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.

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.

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:

Like most coffee shops in the industry, you probably experience a rush of customers followed by lulls in business throughout the day. A little down time is good. It provides you with the opportunity to get things done around the shop. But if business becomes too leisurely you may have to ask yourself what you can do to increase your sales during these down times.

There is no easy answer, but you can experiment. And you have free resources at your disposal every day, if you choose to use them:

Coffee shops and restaurants are as much (or more) about customer service than they are about goods and transactions—though the goods need to be good, no doubt. A purely transactional business can earn revenue without an owner’s presence, but a coffee shop or restaurant needs the owner’s regular involvement. Customers expect it, and staff are more engaged when the owner at least occasionally takes orders, makes coffee and is actively watching over the business.