Cafe-Shaped Business

December 19, 2008 · Comments

You Are Here Books Imagine if cafe-shaped conversations translated into smaller businesses. Educational marketing expert Rachel Reuben talked about her interpretation of implementing a cafe-shaped experience for her college admissions community. I had another experience of that today, and wanted to share it.

But first, I have to tell you a bit of backstory about Carolyn Jordan.

The First Store

Imagine walking into a really small town bookstore, asking for a book, and realizing it’s not there. (Mind you, there’s not enough store to have the selection one would need). She offered to order it for me, and that it’d be in two days hence. Perfect, I said. I gave her my contact info, and then I left.

I came back a week later, as I walk in the door, Carolyn says, “Hi Chris. Your book’s here. I found something else you might like, too.” She remembered my name.

First important lesson: knowing someone’s name is a powerful magic for success.

Next, Carolyn had a suggestion for something else I might like. She knows books. She knows people. She did this repeatedly over the next several months. It’s why even when I had a great full time job, I’d work there over the holidays, because she was a book lover like me, and she loved hand-selling books to people who appreciated the reference.

The New Cafe-Shaped Store

Independent Book StoreCarolyn runs a very small store, You Are Here Books. It’s actually physically in the dining room of her home on a small country road. She has a tax ID. It’s a real business. Only, she hasn’t put up a website yet. Carolyn is actually selling directly to people like me.

We went there today to buy another $200 books for Toys for Tots (or whatever you call the teen segment of that program). She helped me find a whole bunch of great books, and as always, had lots of great conversational information about books she had out.

But not only that, Carolyn had out some crackers and brie, some grapes, and those kinds of things. Her husband, Tom, came home and I had a beer with him and talked even more about books. We spent another $100 of our own money for our own books with Carolyn.

And Social Media and Business Relates to this How?

That is the feeling I want from social media and how companies interact with it. It’s not huge. It’s like… 1915 sized. It’s this thing where people can spend a few extra moments to make a human connection instead of an “off the shelf” connection. I can buy from Amazon, and that’s sometimes convenient, but I can’t get the human touch of what I got with Carolyn.

That’s the time to use social media, when you want to reach people on a more personal and more connected way. It’s not always the path to more revenue. In fact, it’s definitely not as easy as just pushing a few clicks and having books sent to the house. But when you need a more personalized feeling, a more human experience, cafe-shaped is what social media does best.

What say you?

Oh, and if you want to talk books with Carolyn, you can call her – 978.257.3279 or email her: youareherebooks@gmail.com

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  • This is exactly what I am trying to do in my gallery. Even though social media is making this very topical, I take inspiration from Eastern cultures (i.e. Turkey, India, to name a couple) and small towns, where people know your name and doing business is rarely transactional. Whenever I buy something in India, I am offered a drink, we make conversation and the experience is personalized.

    In the small town in Nfld where I have a home, the general store keeps a tab for me, based on my first name only - when I am not in town my handyman can buy things to keep the place fixed, and charges my account.

    What I get from this post is that it is not about social media -- instead, social media is a tool that allows Carolyn to engage with you online as she would offline, no?
  • I like this Chris. I wish I could walk in to Carolyn's store. I love that feeling. I totally agree with you. Social Media gives us the opportunity to reach out to people we normally would not be able to - and connect with them on a personal level. That is what Twitter and Facebook is for me. Tweets should be engaging as much as they are informative.

    I love reading your posts, Chris. I know for a fact that YOU are that Cafe-Shaped for Twitter.

    Cheers!
    Carmen
    @digitalfemme
  • Thank you for the story,. Chris. It brought to life a concept that, if left abstract, invites us to talk a good game but engage shallowly.

    I'm loving Twitter for the opportunity to forge what I call "Deep Acquaintanceship." These are sporadic, momentary connections can be sweet (in the best sense) as can talking with the Postmaster or the checker at the supermarket -- or the bookseller.

    The kind of intimacy that we have with close friends is wonderful. And there is another kind of intimacy that allows the free exchange of good will, resources, and simple camaraderie among acquaintances. In a big, big world, social media affords us the opportunity to light up many more nodes in the human network than we could otherwise.

    That's a good thing. And it's too valuable to let it devolve into a mechanism for managing opinion or making sales.

    Thanks for the opportunity to vent.

    Molly

    PS: I teach self employed folks who don't want to market themselves how to get work, so I'm not against marketing per se. I dislike callousness in the pursuit of any objective.
  • This is an incredible story Chris. I've ruminating over your post on cafe-conversations and appreciate this follow up. With the eroding trust in big corporate america it's refreshing to see such an enterprise. Reminds me of the 'The Shop Around the Corner' from You Got Mail. Perhaps we'll see these kinds of stores come back as society (hopefully) becomes more reflective and desires richer experiences in life's little things - like shopping not just to buy, but to connect.

    I love Amazon.com - it's so easy, so rich and great if you know what you want. But for those times when you want to be delighted with something new you otherwise would not have considered - a store like Carolyn's delivers that far better.

    A creative consultant I met several years ago talked about the future primitive - in that people reach for the past looking for what's familiar when faced with rapidly changing technologies and instability. Perhaps this is what's happening now.
  • As the owner of a small cafe in Lincoln, NH (think Loon Mtn) our clientele consists of local regulars, 2nd homeowner regulars, quarter-share owner regulars, annual vacation regulars, and lots of folks who will eventually become regulars :-) I had never thought about trying to replicate those ties online. Great post!

    Mary
    @fiberartisan
  • @Mary - Imagine if people could "visit" you online in some way and share their appreciation of you from afar. Imagine if you invite them to send photos of where they normally get lunch, etc. Imagine the kinds of relationships that you can grow over the web in the space between their visits and when they come back. Nothing TOO heavy, but even just some kind of mutual space? A blog or a Ning site, maybe.
  • Not entirely comfortable with this ... why? Maybe I would call your perspective a bit sentimental this time, Chris. Social media could be seen as slowing down, providing grapes and beer for customers, etc. ... but the crux of it is in your shopkeeper making personalized recommendations - i.e., in her listening and nurturing and steady friendliness. You can be efficient with your time, and forego the grapes, but if you're not listening (and it's always obvious) you're missing the point. The power of the internet is in giving us new ways to listen.
  • @mary (the second one). I think the power of the internet is giving us a new way to listen, but also to connect on an emotional level. It has been the challenge of marketers to try and evoke emotion in the prospective customers and build a connection. Television and advertisements have tried to mimic this through images that pull certain strings.

    Chris's experience is basically, "getting back to the basics" of human interaction. I would love if my on-line personality would be as welcoming and my website as friendly as stepping into Carolyn's living room shop.

    @nathanmcgee
  • Carolyn's store - and the experience therein - sounds completely wonderful! I absolutely love this as a 'story of social media' - it's just perfect! :)
  • Humanizing business is the point. I think we lost that along the way. We don't ALWAYS need it, but are there many opportunities to make it better? Yes.
  • I love the simplicity of this. It really is what social marketing should be all about. Thanks for sharing.
  • John Berringer
    Awesome post Chris. You really got down to the essence of what social media is and can be.
  • Great entry - Carolyn's store sounds much like the small book stores peppered around here in Portland,Oregon (home of Powell's.) Unfortunately, those book stores are beginning to shut their doors, because of the economy and other reasons I'm sure.

    Imagine if they had tried to use social media or the web to expand their hometown reach? Maybe they could have done better? I think so. Social Media allows the human connections typing on a keyboard doesn't have, whether it is 12 Seconds, a YouTube video, blog-radio, Author Tele-seminars, UStream or plain old podcasts - the medium brings that human interaction forward and possible in a way that is truly amazing.

    I get to know more and more about my connections on Twitter everyday - I find it truly amazing that the time and space barriers are being toppled. And business will come eventually - it's the conversations, the networking and building of Relationships that is the key here.
  • One of the earliest lessons I learned when starting my coaching business is that relationships build better businesses. I know I'm at my best at the cafe-level because I enjoy conversation so much. Joining Twitter has been so much fun because conversation is a key piece. You meet people you may not have noticed before or maybe would shy away from if met in-person. It seems that humanizing business is a better choice given the economy and the power of word of mouth referrals. Genuine connection is the key here and Carolyn Jordan exemplifies it so well.
  • Great story, and why we love our local hardware store.

    My challenge as a federal gov't web manager is how to engage people at this local level. I'm still trying to figure it out. Do we create small social networks around sharing information in specific cities? Is that an appropriate role when the private sector might do it better? One problem is that Carolyn doesn't have protesters trying to shout at her 24 hrs/day, or people who might vandalize her store just because it'd be fun. So how do we have conversations with the people who really want to talk, and keep out the thugs?
  • I say God Bless Carolyn Jordan for being exactly what a bookseller should be: someone loves books and excited about connecting them with readers. Those of us in the mid-list author category treasure independent booksellers!!
  • I live 3 miles from the home office of Walmart. Even though they are building bigger stores all the time, they are still finding that in most communities people prefer the smaller versions of their stores. My wife and I will drive 5 extra minutes to the Walmart Neighborhood Market rather than go to the Supercenter. I sometimes wonder what would happen if a company like Walmart went all "cafe" on us.
  • @Jeffrey Levy - drop me a line. I'd love to talk more about that challenge. - blog at chrisbrogan dot com.
  • A lovely example of how relationships are the key in business. Wouldn't it be lovely if social media could help us nurture these local level individual relationships? And of course this is not impossible. I just feel that social media is more about broadening your outreach rather than creating local level relationships. Whilst Carolyn has defintely got her sales tactics right, the albeit faceless Amazon.com adopts similar techniques to give you the buyer a personal shopping experience. With book recommendations, other customers also bought and so forth. Is it really possible to get the human touch via social media? Very interesting.
  • Hi Chris, great subject about how we feel and subsequently share our felt and founds with others!. It's an emotional thing buying as we have all heard the phrase retail therapy. Buying online somehow doesn't seem to fill that hole. It;s the missing peice you have highlighted....the high street experience will live on, for the emotional aspects..no? Maybe with the video tools available today the customer/buyer bond can be brought at least closer than web page alone allows.
    I received an email back recently with a short low quality video within the message body. It was personal and thanked me for my contact. What a great little tool. It certainly stood out from the usual 'thank you for your order" email.
    What you think?
  • What a great bunch of comments! You've really hit the spot here Chris!!

    You have really served to put VERY small town America on the map, showing it to be EXACTLY the same as small town Europe, UK, Middle East, Far East and Australia.

    I'm sorry to be at variance with Mary & Janelle here though - I firmly believe that Social Media & Social Networking should work at ALL paces, not just the one dictated by the "immediacy" society of today.

    It is truly time that we learned that the high pace, big finance world we knew is NOT the be all and end all! Some areas need to accept and adjust to the fact that Carolyn's way of doing things can actually be the RIGHT way - it is Heart Sell not Hard Sell. What goes around, comes around, and it's time has come!

    I only hope now we can spread the word fast enough to stop any more bookstores, and other smaller businesses, going bust - if they can learn what has emerged here, and buyers take on board that this is the more natural way to shop that many of us yearn for - we lost it in the "Supercenters" - maybe we can truly save the world, and get something of great benefit to all out of the dismal events of 2008!

    Thanks again Chris.
  • Hi Chris,

    First I didn't knew what to write in a comment. But then the more I looked at the picture and re-reading in my mind the article it started to get to me : a warm feeling of a moment when you are siting in your favorite chair and reading a good book. The smell of paper and the possibility to also enjoy a hot coco or some tea or some coffee - what you prefer.

    It would be great if you could succeed in transmitting such a feeling when people end up on your page on a social media website.

    Thank you for this article
    @WebOptimization
  • Good stuff, Chris. Many thouhts boiling here, but I'll focus on three:

    1. In his comment above, Jeffrey mentions his local hardware store. I've written about my local hardware store, and the way that the owner calls me by name and tries to *figure out the problem I'm trying to solve* rather than just *figuring out what he can sell me*. Sometimes this means he points me to Lowe's for something he knows they have in stock that would take him a week to order. (If I'm in there first thing on Saturday, he rightly assumes that I'm trying to knock out a project that day.) The fact that he pays attention to *my* needs means that I keep coming back again and again, even if on certain occasions Lowe's gets my money for a particular project.

    2. I think Janelle is off-track in her comment above when she writes, "Wouldn’t it be lovely if social media could help us nurture these local level individual relationships?" It CAN help do this, and not only is it not impossible, it's doable right now. Also, I think she's taking a limited view when she writes, "I just feel that social media is more about broadening your outreach rather than creating local level relationships."

    Social media is "about" what you *make* it about, just like any other medium. We can use the telephone to build up customer relations, surprising a customer or prospect by calling them back promptly with information, corrections, etc. . . . or we can phone-spam people with crappy telemarketing that interrupts their dinner hour. These and many more things are possible with a plain ol' telephone; the new, Internet-enabled social media offer even more possibilities.

    3. I'm fascinated to think about how cafe-shaped conversations and business practices can be applied to larger enterprises, too. How could a *big* company operate, cell by cell, along cafe-shape lines. The best salespeople have always done this anyway, listening hard to customers and prospects just like Mike at my local hardware store listens to me. How could we use social-media tools to spread this kind of customer TLC across *many* constituencies for a larger business?
  • 1915? Yea, I can relate, and it's a great feeling.

    You'll never find it.

    No amount of technology can replace the human interaction. Sure, Carolyn used technology when she ordered the book(s) for you, but nothing can replace or duplicate her presence.

    Oh, and I love how she doesn't even have a website, yet she is already doing what social media promises to deliver.

    Heading back to watch the dog chase his tail now.

    Thanks for the great post, Chris.
  • This is part of the movement from the corporate lead commerce culture to the customer lead commerce culture that is quickly happening. Companies that personalize will have more impact; it's why starbucks is trying to find ways now to turn their stores into communities, rather than cookie cutters.
  • This is exactly why I do much of my gift shopping on Etsy.com. The personal touch offered by the sellers is second to none. I probably should be shopping more at my local mom and pop's but guess what, they're gone so I'm left with Target. Booo.
  • Chris,

    You hit the point of Social Media right on the head. Social Media needs to be treated like a face to face interaction. If it's done that way, and only that way, people will see success personally and professionally.

    -Seth
  • Dear Chris,
    You are so right! And I am learning this with my website. When I launched it 30 people signed up right away and then they didn't tell their stories, their subscriptions expired... Now I am learning to do more personalization, featuring writers, doing one-on-one encouragement, one writer at a time. These aren't bloggers, or twitterers. A beautiful story just came in today about growing up during World War II and running to the bomb shelter in England. It's the personal touch that makes the difference whether it's on the web or not. We all want to be in community. The beauty of the internet is that we can touch people we could never touch before.
    Thanks so much for the food for thought!
    Margaret
    @tellourlifestories.com
  • I love this idea. Social media is putting the personal side back into internet businesses. I love doing business with small, personable places like this. I'd like my business to be like that too. Thanks. btw... you do this really well in my opinion.
  • Конкурс для блоггеров от DRUGREVENUE с призовым фондом в 3000 долларов, спешите
  • Great post and good timing. I have been thinking about this exact topic lately. I will be referring to this post soon! Thanks as always Chris.
  • I keep coming back to this post. I think it's my favorite Chris Brogan post so far, and that's saying a lot, because there are so many of them... Thank you!

    I just wish the companies that many of us hold dearest actually practiced this!
  • Hey Chris, Great article! What yummy bookshop to have nearby :) This is actually what I was intending to create when I started http://www.growthbooks.com - an online bookstore specialising in spiritual and personal growth stuff. I closed the store lst year (after only 6 months or so in operation) because I realised that while it was close to my passion, books ain't quite it for me. So I started Soul Business instead.

    So, um, if Carolyn and her husband are interested in taking their store online, I'd be delighted to sell them my website... It's custom designed to be friendly, with a blog and space for articles, and could easily be reskinned for You Are Here books. Although I realised it's not my thing, I put a lot of love into the website design and development, and I've just been waiting for the right person to come along... And as I'm in Australia, they might find the price especially reasonable (with the exchange rate as it is)... Just a thought!

    Thanks again for a great post.
  • One thing that I have found is that it is important to know who your users are, and not take their level of expertise for granted. Of course it depends on what you are doing. But, for example, there are those of us who are knowledgeable about how to use the internet, how to log in, how to create a password, all the common things. But meeting people at the door and meeting their experience level at the door are two different things. In a library example, you would see a person walk in and assume that they knew how to use the card catalog. But maybe they don't have a clue. Same with life online. There are hundreds of thousands of people who don't use the internet every day and they want to join in, but they are intimidated. So just a thought to keep in mind for future reference.
  • Awesome post Chris. You really got down to the essence of what social media is and can be.
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