We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christopher Wood. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christopher below.

Christopher, appreciate you joining us today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

Coming up on five years ago, my business partner Doug and I were finishing up our first location, an old drive thru burger stand now turned coffee shop. This was all new to us, and we had made so many decisions in such a short amount of time. Paint colors, espresso machine, what type of ice we wanted, even the types of cups and sizes. I read a book around then called “Do Cool Shit” by Miki Agrawal. In it, she expressed the incredible importance of having a soft open before you fully begin a business or location. I’m so glad I read that because it changed everything for us an allowed us to succeed where we probably would have had a lot more headaches.

We planned our soft open to be a two day event with limited flavors, one size, shortened hours, and that was it. Over those two days we handed out over 600 cups of coffee. We marketed it on Instagram, reached out to locals, and did as much word of mouth as we could. Boy did they show up. We figured out a lot of things we were doing wrong, changed a lot of our processes, and perhaps most importantly, got to practice using our space, our equipment, and our customer interactions. After day two we closed down for the rest of the week to rest, rehab, and plan. The next Monday we opened officially, and already had regulars. They knew our flavors and were ready to order them.

We’ve done this process in some iteration for every location or business we have opened since. Customers are incredibly gracious and understanding if you communicate with them that you’re working out the kinks and trying to improve. By designating those days as “soft opens” and communicating them as such, we managed expectations and got to give the customers ownership into our learning and their experience. If we had just flat out opened without that, a customer would expect a normal, great experience (rightfully so) and if you mess up they probably won’t come back. But by owning the process and communicating it, every wins, and you come out on top.

Christopher, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

We started (Be)Caffeinated in July of 2019 in an old drive thru burger joint that we turned into a drive thru coffee shop. We have grown since then, and are building our newest location from the ground up! This will be shop #4 now, and we have since also opened a roastery called New Wave Coffee, a bakery called Morning Bee, and a marketing and business consulting agency called HiveThink Media.

We focus on people first, believing that if our employees are happy, they make our customers happy, and that makes the business successful. We also prioritize our community, and have monthly giveback programs with grassroots nonprofits where they can use our space and get funding from us. We also launched bagels last year (NY style! With Schmear!) and a portion of each bagel sold goes to a local nonprofit called Be the Change Youth Initiative to support their food insecurity and mental health programs in Chattanooga.

I’m proud of our team, and our culture, and what we are doing to raise the bar of what it means to be a local, community focused business. Small business is a badge of honor, and together we can build the society we want to see one block at a time.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

We are 100% an Instagram based business and focus nearly all of our marketing efforts there. Our marketing manager Nate has done a tremendous job maintaining the brand voice and building a community that is engaged and excited for our content. At the beginning we focused on our drinks of the moment (special flavors at a discount) and leaned more into the fun and silly side of life. Now we focus on our pastries, drinks, community, partners, and events. We love having seasonally themed menus, and being a fun space for niche hobbies to meet and hangout. DND, Board games, BTS, Taylor Swift, Smash Bros. We have a spot for all of these fans and more and it’s so much fun to connect with them. Starting out, just be you, have fun, and make sure to engage with your followers and chime in on other posts around town!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

There are three books that drastically changed how I see the world and how I lead my teams. The first is Start With Why by Simon Sinek, and really opened my eyes to the importance of having a driving vision and purpose both for yourself and for your business. His Ted Talk is great too.

Next came Radical Candor by Kim Scott. I’ve been known to be a pushover, and I once thought the “nice” thing to do was to fix your teams’ mistakes and cover their butts. This book taught me how to talk to people and that it’s actually nicer to hold them accountable and help them improve rather than ignore the issues.

Finally, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. I read this last year and it was both inspiring and affirming on how we run our businesses and how we look for ways to make our customers incredibly happy. Go above and beyond and listen for how you can specifically make someone’s day. Sometimes it’s a really small thing that makes the biggest impact.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.becaffcoffee.com
• Instagram: @be_caffeinated
• Facebook: @becaffeinatedcha
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-wood-sep

Image Credits
Matthew Roberts/Steadfast Images (headshot picture)