BUSINESS BASICS
Continued from page 28
COURTESY OF CAFÉ BUUNNI
shop, be sure you know what your story is. For Elias and I, the story
is about our deeply personal relationship with Ethiopia and its coffee. We met and fell in love over countless Ethiopian macchiatos
(yes, there is such a thing, and you can taste them for yourself
at Café Buunni). We wanted a way to tell a positive story about a
truly unique product from a country that has had plenty of negative coverage. We wanted to showcase Ethiopian coffee as we had
experienced it and bring the delight to New York City and beyond.
Our story, like yours, is larger than any one article or interview.
We had to cut out a lot of details and focus only on the essential
elements of our story. We could have gone on many interesting
tangents, but doing so probably would have confused our audience
and diluted our message.
Also, remember that even if you stick to your story, you don't
control the article. What comes out in print will clearly be an
author's interpretation of your story. We have found that writers
have been open to our requests to preview their article for facts
and spelling of names. We didn't do this during our first experience and found ourselves in a situation where we were thrilled to
have the press coverage, but not so thrilled that key information
was incorrect. Since then, we have always asked to review press
coverage and have had positive responses from most journalists.
LESSON 4: DOING THIS PROPERLY
TAKES TIME.
Like all new small business owners, we are beyond busy. Every
day is a juggling act. We have not been able to be as proactive in
reaching out to the media as we might have liked. We have not
researched every coffee blogger, and we have not yet followed up
with those who wrote about us to ask if they would like to do a
six-months-later follow-up story about us.
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Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com