab a pen, and write down what you want to achieve with this cafe opening idea.

The goals of opening a cafe often involve issues related to space design, building the cafe's image, sales targets, desired profits, the number of additional cafes to open.... Setting goals should adhere to the principles of setting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound).

To run a successful business, you need to seek out reliable suppliers of quality ingredients that align with your cafe's business goals.

Depending on your cafe business goals (whether you only sell coffee or also offer tea, smoothies, pastries, snacks, etc.), you can create a list of primary/secondary ingredients needed and search for corresponding suppliers.