…Scale to sell. Whether you have an emotional attachment to your business and would never sell or you know you’re going to sell eventually, scale and build your business accordingly. If you never want to sell, you should still act so because if you want the highest valuation for your business then your financials better be on point and easy to understand, A/R is on a tight leash, SOPs and systems are in place and the at this point the business is running itself. You see how it is still worth it to act like it even if you don’t want? You are ultimately taking steps in the right direction regardless. For the first years of me getting involved in the company I wish I would’ve had the mentality of scale to sell immediately…
We had the pleasure of talking with Vinnie Lisi. Vinnie is an American entrepreneur and the second-generation owner of Espresso Mio, a New Jersey-based coffee service company. Stepping into the family business in 2019, Lisi has overseen its evolution into a modernized operation, emphasizing service quality, technological integration, and strategic expansion. His leadership reflects a blend of industry experience, business acumen, and a commitment to elevating customer support standards within the commercial coffee equipment sector.
Espresso Mio was originally founded by Lisi’s father, Carlo Lisi, a respected figure in commercial coffee equipment mechanics. For over five decades, the company has played a significant role in the industry, providing maintenance and support services for espresso machines used by businesses across the region. When Vinnie Lisi took the reins, he brought with him a background as a Union glazier and firsthand experience servicing espresso equipment for Dunkin’ locations. This exposure revealed inefficiencies in maintenance practices, particularly a lack of attention to long-term machine care and customer education — an insight that would later shape the company’s strategic direction.
Recognizing these industry gaps, Lisi initiated a multi-phased growth plan for Espresso Mio. The initial phase focused on fostering stronger customer relationships by prioritizing transparency, efficiency, and education. A key element of this approach was offering warranty services as a cost-saving measure, reinforcing trust and encouraging long-term partnerships. With an increasing client base, the company expanded its technician team, broadening its service network while maintaining personalized customer engagement.
In recent years, Lisi has directed Espresso Mio toward technological advancement, integrating a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) system and leveraging artificial intelligence-driven automation to enhance service consistency. This focus on system optimization aims to streamline operations while ensuring that the company maintains its high standards for customer support.
One of the most notable developments under Lisi’s leadership has been Espresso Mio’s acquisition of the regional distributorship for Thermoplan, a Swiss manufacturer of superautomatic coffee machines. This agreement secured the company’s presence along the Boston-to-Washington, D.C. corridor, marking a significant expansion in both reach and product offerings. The move aligns with Lisi’s long-term vision of growing the company’s influence in the industry while maintaining a strong emphasis on service excellence.
Beyond its core operations, Espresso Mio’s headquarters serves as a training hub for manufacturers and clients, hosting industry events such as tastings and workshops. Lisi views these initiatives as an opportunity to foster collaboration within the sector, contributing to broader improvements in industry standards. He emphasizes the importance of building a business not solely for financial success but as a platform to serve others — an ethos that underpins his leadership philosophy.
Lisi is guided by a belief in persistence and strategic decision-making, often referencing the principle, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe.” He argues that sustainable business growth requires a long-term vision and the willingness to engage in meticulous behind-the-scenes work. He also sees entrepreneurship as a means to empower employees and create opportunities, advocating for a leadership approach that prioritizes both internal development and external impact.
Beyond business growth, Lisi emphasizes the role of relationships in professional success. He distinguishes between networking, which he sees as transactional, and relationship-building, which he considers a more meaningful and sustainable approach. His philosophy is that strong business relationships should be built on mutual benefit rather than immediate financial gain. He credits this mindset with helping Espresso Mio secure valuable partnerships across various industries.
Lisi’s perspective on leadership is also informed by his experience as a living kidney donor, a personal decision that has deepened his commitment to using business success as a means to support others. He has expressed interest in working with organizations that promote living kidney donation, viewing it as an extension of the principles that guide his business — service, generosity, and long-term impact.
Under Lisi’s leadership, Espresso Mio continues to evolve, balancing tradition with innovation. As the company grows, its emphasis on customer service, operational efficiency, and industry collaboration remains central to its approach. Lisi’s tenure reflects a commitment to both business excellence and broader contributions to the industry and community at large.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
In 2018 I was in the Glazier Union which was my end destination, as I thought. My older brother Joseph at the time was working for a company in Florida called SEB Group. They specialized in super automatic espresso machines and were a prominent name in the game and were used in all of the Dunkin locations. Coincidence led to my brother moving back to NJ and me always interested in hustling. He said “you want to go save some espresso machines and do the Lord’s work?” I happily obliged. I learned quickly while servicing the espresso machines that they were completely neglected and or technicians did not know how to take care of them properly. It seemed every machine was over 3 hours of labor and thousands of dollars in parts. To try and make sense from the lack of attention to detail, I asked Joe how these machines got in such bad shape so quickly. His response was a pivotal moment for me. “Most companies only care about the money, not the customer.” It was a very selfish industry and self serving. Either companies were heavily sales and support for their customers was secondary or they were heavily involved with service and but in a rush to get to the next job rather than focus on.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Funny/ Scary I have one for you. About 4 years ago I interviewed this middle aged gentleman. He had a ton of experience with tech work, clean cut, had a great resume and fit what we were looking for to the tee. It nearly seemed too good to be true. He was on the road with me for 3 or 4 days. One of my good friends who is also my coworker, Karl, is a detective at heart saved the day. He called me up late one night around 11:30 and his voice was trembling and could not really formulate a sentence to the point where I had to yell at him to spit it out. He said “Bro…just look at your phone right now.” As I opened up the thread I saw it was a link he wanted me to open up. I didn’t even get a chance to read the title because of how fast I opened up the link. I vividly remember my wife shooting up next to me with the anticipation we were both waiting for. It was an article describing how the “home run” we hired was a sex offender. He had two incidents at separate time periods with the most recent one within a few years of us hiring him. Talk about a high and a low. I truly thought he was going to be one of our top techs and become part of the family for life but it was short lived. It was scary while it all unfolded but in hind site we laugh about it on how naïve I was in many ways, top one being to never hire anyone without a background check first. Every lesson learned is a another SOP implemented!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Top of my head it’s my dad without hesitation. He raised 3 boys and worked as hard as anyone can. As hard as he worked he never complained or demonstrated his frustrations to any of us. I’m not saying he was frustrated but we wouldn’t have even known because he knew to separate work from the family. He had his own business working out of our house for the majority of our lives so for us to never feel him intertwine work and us was a tall mountain he climbed and with grace. The number one virtue that he demonstrated to me was his patience along with composure. Whether it was work related or personal, anytime he was in a tense environment he was always in complete control without even flinching. Thinking about it right now, he probably shines the most in the darkest of times because he’s as strong as they come mentally and understands no matter how out of control a situation gets he will always be in control of his emotions. The more experiences I go through, the more true it is that patience and composure are an absolute must in order to be a creator of your world rather than a victim. Everyone is going to suffer, experience pain and be a part of high intensity situations. Its inevitable. However, if you can manage to embrace patience and move like water, the greatest moments can derive from the darkest of times. I can write a book on my dad and what he’s taught me but we’ll keep it a drop in an ocean for time sake.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?
Acquiring our first company. I always knew we were going to take big risks and am extremely in tune to the fact opportunities don’t present themselves when you’re ready but rather when they are. I am a fond believer that one of the top 3 factors of someone being successful or unsuccessful is how they dealt with opportunities. People can handle opportunities 1 of 3 ways. First is embracing it and being grateful for it. It’s acknowledging that you should make a move and relatively fast. If it isn’t worth it then it is not an opportunity. So number 1 is making a decision fast and being prepared for the unknown. Number 2 is being fearful. Opportunities are typically bigger than what you may be ready or prepared for. You may know it’s a great opportunity but the weight, responsibility and unknown factors in itself may cripple you causing you to submit to what your familiar with, the certainty. Number 3 is paralysis by analysis. You may really consider taking advantage of the opportunity and have the best intentions of ceasing the moment but you get more consumed with each brush stroke and lose vision of the painting itself. While you were busy over analyzing someone else was more focused on executing.
Just about a year ago an opportunity presented itself to Espresso Mio and we were not technically ready for it quite yet. We met this genuine, kind and passionate gentleman named Greg who was in our same industry and only about an hour away from us. We met him for the first time at an unveiling of a highly anticipated espresso machine made from Thermoplan. Turns out him and his wife were a second generation company that were at a crossroads. They were in the transition of either selling their business or growing their business. There was a couple of people interested and attempting to acquire their business but negotiations were very much alive. He had a great customer base, the valuation was fair and he had a distribution rights for Thermoplan on the Northeast. Thermoplan in itself was in the beginning stages of taking a huge splash in the US market. The opportunity almost seemed too good to be true but I was ready and decided almost immediately we had to at least attempt to make a move. There was an asking price and we did not negotiate which most people may argue is not smart but I had tunnel vision and there were two things that were sounding the alarms in my head. Timing is everything and the relationship between us is worth more in the long run compared to what the negotiations may have saved us and/or time lost. The deal was completed quickly and all parties were extremely happy. Within the first month we received leads from Thermoplan and sold equipment that was already helping increase our revenue and margins. Its been about 8 months and the sky is the limit with making that company part of our family. The dividens have already over delivered in such a short time. Every day has proven more and more that acquiring that business is one of the greatest investments Espresso Mio has made.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?
Bigger and quicker decision making that can have the potential to make or break your company. It’s not frequent but you always have to be ready to think quickly and have a full commitment. Commitment doesn’t mean you are confident in the decision but ultimately you are confident regardless of the outcome the only thing that matters is how you react. Something amazing can happen from that commitment or at the least a lesson learned that will make future decisions more clear. Two sayings that live in my head are “perfection is the enemy of progress” and “hesitation is a mistake that invites defeat”.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive? Can you explain what you mean?
You should have a budget on marketing, you need to have a top tier education, delegate quickly. Having a budget on marketing or advertising is a huge mistake. To keep it simple, if you make $2 dollars for every $1 you invest, why wouldn’t you just keep going? The more you market, the more you can dial in and really begin to control revenue from already tried and true campaigns. The ones that didn’t work as well, spend less resources on but nonetheless if there is a net then that’s a win. Having a top tier education is by far the most ridiculous myth by a long shot. Can it make a significance difference with the performance? Absolutely but let me ask you this. If a CEO can read financials better than anyone else, forecast trends within the company and industry and pivot accordingly, consistently grow every year etc. but is arrogant, selfish, does not value a quality relationship etc, how successful will they really be? How long can the company last being lead by someone with all the accolades but no qualities that people value. One of the greatest quotes that I find to become more and more clear as the years go by is “your network is your network”. You cannot make it to the top alone. If you do, there was a more efficient way and that is with your relationships. Any successful person that started from the bottom always wants to help anyone they can. They welcome the cooperation or competition mentality. Their success is not from making it to the top but rather being able to help more people on a grander scale from making it to the top. Delegating too quickly is a huge mistake. Of course as a CEO you should and strive to delegate anything you don’t want to do or things that aren’t of value for what your strengths are. However, you only delegate under a couple of conditions. First, the value of you dedicating time and energy toward this thing can be used somewhere else of higher value which in turn someone else should step in. Two, the next person up is either proven themselves capable or at the bare minimum you work closely with them as a team to help with the transition process and don’t make them feel rushed or unsupported.
What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?
I love that question but as of now it what I anticipated for the most part. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a bunch of business owners of all sizes and industries so I always tried to learn from their lessons which I am a huge fan of. I also ask a ton of questions to anyone that is willing to give me their time. There is a lesson to be learned or reiterated in every situation. If there is one thing that I can think of it would be that success isn’t a steady gradual movement up. It is very much like a stock over a 20 year span. You can zoom in at a random time it may seem like the stock dropped or wasn’t doing well but once you zoom out and look at the full life of it, it grew tremendously. Fall but fall forward and if you’re not making mistakes then you are simply not trying.
Do you think everyone is cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive, and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?
Hard no. You are in front of enemy lines, you get criticized the most, if you can actually tune out then God bless because I can’t as of now and my mind is nonstop thinking of the business, you are responsible for peoples families and livelihoods just to name a fraction of the weight that the position demands. Specific traits that can increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive are compassion, flexibility, humility, creativeness, charismatic and definitely confident. The type of person that should avoid aspiring to be an executive is someone that wants to be an executive for the title itself. Usually the most successful leaders started from grinding from the bottom. They had relentless vision and goals bigger than themselves. People that are aiming to be an executive usually will not be successful because they are aiming at a self fulfilling goal and those people typically have short career life spans.
What advice would you give to other business leaders to help create a fantastic work culture? Can you share a story or an example?
Create individual relationships with your coworkers but also encourage everyone else to have their own individual relationships with one another as well. Everyone should feel that they can rely on any given coworker. The more isolated people feel the less motivated and supportive they feel. When everyone feels they are supported at the same level and they are not alone, the more energy they have. Just like any relationship in life you need to have boundaries. You can develop close relationships with your coworkers as long as there is a time and place. You cannot, in any circumstance let your coworker feel like they pick and choose what they do and when. T the end of the day there needs to be an authority and it’s your responsibility to make sure the machine runs smoothly. Learn when to say no, respectfully but also don’t micromanage. It’s a dance. A great short story is how we recruited one of our top guys. He was a family friend who had his own business for years. He saw our company from a one man show working out of a garage, to then a year later move into a warehouse which seemed so endless at the time to now,4 years later, a fully stocked warehouse and looking to purchase a new one that is double in size. Not only did he see the company grow but also he would stop into our warehouse and would see how all of the Espresso Mio employees would joke around and be sarcastic. It doesn’t feel like work in the warehouse, it feels empowering and fun. From the constant trips in and out and observing the comradery in our business he decided he may be interested in working with us. It was the teamwork atmosphere and culture of the crew what really drew him to us. He said he just wanted to be part of the Espresso Mio team.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Putting others first to put it plainly. We got in this business because we were putting business owners and their customers first. We felt a responsibility to help with their coffee experience which has a ripple effect. We didn’t see it as an opportunity to serve us but rather an opportunity to serve them. We are also building a culture of being there for one another and working together. The bigger we get the more we give. That’s not a business model but how we were raised and live our lives. Our ultimate goal is working closely with living kidney donors to bring more awareness and hopefully have more people consider giving others a second chance at life. Being a living kidney donor myself, this stays very close to my heart.
Fantastic. Here is the primary question of our interview. What are your “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
1 . Systemize everything that is done during operating hours. Whether you are a start up or a fortune 500. Aim small miss small is the name of the game. The more systems that are in place the less likely mistakes will be made and more control you will have of revenues and employee performance. Every industry needs their specific systems to become their highest potential entities.
2 . SOPs. This goes hand in hand with systems but definitely stands separate. Usually HR has a pivotal role in SOPs but I suggest getting employees involved with creating/revising them. Getting the employees involved in the day to day decisions empowers them and puts them in the driver seat which is essential to do. There is a chain of command but everyone needs to feel and understand nobody is successful without the help of one another. The little nugget in there is that people are more likely to follow the SOPs if they are the ones that helped create them in the first place.
3 . Create relationships everywhere. I prefer relationship over network. Network can sometimes feel transactional or have strings attached. Relationship is just truly wanting the best for someone with no strings attached. If you can help lift them up, you simply do so without expecting anything in return. The word everywhere was specifically used because you should not limit where you are building your relationships. Think outside of the box. Your value is not the quality of relationships you obtained in a specific industry but rather across all industries. Your relationships build your rolodex and your rolodex is what helps determine your value. When I hear rolodex I always equate it to reach. How far does your reach go? This is thee most important thing I wish I really knew before becoming a CEO. A perfect example are 3 relationships we built in 3 different industries that turned out to be exceptional opportunities. Number 1 was with another company in the same industry in the same territory! When the ports were on strike, one of our top coffee vendors asked if we could give a significant amount of product to a fellow company as he didn’t have enough product to fulfill a customer’s order. Rather than be fearful that we would not have enough product for ourselves in the near future, we chose the higher road and decided to help this “competitor” out. Once the gentleman arrived at our warehouse, we got to talking and we developed a cool relationship. Within 1 month of knowing each other he gave us 2 leads and one of them was a great turnout with much more things in the works as well. Number 2 is with our landlord. They purchase insurance claimed goods of all different types locations. The only reason we found that out was because we were helping them with a customer and come to find out they had a pallet of coffee equipment. Rather than trying to capitalize right away we made it apparent we wanted to help them first and educate them on the business and how they could make money. After empowering them with some knowledge and options they decided it was best to just sell us the equipment and we flip it. Moving forward we have a relationship with getting used equipment and being able to flip it which is incredible. Number 3 is with a contractor. Contractors are usually with customers way before we are. We developed a couple relationships with a couple of different contractors which have been incredible and necessary in our growth. So having relationships in different places is a game changer, however those relationships have to be built from having the other party in mind first. The minute someone feels you are trying to use them for selfish reasons you’ve lost them. So be selfless and always have their best interest in mind.
4 . Implement performance pay with a lower salary and possibility for any income. I’m convinced that any position in any industry can have kpi’s and performance pay structured in their deal. If performance pay turns anyone off then you most likely don’t want them on your team. It means they are low producers most likely and would rather want the safe, a little more consistent money rather than the significant pay opportunity with lower base. Any high producer would leap through hoops to the opportunity to make as much money as possible.
5 . Scale to sell. Whether you have an emotional attachment to your business and would never sell or you know you’re going to sell eventually, scale and build your business accordingly. If you never want to sell, you should still act so because if you want the highest valuation for your business then your financials better be on point and easy to understand, A/R is on a tight leash, SOPs and systems are in place and the at this point the business is running itself. You see how it is still worth it to act like it even if you don’t want? You are ultimately taking steps in the right direction regardless. For the first years of me getting involved in the company I wish I would’ve had the mentality of scale to sell immediately.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Vinnie Lisi Of Espresso Mio: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.