Lessons learned

In the first year of my little garage roasting business, I managed to double the turnover. In the second year, I doubled it again. In the third year I doubled it yet again. That was eight-fold growth rate in just three years.

How did I do this? For one, I hired a young hardworking mum to do my deliveries while I focused on sales and tried to “sell the sizzle not the sausage”. I purchased a set of sales training cassette tapes by American Tom Hopkins. I listened to those tapes continuously, and even memorised some of the motivational prompts that were designed to help sales people cope with rejection, some of which I still recall on cue to this day: “I never see failure as failure but only as the opportunity to practice my techniques and perfect my performance.”

I also