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Josh Taves, Founder Of Dialed Coffee Services · Coffee People Podcast

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Hey, everyone, good morning. Welcome to the Coffee People
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podcast presented by Rostar Coffee Packaging.
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Thank you for being here today. I'm your host, Ryan Wolt.
0:41
You can follow or subscribe to the show wherever you're
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listening, but you'll only find the bonus context links, recaps
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and more on coffeepeoplepodcast.com.
0:50
Our guest today is Josh Taves. He's the founder and operator of
0:53
Dialled Coffee Services based in Grand Rapids, MI.
0:57
You can learn more about what they do while you're listening
0:59
today by heading to dialedcoffeeservices.com or
1:03
click through the links in the show's notes to scroll their
1:06
social media. I'm ready to get started.
1:10
I have this cup of coffee from Roasted by Mom Roasters in
1:13
Hillsboro, OR. I brewed it at 16 to One on my
1:16
Simply Good Coffee Brewer on the counter over there.
1:19
I had the chance to pop into the roaster recently and say hello
1:22
to the former guest of the pod and owner Carrie Elliott.
1:26
This coffee that she shared with me has been quite lovely and I
1:29
hope that wherever you are, yours is just as good.
1:32
You'll need it to best enjoy another episode of the Coffee
1:36
People podcast, this one featuring Josh Taves, founder of
1:40
Dialled Coffee Services. Off to the races and usually the
2:13
first thing we do is I ask what your name is and what the
2:16
company you know you're working with or you're, you know, what's
2:19
your company and what you do that.
2:22
Yep. So my name is Josh Taves and I
2:24
own Dialed Coffee Services. We're here in West Michigan,
2:29
just outside of Grand Rapids. And we, you know, it's it's sort
2:35
of is like my one line pitch morphs from time to time.
2:39
But lately I've been saying we're barista focused tech
2:43
service. So we primarily offer equipment
2:48
service and repair to the West Michigan market, but we also
2:53
offer business consulting services, equipment sales and
2:57
barista training too. When you say barista forward,
3:02
that's my, I think I read somewhere that a lot of the
3:07
employees that work for you as technicians were baristas or
3:10
have had experience in that. Is that, is that true?
3:13
And if so, why is that something that's kind of important?
3:17
Yep. It's been a little bit of both.
3:19
Primarily though, you know what, I look to either train or hire
3:25
in my employees. It's easier to hire someone who
3:29
has this experience because I don't want a coffee shop and so
3:31
it's hard to train braces skills.
3:32
But if you know, it's been a little bit of both for
3:36
employees. But essentially we want to go in
3:40
and not just make the machines work.
3:41
We want to make the coffee taste better.
3:43
And that comes from a blending of both understanding the
3:49
experience of the barista at a high level, but also how the
3:52
equipment works in tandem with that.
3:54
I think a lot of folks either have one or the other.
3:58
They either know like, well, you know, the water's coming out and
4:00
it's hot, so it must be good. Or they know, like, well,
4:04
something doesn't taste right, but they don't understand that
4:06
it's from a mechanical issue. So we look to kind of marry
4:09
those two things together in our technicians and be able to say
4:12
like, you know, the burrs in this grinder need to be changed
4:17
because of the way that this, this and this is tasting, You
4:22
know, and also, well, the manufacturer says this and blah,
4:25
blah, blah. But you know, things like that,
4:27
checking flow rates on AV machines and consistency across
4:31
group heads when the barista might not know there's something
4:33
wrong, those types of things. I guess we we try to cross train
4:37
on those things because we really want people to have
4:40
better tasting coffee and not just make sure their equipment
4:43
works. I can say from personal
4:48
experience that I know usually when something is wrong, but I
4:51
could never tell you why. And it's always like having the
4:55
language of some of the things you were just talking about is
4:57
something that I think would be a value add to barista training
5:01
as well. Not just like, here's how you
5:03
make the thing. Here's the machine and the
5:05
components and all that. That wasn't something that I
5:07
necessarily learned. I'm blaming you, Chris of Coffee
5:10
Cycle. You can, you can come at me
5:12
after this. How about you, as far as like
5:15
coffee in general, you know, do you have any first memories of
5:19
coffee or what got you kind of into that work?
5:27
I don't know. It was by accident, I guess.
5:29
I think you sent me that question before we started.
5:31
And I remember I was thinking my first like memory of coffee.
5:35
Everyone's got that, you know, some sort of memory of their
5:38
grandma giving them something that tasted like cigarettes.
5:41
And I think I had the same kind of thing.
5:44
It was at a Mimi's Cafe in Colorado Springs, Co I don't
5:49
think Mimi's Cafe is around anymore.
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But, you know, it was a little mini chain at one point.
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And she shared with me a sip of her black coffee.
5:57
And I was, I couldn't imagine why anyone would ever drink
6:00
that. But from there, you know, my,
6:08
when I was 16, I needed a job. You know, I was one of those,
6:11
like your parents tell you, have to find a job.
6:13
And my dad owned his own business and he was writing some
6:15
quotes. You know, everything was like
6:17
pen and paper back then mostly. And he was at a coffee shop and
6:22
he happened to be friends with the manager of the shop, her
6:27
dad. So he knew this woman who was,
6:29
you know, she was like 4 years older than me or something
6:32
managing this coffee shop. And he was sitting there and he
6:35
called me while I was at school and he said, Hey, if you can be
6:39
here by 3:30, they'll give you a job.
6:42
And I said, oh, OK, you know, can't really say no when, when
6:46
you got to get a job as a kid. So I showed up and I, I worked
6:52
there for like a year and a half and ended up loving it and just
6:55
loving like the customer interaction and the I, I like
6:59
making a game out of trying to see how many tips I could make,
7:01
you know, and that kind of thing.
7:02
And the coffee was bad, but it was supplied by a local roaster
7:08
who, like, cared and put some effort in, you know, and we did
7:14
a lot of things wrong there, but it was just cool.
7:17
And from there, it was just a cool job to have, I guess.
7:20
Yeah. And kind of from there, I went
7:21
on to work at Starbucks for a while and then kind of continued
7:26
on. That was when I was, I mean,
7:27
when I was 16, I got that job. So I've been doing this for, I
7:32
don't know, long time. I'm tired. 20 years a minute.
7:35
2020 + 22 years now. I don't want to.
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I'm hesitating. I'm like telling myself don't,
7:45
don't shake your finger and say, well, when you get to be my age,
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I you know, you, you said something that I think is really
7:51
interesting and something that I don't know if it happens
7:54
anymore. I wish people would tell me if
7:55
it does, but your dad was somewhere talking to a human
8:00
being and then called you and kind of had set up this job.
8:03
And that's a very dad thing to do.
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But also that you were looking for a job at 16.
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And it feels like the jobs that were available to me and sounds
8:13
like to you at 16 just aren't available to kids anymore.
8:16
And and nor are they necessarily.
8:18
If they were to apply, it would be through a computer.
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It wouldn't be in person. You know the idea I used to
8:24
print out 20 resumes at school and then go from business to
8:28
business handing them out, you know, trying to find someone who
8:31
would pay me to make enough money to pay my car for my car,
8:34
gas and insurance and, and stuff.
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And I worry that that's something that we've lost is
8:41
making, not making, but the opportunity for kids to engage
8:46
with strangers out of, you know, fear, you know, advancements of
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technology or the need for money.
8:53
And I'm ranting now. You start working in coffee, and
8:57
you kind of get this thing. But I'm assuming you go off into
8:59
the world. You know, it's, you know, you
9:01
don't just stay at Starbucks, obviously, or at Mimi's.
9:05
Yeah. You know, what's your career
9:06
path getting you to the point where you decide to become an
9:10
entrepreneur? Yeah, I think like, well,
9:17
there's multiple questions there whether you realize it or.
9:21
Not, but Oh no, I do. I'm very bad about that.
9:27
The, the entrepreneur thing, I think I watched my dad, you
9:32
know, own his own business and I, I learned from that.
9:37
I also learned like some of the, the negatives and some of the
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positives and kind of saw like it always excited me for one
9:44
reason or another. But also I saw the things that I
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perceived to be mistakes in his business and kind of like help
9:52
to learn and always had this idea for like what could I do
9:54
better? Not because there's any
9:57
animosity between me and my dad. We have a great relationship,
9:59
but it's just like, you know, always wanting to improve upon
10:03
something, I think. And OK, so that's the
10:06
entrepreneur thing. I think I did like a job shadow
10:10
week in high school. Again, my dad set me up with
10:13
someone that he knew who owned like 7 or 8 Popeyes.
10:18
Like the you know, the chicken. Chicken Place.
10:22
Yeah, he did a chicken place. Yeah, which was hilarious
10:25
because this guy was like a big health nut and wouldn't even eat
10:27
his own food, but he owned all of these fast food restaurants
10:31
and he would, like, take me around and he, you know, showed
10:33
me his office and I hung out with him and made copies for a
10:36
week or whatever. And I remember, like, he didn't
10:40
really do anything. And like, he drove a nice car
10:44
and worked, like, really short hours and, like, just had other
10:49
people do stuff for him. I was like.
10:52
And so I remember asking him like, what do you do here?
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And he's like, well, I just do what my employees asked me to do
10:56
at this point. I was like, oh, that's kind of a
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cool like vision for an entrepreneur.
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And I, I'm not that guy, at least not at this point.
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But I just always thought, I remember like thinking, oh, this
11:09
is kind of a cool thing. And from that point on, I felt
11:12
like I wanted to own my own business at some point.
11:16
So that's one answer. It's one question that's.
11:19
Part 2. Sorry, were you saying
11:24
something? I think I cut you off.
11:25
No, no, I for some reason we're kind of staggered a little bit.
11:28
So I was just just following up and saying the third part of
11:32
that was the coffee specific part as you were moving up
11:35
through the ranks, like where what got you to where, what got
11:39
you to the point right before where you are now?
11:43
Yeah. So I worked, you know, at this
11:47
little local shop for like a year and a half and then started
11:51
working at Starbucks because I was going to go to college and I
11:54
could transfer stores with them. So it was like, you know, I
11:57
already had a job where I was going to be going to school
11:59
because I started and then transferred.
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And I really actually, I don't know if they still do this, but
12:06
at the time, you know, they had a pretty robust education
12:10
program and I thought that was really cool.
12:13
I never became a, a black apron or I don't know if they still do
12:16
that, but that was what it was called at the time.
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But you know, they would pay you to basically like take these
12:21
classes and learn about coffee. And I thought that was pretty
12:25
cool. And I was like, well, I get paid
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to not work sort of, you know, and learn about something that I
12:30
find interesting. So I started doing that,
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eventually realized I was like kind of working at a fast food
12:37
joint and was not that it, it became not for me anymore.
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But at that point I had three years of coffee shop experience
12:45
and I was a college kid. So, you know, all the other
12:48
college kids that want a job at a coffee shop, like I was the
12:51
one that could actually get the job because I had experience,
12:53
right? So yeah, I worked, I worked at a
12:56
different coffee shop, you know, like local coffee shop to local
12:59
coffee shop, two or three at a time sometimes until I got to a
13:03
point where I was, I felt like I had a pretty solid knowledge
13:08
base and I wanted to keep learning.
13:10
But there was no one around locally that I felt like I could
13:14
really learn a lot from. And so I think two things
13:20
happened at that point. I started looking outside my
13:24
local community for coffee education and I started wanting
13:29
to reinvest what I knew. So I opened up a small barista
13:33
training and consulting company and would travel up and down the
13:37
Colorado Front Range doing like little latte art classes and
13:40
being hired by cafes to do, you know, classes and trainings and
13:45
work with barista pro shop there, which is like a, you
13:47
know, paper goods and syrups distributor.
13:50
And we teach classes out of their space.
13:51
And but then I also started traveling and going to
13:55
Coffeefest latte art competition and doing the USBC circuit,
14:03
which at the time was there's a lot more money behind it.
14:09
I think it was a much bigger production than it seems to be
14:11
now. But that was in 2010.
14:15
I did my First United States Barista Championship regional
14:18
competition and was kind of hooked.
14:21
And that became kind of my primary focus in the competition
14:30
world. I'd still did, you know, some
14:31
other things, you know, some of the latter competitions here and
14:33
there, coffee masters when that came to New York for the first
14:37
time in like 2013 or something. But yeah, started competing and
14:42
used that to build my resume. I also hosted my own year long
14:47
competition series all up and down the Colorado Front Range.
14:50
We do competitions that I got to host and just kind of really
14:54
like fell into that. Yeah, that that arena and from
15:01
there kind of leverage that into a job with Dogwood Coffee
15:04
Company in the Twin Cities. I was there wholesale sales and
15:09
accounts manager what kind of right after they first opened
15:12
for a couple years and then continued competing.
15:18
You know, let's see, probably 2013, I made it to the national
15:23
championships for the first time in Boston, maybe.
15:29
OK. Yeah, eventually just kind of
15:32
like carried through a USBC career until I finished in the
15:37
finals in 2017 behind Kyle Ravage when he when he won first
15:44
place, Yeah. And then was just so ready to be
15:48
done with that chapter at that point.
15:49
But. Yeah, I wanna, I wanna rap a
15:53
little bit backwards there. You mentioned something I
15:55
thought was really interesting, which was the hosting of events
16:00
and teaching barista skills kind of up and down the Front Range
16:03
there in Colorado. You would have had to have one.
16:09
You, I'm trying to figure out how to, to, to say this, but you
16:13
said you wanted to keep learning.
16:15
And the way you did that was to start getting out into the world
16:18
and teaching other people and, and being around other people
16:21
with knowledge that you could sort of gain.
16:24
Did you realize that at the time that was what you were doing?
16:29
Was that like a concerted effort or was that just a byproduct of
16:32
wanting to continue to be involved?
16:34
Does that make sense? Yeah, no.
16:37
And I'd say it was intentional. I think I felt like because of
16:42
the lack of formal education in the coffee industry at the
16:44
moment, or at that time, we needed to, I needed to be a
16:50
small fish in a big pond if I wanted to keep learning.
16:53
And at the time, I was the medium to big size fish in a
16:58
small pond. And so I intentionally kind of
17:01
pushed myself outside of my pond, basically because I wanted
17:05
to be around people that were more knowledgeable than I was.
17:08
And that came through traveling, which I think, like, I don't
17:13
know if this is still the case, but it used to be like a lot of
17:15
people said, like, why I can't afford that?
17:18
And like, well, I was working 30 hours a week as a barista and
17:21
going to school and made it work, you know, because that was
17:26
what I really wanted. And I think part of that was
17:29
then, yeah, being able to teach others and that really kind of
17:34
allowed me to grow my network that I still leverage today all
17:37
up and down the Colorado Front Range.
17:40
You know, some of that just came from like at the time there was
17:44
2 coffee companies within an hour and a half drive of me.
17:49
One of them hosted cuppings I think every other week and the
17:55
other one hosted a once a month latte.
17:57
Our competition, that was mostly just for their staff, but they
18:00
open it up to the public too if anyone wanted to come.
18:03
And I went to both of those events as much as I could and
18:07
that was a part of it. Getting the cup and taste, a lot
18:09
of different coffees and getting to pour latte along some really
18:12
good side barista, really good alongside some really good
18:16
baristas. And from there, it just became
18:21
like, well, you're meeting all these people within a 2 hour
18:23
radius and then, you know, just start working with them as many
18:26
ways as possible. Somewhere along the line and
18:31
actually the reason that I first kind of kind of the first thing
18:35
I understood about you was you became an inventor, right?
18:39
If I'm not understanding, you invented this thing called the
18:41
cupping Brewer. Could you talk a little bit
18:43
about what inspired that and why isn't it what you're focused on
18:47
now? Great question.
18:52
Yeah. The I say that so.
18:54
That was. A little bit, sorry to
18:56
interrupt. I say that a little bit because
18:59
I have had some other things that felt like this is the thing
19:01
I'm going to do forever and then eventually I didn't.
19:05
And so I'm always curious as to those transitions in life.
19:11
Yeah, I think so. Just briefly.
19:15
The cupping Brewer, if listeners are not familiar, I guess is a
19:21
it's a well, I've got 1. You want me to go show you what
19:23
it looks like? I think people have maybe seen
19:25
it, but. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
19:28
So it looks like this, it's a cupping vessel, right?
19:32
So it's designed to produce 12 ounces of liquid of usable
19:37
drinkable liquid total it holds 500 milliliters.
19:41
And so the idea is you, you cup in it, right?
19:44
It's 30 grams of coffee grounds in here, 500 milliliters of
19:46
water, which is SCA standard cupping recipe.
19:50
Break the crust, scrape the top. There's a pretty shallow slope
19:55
here, so all the grounds fall and impeded down below.
19:58
When you're ready to drink, you skim the top.
20:01
You know you'd normally go in with your cupping spoon and
20:03
start slurping. You could just put this guy in
20:05
here real gentle and then you can hold it in with your thumb
20:08
and you can pour the liquid up here out and everything below
20:12
stays sealed. So you get just the liquid of
20:15
the cupping without any of the grounds.
20:18
And you can pour it then into a cup, right?
20:23
That allows you to share in a hygienic way.
20:26
It allows you to, you know, share in public cuppings with
20:30
people who maybe have never cupped before.
20:31
And what I found having LED hundreds of public cuppings at
20:36
this point is that the spoon is often the biggest barrier to
20:40
entry for folks that just want to enjoy the the experience.
20:44
But when you can show them the experience and they can still
20:46
drink it from a familiar vessel, that really helps.
20:51
So anyways, that was the idea probably 15 years ago.
20:57
Come up with that. Well, no, I can even, I can say
21:02
20-15 maybe. I built a prototype out of like
21:06
copper pipe and valves and took it to a Briesta Nation event.
21:11
I don't think Briesta Nation's around anymore, but they had
21:13
like a inventor's idea competition and I took that and
21:21
I won. And I remember at the time,
21:27
Jordan Michaelman, who's the one of the founders of Sprudge,
21:31
pulled me aside and he's, you know, we were kind of friends at
21:34
that point. He's like, hey, man, do you have
21:36
a patent on this thing? And I was like, no, no, I don't.
21:38
I was kind of waiting to see if I got any traction.
21:41
And he's like, you don't patent it, someone else is going to
21:44
like, as soon as we send out this article.
21:46
I was like, oh, yeah, maybe I should do that.
21:48
So figured that out in a hurry. And yeah, ended up working with
21:57
the team at Rattlewear, Marcus Bonnie in particular, to kind of
22:01
help bring it to market. And they were great.
22:05
I think in the end, there were some mistakes made along the way
22:12
in the marketing and production of the, I mean, not the
22:14
production side of things, but I think it was just like it was
22:16
never really marketed properly. Maybe I held onto it a little
22:21
too tightly when I should have let other people take the reins.
22:25
I don't know. But it just, it never really
22:28
gained the traction that we hoped.
22:31
You know, I think it's expensive to make even something this
22:35
simple and get, you know, whatever 10,000 units to market.
22:39
And you know, in general, it's been sold all around the world,
22:44
you know, several. Well, I, you know, 10 to 15,000
22:49
units probably, but that's, you know, you're making a couple
22:53
dollars. Per unit, it doesn't.
22:54
Really. Sure.
22:56
Yeah, yeah. And I think, yeah, it's, it's
23:01
cool to be out there, but it, it never really took off the way
23:04
that I wanted. And it seemed like I tried
23:05
several times to kind of reinvigorate or put different
23:09
kinds of effort into it. And I never really got the
23:12
return. And so in the end I sort of lost
23:14
interest, I think. But if somebody else wants to,
23:18
you know. Take overreach out to Josh.
23:20
Give me a call. Yeah, I would.
23:22
I'm, you know, honestly, it kind of feels like it was made for
23:26
the pandemic era just a little too soon, you know, it, it just
23:31
kind of hit the market a little early.
23:35
Yeah, yeah. And we, we definitely tried kind
23:37
of rejuvenating it during the pandemic and got some traction.
23:44
But again, still we had some issues with the marketing and
23:46
fulfillment that is sort of made it difficult.
23:50
Yeah, I went to a cupping, my first cupping kind of post
23:56
pandemic era, you know, launching.
23:59
I'm not saying anyone's out of the pandemic because we just had
24:02
COVID in our house. But the first cupping I went to
24:07
where we all had two spoons and they were trying to say this was
24:10
a new hygienic way that they were doing it where you scoop
24:12
from one spoon on to the other and the whole thing.
24:15
And I was like, you know, but we're all still standing within
24:17
like a foot of each other. So no matter what you do here,
24:22
like at some point somebody's going to forget put the wrong
24:25
spoon in their mouth and it's just going to be this whole
24:27
operations. So we do the best we can.
24:32
You are in Western Michigan now not not your home state.
24:38
What got you to Michigan? And you know what you know what
24:43
is the deal here with two two-part question again dialed
24:46
coffee services. You know what, what inspired
24:49
that as as a need, because sorry, I was just in Western
24:54
Michigan this summer and outside of Grand Rapids, it felt like,
24:58
hey, this is a great place to be out under the trees and maybe at
25:02
the beach. But as far as coffee goes, it
25:05
seems like it's still growing. Yeah, for sure.
25:11
Well, I think like to kind of continue my journey getting
25:14
here. We, you know, I started working
25:17
in business development for roasters sales and then business
25:21
development and learn that I really like project and systems
25:25
management and I like the business development side of
25:27
things. But I also liked quality control
25:31
and coffee quality. And so I did that.
25:33
Honestly, I shifted into that mode for 10 years ish or so,
25:40
work for multiple different roasters around the country
25:42
doing that. And I came to Michigan, too,
25:45
because my wife's family is from here and we've got kids.
25:49
And so we, you know, wanted some more babysitters, basically.
25:53
And yeah, I was working for Stove Top Coffee Roasters doing
25:59
business development here, and then kind of got to the point
26:03
where I was like, I'm ready to stop building other people's
26:06
businesses and start building my own.
26:09
I grew up fixing stuff, working with my hands.
26:13
Again, my dad owned his own business, like I said several
26:15
times, it was a custom furniture.
26:17
So I go work with him in the summers in his wood shop and
26:23
always liked tinkering with coffee equipment or always had
26:26
some kind of mechanical project going on the side anyways.
26:30
And when I was ready to start my own business, I saw a big hole
26:33
in the market that there wasn't a good quality service provider
26:36
in the area that was meeting the needs of folks who cared about
26:41
their product. So, yeah, I mean, I already had
26:45
the, you know, a lot of the contacts and the and the people
26:49
I needed to talk to you both on the manufacturer side and on the
26:51
local supplier side and just kind of put together a business
26:59
plan mostly targeted at partnering with roasters as a
27:04
technician arm of their wholesale program.
27:07
So rather than saying like, hey, Joe Schmel Cafe, let us fix your
27:12
machines, we started out pitching 2 roasters and saying
27:16
like, let us handle the service for your 50 customers and we can
27:21
work together in that vein. So it made our sales meetings
27:25
much more efficient. And within the first year, we're
27:28
able to have, you know, a couple 100 places we were offering
27:31
service to because of that so. If you were to say I know you,
27:37
you can't say that you have favorite customers, I assume.
27:40
But the next time I stop in the Grand Rapids, where am I?
27:43
Where should I get a cup of coffee?
27:44
Yeah. Sure.
27:48
Well, so right near our shop, we've got Littlefoot Roasters,
27:53
which are some awesome like X Intelligentsia folks from
27:57
Chicago. But they're X Intelligentsia
28:00
back 10 years ago, you know, when they were a little more at
28:03
their peak in my opinion. And then Wild Roast is not far
28:10
from there too. They both do a pretty decent
28:11
job. Or then I generally send folks
28:14
to the, I don't know, I guess I would call it the Coffee
28:17
Triangle because there's three really good shops in Grand
28:20
Rapids that are all within like a 5 to 10 minute walk of each
28:23
other. You've got the Madcap grocery is
28:27
right there. You've got Stove Top Coffee
28:30
Roasters, Flagship store is like a block and a half down.
28:33
And then Lyon St. Coffee does a really good job
28:35
and has a phenomenal bakery that they're attached to and they're
28:39
all kind of right there. So that's generally where I send
28:43
folks depending on the situation.
28:46
Not my favorite. How long has I?
28:50
Totally fair? I spent a couple of days sitting
28:52
at Littlefoot earlier this summer, so definitely one of my
28:56
favorites. I can say because it's the only
28:57
one I've been to. Sorry.
28:59
When we first started, we were actually operating out of the
29:01
back of Littlefoot. There you go.
29:04
How long have you been open? We started October 1st 2023, so
29:10
2 1/2 years now. What would you say, what have
29:16
you learned in the in the first two years of running this new
29:19
business? Wow, that's a good question.
29:28
I think I've learned a lot about fixing machines, obviously.
29:32
I mean, I've, I had a lot of experience before, but it had
29:37
never been a full time technician.
29:39
So kind of jumping into that with, you know, with both feet
29:44
has been really fun and interesting.
29:46
And honestly, I don't go out on the road much anymore.
29:49
Maybe one or two calls a week tops.
29:52
And my technicians handle all that work now.
29:56
So yeah, that's been really cool to kind of like, learn a lot
30:01
more intimately about espresso machines and coffee Brewers and
30:04
how they work. Other than that, I think some of
30:08
the biggest lessons for me in the last 2 1/2 years have been,
30:15
you know, I'm always learning about people management.
30:17
I want to be a good boss and I want to, you know, manage people
30:21
effectively given all their different personalities and
30:25
nuances and such. But also, I think marketing has
30:30
always been a bit of a mystery to me.
30:31
And so I've gotten to use these last 2 1/2 years as like a
30:36
testing ground for kind of like all sorts of different marketing
30:40
schemes, you know, like mailers and Google ads and Meta ads and
30:45
word of mouth and Flyers and, you know, kind of anything and
30:49
everything and see what works and what doesn't.
30:53
And I've really been able to kind of refine what works well
30:56
for our customer base, you know, specifically B to B marketing on
31:02
a very niche operation. And so that's been kind of fun.
31:07
And now we kind of like really dial down on like 2-2 or three
31:12
different marketing streams that seem to work really well for us.
31:16
So. Are you willing to share those
31:19
so we can all just skip ahead or is that staying close to the
31:23
best? Well, I will say there's a lot
31:29
of different options and I'm sure that different people have
31:34
different things that work for them.
31:36
I am specifically trying to market to people who are
31:41
decision makers at coffee companies, which there's like,
31:44
you know, 15 of those. That's not true.
31:48
But you know, it's a very small segment of people to find.
31:52
So what works well for us, honestly, probably the most
31:56
effective is just walking in and handing a flyer out.
31:59
But other than that, we do Google marketing ads, so like
32:06
search ads and we've got 3 or 4 different types of campaigns
32:10
which don't even ask me what that means.
32:12
I just work with our marketing advisor on that stuff.
32:18
Reviews has been a big thing for us.
32:20
So we've got an automated system that asks for reviews after our
32:23
jobs are closed. A Google reviews and then
32:29
Instagram content, specific kinds of Instagram content.
32:34
People like like how to videos or tech tip videos and they like
32:40
pictures of pretty machines. Those things tend to kind of do
32:44
the best for us and then other various types of content that
32:48
doesn't get as much traction, so.
32:52
You're not just a coffee person. You mentioned earlier, you're a
32:56
parent. And I know just from my, my
33:00
cursory research, you're passionate about being in the
33:03
outdoors. You know, where do you find
33:06
overlap in your life as being a business owner allowed you to,
33:10
to do some of those other things that are important to you?
33:12
You know, where do you find your roles?
33:15
You know the lessons learned are similar.
33:20
Yeah, I think the one of the primary impetuses impeti, what's
33:27
plural of impetus? Yeah, that sounds right.
33:30
Yeah, Impetuses. I'm sure somebody say I will fix
33:33
it for them. Yeah, hopefully was to actually
33:40
have more time and work less, which I know sounds
33:43
counterintuitive, but yeah, I started my own business to work
33:48
less is the long and short of it.
33:51
And So what that means for me is like, you know, being able to
33:57
because my wife works part time and so being able to like, pick
34:00
the kids up from school on days we need that or go to my
34:02
daughter's basketball game. You know, I'm going bowling with
34:08
one of my daughter's school classes next Friday.
34:11
And like, I don't have to ask anybody if I can do that.
34:13
I can just go. So I think that, yeah, that's
34:21
been really cool, like helpful for our family.
34:24
One of our kids is some pretty severe special needs and needs a
34:28
lot of help throughout the day. And so I get to be a part of
34:33
that, which is great. But then as far as like being
34:38
connected with the outdoors, I do usually take almost a whole
34:42
month off and just allow my staff to kind of run the show
34:46
here. And I work pretty hard
34:48
throughout the year to make sure they're set up to do that so I
34:51
can leave without stress and go do a big trip out West.
34:58
This is another thing if you want to get into it, but
35:01
typically do a lot of hunting on that trip and try to fill our
35:04
freezer so that we can not buy meat at the grocery store for
35:09
the year. Sure.
35:12
Why do you find what what is what is that time away do for
35:18
you? Do you think that it makes you a
35:20
better human, a better boss, a better husband?
35:24
I don't know. I'm assuming your family may be
35:26
involved in in some capacity in these trips.
35:28
I don't want to presume or have you get too personal if you
35:30
don't want, but you know, are you going out there to
35:33
rejuvenate? Are you going out there just
35:35
because you enjoy it? What is you know, What do you
35:37
take away from that when you come back?
35:45
That's a good question. So typically what it ends up
35:49
being is I go all by myself, maybe meet up with some friends
35:54
when I'm there for part of the time, maybe not.
35:58
I think it really gives me a lot of time to kind of reflect
36:00
internally and reset. I think, you know, with kids, it
36:08
seems like you can get so kind of in the weeds with the stuff
36:12
and the siblings fighting and the, you know, this, that and
36:15
the other thing. And it gives me time to kind of
36:18
get above that and kind of give perspective of who I want to be
36:23
as a parent. I think that the focus, like I
36:26
said, is usually to where my food comes from is very
36:30
important to me. And that kind of is a part of
36:34
why my interest in the coffee is what it is.
36:39
And so I really try to focus on bringing home a freezer full of
36:42
meat for my family because I want them to have that healthy
36:46
food. I don't want us to have to
36:48
participate in the, I'm not going to like it on a soapbox
36:51
about this, but I don't want to have to participate in the, you
36:55
know, in the global meat industry as much as we can
36:58
remove ourselves from that. And that matters.
37:02
And in some ways like that feels like me caring for my family.
37:07
I think my wife and I are on the same page there.
37:10
But as far as the business goes, I think it really helps me
37:13
stress test things and see because a lot of the time I
37:18
won't even have phone service when I'm gone, right?
37:20
So I'm not like working remote. I'm just, I'm gone and they're
37:25
they're doing it or they're not. And it really kind of reinforces
37:34
people's strengths and weaknesses.
37:36
And I get to come back and see like, oh, I gave you this
37:38
responsibility and I probably shouldn't have or you did really
37:42
good at this. Let's try to give you more of
37:44
that and helps just kind of improve for our, you know, like,
37:48
oh, this thing fell through the cracks.
37:50
We need to make sure we have coverage for that in the future.
37:53
And it just helps help stress test the business, I think, and
37:56
helps us grow in a weird way. What makes for a good cup of
38:03
coffee? You know, a long time ago I.
38:15
Well OK, I'm going to I'm going to that was only one question,
38:18
but I'm going to give you 2 answers, OK, and see what we're
38:20
doing. I.
38:22
Appreciate it. The yeah, I think at first I I
38:28
just had this conversation with a customer the other day.
38:30
They wanted to learn more about coffee and they were really
38:34
pushing me, like, how do I make a good shot of espresso?
38:37
Like, I don't know, man, that doesn't exist.
38:40
Like what? Well, it does, but I can't tell
38:44
you what a good shot of espresso is because it's based around
38:47
what you like. I think if you wanted to ask me
38:51
what does the Specialty Coffee Association say is a good shot
38:55
of espresso, that's a different question.
38:57
Or what is a good shot of espresso in a competition
39:00
setting? That's a different question.
39:03
But to say what is a good cup of coffee, What is a good shot of
39:06
espresso? Make what you like and just try
39:11
different things, you know, try I, I encourage people like try
39:14
different grind settings, try different types of coffee
39:16
because it helps them find what they like and stick with it, you
39:20
know, and once you understand what you're into, that's what's
39:23
a good cup of coffee for you. Now, my second answer is, if
39:28
you're asking me what I think is a good cup of coffee, a long
39:34
time ago I started saying, you know, it's something that's
39:37
interesting. It's something that sticks out
39:41
because I've just cupped so many coffees in my lifetime.
39:44
It's like, you know, sweet, floral, clean.
39:51
It's you don't see those as much, especially anymore.
39:56
But I've seen them hundreds of times.
39:59
And So what sticks out to me is something unique like I, I
40:03
think, OK, the last time I had a memorable cup of coffee.
40:08
The SCA last year in Houston at the Roasters Village, which is
40:11
just getting like excessive at this point.
40:13
There's so many things to try. But there is a group called
40:18
coffee Wallas. I I hope I'm not saying this
40:22
wrong, but they, they only did specialty coffee out of
40:25
Indonesia, I believe. And I was like, yeah, OK,
40:29
whatever. You know, mushrooms and dirt and
40:33
can still be good and have some acidity and also the way SEA and
40:36
Tuarko does some good stuff. But they shared with me these
40:41
like really interesting coffees. I think actually, I think it's
40:43
just Southeast Asia in general. They had like a Chinese coffee
40:48
and like it was not a 87 point coffee, but it was like clean
40:54
and had nice acidity and was relatively well balanced.
40:58
And I was like this, this coffee is memorable because this is not
41:02
what I expected. And they're doing something
41:04
different, right? And so it's not, was it the best
41:09
cup of coffee I had that weekend?
41:11
Nope. But it was the most memorable.
41:13
And that's the thing that sticks out for me nowadays.
41:16
When someone says what's a good cup of coffee?
41:17
It's like, well, I'd rather have like, like, I also think about
41:25
somebody served me a cup of coffee and I tasted it and I was
41:30
like, OK, maybe, maybe 80 point blender lot.
41:33
You know, I was like, what is this?
41:35
And I was like, oh, it's a robusta grown at 200 feet above
41:38
sea level in Uganda. And I was just like floored.
41:42
And I was like, OK, that's the memorable cup of coffee for me
41:44
for a while. Because even though it was like
41:46
barely passable as specialty, I definitely would have not have
41:51
expected that from that setting, that type of growing
41:55
environment. So I don't know.
41:58
That's my answer. Do you have a piece of advice,
42:02
piece of wisdom, something that's stuck with you over the
42:05
years or that you've kind of come up with that you would be
42:07
willing to pass on? Could be entrepreneurial, could
42:10
be coffee, could be other. I think a lot of people in
42:18
coffee land forget that it's just like brown water, you know?
42:24
It's, it's not, it's not your life force, it's not, it's not
42:32
something to fight with people about.
42:36
Don't take it too seriously. I think like it's OK to be
42:40
really excited about it and it's OK to voraciously devour all the
42:48
knowledge you can. I just really hope you don't
42:51
find your being in coffee because it'll probably let you
42:56
down now that there's anything wrong with coffee.
42:59
It's just, it's like, it's just coffee I think is what I'm
43:02
trying to say. And yeah.
43:08
I, I want to make sure that we, you know, we're coming up on 45
43:11
minutes. So what comes next for dialled
43:14
coffee services? You know, how can people learn
43:18
more about it? Or, you know, what is it that
43:21
you would hope that people would take away from this show about
43:24
the business that you're running?
43:27
Well, I hope if you're in West Michigan that you call us for
43:31
your coffee equipment needs. We go all the way to Northern
43:35
Indiana. And I hope that if you are a
43:40
experienced technician in the Detroit area that you call me
43:43
and say that you're interested in being a remote technician for
43:46
us on that side of the state. And I hope that we're able to
43:51
connect with other like minded folks around the country.
43:56
Get on to servicelayer.com or service layer dot coffee.
44:02
They are a network of like minded service technicians
44:05
around the country. And you can connect with a
44:08
service technician who is coffee quality and barista focused in
44:12
your area regardless of where you're at in the US there.
44:18
That's cool. That was perfect.
44:20
It's like you've been doing this your whole life when you walk
44:25
into a coffee shop somewhere and they don't know who you are, so
44:28
they're not trying to ply you with freebies and goodies.
44:31
What is it that you order? Coffee I used to, I used to like
44:39
even try to like interpret the, you know, the specialty coffees
44:44
or the pour over option for the day or whatever.
44:47
And I still do that, you know, But a lot of the time it's like
44:51
a good coffee shop is going to have good batch brew.
44:53
And if they have crappy batch brew but then serve like a
44:56
geisha and pour over, it's like, well, you're not really a good
44:59
coffee shop then, are you? And I want to see what the place
45:02
is capable of and what the baristas are interested in.
45:06
And generally, that's the batch brew for the day.
45:08
So just order batch brew. What did we miss today?
45:13
Anything else that we should share?
45:17
I don't think so. I like where I'm at right now.
45:20
I like the done a lot of things in coffee industry and I really
45:24
enjoy owning my own business and feel very like blessed and
45:29
thankful to be able to be where I'm at and do what I'm doing and
45:33
get to, you know, have the influence I do on the the coffee
45:37
industry around me and fixing stuff is pretty fun.
45:43
Good folks, as somebody. Everywhere in coffee world.
45:49
As somebody who also has some white in his beard, I'm yours is
45:53
a very specific streak. I'm wondering if there's a
45:55
trauma that we need to discuss on the air.
45:59
I've got 3 kids. Josh, I really appreciate your
46:04
time and and sharing what you've done and, and where you're going
46:09
with us. And I hope we get a chance to
46:11
have a cup of coffee in person. Yeah, for sure.
46:15
It'd be fun. Good to good to hang with.
47:12
Thanks for listening, everyone. Please subscribe to our
47:15
newsletter at coffeepeoplepodcast.com.
47:19
Cheers.