Frankly Speaking: The importance of community when building a small business
While you can’t please everyone, Chryssie Swarbrick says she is trying to create a small business that responds to a very specific corner of Melbourne.
I’m sure you’ve already noticed by the abundance of twinkle lights, but we are smack bang in the middle of December. Christmas is but a few haphazardly-wrapped gifts and a round of Secret Santa away.
Did I ever think we would reach Christmas without our cafe, Two Franks, being open? The answer is, wholeheartedly, no.
I’ve previously spoken on the perils of obtaining your council permits as a small business — back in September. Three months later and we have barely budged.
The neverending perils of permits
It was mid-October when the Notice of an Application for a Planning Permit was finally stuck to the window of Two Franks.
This was up for four weeks, to allow for community consultation. The bad news? We got an objection from a local. The good news? At least it was only one objection!
It’s amazing, though, the power a single objection can have. It added an extra week to the notice period. It’s also extended the time that council is taking to consider our planning permit application. We’re also looking down the barrel at further delays and waiting periods. This is, of course, a huge hit to our already stressed budget. All due to one little letter.
When we reached out to our 1800+ Instagram followers about the objection, the response was beyond uplifting. Our inbox was flooded with locals, asking us what they could do, how could they speak to council, what should they say, why was this being made so hard for us?
All in all, we received around 30 spectacular letters from the residents of Coburg West, with plenty more willing to write, should we need. Each one was cheering us on, urging council to get behind us and help get our doors open.
Honestly, it’s enough to make even the Grinchiest of hearts swell.
Finding strength in community
So, how have we gotten so many locals to back us?
The importance of building a community for your small business should never be overlooked.
We started straight out of the gate by setting up an Instagram account the minute we got the keys.
While TikTok is rapidly rising in importance in a small business’ marketing strategy, Instagram still is a wonderful platform to tell a story, with the flexibility of using both photography and video.
And so, it was here that we started sharing some Reels — about us, who we were, our family history in the area, what we wanted to achieve with Two Franks. We made sure to set the location to Coburg, we used local tags and we followed fellow Coburg small businesses. We started to create connections and digital roots within the area.
Building a cafe by committee
A key part of the community we are building is being open, honest and transparent with our delays. We’ve also used Instagram’s Stories features to hold polls and offer Q&A sessions with our followers so we can gauge what they want to see from us.
We’ve gotten feedback on everything from types of milk for coffee, to what local products they want to see on our shelves, and what features they love most in a cafe. And while you can’t please everyone, we’re doing our best to create a space that responds to our very specific corner of Melbourne.
Ultimately, for us, creating a community before the doors open hasn’t just been a way to get the word out about our cafe — it’s also been an incredible support network to lean on, a way to spur us on and keep us motivated when we’ve felt most dejected.
When you’re faced with the realities of setting up a small business, there are points where it feels so easy to give up. But knowing we have a neighbourhood behind us, as emotionally invested in our idea as we are, makes the most insurmountable problem feel achievable.
Chryssie Swarbrick is a writer, small-business-juggler and mum of two. She is currently documenting her adventures in opening a cafe, Two Franks, opposite her childhood home.
