Jaza Delivery

Jaza Delivery

An important sales meeting for a startup coffee business has led to other opportunities.

Perseverance and confidence are essential.

Janet Allen's Wal-Mart moment came in February 2005 as she sat opposite Saul Zabar in a New York City boardroom.

Allen and two friends had officially been running Jalima, a Sarasota-based startup coffee distribution business, for five months. But the 70-hour-plus workweeks - trips to Mexico to supervise the harvesting process, writing and revising business plans, marketing - had yet to pay off with a big sale. The trio needed a breakthrough in their efforts to get on the shelves of some of the tony stores they coveted.

Zabar's is the "it" grocery store in New York. It caters to a high-end crowd in the high-end neighborhoods of the city. A meeting to pitch gourmet coffee with the top guy at Zabar's is like a mom-and-pop pencil manufacturer meeting with Wal-Mart honchos in Bentonville, Ark.

"There's a lot of cache in being able to say your product is in Zabar's stores," says Allen. "That's huge. Everyone knows him."

Allen and her partners had finally gotten the meeting with Zabar, a son of the chain's founders, using a few far-flung connections and name-dropping. Anything to get in the door.

The meeting was exponentially successful. Not only did the grocery-store mogul agree to stock Jalima coffee on his shelves, Zabar told Allen and her partners - Marcela Zuchovicki and Libe Diamant - to call other big suppliers in the city and use his name as a reference.

Since then, Jalima has signed a distribution deal with another well-known New York firm and the partners also bumped into Rachel Ray, a popular TV cooking show host at a New York trade show a few months ago; Ray liked the coffee and says she plans to write about Jalima in her magazine later this year.

The coffee, grown in two Mexican coffee-producing regions, is now sold in about 100 stores in nine states, including Florida. While the company is not yet profitable, Allen is projecting substantial revenue growth over the next few years. Next up for Jalima is a meeting with buyers for the Mid-Atlantic region of Whole Foods.

The successful meeting with Zabar also produced one other important victory for Allen, Zuchovicki and Diamant: Confidence.

Allen, who previously dabbled in real estate and other food distribution businesses, says in the ultra-competitive coffee world, you can't be afraid of rejection.

"The buyers want that elevator speech," she says, quick and on-point.

Past confidence and perseverance, Allen has a few other suggestions - somewhat obvious, yet also overlooked - for entrepreneurs facing an important sales meeting:

• Be well-dressed: If your appearance is too casual or sloppy, it's a negative first impression that's hard to erase. "Time and time again," Allen says, "I have observed in business settings the difference in the way someone is treated that looks professional and someone that does not."

• Be prepared: Allen says not having details ready can be costly when people are looking for specifics, especially on financials and sales projections.  

• Be strong: Use bold statements early and often, especially in time-sensitive meetings, to capture people's attention. Start off with a confident declaration. For Allen: "I want to introduce you to a truly amazing coffee, one of the finest coffees from Mexico that you will ever have."

-Mark Gordon