Noob School - Episode 63: Everything Methodical Coffee with Will Shurtz

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

John sits down with Will Shurtz of Methodical Coffee in this episode of Noob School, discussing his somewhat unorthodox start in the modern business world, and how he hustled for the love of all things coffee. I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

New School All right everybody, welcome back to the Noob School. John Sterling here and I've got a good friend of mine, Will shirts with methodical coffee. Yep, that's right. Welcome, Will. Thank you. So first time Will and I met, true story, I was kind of in business mode. We were both working in the Bank of America building and I was wearing like a dark suit and short hair and I was kind of in business mode.

Will was to just open methodical coffee in the base of that building, first floor. I'm not kidding you, his hair was down to his butt. It was, yeah. This is the shortest it's ever been. I know. I know, you're like a Marine recruit. But his hair was so long, and sometimes he would put it up,

and it was like pebbles, right? Pebbles from Flintstone. Yeah. And now, fast forward, like five years later, if I took my hair out of this ponytail, it would be longer than yours. We switched. We switched. We're switching.

So you're becoming the business guy. I'm trying. I'm becoming the video man. Yeah, that's right. Well, anyway, funny enough, Will is obviously much younger than me, and we had different hairstyles and everything about us was different, but we immediately became friends. I don't know how. How did it happen?

I think it's because of how kind you were. Because I kind of remember, I might not remember the direct day. but I remember the feeling. It was the first few months. Like, first month maybe, we even opened the shop. You walked in, you know, a huge guy. Like, just, like, coming into order some coffee, and you shook my hand.

Like, we would just chat about it right away. And immediately I knew how friendly you were, and I was like, this is great. And I think it was the, you broke the stereotype. You honestly broke the stereotype of what I thought, like a big business guy would be like, you know. It's cool. Cool.

Well, you broke the stereotype of what I thought a guy with his hair down to his butt would be like, too. So we're even. That's great. We're even. So anyway, let's back it up before Methodical. I know you went to Riverside High School in Greenville, and you're really in the music in high school. And you were a guitar player in a band. Yep.

Tell us about that. Yeah, well, I went to Riverside, and I went to the Fine Arts Center, 9th and 10th grade year. And I was doing jazz performance at the Fine Arts Center. And Riverside was fun. I just went there. That's where I was zoned for. But between the summer from 10th grade to 11th grade, I started playing music in this gospel band. And these guys, they were just like amazing at playing music.

And I was just so stoked to be with them. They were all a little bit older than me and wanted to tour around a little more. And I was like, well, I want to tour around with you. I want to be able to go. And so I convinced my parents to let me, well, essentially I kind of had to drop out of school and re-enroll in this public laptop school, basically. They sent me a laptop. I could do school anywhere I wanted, anywhere where there was Wi-Fi.

So I would play music during the day, go places, and then I would just be able to get my laptop out and do school for a couple hours. And when I was in town, I got a job at a cafe, and that's when I started working in coffee shop. Okay. Probably my 11th grade year of high school. And was that the first time you'd been exposed and got interested in coffee? I think so, yeah.

I always thought baristas were cool. Like where I grew up, there was a shop called Carolina Coffee Roasters. And we would go there all the time just when I was, you know, middle school, early high school. And I always thought it was cool, but, I mean, I never thought I would get into it. You know, I loved music. I thought that's what I wanted to do. But this job in the 11th grade was my first coffee job. And about two years into it, I mean, it was pretty much like, this is just what I want to do.

Interesting. So before that, just a quick question, who did you work with at the Fine Arts Center on Guitar? Steve Watson. Steve? Mm-hmm. Okay. Steve Watson. He was amazing.

He was amazing. He's helped so many people. Steve is awesome. And then my private teacher was Matt Dingledeen. and between them two is just like had the whole world's knowledge of guitar in front of me. I never got it all, but

did my best. Have you heard a little Ronnie play? No. There's a kid in town named Ronnie Elliott who, he's 12 or 13. He might have just turned 13. Are you kidding me? He is a real deal.

Oh my gosh. I played with him a week or two ago. What? Yeah. Is he learning from Steve privately or anything? He did, but he's now, he's got some New York teacher now. I mean, he's literally, but he's really, really good. I'll afterwards, I'll give you a clip of him.

That's unreal. Yeah, he might maybe get him come play a methodical thing. That'd be cool. He would draw the people in. Wow. Awesome. So you were doing that for a couple years playing guitar. Mm-hmm.

And then what happened? Well, it was because when I was still playing music with this band. When I was in town, I would work in a coffee shop, right there on Main Street. Which one? Liquid Highway? Yeah. Back when it was Liquid Highway. Now it's not anymore.

Yeah. But I would work there. I would go there in the morning, work at Bar Shift, and I had my laptop with me, so my shift would end. And I would go sit in the coffee shop, pull up my laptop and do school downtown. It was the best feeling. Like, in 11th grade, that was just such a first. freeing feeling to be downtown, like working, doing my high school. And I did that. And then I started hearing about the shop called Coffee and Cremma. And it was over near the fresh market off Pleasantburg.

And I walked in there. And it was just like an unreal level of coffee. So I sat down at the bar. I ordered a drink. And it was the best coffee I'd ever had in my whole life. And I was intimidated. They were all like really coffee, like really into coffee, like geeky into it. and I didn't know. I've been working at Liquid Highway for about a year, but I didn't know anything about coffee still as much as I, well, I didn't know how much I didn't know at the time. But sat down at coffee and crema, and I was like, man,

and I told the owner, I was like, I'll work here for free. Like, I just want to get a job here. I just want to be here. And he was like, yeah, sounds good. And so I came and did an apprenticeship for a day. And then the next day, the manager called me and was like, we'll bring you on. And I thought that was like the top of the world for me.

So that's where I finished high school. I was working in this coffee shop, finished high school, about to go to college for recording engineering and decided that I just love coffee so much. So I asked the owner of coffee and cremah, I was like, how do you make a living in coffee? Because at the time, you know, it's just like minimum wage. You don't make much in tips. And so it was impossible. And he was just like, you just got to get creative. So I started a traveling coffee bar.

I would pack everything up in my car and go to business meetings, wedding rehearsals, conferences, anything, all over the country, and brew coffee. And that was called Vagabond Barista. And so that's kind of how I stayed in the coffee industry without knowing. I didn't have any money to start a coffee shop or anything. So how did that work? If I wanted to hire you, I would just want someone to be on-site brewing good coffee. for my wedding rehearsal versus whatever they would bring me out of the kitchen? Yeah, exactly.

Okay. I had all these trinkets that I would brew coffee on that looked like a science experiment. Okay. And I could brew a good amount of coffee, and I brought glassware, so I served your coffee and glassware. It was just this whole experience. And back then, when I did Bagabombrista, it was funny. Like, I would show up at events, but I did never bring cream or sugar with me because I was, like, so into it.

No, no. And most people really enjoyed it, even if it wasn't what they would want to drink every day. It was just an all-around experience. And that's kind of what kept me in the coffee industry, just being able to still work at coffee and crema and also do Vagabond Brista. And then eventually I was doing Vagabond Brista full time for a little while. And my friend Marco did my branding for Vagabond Brista. And fast forward, he texted me one day. He was in the tech industry as a little bit.

designer. And he was like, you want to start a coffee shop together? And I'd been doing Vagabond Brista for a few years by now. And it was fun, but it was like, I was doing it by myself for the most part. Sometimes my friends would help me, but it was kind of lonely, like packing my car up, driving to an event, brewing coffee, doing everything by myself. And I was like, this isn't going to work. And so when he asked me if I want to start a coffee shop, I was like, this is it, like yes. And I said, we need David, my other business partner, David. So Marco, David, myself are now business partners. I'm not methodical.

Nice. And so how would you get, how would you get your leads for that business? For Vagabond Brista? I remember, I would, I took a notebook and a pen. And I started at North Main Street, and I would look at every single business that was on Main Street and write it down

if it seemed like a possible, client that I could have that I could reach out to. Even for restaurants, maybe it was like a special breakfast that I would go and set up a coffee bar for a brunch that was being held. And so I would write down all the businesses from North Maine to South Maine.

And then I'd go hang out somewhere, get out my computer, and research. I would just try to find the best contact for each business. Tell them what I did. I said, hey, like, I have a traveling coffee bar. We could either have events. I could come to a meeting. We could have a private tasting for your

your customers and people would let me look enough some people would would book me to come to their event so honestly the downtown area that that the strip of main street was where I spent most of my time initially because I didn't know all the new opportunities that were out there yeah but all the connections I made from just these businesses on Main Street got me a gig in Las Vegas at a carpet convention I set up a coffee bar and then it got me a connection to go all the way up the northeast to like Boston yeah New York everywhere and I would set up at colleges during exam time and brew coffee in the study hall and all the college would pay me and I would go but it all started with a concentrated marketing and in outbound

sales effort for Main Street businesses yeah and then those customers led to other places. Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. Yep. Huh. That's wild.

So, you know, you told me you weren't a salesperson. That sounds pretty salesy will. I don't know. It's just by necessity at the time. Yeah. I guess it's always by necessity. Yeah. But yeah.

And I didn't even feel like that with sales. I was just trying to like, I was like, I would set up. I never told anybody this, which is good. But I probably would have set up for free, you know, if they would have let me be there. Yeah. But all that say, I was doing great. Like, I couldn't believe that eventually I was doing Vagabond Brista as my full-time gig, you know. And I would do four or five events a week, and that was plenty.

Yeah. And it wasn't until methodical that I learned more about really trying to sell coffee in a different format. Vagabond Brista, I was selling an experience at an event. And I'm still in a way doing that, but a different way. So almost logistically, you needed your primary customers to be relatively close, right? You didn't want to drive all over the country or fly. You wanted to be right around Main Street. And so your top prospects were close.

They were all businesses. And, you know, from a sales perspective, I mean, we would coach people to say, you know, get your list together of the most likely buyers. And then your goal from there is simply to inform, let them know what it is you have and see if there's anything you can help them with, right? Yeah. That's pretty cool. What do you think if there was 100 businesses you contacted,

how many of them were interested and how many of them actually bought something? Probably out of 100 businesses, I would think I would get a response from at least 40 of those businesses. And then I would probably end up doing an event for 10 or 15 of them. Okay. So 40% response rate and 10 to 15% overall. Yeah. That's pretty good.

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. And I think a lot of the people that responded but weren't interested, it was just because I didn't do my research, really. A lot of them were just like, we just don't have a need. And if I would have maybe studied a little bit more. and learn more about their business, then I might not have even reached out to them

and I would have saved myself the time. Right. Well, what did you learn about sales in courses doing that? Like talking to people that didn't know you and what was that like? I think my first learning experience for it, man, I just loved, that was my main thing. I was so excited to meet people that I didn't know.

I love that connection to be made, which there's nothing. like a face-to-face connection with somebody, but couldn't always do that. But I think my first learning curve was, man, like, I just reached out to 100 people. Who responded? Like, who said yes? Like, we're just organizing my conversations with everybody. Yeah, yeah.

Which, um, that was kind of difficult. So until I got my feet under me. How did you keep track of it all? Well, when I was 18 years old, I just kind of wrote sticky notes. that's not bad at least write something down but I wrote sticky notes all over the place notebooks all paper

yeah that's alright I think if you have depending on how many you have I mean 100 may be too many but you know I can see 40 sticky notes you know 40 people interested and you kind of move them to the right every time they take another step

toward the sale uh huh yeah that's not bad that's funny yeah that's the kind of system I I use an electronic system, electronic sticky note kind of system for what I do now. Airtable? Air table. We talked about some other ones, but you found air table. Is that like moving the sticky notes?

This is just what I've been using for about a year or two now to sell coffee. And it's working. I think there's a really interesting gap between, from what I know about tech sales and coffee sales, I think there's a really interesting gap between the two from what I'm learning. So in tech sales, it seems like there's like levels of people, you know, like lead generation, customer acquisition, stuff like that. And coffee sales, I think what I've learned is, I've never heard this term, but I've learned the term full cycle sales. I think pretty much all, in the entire coffee industry that's on our level, like, you know, not massive, massive companies.

But the entire coffee industry that we are competing with, everybody is a full cycle sales rep. So they're like generating the lead, they're reaching out and getting the customer, and then they're upkeeping their own accounts. And that's what I've been doing at Methodical since we started roasting coffee. It's really interesting because I'm like almost wondering

if there's a hybrid. I think a lot of full cycle salespeople like me. So now, fast forward a little bit, we started methodical and we roast coffee and we roast coffee for coffee shops that don't roast their own coffee all over the country and throughout Canada.

But my argument, which might be naive, is the type of sales that I do is incredibly relational. And if I ask somebody if they want to buy our coffee and I make that sale, then I want

I almost feel like, oh, well, like, I got sale. Like, I want to keep a relationship with them. I should be the person to upkeep our relationship. And so I think a lot of the people like me in the coffee industry go back to the, well, it needs to be relational, you know. And then I talk to some people that are more like in the tech sales world. And I hear their argument is it's still relational. It's just more efficient or something.

Yeah. But. Well, I wouldn't. I wouldn't doubt yourself, Will. You have your own unique way of thinking about things or else you wouldn't be where you are. So I wouldn't doubt that. But there's a couple of ways to look at that. One is the common way today is to split it up.

You know, and you've got someone who makes the list and someone who tries to break through and have a phone call and someone who does the first discovery call, someone who closes the deal, and then somebody who takes care of it. It's five things. Five things. That's the way the big tech companies do it now. You know, you could do it where you could say to a new rep. You know, we're relational people, but you've got to go find your own people to have a relationship with.

So we're going to let you go find, you know, 15 companies you're going to be selling to. And once you get 15, you just take care of those. Yeah. And not think they're going to because what will happen is if you say you're a full cycle rep, you'll be really good at prospecting for a while. And as soon as you get enough business to pay you enough commissions, you're going to be prospecting anymore. Right.

Because you're going to be, I'm taking care of these people. Uh-huh. But, yeah, I mean, your way of doing it so cool. There's companies out there who are doing very well who don't, they really don't have any salespeople. They don't even have commission plans. That's fascinating. Yeah.

They're just like, why would I pay you a commission? your job, just like, let's say someone's job is to roast the coffee, they don't get a commission for roasting it. Right. That's their job. You know, your job is to contact, you know, seven people a day, go through this process, share what we do and see if they want to buy it or not. I guess that kind of makes sense, yeah. Not many people do it that way, but some people do. It's just another job that you're supposed to do.

Like it's not some kind of magical thing. It seems like it might be a little more different. to get great salespeople if you're doing unless you're paying them a really amazing salary I mean you're going to get a different kind of person you're going to get probably more of a someone who's more of a customer service oriented person and in some industries it might be okay yeah I don't know we've I've never hired a salesperson before and we're we're at the point at methodical now I've been doing all of our wholesale business business. So mainly, I mean, it kind of fluctuates to other businesses too, but mainly focusing

on researching coffee shops around the country. I'll narrow in on the top largest cities in each state. Like, that's kind of what I've been doing. And just study, I study all the coffee shops in each of those largest cities. And I get my list. So there I am, like, prospecting and doing some lead generation. Been doing that. And then fast forward. to today, I found in the past six months that I'm kind of maxed out since I am the one upkeeping all the relationships of the people that I sold coffee to. So I've never, I've never hired a salesperson before and we're looking now. And yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be fun working with a salesperson, but when I bring them on, I'm going to have to like create more structure in our

sales team because right now it's just all knowledge that I have that I don't have. I don't have to communicate to anybody the way I sell like how I communicate with people and what information I tell them and the consistency of the way I tell the story of methodical. I don't want to necessarily give someone a script because I want them to be whoever they are, you know, but this rep would be selling to your wholesale customers. Yeah. Other coffee shops, other roasters? Not other roasters, more like coffee shops, restaurants, hotels. Okay. A little like boutique grocery. grocery stores. But they spend most of their time on coffee shops because we offer training for people who use our coffee exclusively. Before I came over here, I was hanging out with three

baristas in a shop that's about to open, and I was teaching them all about the espresso machine and how to make coffee. And I want to be able to keep doing that. And if we want to double or triple or quadruple the size of our company, I think now I've reached my maximum, and I want to sustain that, and I want to bring someone else on to start working towards their maximum. That's good. So, in case they're watching right now, what kind of person are you looking for? Man, it's tricky. I've been trying to figure that out because I want someone who, and this is subjective that I say this,

but I want someone who, when I sit down and talk to this person and hang out, like, I don't know, I kind of want to be drawn in a little bit, you know, like I want to have that feeling that I want to spend more time with this person, you know, like just a very kind, easy person to be around. So I want them to be like that, flexible, easy going, easy communicator, just very, very, oh man, enticing in a way. But then I also want them to be incredibly organized and kind of like systematic, but I don't want that systematic mindset to come through and feel robotic to the person

they're talking to it. So easygoing, systematic, really well organized. And, well, they got to love coffee. And the tricky, I'm allergic. Yeah, exactly. I think that the trickiest part about this specific job is I want a salesperson. who can be a full cycle sales rep, but can also learn to train baristas.

So that's like really unique. And I've talked to several people who are, they have all those aspects, but they don't know a thing about coffee, which is fine because I can teach it. But that's going to be the thing that they're also going to have to want to do. Maybe this person's already barista somewhere.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. So they already love coffee, no coffee, and now they can go call on people and sell coffee. Exactly. I know a lot of people in the coffee industry, that helps too. Yeah. All right. Well, that's cool.

I like that. So what else? Oh, man. I guess I didn't really talk so much about the transition, like why methodical is even really here. Yeah. But it's like a dream come true because we. It's not so much sales, but we, I had a hard time starting a career in coffee coming out of high school that I wanted to create a business that would pay people a livable wage and like create a pathway for them to grow. And so we started methodical downtown as our first coffee shop.

We had six baristas plus me there every day. And Marco and David still had full-time jobs. and it was just me full time out of the owners. And then slowly we started roasting coffee and now we have three cafes total. And well, maybe, I might be saying this just in case any potential salespeople are listening right now. We just have a great company.

So we're always working on making it better. But it's just exciting that we're like, we've finally made pathways for people to have careers in coffee in Greenville. and Greenville is still kind of a small town, you know. It's not a huge city yet. But I'm just pumped. I just can't believe it happened.

Well, you know, you've had a real passion for it, you know, since you got the bug in high school, I guess. And then I think your personality and work ethic drew other people to you, right? And we talk about it with the school all the time is, you know, and even in my book, you know, we say, Many people make the mistake coming out of school, whether it's high school or college, where I'm going to go get a good paying job. I want a job. I want a good paying job. And so they find themselves doing something. And it might even be decent paying, but it's not what they love.

Yeah. And so if you have the chance, you at least ought to go for it. Yeah, exactly. If you love coffee, you at least ought to try to find a way to make that happen. And you've absolutely done that. We've got a niche in the market and make the best coffee. That's kind of important. That's important.

Oh, man. Well, what's your favorite word? My favorite word? Oh, wow, this is hilarious. Wine. That was the first thing that came to my mind. You're supposed to say coffee. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

You've got to have a hobby. What's your favorite wine? I've been drinking a lot of, I've been drinking just a lot of old words. world pinot noir right now. Okay. Which I mean usually would be burgundy, right? But I found this wine. And it's a pino noir from Alsace, France, which is fascinating because usually in

all sauce, it's all white wines. So, yeah. Old world Pinot No, that's what I'm interested in. Do you sell wine at the coffee shop yet? No, not yet. Okay. Not yet. I'd like to get into the wine business one day, I think.

Well, you know, I don't know. In Seattle, they just drink coffee 24-7. they've learned how to drink coffee all day. But around here, I think people, you know, maybe they need something to do in the afternoon. Yeah, exactly. Good juice on the red wine. It's one of the easiest ways to travel in one spot.

You know, you can have wines from five different countries and you can like, especially if you've been there, you've had the wine, then you just kind of feel like you're there and you remember all the experiences you've had with that wine. Yeah. Well, Will, as usual, any time it's used delightful. And for the people watching, If somebody wants to contact you about the sales job, how would they do that?

They could email me at will at methodicalcoffee.com. Okay. And then your shops are where? Our shops, we have three shops in Greenville. One is on Main Street in the plaza where Tuplo Honey is in the canal building. The second one is at the corner of Lawrence Road or Stone Avenue in Wadehampton, where the community tap is in the... Stone's Point.

And the third one is at the Commons in Unity Park. Right. Yeah. Right. And then if they want to buy wholesale. Yeah. Email me. Email you?

Email me. They can submit a wholesale application on our website, but sometimes they can just reach out to me if they know my email. And are you all doing much social media? Yeah, we're on Instagram, methodical coffee. Okay. Yeah, I think we're on Twitter too. I think it's Methodical Coffee SC. Okay.

Maybe don't quote me on that. Definitely Instagram. Well, thank you so much for coming today. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You're doing great, and maybe we'll check in and do a podcast update in a year or so and see what you've been accomplishing. Yeah, things will be different.

Bring your guitar next time. I kind of practice. Thank you, man. Thanks. Take care.