There’s a special moment that occurs in coffee roasters everyday around the world. It’s the moment that green coffee samples arrive at the roastery. For mid sized and larger roasters moving 5,000 lbs + a week, there are typically a handful of key people that engage with your samples when they arrive to their roastery:

1. The Owner 

2. The Head Roaster / Green Buyer

3. The Production Roaster

4. The Sales Person

5. The Account Person

6. The Production Team

If you know how quickly folks move around the specialty coffee industry, you know that at least half of the folks in that room will likely be working for another company in 1-2 years and wherever they are in the org chart today, they'll likely move up the org chart in their next role. This upward movement works in your favor as a green coffee importer because when they move on to the next company, they will have more influence there and they’ll have the ability to bring up your name if you’ve left an impression on them. The implication of this is, if you don’t make a sale with them today, you may still make a sale in 2-3 years to the very same people.

In our experience, specialty green coffee traders often look at their samples as being one dimensional in funcion. Meaning, get the fresh crop in front of buyers today, inform them of the specific coffee info of what is available today and then follow up with them to see if they want to make a buying decision for this crop. But we’d like to propose another concept. Utilizing your samples as a double partial close.

A Double Partial Close

What is a double partial close you ask? Well it’s when you are partially closing today (with the buyer at hand) and partially closing tomorrow (i.e. the folks who’ll move on and up the org chart in the next 2-3 years).

I can tell you from my own personal experience, that when folks move from one company to another, they often bring along the folks they've worked with in the past. So it’s important to engage all of the folks throughout the org chart with your samples.

How do you execute a double partial close?

A partial double close is a typification and personification of your current buyers and future potential buyers. The key here is to create elements in your samples that engage each of the folks who’ll buy your coffee today and the folks who’ll buy your coffee tomorrow uniquely. We call this moment making. People often make decisions with feelings and emotions and folks are most compelled by things that make them feel seen.

If you can make each of the people around the cupping table feel seen, you’ve completed the Double Partial Close.

To begin to think through how you might do this, seek to decipher what things that each person around the cupping table wants, needs, and values:

• The Owner - wants to know the price, the coffee info and how it might fit in their lineup.

• The Head Roaster / Green Buyer - the coffee info, the story and how it might fit in their lineup.

• The Production Roaster - the coffee info, the story.

• The Sales Person - the coffee info, the story / the sales angle.

• The Account Person - the coffee info, the story / the sales angle.

• Production Team - the story and coffee info.

Next, think about the things that might capture each of their attention:

• The Owner - why should they buy this coffee and what is your ethos as a company?

• The Head Roaster / Green Buyer - what impact does this coffee have at origin & what impact does your company make?

• The Production Roaster - what impact does this coffee have at origin & what impact does your company make?

• The Sales Person - how can I sell this coffee? i.e. what does selling this coffee mean for the supply circle?

• The Account Person - what does it mean for current accounts to serve this coffee? i.e. why would accounts want to serve this coffee?

• Production Team - what is your company all about / ethos?

It’s important to remove the notion that samples are just for the roaster to cup then make a buying decision. Your samples are not simply a question of, “want to buy this coffee?” but they are also an invitation to connect on a deeper level with your company as a whole. Done well, this is an affinity builder for your green coffee company.

If you are familiar with the concept of priming, this is the idea here. The folks we just typified are likely going to engage with your brand / packaging / written material prior to cupping your coffee. The goal then is to prime each of them in the direction that you’d like them to go.

Psychologically, you want to create positive feelings, emotions, and ideas about your coffee. Sure, in a vacuum, an excellent cuppers score will not be influenced by this, but that does not mean that it won't put them in a place where they’d like to add your coffee to their line up somewhere else if the coffee doesn’t meet the needs they are trying to fill through today’s sample cupping.

Let the coffee speak for itself. This is an excellent idea but how often have you received feedback that did not match your own cuppings? It could be water. It could be that the person who set up the cupping put the wrong sample in the wrong bowl. It could be that the cupper was made breakfast by their partner who doesn't understand that they shouldn’t have a sriracha burrito before cupping but they didn't’ have the heart to say, “I can’t eat this because I have a cupping.” Or it could literally be that the person cupping the coffee isn’t experienced.

Whatever it is, you want to build positive feelings around your brand that don’t have anything to do with the specific coffee. The coffee will say what it says on the cupping table. Your job is to do the kind of talking before that creates moments for the roasters who are tasting your coffee today and the decision makers of tomorrow.