ACP 063: Anthem Coffee and Tea in Tacoma Washington Pt. 2

INTRO: Part 2 of interviewing Bryan Reynolds from Anthem Coffee and Tea in Tacoma Washington. Last episode we talked about how you personally need to cast a vision for your employees to learn and model back to your customers. We also left off with a quote from a visual artist who worked with Bryan, talking about the great ambiance in the cafe, here is Bryan’s response to that quote.

TIME 0:50
Levi: how did you build this culture?
Bryan: it stems from his parents modeling this to him growing up, there was never a stranger to his parents, everyone was a guest. I wanted to make a cafe that had a different focus on customer service because my own first experience in coffee as a customer was an uncomfortable one. You can walk someone through the ordering process in a loving way, giving undivided attention and serve them well. Make the product worth coming back.

TIME 3:05
Levi: “We wont be held accountable for how much we have done, but for how much we have done of what he asks us to do” the take away from that in a cafe would be if we want to make something cool like a fancy wall, how is that really going to improve the customer and employee experience? Do you have a lesson to share?
Bryan: the first time we adopted a virtual punch-card system to ‘bring people back’ but it ultimately it created an entitled customer for a number of reasons. We learned from that and changed it to a pre-load punch-card which has worked even better. We have had many other things that we wanted to do but never even launched. But as long as we learn from this and ‘fail forward’ then we are being made stronger. Its far more of a risk to not try than it is to take a risk.

TIME 8:15
Levi: “I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle, I just with He didn’t trust me so much” your first big fear must have been starting Anthem, but what is the next biggest fear that is around the corner for Anthem?
Bryan: success can lead to failure just as much as remaining dormant can, what scares me is if we coast if we let off the gas pedal. I’m constantly keeping myself tethered to the core values helps from becoming distracted. There’s 60 of us on this team, there’s a lot of moving parts. Which is why we focus on “Better before bigger.” And it leads to ‘how do we make little things like waiting in line better?’ that question led to them creating a Anthem Coffee IOS app. A [customer] line is a good sign because it means there’s something worth waiting for, but finding a way to skip the line ads value to some customers.

TIME 13:05
Levi: what is your 85/10/5 rule?
Bryan: in the book Leading on Empty, the author unpacks this idea, there is 85% of what other people should be doing for you, 10% that you can train leaders to do, and 5% that only you can do. If you don’t take care of you then you can’t take care of others. I love conflict because what’s on the other side of it, which is unity. From the book “Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing You Passion, by Wayne Cordeiro.

TIME 17:40
Levi: who introduced you to coffee?
Bryan: I was saving money for an engagement ring, so I started working at Cutters Point. I used to drink sweet sweet beverages (Black and White Hot Chocolate with Toasted Marshmallow) then a barista accidentally threw some shots into the drink (turning it into a mocha) and it was game-over, I loved the way it balanced the flavor and I was hooked from then on.

TIME 19:05
Levi: the White Chocolate Mocha is the ‘Gateway Mocha.’ What did you think of that first sip?
Bryan: I don’t drink sweet drinks as much, but I love an Espresso Macchiato, its like a mini-vacation for me. I love tasting different black coffees.

TIME 19:50
Levi: decaf or tea?
Bryan: I would go decaf. There’s something about the smell of coffee, it takes you away. My wife will brew a pot of coffee just for the smell in the house.

OUTRO
Glad you listened to these 2 episodes, some topics we covered that I enjoyed learning were: giving employees light responsibilities to free your time up teaching them lower risk tasks and testing to see where they’re sweet spot is. The small tasks is really part of setting up the “85/10/5% rule” and finding others to help handle 95% of that your workload. Do you remember that story of a customer loyalty program that had outstanding usage but went bust?

Well its time to say goodbye, I’ll let Bryan send us off with this inspiration and challenge “Better before bigger.”

Music in this episode by The Dirty Moogs, via https://starfrosch.com/hot-100/artist/the+dirty+moogs