It might not feel like fall just yet, but it’s almost the perfect season for sitting in a coffee shop, reading a good book and slowly sipping a steaming, spicy cup of chai.

Whether it’s adding to your specialty coffee menu, selling gift items or going outside your shop to find new business, diversification can be smart—if you don’t take it too far.

Have you ever walked into a specialty coffee shop to get a simple drink, only to be confronted with a mile-long list of beverage options—and retail offerings (greeting cards, t-shirts, coffee mugs, bags of granola, trendy teas, hip magazines, candies)—that were more than a little overwhelming? A shop that has transformed from a focused and uncluttered coffee purveyor into a snacks and sundries retailer is hard to define as a specific type of business.

Knowing Your Customers Will Help You Manage Coffee and Food Inventory

Is it time to evaluate the products you’re selling? Look at each item on your counter and in your refrigerator and ask yourself, "How much of this actually gets used?" The answer might surprise you.

Being a coffee shop owner puts you in a unique position to make decisions that affect the world beyond your your front door. Consumers are increasingly making their voices heard by having their purchases speak for them, choosing one coffee shop over another because they feel that shop's values are shared with their own. When all things are equal, retailers can further distinguish themselves by investing in causes that will ultimately affect their future.

While great customer service and delicious coffee can bring you loyal legions of customers, you need to manage the cost of running your business—or you'll still lose money. Take the basic latte. Are you charging enough for it to make a profit?

Coffee shop marketing doesn't require a lot of time or money.

Get creative, and include your staff in the process to help them take ownership of your marketing efforts:

To operate a successful coffee shop, you have to balance five key performance indicators: marketing, customer service, product quality, consistency and speed of service.

That's a lot of saucers in the air.

But the two factors that are the biggest keys profitability are consistency and speed of service: