You don’t know what you don’t know. That lesson hit us hard a few times over the years. When we first started researching roasters, we travelled to Vermont to peek in on roasters over there. We were stunned to learn that roasters came with a sweep arm to continually agitate the hot roasted beans upon being dumped from the belly of the roaster. Until that moment we only knew about the roaster we had learned on in Eliot, Maine. It was a used machine and clearly was lacking that critical part. We had been taught to stir the beans with a wooden spoon until the beans had cooled.
In the early years of Carpe Diem, we made it a habit to attend the Specialty Coffee Association of America conferences every few years to see what was new and to reconnect with our vendors. At one of those conferences, easily several years into our business, we were invited to join a round table with some heavy hitters in the industry. These two country bumpkins sat at that long, impressive table and listened to various men discuss issues of our industry. We don’t remember saying much at that meeting, but the moment we were back out in the halls we exploded with the revelation that we COULD, and SHOULD, be setting up bean contracts to assure we would be covered for our needs, and to give us a greater idea of future costs. Until that time we had been purchasing our coffees from the spot market. We had a few coffee brokers that we worked with and that allowed us to play one against the other, which was fun, but time consuming. Over time we landed on one broker who has served us well and who keeps us informed of any shortages that might be looming, so that we can make sure we cover our anticipated needs.
You don’t know what you don’t know. But you also don’t know what you think you know. Such was the case with purchasing our pallet jack. We both had assumed that buying a pallet jack was a luxury that we just could not afford. So for YEARS, we unloaded 130–150-pound bags of coffee off the back of semi tractor-trailers onto what we call the rollie thing, some people call them hand trucks. Then we would roll it back to the pallets and line them up for storage. It wasn’t until we moved to our second location, SEVEN YEARS IN, that we decided to bite the bullet and invest in that life-changing piece of equipment. It did not break the bank and probably saved our backs.
One would think that if a pallet jack seemed way out of our reach then, we surely shouldn’t be entertaining a weigh and fill machine; but we did, and fairly early in our history, too. We didn’t really know what a critical piece of equipment that was. Our Guru, Don Shoenholt, of Gillies Coffee Roasting Company in NYC advised us to invest in one sooner than later. Once again, he was right. That was money well spent.
For twenty-seven years, we have handwritten bank deposits. Rarely did a month go by without one of those annoying little notices being tucked into our bank bags bringing our attention to some mathematical error. Often, the deposit slips were hastily written out. After moaning about this for quite some time we investigated preprinted deposit slips that work in conjunction with our QuickBooks program. Click, click, click, up to eighteen times, and print. Who knew?
The lesson in all this is simple. Ask more questions, because you just don’t know what you don’t know.
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You don’t know what you don’t know. That lesson hit us hard a few times over the years. When we first started researching roasters, we travelled to Vermont to peek in on roasters over there. We were stunned to learn that roasters came with a sweep arm to continually agitate the hot roasted beans upon being dumped from the belly of the roaster. Until that moment we only knew about the roaster we had learned on in Eliot, Maine. It was a used machine and clearly was lacking that critical part. We had been taught to stir the beans with a wooden spoon until the beans had cooled.
In the early years of Carpe Diem, we made it a habit to attend the Specialty Coffee Association of America conferences every few years to see what was new and to reconnect with our vendors. At one of those conferences, easily several years into our business, we were invited to join a round table with some heavy hitters in the industry. These two country bumpkins sat at that long, impressive table and listened to various men discuss issues of our industry. We don’t remember saying much at that meeting, but the moment we were back out in the halls we exploded with the revelation that we COULD, and SHOULD, be setting up bean contracts to assure we would be covered for our needs, and to give us a greater idea of future costs. Until that time we had been purchasing our coffees from the spot market. We had a few coffee brokers that we worked with and that allowed us to play one against the other, which was fun, but time consuming. Over time we landed on one broker who has served us well and who keeps us informed of any shortages that might be looming, so that we can make sure we cover our anticipated needs.
You don’t know what you don’t know. But you also don’t know what you think you know. Such was the case with purchasing our pallet jack. We both had assumed that buying a pallet jack was a luxury that we just could not afford. So for YEARS, we unloaded 130–150-pound bags of coffee off the back of semi tractor-trailers onto what we call the rollie thing, some people call them hand trucks. Then we would roll it back to the pallets and line them up for storage. It wasn’t until we moved to our second location, SEVEN YEARS IN, that we decided to bite the bullet and invest in that life-changing piece of equipment. It did not break the bank and probably saved our backs.
One would think that if a pallet jack seemed way out of our reach then, we surely shouldn’t be entertaining a weigh and fill machine; but we did, and fairly early in our history, too. We didn’t really know what a critical piece of equipment that was. Our Guru, Don Shoenholt, of Gillies Coffee Roasting Company in NYC advised us to invest in one sooner than later. Once again, he was right. That was money well spent.
For twenty-seven years, we have handwritten bank deposits. Rarely did a month go by without one of those annoying little notices being tucked into our bank bags bringing our attention to some mathematical error. Often, the deposit slips were hastily written out. After moaning about this for quite some time we investigated preprinted deposit slips that work in conjunction with our QuickBooks program. Click, click, click, up to eighteen times, and print. Who knew?
The lesson in all this is simple. Ask more questions, because you just don’t know what you don’t know.