Hyde Park location for Sip and Savor
My name is Tres Van Puder-Thurd. I'm the founder and CEO of Sip and Savor Coffee Houses here in Chicago, Illinois. The soft skills are a must in this industry. So empathy, compassion, and being able to multitask. I know how to name about 20 things, but Empathy, compassion, and understanding. I think one of the first skills you got to know is people skills. Again, I keep referring back to the soft skills because people want to feel valued, they want to feel as though they're appreciated. So that's the first thing to get them to do, it's a nice feel. Then the next thing is being able to understand what their needs are. What is it that they really want? Not only in the product or the service, but Offering more than just coffee, we're an experience. You can learn a lot of stuff in different schools and higher institutes of education. They don'teach listening skills, and that's one skill I think is really important. Listen to your customer, listen to your employees, so you can have the pulse of what's going on in your company. That's an acquired skill, n Of course you need to have the mother skills as far as decision-making, which we mentioned earlier, problem-solving, but being able to listen, being able to make decisions, and don't waver and stay the course, I think is one of the things that's really important in my company.
