One Man's Journey in The Coffee Industry and Life

Hi Everyone, There was a post a couple of weeks back about my grandson, who lived with us, dying of SIDS. This is a disease that has never gotten its correct due with regard to funding, education, and understanding. My family and I are deeply committed to finding the cause, and hopefully the prevention of this crippling, devastating problem. I know that some people say that it is only 1700-1800 babies a year that pass from SIDS, but think about how many lives are affected by that number? It is a lot greater than you think! I still to this day, 7 years later, walk around town and  see people whispering about, "oh that was the grandfather of Kaitlyn's baby". Believe me when I tell you, it is not paranoia! It is a crushing experience. Anyway, these T-shirts are $17.99 plus shipping & handling. That can be $3 or $7 depending on where you live. If you would like to purchase these shirts(we have every size imaginable), just send me an email @ jleary60@h

And so it was. New Year's came and went, we had just gotten back from an ill-advised vacation in Jamaica at the Ritz-Carlton. It cost me an arm and a leg, and we really did end up missing our family. Like I might have mentioned in previous posts, you can run but you can't hide! Anyway, it was January 2008. In the first 10 days of that year, I closed two deals to purchase an Office Coffee Service company and a boutique roaster who was really struggling but had great product! So I was into all kinds of different things. The OCS business I bought got me into the k-cup business, which I am not a fan of but hey, it is huge, and the boutique guy came to work for me. I wanted him on the team. He was a hopeless romantic about coffee but really couldn't grasp the marketing and scaling up mindset, that you needed to have to be really successful. Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of little boutique roasters that do quite well for themselves for sure. They just don't th

So in December of 2007, it was a new era for my company. W had the capital, we had new energy, and we had me focused after a 5 month, semi-absence. Well Full-absence if you ask me! Like I said the financials were, thank god, flawless! You know for all you financial wizards out there! I am still laughed at to this very day, but after its all said and done. If you have more money in the bank than you did the previous Monday, HEY, you were doing pretty good! Now I know that's over simplified, but in a way not really. You see, if you started the week with say, $16,000 and the next week after all your bills are paid and nothing is owed in the company, you have a balance of say $22,000! That means you had a pretty good week!! It is that simple! Cash Flow is EVERYTHING!! Here I'll save you probably $80,000 for a Harvard B school MBA! #1 Get The Money!!! #2 Cash Flow!!!!! I should just stop there! This is already the most informative blog I have posted! Yeah, really people it is

Hi Everyone, I am sometimes blown away by the human compassion that, a lot more people have, than I realize. I am proud to be a philanthropist, I would not wish the circumstances that led me on that path, for anyone, but I am. I want to personally thank a number of people that have sent in donations to our SIDS foundation, based on the blog post of about a week ago. I really don't know what to say. Someday, hopefully in the near future, families will not have to go through the pain and suffering that we did. That is what our foundation is all about. Thank you again for your support and generosity! Joe Leary

I hope you enjoyed the video! That's how I felt by December of 2007! I was BACK, and I needed to make changes, and I knew it! As I said in my last post, sales were stagnant, I needed to go back to basics. That is the only way I knew to develop a strategy on how I could move this company forward! I broke down the operation into facets, studied the emerging trends in the industry and came out of it with a plan I was sure would work! I waited until January and fired my VP of Sales, I replaced him with 2 highly motivated, young sales reps, with MBA's from Babson. If you don't know, Babson's MBA programs are one of the best in the country! I incentivized them so they could earn unlimited income, but, their base was low. You see, if there is one thing I learned in business it is this. If you pay your sales people a base salary that can cover their bills without any incentives, you are probably doing them, you and ultimately the company a huge disservice! My plan for mys

So how do you follow that up? Well let's get back to business a little bit, shall we? So through all the madness, there was a huge lesson learned on my part. I was basically not there for about 3 weeks, and when I did come in, no one wanted to say anything to me. I had to initiate 99% of the conversations, during this time. Well I also did a little soul searching, and found out that this business in particular, I loved. I was right where I should have been, and always wanted to be. By the holidays I was back up and running. Although I noticed something that I didn't think I had before the baby died, I had compassion. So that was cool because as you know, I was on a mission for 10 years or more, by that point. If you don't know, you should read the older posts in this blog! But anyway, I had that, and I learned that your family is everything! I was running so fast to be successful, I never once slowed down to take a good look at really, THE most important thing in my lif