Coffeefest Recap Part III - The Seminars

For Part II of my Coffeefest Recap go here.

I was only able to attend a few of the seminars that were being held during Coffeefest because I was only there for 2 of the 3 days of the conference.  Which is why it is good that the organizers of Coffeefest had the foresight to have their most popular seminars held multiple times during the 3 days.  Most of the seminars I attended were very informative and led by people in the industry who were well versed in the subject matter.  Each seminar was held to just under an hour which seemed to be enough time to cover the subject matter and still have time left for some Q&A.  Since I'm looking to start my coffee business I focused on subjects that pertain to that, but they had seminars that covered everything from Latte Art to Espresso Machine maintenance to Roasting to Water quality to...you get the idea.  So with that here is a summary of the seminars that I attended:

Real Numbers from Someone who Operates a Successful Coffee Company 
The instructor of this seminar was Wes Herman the owner of Woods Coffee.  Woods Coffee started in 2002 and now has 9 stores in the Seattle area.  This seminar covered some of the costs associated with starting a coffee shop and the general monthly operating percentages that should be followed for things such as Cost of Goods, Labor, Occupancy Cost, Store operating, General Costs, and Net profit.  I found this class to be informative and liked that it was led by someone who can bring real world experience to newbies like me.

Opening a new Cafe?
This seminar was led by Tom Palm who has helped open over 700 cafes in his career.  He covered a lot of what to pay attention to during a build out of a new cafe, such building and health codes, building the menu, designing a proper floor plan, how much does it cost and how long will it take.  This seminar was definitely worth the time and made me aware of how important it is to pay attention to building and health codes.

Tea 101
This seminar was held by the owner of Maya Tea Company out of Tucson AZ.  This covered all the basics of Tea.  I found out where tea comes from, the different types of tea, how to correctly brew tea, and how tea can enhance the product offering in Coffee shops.  I found it very informative and made me very thirsty.

A Fresh Marketing Strategy for this Economy
This seminar was put on by Burce Milletto who is the President of Bellissimo Coffee Info Group and also one of the owners of Water Avenue Coffee.  Although billed as a seminar that will teach new marketing strategies, I did not learn anything new.  I'm sure there are people who did find value in the presentation(as this seminar was packed), but when your new marketing strategies are to use Facebook and Twitter, build your brand, and know your customer, it's really not that new anymore.

As I said above, for the most part all of the seminars were very informative and I learned a lot.