The Values We Build Our Coffee Businesses and Careers On

This week, I watched the demise of a brand that had taken years to build, unravel in the space of 24 hours on social media, at the height of its success. It was dramatic and horrible to watch, and got me thinking, “what’s stopping this from happening in the coffee industry?”.

The situation I’m speaking off happened to an acquaintance of mine, a registered MD that practices Functional Medicine (one of my many curiosities) and sells supplements that I have personally taken (but not purchased) before. I watched the brand grow from strength to strength, with a highly engaged online audience of hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.

The Dr., an expert in stealth infections, was generous with the amount of free information she gave her audience and, together with other Functional Medicine doctors on social media, was outspoken about the inadequacies of corporatized medicine in America and it’s obsession with treating symptoms rather than the root cause of patient issues.

By empowering her audience with easy to understand scientific and medical education about different aspects of stealth infections she gained people’s trust and confidence. She empowered her audience to investigate their own health by encouraging investment to get real answers through lab testing and work with other Functional Medicine doctors for support. If you’d asked me to tell you her values based on our in-person conversations and her social media presence I’d say she was generous, authentic, open-minded, community-based and had integrity.

Up until very recently, her business was booming! I mean seriously booming. Her supplements were constantly selling out, with proof of social currency all over social media from genuine customer testimonials. Her practice and online consults were booked solid for months. She has a secured book deal and constant public appearances on podcasts and speaking gigs all over the country at medical conventions.

Just recently, in an effort to manage the growing success of her growing wannabe patients, she launched a full-service online clinic with a group of other Functional Medicine practitioners who would do consults online and help arrange a number of services to assist with all kinds of medical needs.

Her growth rested on the laurels of her values. She kept reinforcing to her audience that she was personally responsible for the formulations of her supplements, that only the finest ingredients went into their manufacturing, and that she was the person making the decision of her business. This went a significant way into building brand confidence and trust, in her and her products.

Early this week, her boyfriend sent me a cryptic DM on Instagram (as I said, we’re acquaintances) inviting me to go comment on the posts of some strange business I’d never heard of, referring to them as “thieves” and spoke of a “stolen account”.

Very confused, I looked further into the situation only to realize that his girlfriend no longer had control of her social media platform with hundreds of thousands of followers, her website or her email address, and some other company had taken control of all her digital assets.

Knowing what it took to build what she’d built I felt terrible for her and, as requested through her new social platforms, followed her new account and unfollowed the old one.

Watching her explain what had happened on her IG stories initially broke my heart as she explained that this company had illegally hacked and stolen her identity, her brand, patient files, her supplement formulas and, as a consequence, her revenue streams.

The overflow of affection and support was a testament to all the currency she held with the people she helped with her work as an online celebrity and MD.

The IG stories and posts of support kept coming and she kept reposting them. It was a real David and Goliath moment at that point with the ‘don’t believe the lies they’re telling you. The contracts they’re posting are fake. They didn’t assign me any shares.’

Huh? What contracts? What shares? Wasn’t this a hacker? Why would a hacker be posting contracts? Why would a hacker be assigning you shares? It didn’t take a genius to know at that moment something more was going on here.

I started to wonder, how does someone get access to all those digital assets if you haven’t given them to them? I started to notice that the company that had access to her now old IG account (and changed the name to include their business name as well as her brand name) had started posting signed contractual agreements made with her to take over the formulation of her supplements as well as other listed things related to her brand.

“Wait, what?” She’s been telling us all this time that she’s the one in control of her formulations. This can’t be true, can it? And while my heart was breaking for her clear anguish over this very distressing situation, I couldn’t help but feel cracks forming in the story as the drama on social media was unfolding.

And then, in one of her IG stories, she admitted that she hasn’t been formulating her supplements for months now.

Oops! Those cracks just got bigger.

And then she admitted that she felt like a naive fool for doing business with a company she had trusted to treat her and her brand well, only to find that they screwed her (possibly legally) out of everything she’d build.

well, that’s a very different story from “thieves” stealing from you.

The more the saga progressed the less I believed in the values I once accepted as genuine. Those cracks that had started forming had now become gaping big holes.

So how is this related to businesses and careers in the coffee industry?

Now, more so than any time in the history of our industry, words like “transparency”, “traceability”, “values”, “culture” etc are being bantered around. More importantly, we’re asking people what they mean by the words they’re using and we’re holding them accountable to those meanings.

We live in an era where what you tell people you believe in as a brand (business or individual) is a large proponent of what sells your product. Being ambiguous as a brand, and not defining what you stand for as a way to avoid the potential storm, will get increasingly more difficult.

So I implore you, please take a look at the values, culture, and message that you’re putting out into the world about your brand (no matter whether your a business or a professional) and make sure that you are fulfilling them to the highest possible standards.

If you’re saying that you’re specialty coffee, then be ALL of the things that come with the technical aspects of being “specialty” as well as the idealistic components of specialty coffee. Beards, tattoos, gender neutrality, and overpriced aprons are an obvious requirement on the technical requirements list rather than the idealistic components. (Oh stop it, it was a joke people!)

Seriously though, If you’re our there calling yourself a specialty coffee brand and but buying, roasting and selling commercial-grade coffee disguised as specialty. It’s only a matter of time before you’re exposed.

If you say that you’re an employer who takes care of their staff yet pays minimum wage, please fix that situation quickly. Don’t wait to get caught out by a wage transparency report that you can’t walk back from.

If you’re saying that you value cultural diversity in your team but you're favoring people from one religious group (this happens A LOT in the USA coffee industry), I hate to tell you, that’s not diversity and people are already noticing.

If you’re listing integrity as a core value of your brand, yet you're paying less than a fair price for coffee, you’re betraying your own defined values and eventually, you’re going to get found out.

We all watched as the Coffee at Large movement did enormous damage to the internal structure, brand wholesale business and overall image of Slate Coffee (I’m still hoping to have the owners on the podcast). Since then, I’ve watched more and more people naming and shaming coffee brands and people who either say one thing and do another, or don’t deliver on their intentions.

I’m committed to helping more businesses and professionals in our industry thrive rather than just survive. While holding true to your values and your word isn’t going to pay the bills on its own, moving forward, it’s going to be a more important part of the holistic business narrative that brings you success.