Ben Martinez
Aug 9, 2017 · 3 min read

Knowing What You Are Buying — Beyond the Brand

Insta Story — Morning coffee to roasting to shipping

When you buy something from a company, you expect to be treated like you are the most important person to the people on the other end of the cash register. You signed up to be treated like gold.

People who care about the coffee they drink really want good coffee. We provide what most coffee companies provide, coffee. But beyond the pretty coffee pictures and videos we do something different. We only roast when someone orders and coffee connoisseurs want coffee that has been freshly roasted. This makes us more of a logistics and speed company than it does a coffee company, in many ways.

When we receive an order, we roast immediately and do our best to ship that day or first thing in the morning, the following day. Check the Instagram video, if you want the video version of how we roast then ship. It is straight up moving physical products out the door for shipment.

Our customers do not want coffee that was roasted 1 or 2 weeks ago. They want it within 2–5 days of the roast date. This bag was in the hands of a customer within 3 days of the roast date and our customers would not buy this coffee after August 13 because they consider it old and stale coffee.

People not only want the coffee freshly roasted, they want it as soon as they place an order and they do not want to drive to the roaster to get the coffee. They want it sent to them. Sumato Coffee must be highly organized and efficient when it comes to shipping freshly roasted coffee beans. It starts with the green beans we get from the country’s of origin. From the time someone places an order we need the green beans to roast immediately. No green beans, no roast.

Last week, our shipments of green beans came in later than planned. Which meant, we had to put all other work on hold so the orders from the weekend (in this case a Monday) got roasted and shipped out the day it was roasted. People want speed when they order something. People expect us to roast within 48 hours, so we need to roast and ship within 48 hours. No bags of coffee beans are allowed to sit in our warehouse. This means, putting any other work on hold and getting orders roasted and shipped on time. Speed and organization are key is what makes our brand.

People pay you for speed. They signed up for your service and want the product as fast as possible. We could have easily waited another day or two but that is not what we are being paid to do. We are paid by our customers to roast within 48 hours from their order, then ship immediately.

Our customers want their coffee beans to be freshly roasted and show up before they run out of coffee from their coffee subscription. The last thing I want to do is have someone run out of coffee at their house or work. Can you imagine the phone call from someone because their office was out of coffee?

Our job is to assure the logistics from roasting to shipping happen FAST. Getting what you really want when a customer buys something from us. Roasting coffee is our niche and an art and experience that allows us to brand our company with great pictures and videos but speed and trust is what people really buy from Sumato Coffee.

Founder/Principal Consultant @RampTalent — www.ramptalent.com | Founder @SumatoCoffee Buy our coffee → www.sumatocoffee.com

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