A CEO sharpens her business savvy with Verizon Small Business Digital Ready
Three Keys Coffee’s co-founder Kenzel Fallen learned to increase revenue and reduce employee turnover through Verizon’s program
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When Kenzel and Tio Fallen launched their Houston-based coffee company, Three Keys Coffee, in 2019, they named the business after the three valves found on the trumpet, an instrument Tio has played for years. “Our company is inspired by the arts and sounds of jazz music,” Kenzel explains.
To grow and scale their company — a coffee roastery with wholesale, direct-to-consumer, catering, and retail business — Kenzel turned to the free resources available from Verizon Small Business Digital Ready. As CEO, Kenzel is the business mind behind Three Keys Coffee — she holds an MBA from Rice University and has worked in the banking industry — and her experience showed her the value of the coursework available from Verizon. She has taken more than 50 self-paced courses and live events from Verizon Small Business Digital Ready while balancing her role as CEO with motherhood.
“Being a busy mom of three kids, I’m stretched very thinly already,” Kenzel says. “Running a business that includes both a cafe and a manufacturing side means I have to be very intentional and strategic about how I prioritize my time and opportunities. I discovered the Verizon Small Business Digital Ready program had access to such a variety of courses across a lot of different topics that I knew could really help me grow my business.”
My 3 Digital Ready Wins
- Increased revenue through certifications: Certification programs helped Three Keys Coffee increase revenue through partnerships and grants.
- Enhanced customer insights with data capture: Learning about data capture inspired Kenzel to add a QR code to her products, which she hopes will help her gain information about customers and convert them to the online store.
- Effective team management with SMART goals: SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals improved Kenzel's management and leadership of the Three Keys Coffee team.
Learning about certifications, for example, encouraged Kenzel to pursue women-and-minority owned certifications. “As a Black female business owner, these certifications unlocked new opportunities for me,” she says. Kenzel increased the company’s catering revenues more than 12 times from the previous year, secured a pop-up event at a major tech company, and landed a distribution deal with Forbes Global 2000 corporations after gaining certification.
A course on capturing customer data led Kenzel to enhance Three Keys Coffee’s subscription service, Kenzel says. “I actually saw a 27% increase in active subscribers year over year,” Kenzel says.
After completing a course on employee management, Kenzel implemented cost-saving retention strategies that significantly lowered turnover and helped retain top talent. “The average length of service for our team is over a year, which within the coffee industry is very unheard of,” Kenzel says.
Her team appreciates how the Verizon Small Business Digital Ready coursework pushed Kenzel, already a hands-on manager, to tap into her employees’ insights. “I feel like she’s very much aware of when to listen,” says Jay Terrell, quality analysis specialist at Three Keys Coffee. “She just seems much more clued in to hearing our voices.”
Insights from an operating efficiency course enabled Kenzel to implement processes that decreased monthly payroll by 17%, savings which she reinvested in her team by offering health benefits to staff. Implementing project management tools such as Trello and Slack also helped the team reduce meeting time and increase efficiency, saving more than 800 labor hours per year, Kenzel estimates.
“The way we’ve connected with our community, the way we’ve created opportunities for our team and our staff — all of that speaks to the way [we’ve created a] fresh new voice in the specialty coffee industry, and we’re really proud of that,” Kenzel says.
Verizon Small Business Digital Ready is part of Verizon’s goal to support 1 million small businesses by 2030 with the resources to thrive in the digital economy. Visit CitizenVerizon.com to learn more about the company’s responsible business efforts. To sign up for Verizon Small Business Digital Ready, visit digitalready.verizonwireless.com. An individual user's experience may vary and results are not guaranteed.
