The Tale of Two Breads

It’s 8:14 a.m., overcast, and the smell of freshly ground dark roast coffee and baked bread fills the air.

I’m queued up behind 13 patrons at my local bakery. (Yes, I counted.)

This isn’t unusual for a Thursday morning. At any given hour between 6 a.m. and 1 p.m., customers line up around the corner. (And if they sell out, you can watch a docile crowd turn into an angry mob.)

It’s what every business dreams of—a high-demand product that customers can’t wait to get their hands on.

But contrary to popular belief, their success didn’t happen by accident.

Their rise in popularity is more predictable than you might think, and it’s a lesson every business should pay close attention to.

This bakery didn’t start as a brick-and-mortar shop. It began as a humble household operation, selling at the local farmers market.

They offered the usual assortment of artisanal breads: oat porridge, country loaf, and a selection of flaky pastries.

Word spread quickly, and their popularity grew.

Local news outlets and bloggers raved about their oat porridge loaf.

But that’s not where the story ends.

As the oat porridge loaf became more popular, the bakery started tracking customer purchases and frequency.

And they found a disturbing trend.

Even though oat porridge was their most popular item, customers purchased it infrequently. Why?

So they began to ask, “If you love this bread so much, why don’t you buy it more often?”

The answer? “Well, it feels like a fancy bread—something I want to share. I love to buy it when I have dinner guests coming over.”

The product was seen as a luxury, not a necessity.

So they dug deeper, and what they found is the tale of two breads.

Oat porridge is made by adding oats to the starter, which gives the bread those chewy, fluffy pockets we love.

But it has one drawback—bigger holes. In baker terms, they call this the alveoli or crumb.

You might not think this matters, but consider what most people use bread for: spreading their favorite condiments—mustard for sandwiches, ripe avocados for toast, or peanut butter for PB&Js.

If your bread has big holes, you’ve got goopy condiments running everywhere.

The bakery realized that if they wanted repeat customers, they needed to create a bread that could be used every single day.

Enter the country pan loaf.

It’s shaped like your typical store-bought white bread, with a smaller, compact crumb, but with the amazing flavor the bakery had become famous for.

What they had discovered was their “positive predictive indicator.”

In business terms, this formula states that if a customer does X a certain number of times, it guarantees ongoing revenue.

The data showed that if a customer purchased the country pan loaf five times, it almost guaranteed they would return week after week, hence the long lines.

For Facebook, it’s finding seven friends in 10 days.

For Costco, it’s that $5 roast chicken and $1.50 hot dog.

For Amazon, it’s 2-day shipping.

Every business has one, but most are too lazy to figure out what it is.

Spend the time to find your ‘positive predictive indicator,’ and you’ll discover where the money is.

And if you don’t know where to start, ask past customers or poll potential ideal clients.

The answer isn’t in your head; it’s in the data that reveals what your clients truly need.

Sometimes we overcomplicate things. Business is simple: Find the gap, solve the problem, and you might just have a line around the corner.

It’s why I’m standing here at 8:14 a.m. on a Thursday morning, waiting for my country pan loaf.

Cheers,

PS: Doors close Monday for 1:1 coaching in 2024. Even if you’re just curious, book a call here. I’m more than happy to turn people away if it’s not the right time or if I’m not the best fit for you.