So You're Passionate About Coffee, Meh...

…we are passionate about coffee

The opening statement of blackboard marketing Bronx-scrawl in another independent coffee shop I happened across lately.

I realised my tendency to zone out when someone mentions to me they are “passionate” about something or other.

I remember my early days of a new venture at the turn of the millennium where I revelled in telling prospects I would not, nor ever likely, have passion for the category description of what they sold.

Perhaps a form of the “provocative sell”, who cares.

What I was deeply interested in though, was how they sold it. The problems they resolved and where they wished to improve.

It is very difficult to understand how people succumb to passion for widget x or package y.

Yet in the context of what they allow, well that’s an entirely different matter.

Coffee shops to me are not about coffee.

The act of supping commoditised to a capsule-pod culture now from your own couch.

Whilst an acceptable calibre of brew is important, it is a mere starting point. Providing a platform. One of several flagstones. It’s surely more how the spending of time in said establishment improves the lot of the paying patron.

Yes, you might express passion for coffee as a proprietor. Starbucks probably say the very same thing. Lucky you.

Ought your passion truly breathe elsewhere? A chillax in a busy day, a slice of The Med, a vibrant meeting place. Or quite the distance removed? Wannapreneurs, the latest scandi-oriental life tonic, an artistic retreat.

You even read that England itself could somehow see astounding growth over the next eight years. A 5th Wave, no less. Requiring an eye-popping extra 40,000 baristas. So many new outlets that pretty soon they’ll *gasp* outnumber pubs. The world is full of people selling coffee. As there are with accounting software, training days, outsourced admin. All manner of b2b products and services.

Your passion isn’t the liquid passed through the roasted bean. It is the sun-filled pleasure surrounding the rainbow sparkling moment of consumption where the unicorn playfully grazes.

Now, how do you get that passion across…?