How To Avoid Coffee Shop Owner Burnout

How to avoid coffee shop owner burnout

Better Coffee Shop Management

How To Avoid Coffee Shop Owner Burnout

You started a fantastic coffee shop business. Your coffee shop menu is a big hit with your regular customers, you are making a healthy monthly profit, and everything seems to be running well on all cylinders. You have realized your dream to be a business owner.

Yet, you may feel frustrated, tired, and unenthusiastic about your coffee business.  

Why?

The answer may be burnout.

It is common for coffee shop owners to contend with the possibility of burning out within the first 3 to 5 years of opening a coffee shop.

Burnout can quickly impact your overall business, lead to poor management decisions, big mistakes, and ultimately shutting down your coffee business.

The good news is that burnout can be avoidable. So, let's discuss how to cope with burnout and not let it impact your coffee business.

Coffee Shop Management

Avoiding Coffee Shop Burnout

What is burnout?

The World Health Organization defines burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Three dimensions characterize it:

• feelings of depleted energy or exhaustion.
• Growing mental distance from one’s job, or negative feelings related to one’s job
• Lowered professional efficacy.

It's important to note that burnout happens in nearly every profession – from teachers and doctors to marketers and retailers; burnout is a real-life drag and can be devasting if not addressed.

Burnout is notably high among business owners – including those who own coffee shops.

According to Forbes Magazine, 42% of business owners have felt burned out in the last two years.

This may be because owners are often wearing multiple hats at the same time. For example, if you own a small business, you'll have to do everything from hiring people and implementing a marketing strategy, as well as be your own accountant, payroll clerk, and inventory manager. And let's not forget, you'll likely be pulling those espresso shots too!

This leads us to one of our essential recommendations: get good help.

In the United States, we live by a “do it yourself” ethos, where hard work is a virtue, and doing it alone is even better. But if left unchecked, this could be detrimental to your coffee business, your health, and those you love.

And not just any help will do. Get good help.

This often means taking time to screen your employees, cultivating professional relationships, and being patient in choosing the right barista.

I'll be talking more about that in a minute.

Recommendations to Avoid Burnout for Coffee Shop Owners

Determine The Cause of Burnout

Any number of reasons can cause burnout.

With wide eyes and an open mind, consider what issues are potentially causing burnout to occur. Be honest about where you are, what skill sets you may be lacking, and what part of your business is dragging you down.

It might be your inability to rest or unable to trust your employees that is causing you to over-worry and be anxious.

Or it may be because of your own intense personal management style that leads you – and those around you – to burn out.

Your burnout may come from working with certain personality types or dealing with unsatisfied customers.

Talking things over with your staff or partners may be a good idea. Get their feedback, points of view, and recommendations. They may help you single out those elements leading you to burnout.

Get the Help You Need

Running a business is not a sprint. It's a marathon.

All successful business owners have the mindset of the long game. However, the bigger picture requires longevity, stability at the helm of leadership, and systematically achieving benchmarks.

When running a successful business in the long term, you will need help with various aspects of your business.

Doing everything a business requires to be successful yourself may seem more efficient and less costly. However, in the long term, it's not.

It will likely lead to your total exhaustion.

For example, if you are overwhelmed with inventory, paperwork, and accounting, you might need to hire a bookkeeper or accountant to help you.

How to avoid coffee shop owner burnout

Hire Well and Hire Slow

Hiring great baristas is integral to your long-term strategy to offer excellent customer service and delicious coffee while reducing stress and workload.

Whom you hire matters.

Your employees will play a direct role in your coffee business's success, including increasing your coffee shop's value and reputation.

We've written an in-depth post on hiring great baristas that you'll want to review in our coffee blog.

Success often comes down to hiring for reliability, honesty, and personality. Developing excellent barista skill sets can be achieved after hiring. In turn, increasing the trust you need to delegate business operations to employees will be essential in avoiding burnout.

Fire Your Problems

Just one single poor employee can wreak havoc on a small business.

If you have employees constantly calling out sick or providing poor customer service, serving bad coffee drinks, or making it harder for you or other employees to work, you may have to fire them.

Having “bad” employees is not sustainable in the long run. Unreliable, dishonest, or poor-performing employees can create more work for you to do – as well as cost you more money.

Money lost through covering shifts, delays in openings, redoing work, or compensating for mistakes, and customer service can bleed out your business.

Firing terrible employees that stick out can be easy because the problem may be so apparent. However, the real challenge may be firing “so-so” or mediocre employees whose poor work and service are difficult to decipher.

Continued

 How To Avoid Coffee Shop Owner Burnout

 Get Your Coffee Shop Organized

If you currently feel like you are in a “burnout” state, you may not have a lot of bandwidth to create an entirely new organizational system.

But you should, nevertheless, make attempts to become more organized.

For example, get rid of the clutter at your desk, office, or wherever you have space to do the administration work (it may be your home).

Start small.

Post a large calendar, buy a filing cabinet, and invest in a new POS system.

Organize your inventory, your barista scheduling, and hours of operation.

Find ways from the top down to become more efficient, less cluttered, and more focused.

By becoming more organized, you'll free up more space, time, and mental bandwidth and create a more workable and healthier environment.

Avoid Coffee Shop Owner Burnout

Take Time Off to Rest

Wait, what?

There are so many things that need to be done today, and I recommend that you rest!

Yes!

Like me, you're probably prone to working hard – every day. I know that I struggle with workaholicism too. But we need to take time to care for our bodies and our mental health.

Chief among these solutions is to rest. After all, sleep deprivation is one form of torture – so why would you torture yourself and not get the rest you need?

By taking time to rest each week, month and season, you'll allow time to get refreshed and maintain your enthusiasm for the business you love.

It’s essential to spend time with your friends and family, as well as dedicate time to your hobbies like hiking, playing the guitar, or fishing. Anything that takes your mind off the work. Rest and quality personal time will allow you to return to your business with more energy and motivation.

Reduce Your Menu (Make it Simpler, for Now)

Reducing your menu may (at least temporarily) be an important first decision. It will help you to refocus on your core product offerings, lower your inventory spending, boost your inventory management, and reduce waste.

As you become more proficient at managing your inventory and reducing the use of specific equipment, storage space, and labor, you'll be able to squeeze more profits better while reducing headaches.

Invest in Training

By investing in barista training and training for other staff, including food servers, cooks, and bakers, you'll develop your staff's skill sets, boost morale, and improve products and service.

There are many benefits to barista training that should be noticed. By investing in your training, you'll preemptively avoid waste while improving skills and efficiencies. Ultimately, this helps you develop trust, improve communication, and delegate greater responsibilities.

In turn, this reduces your burden and helps you focus on making your business even better.

Invest In the Other Important Things

Coffee shop businesses tend to consume much of your time. Therefore, it will be vital for you to make sure that you establish some personal boundaries with your business so that you can invest in the other essential things in your life.

As we mentioned earlier, make time for your friends, family, and things you love to do – outside of coffee.

Additionally, prioritize your physical health by regularly exercising, eating healthy, and making room for your medical checkups. This takes time and money, but it will be worth it.

Secure Your Business

Since you want to take time away from work to rest, you must secure your coffee business on several levels.

Consider installing cameras inside and outside your business. Installing cameras will help provide you the ability to check in on your business during any hour of the day.

It will also help keep your employees honest with handling money, not wasting inventory, or providing free drinks for their friends. It will also help discourage theft by employees or customers.

Know What Stresses You Out

The things you like the least about your business are the ones that take the most energy and lead to burnout. Figure out what causes the most stress and delegate it to someone else. If it’s paperwork, then hire a professional accountant. If it’s waking up too early, hire a reliable barista to perform opening duties.

Learn How to Say No!

As a business owner, sometimes you must make hard decisions and say “No!” to your current baristas or vendors. You will often be approached by many potential partners, vendors, advertising agencies, and employees. You must stick to your plan and say No to seemingly promising proposals.

Avoid Coffee Shop Owner Burnout

Get Creative

Sometimes, reigniting that spark with your business means you may have to freshen up your business.

You may need to revamp your branding, remodel your space, or add something new to your menu. If you have a larger café, you may want to add live music, increase your hours and add serving alcohol at your coffee shop.

Adding a bit of fun and creativity can break up the monotony of day-to-day operations and generate additional energy throughout your coffee shop.

Reward Yourself & Your Employees

We all like feeling acknowledged. If your employees feel valued, recognized for their work, and rewarded beyond their wages, you’ll improve morale, production, and a sense of camaraderie.

Have a staff picnic or a summer barbeque, or a holiday event. Give employees prizes and gift cards, and create an “Employee of the Month” award. Find the things your employees love to do – and in a professional manner – create rewards based on that. 

How to Avoid Coffee Shop Burnout

We’ve written some other articles that cover in-depth information that you might be interested in:

How to Be an Amazing Coffee Shop Manager

How to Find the Best Baristas

Conclusion

The ability to avoid burnout – or get out of a burnout phase – will be important for your coffee business's future.

If you are feeling burned out, understand that you are not alone. In fact, in my experience, I'd say that it's pretty normal. The trick is to be able to break through that initial burnout phase or avoid it altogether by being proactive, getting help, and finding balance. It all seems easy, right?

Well, it can be challenging and just downright tough. Like most things, try to take baby steps. Start small. Sometimes the hardest part is recognizing and admitting that you are burned out. Consider some of the suggestions I mentioned – and make them fit for you and your coffee business.

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Based in Seattle, Washington, USA, Coffee Shop Startups is dedicated to providing you with the most relevant information on how to start a coffee shop business successfully. Over the last 11 years, we've helped thousands of aspiring coffee business owners worldwide. We harness the experience, wisdom, and knowledge of many successful coffee shop owners to help you increase your chances of success and profits. We support business owners who want to start a coffee business by providing them with valuable information on starting their coffee business successfully.