Wake Up and Sell More Coffee by John Richardson & Hugh Gilmartin

Old hands share secrets

Coffee is a harsh mistress

Sell the smell and smile

Wake Up and Sell More Coffee: Fresh ways to make money from your coffee business

By John Richardson & Hugh Gilmartin

Robinson (Little Brown), 2015, ISBN 9781472135964

Review & Reflections by BR

Business books! To my mind, the respectable older brother to the self-help genre, the Willy to the Harry if you will. Great title for a book isn’t it, Wake Up and Sell More Coffee – it works on so many levels, pun and call to action, and believe you me, right now I am smelling coffee, because I’m drinking it. Who could resist that prompt?! It’s a title that leaves you in no doubt as to what the book offers, a title without inhibitors, and besides that, having been enticed into reading this book, if I were a barista boss I’m certain I could learn a lot from it. However, I don’t sell coffee, I sell words. Much like the coffee business, as we all know, The Arts™ are subject to very real undistorted market forces of supply and demand. Can you apply business advice for selling coffee to selling books, one way or another? Do translators sit as comfortably in cafes as everyone imagines? Does Richardson & Gilmartin’s Great Formula carry over? Join me in discovering the answer:

1. Passion

Are you passionate about whatever it is you do? Was a mediaeval serf passionate about producing pease pudding? In a capitalist society, is passion not a state of mind that can be exploited for profit? I can imagine that most (literary, or perhaps literary and purposeful) translation is predicated on passion, and frankly, why else would you do it (in fact if you make this your career you’ll know how apposite passion is)? 

Maybe being quietly satisfied with doing a good job is more sustainable than being ‘passionate’ about everything work-related. Rather that than carrying on a quietly satisfying love affair while being passionate about filing TPS reports. Since the work of translating is often enough far more fascinating than that, thank God, I will confess to frequent personal succumbtion to passionate intensity. Which leads to:

2. Product

“Obsessional passion produces great tasting products”. 

Obsession – yes. An affliction I recall many translators mentioning and partaking in. It benefits the product, the translation, undoubtedly (but is the CBA on the side of the translator?). 

Isn’t it interesting that we use all this extreme, intense language for producing goods and services, yet were it applied to love or spirit it might produce a mental health intervention.

Much like the word ‘obviously’ took on a new role as a preface to ‘something that is obvious to the speaker but that the interlocutor needs to be explained to them’ sometime in the past 10 years.

“How are you getting on at work, Jack?”

“Obviously, I’ve been getting on with the step-by-step specifics of what I do which really couldn’t possibly be obvious to anyone who doesn’t do the same job as me, I’m really passionate about providing great customer service, really enjoying it.”

“Of course. And I heard you were seeing someone new?”

“Jill? Yeah, she’s alright.”

3. Positioning

Having the right product for the market. Easy, tailor the approach to the translation to the stakeholders. 

4. People

“Your business is about employing and serving people.” 

When it comes to employing, or working with people: the more people you work with, the more time things take, the more you have to keep track of, and the more things can go wrong. If you put too many cooks and two heads in a sack and let them fight it out, who will win?

I never forget, with a translation: you translate something. Maybe for decades that is going to be the definitive translation. You’ve sucked all the oxygen out of that room. So it behoves you to do the best possible job for the sake of everyone involved, be that the author, the publishers, anyone else you’re working with, and especially the readers – someone might be reading this text 100 years from now. When you think about it, you have the chance to brighten someone’s day a century from now by giving your all and doing the best job you can today. And never mind a century from now, right now people deserve a translation that most importantly captures the spirit of the text.

5. Systems

“A business is run by systems and people run the systems.”

I think this means more spreadsheets, which can only be a Good Thing. Or is this a call to action to (see below) produce cockpit-style checklists for each step in the the [sic] translation and editing of a book.

6. Marketing

So the authors are saying, no you don’t need more marketing, you need to get everything else sorted first, or else you’re wasting money advertising a bad product. Food for thought. I’m not sure it applies to the individual artist, though: one might even say that the marketing is the art. The Market is The Art. If I do the Greatest Translation Of All Times, would a hypothetical generic publisher be more impressed by that, bearing in mind they can’t read Foreign Language, or more impressed by a well-crafted personal brand implying that I’m the go-to translation guru who has personally discovered the charming bohemian enclave of, I don’t know, Frankfurt, and expert translator of, say, novellas about quantitative easing? I could go on. 

7. Money

Know what your costs are! (Think about the OPPORTUNITY COST before you spend any time translating).

Richardson and Gilmartin give you some what I’d call decent advice not to half-arse things. They go on to interview various people in the coffee business (I wonder how many of them got absolutely destroyed by the Pandemic – a lot of their websites are dead) and I was surprised to see how many prizes there are for coffee sellers, and the stock the interviewees give to them – apparently, cheevos are just as important in the coffee business as they are in the battle royale game of your choice. Personally, I feel a little queasy about prizes in the arts – apart from any other considerations, do you really want to boil down Art to Winners and Cash Rewards? But if coffee is anything to go by, targeting some prizes could be a good career move for the Translator. 

I love this quote from Hugh Gilmartin: “I think this is the one concept that if I was young and starting again I would focus on like a laser: That I am responsible (able to respond) for every outcome.” This is absolutely something you should strive for. It’s awful being on the hook for the quality of something that at the end of the day is outside your control. For example, do you want text with your name on it that someone else has edited without you having the final say? Not a comfortable position to be in. Equally, if you’re working with someone on a project, can you rely on them to do their job properly? If not, you’re better off not working with them – or risk being responsible, but unable to respond.

Well, I can’t go into all of these interviews – “Answers to Two Big Questions” – but I can copy the format: Name, Job Title, Potted bio; Question 1: What is the one thing you’d wished you’d known before you started?; Question 2: What do you believe is the secret to success of your business and great coffee shops and cafes in general? (OK, might have to tweak that one); Side Story (authors’ personal impression/anecdote about the interviewee); Name Name’s one-sentence takeaway e.g.:

“Devinder Dhallu’s one-sentence takeaway

You must always be marketing – especially if you can’t afford a prime location.”

More takeaways:

Gary McGann: “A new business needs at least six months to establish itself, but you must know when to admit failure. Throwing good money after bad is just foolish.” This can apply to people and projects too. 

Hugo Hercod: “I wish I’d known how infuriating and exasperating employing my own staff could be… I try to be fair, kind and considerate but often my reward was being let down or taken advantage of… I wish I’d known how much of my life was going to be consumed by my business… I wish I’d known how toxic a business partnership with a partner can be…” but on the other hand he STILL says he wishes he’d backed himself and done it earlier. 

“I’m also happy to be rubbish at things while I learn them.” Being infected by the perfectionism bug myself, something I have come to decide is that it’s better to do stuff and learn as you go – like websites!

Jack Groot: “It’s the journey, my friend,” (and make people smile).

James Shapland: Carry a notebook everywhere.

Pascal Wrenn: “Trust your gut instinct and don’t doubt yourself.” “I found the golden rule is to assume everyone is dumb, every single little thing has to have a system or it just won’t be done properly.” “We have daily checklists, comparable to an airliner’s cockpit,” (I know just the book for that…). “All in all, get your systems and procedures on paper, no matter how small your business is, and make it your operations manual.” “LOOK AFTER YOUR CASH FLOW.”

Paul Rankin: “Consumer perception is all that really matters, and properly understanding that takes a significant degree of effort to listen to what they say and to qualify it properly, because there are so many opinions.” “The customer says ‘It makes sense’ and I understand that. That’s why it works. It has to make sense.” Very important point, and despite being well aware of it, it’s not always as easy to articulate as you might imagine: whatever you’re offering to people, if it’s presented in a confusing way – it doesn’t make sense – it can put people off. 

Peter Dore-Smith: “This is quite simple – check the sewers.” “Save money by fixing things yourself.” “Make your business into a product.” 

Philip Ash: Get to know people – if you don’t have a head for names, note them down [does ANYONE have a natural head for names?].

Rebecca Stone: “I feel you can tell so much from a simple sign – what a business is going to give just from the colour and font used.”

Sé Gorman: “Constructive criticism is a million times more valuable than praise.”

Sonja Björk Grant: “Community.”

Stephen Leighton. “If it makes me happier it’s probably a good thing; if it doesn’t then it’s most likely not.” 

With advice like this, it is confirmed that cafes and translation are a perfect fit.