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HISTORY OF COFFEE NEWS
The
"Original" Recession - Buster!
by Jean Daum, Coffee News World Head Office
Coffee News's
predecessor was a community newspaper I designed in 1982. (Full
documentation of results available to anyone who needs proof). It was
designed to kill a very specific recession happening in Charleswood - a bedroom community of Winnipeg (Manitoba,
Canada),
that was on its way to becoming a ghost town.
One in every four
stores in it's business district were empty
and abandoned, with the rest losing money hand over fist and hanging on
for dear life. New businesses that could have revitalized the area were
notoriously short-lived - some even come and gone within their first
month!
To business, Charleswood was sheer poison. Why? It was a bedroom
community, no-one drives through Charleswood on their way to work so all businesses
depended on residents to shop at their stores. Residents had very
little community spirit and were not about to "support"
businesses they thought HAD TO BE over-priced, and with less selection
than they had been lead to believe was available elsewhere, by Charleswood's only community newspaper - Metro One
- from St. James which is across the river.
No-one from St.
James would drive all the way to Charleswood
to shop, so Charleswood advertisers were
forced to pay for four TIMES the circulation they needed to be able to
reach their Charleswood customers - at four
times the cost! In the end, the cost outweighed the return and they
stopped advertising. With only flyer advertising able to reach their
potential Charleswood customers - at ten
times the cost of a newspaper ad, they couldn't afford to advertise and
they stopped.
It doesn't take
long for a business to lose enough customers that it can no longer pay
its bills. Then, it's too late to advertise because advertising is a
cumulative effect, not a "one ad wonder"!
In the end,
businesses in trouble were filling their windows with 50 - 75% off sale
signs - hoping for any kind of money coming through their door that
would keep their suppliers and worse, their banker at bay. Being a
high-brow community, nothing turned residents off as much as a
"sacrifice sale", so in a week or two, we'd notice the
"Bailiff Seizure" sign on the door and say to ourselves,
"Thank God he's gone". It was depressing to have such people
in our community - even if they'd been there for years.
I got shocked out
of this general attitude when I was forced by my husband (who was
renting the hall for dance lessons) to volunteer as Publicity
Chairperson for Varsity View Community Centre. Part of my job was to
sell advertising for the newsletter, which forced me to talk to
business people in my community. Couldn't get around it, I HAD to go
into stores I had never shopped at as a resident.
It never occurred
to me the sacrifice these business-owners go through just to do
business, let alone the horrors of losing everything they own when they
fail. I didn't do very well selling ads to support the community
centre, but it did convince me that if I didn't do something - no one
else was even concerned enough to try.
My newspaper
lasted two and a half years and in that time, I was able not only to
re-establish 100% thriving occupancy in the Charleswood
Business Community, I completely reversed the established 80% failure
rate of new business to a success rate of 80% with the majority of
business expansions in this previously named "poison area"
due to the success of new business in the area.
I had also
created such a fervor of community spirit that
all three community centres that where
previously dying from a lack of support had to greatly expand their
existing facilities.
My newspaper died
a very undeserving death, at the hands of the Post Office which decided
my profits from inserts, which were subsidizing my ad rates, was now
going to be 60% of my costs. I lost everything I owned and loved trying
to keep my newspaper going until the final decision from the Post
Office - 3 months and $25,000 in debt later.
It took me years
to recover personally, but if you notice, Coffee News is not delivered
to homes. I had to find a new delivery source, and restaurants were
perfect since the majority of people who go there are people with extra
money to spend. Add in a fast-read, restaurant format/ affordable ad
rates - perfect for new businesses with little money to spend/the same
great business-building ad results that practically rebuilt the entire Charleswood business community - and all the rest
is history.
Coffee News is
the ULTIMATE RECESSION BUSTER, but this time, everybody - even me - is
well into the black. It feels great to be a volunteer working towards
something that will change the lives of so many people for the better,
but to be able to KEEP doing these good deeds for many, many years, it can't be done as a personal unpaid
volunteer effort as my newspaper was.
It HAS to be well-paid to be forever self-sustaining
and that's the most important lesson I learned from the demise of my
newspaper. Now, 12 years since Coffee News began, many hundreds of
towns and cities in THIRTY COUNTRIES are being personally revitalized
by hundreds of caring Coffee News people who too single-handedly,
believe they can make a difference in their own community - for many
years to come.
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