The single most important element to evolving your tea shop is incubating a winning attitude within your staff. Training them to be potent on the sales floor is crucial, but often overlooked is ensuring the job is fulfilling, and above all keeping the fire lit with motivational cues.

Here are key questions to get you started:

• How do I empower my sales force to be creative and actively strive for the company’s success?
• Which is better group or individual goals?
• What about commission?

Let’s start with the first question regarding empowerment. It’s no secret that a group actively striving towards the same goal helps create synergy. When staff is encouraged to seek solutions to problems, the job not only seems more fulfilling, but staff has an active stake in the company's success. The ultimate goal is to create a culture that incubates new ideas. In this sense having a more lateral management structure prevails over a traditional hierarchy... more >

Great companies live and breathe great customer service. It’s often noted that it’s much easier to keep an existing customer than gain a new one, and it’s amazing how many companies wing it and hope for the best. It’s especially never a good idea if your small business is struggling to survive, and it may make the difference between red and black. But how is great customer service created and how do you make sure the customer returns? Breaking it down between in-store and out of store, I’ll explain how adagio attempts great customer service in our brick and mortar locations.

In-Store It’s no secret that the more you put in the more you get out, and that makes all the difference when training your employees. At adagio, we have a two-week training course designed to help tea consultants be great at their jobs. This covers everything necessary to be successful in one of our stores. Our tea consultants are trained to stay present and engaged at all times, allowing them to quickly answer any question a customer may ask... more >

When you open a retail store, you have about six months before your new neighbors don’t see you as “the interesting new store on the block,” and the hype you had when you first opened your door decreases. When you’re a new store, your neighbors want to see what just opened and help your store succeed. Connecting with hotels, cafes, restaurants and other stores will never be easier than it is during those first six months.

The idea of hitting these outlets quickly seems like a no-brainer, but given that it comes second to in-store tasks, it tends to fall to the back of the list. My advice would be to have a plan of attack for networking prior to the launch of your store. This way you already know who you want to target and the most tactful way to approach them. This certainly irons out the process and saves you time and when you’ll need it most. By researching key businesses in advance, now you’ve just got to set up the meeting, give them the pitch and close the deal. Given that you’re new, most places are happy to give you time and hear you out, so that shouldn’t be an issue... more >

One of the greatest aspects to marketing your tea shop is the numerous mediums tea can be infused within the community. Tea can be a meditative aid, a healthy elixir, a celebration of numerous cultures around the world, an energy booster, and many more. Knowing the universal nature of tea is a helpful start to begin seeking out collaborative partnerships in your community.

Of course its not always prudent to simply hit the ground running; it requires an understanding of your customer base to determine the best venues to showcase your store. At Adagio all three stores are located in the Chicago area, but the market surrounding them contains a slightly different customer base.

In Naperville the main customer is the health conscious suburban mom whom might be found at your local yoga studio, spa, or bookstore. The first place to start in this type of market is to find relevant local events. But it is equally important to ensure that your message is appropriate for the venue, and most of all that you create a portal for them to visit your store... more >

We've focused on three main changes:

Tea Merchandise
When we opened Naperville in late 2010, we had over 200 teas out for people to purchase and enjoy. We built a store that was aimed at creating the ultimate tea experience. The whole 80/20 rule comes into play here: having our teas on the wall is great for the customer, but is expensive and forces you to have less merchandise on display. Since only about 20% of the teas were really popular we decided to narrow the collection to 100. This allows us to still sell all of the popular teas, but also allows us to show off more of the Adagio merchandise. Since we cup the teas for the customer before they buy and the customer doesn’t make a purchasing decision based solely off of name and appearance, the popular teas in store aren’t exactly the same as online. I’m aiming for two goals from this change. The first is to increase the average ticket while the number of tickets stays the same or increases... more >