When Kobus Wiese and his wife, Belinda, bought their first coffee shop, they hadn’t yet thought of building their own franchise. In fact, they were working seven days a week in an industry for which they had no past training or experience.
“We needed to learn everything from the ground up,” says Wiese. “At the beginning we couldn’t afford to employ a manager, so one of us was opening and closing the store each day. We also had to get involved in everything. We needed to be floor manager, kitchen manager, barista, waiter and customer care manager all rolled into one.”
The experience taught the husband and wife duo a valuable lesson though. “As a business owner you can’t stand aside. At first we were very involved in the day to day workings of the business because there was no alternative, but it soon became apparent that because we were able to do everything in our own store, our staff respected us.
On top of that, we really understand what everyone’s jobs are, from the inside out.” This in turn has assisted the owners of Wiesenhof Coffees to develop the systems that would be vital to the business once they chose to franchise.
Today, Wiese is a firm believer that every business owner should not only be setting the bar for product quality and service delivery, but he has learnt that as long as he is willing to do something, his staff will be too.
Lesson
Be a business owner your staff can respect and look up to.