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    Business

    Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing πŸͺ

    πŸ‘‹ Hey – Heather and Corrie here with the Baking it Down Podcast with Sugar Cookie Marketing (a group on Facebook full of sugar cookiers turned business owners). 

    πŸͺ We’re here to help you rise with your reach, flood with new followers, bake up new ideas, and make that all-important dough (while makin’ that dough – see the pun there?) 

    πŸ€‘. What’s it about? We’re a Facebook Group turned Podcast, Membership, Book Club, and Baking 101 that’s dedicated to assisting bakers in effectively marketing online to generate more sales and better manage their businesses. 

    🧠 With free Facebook Live classes, hundreds of resources, and thousands of like-minded bakers, there’s a lot to learn in “SCM” (aka Sugar Cookie Marketing). ️🎧 As an extension of our Facebook group, this podcast is here to let you learn by listening. πŸ“ˆ We’ll cover group topics, marketing trends, and more (leaving this wide open in case Corrie wants to start singing). 

    πŸ’Έ We take the sweet art of selling online to the cottage bakery world with marketing methods that move products (and pastries).πŸ‘‚ So open up those glorious ear canals because we have a podcast! Just when you’ve thought you’ve β€œheard” it all with those marketing “miracle” twins (that’s our last name – not a proclamation), we’ve got something just for you each week! 

    πŸ₯£ As a baker, you don’t always have the luxury of two hands needed to scroll in Sugar Cookie Marketing Group or crack open a book in Sugar Cookie Bookies, but what you can do is listen (unless you’re my kid asking β€œwhat’s for dinner” for the millionth time). 

    πŸ‘ Hands full of flour? No problem! πŸ‘ 18 dozen iced cookies due tomorrow? Let’s do this. The Baking it Down Podcast by Sugar Cookie Marketing is a weekly podcast geared toward helping you grow your bakery business – dropping (almost) every Tuesday. 

    πŸ“… We choose a topic each week that’s either something new and emerging in the world of social media or something that we saw in “The Group” that was a hot topic and we bake it down… I mean, “break” it down for you. πŸ—―οΈ What you can expect in the podcast is about an hour of chit-chat with the meat and potatoes right at the beginning of the episode. 

    πŸ₯” That’s when we dive into the marketing topic of the week! πŸ“ž Oh yeah, folks can call / text / email in with their questions too – a fun way to hear from other bakers out there. 

    Our promises to you: 
    1️⃣ We always make it clean = no cursing. We understand that you are busy and could be around little ones while also trying to get your weekly dose of business growth so we make sure that each episode would make our grandma proud and keep it clean so you can listen while also living your life. 
    2️⃣ We always make it fun. There’s a lot of negativity in the world so we try and make the podcast an upbeat and fun learning experience for you. I mean, we try to make the Instagram updates and changes as happy as we can, but come on Instagram! Give it a rest! No more changes! 
    3️⃣ Other than that, we take a positive approach to marketing We are also *not* professional podcasters. I feel like we need to say this because, hey, sometimes we get giggles! We do our best to extend our marketing knowledge to you all free of charge each week at the cost of listening to our higher-than-normal pitched voices and the occasional giggle spree. 
    4️⃣ You can find the podcast on all the major platforms and you can typically expect a new episode each Tuesday afternoon (unless life happens). We invite everyone to listen. 

    Either start from the beginning or work backward! The episodes don’t build off themselves so you won’t be confused hearing one before the other. You just might miss new Lives we mention but you can always catch the replay in the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group on Facebook!

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    Copyright: Β© 2022 Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing

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    139. Baking it Down - 2023 Best Baker Gift List Nov 28, 2023
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    🎁 Best Baker Gifts 2023 (feel free to forward this email)


    πŸŽ…πŸ» Corrie had a genius idea (they come around to her once a decade) to ask bakers what they think other bakers would want should they find their names scrawled on Santa's nice list this year. πŸ“œ

    Ho-Ho-Hold your credit cards, because some of these are really creative! We've come up with an "actually affordable," mid-grade, and budget-buster list for you... to forward to your... ahem... in-home Santa.

    πŸ§‘β€πŸŽ„ So if you find your friends and fam askin', "What the elf does this baker want?!", here may be a decent shopping start line. Heads up - none of these are affiliate links, so click away unimpeded, my friend!

    🎁 1. Actually Affordable

    1. A Spotify Subscription Gift Card
    2. Amazon Hand Massager
    3. Vanilla Beans for Extract (Indri's is a good place for this)
    4. Stupid Car Tray
    5. Ender 3 Pro (they go on sale from time to time - don't pay full $)
    6. UberEats Gift Cards (for delivery on busy days)
    7. Bakety Bakey Royal Batch - 1 Lb (code TWINS saves 10%)
    8. Acrylic Turn Table
    9. Skincare (Duke Cannon's Bloody Knuckles Hand Cream)
    10. Aprons
    11. Cookie Cutter Subscription Boxes
    12. Heat Sealer
    13. Cute Baking Tees (Doughmestic / Bakery Tee Co)
    14. Scribes
    15. Ring Light
    16. Americolor Basic Six Kits
    17. Edible Ink Markers
    18. Small Fisker Scissors for Cutting
    19. Coffee Mug Warmer
    20. Rubber Spatulas (skip wooden handles)
    21. Cookie Countess Rolling Pin
    22. Filament
    23. Universal Attachment (code SCMARKETING could save some $)
    24. Box Cutter from Amazon
    25. Two Dollars Transfers Club


    🎁 Mid-Grade

    1. Anti Fatigue Mats (for feetsies comfort )
    2. Kitchen Aid Auto-Sifter Attachment
    3. Plum Paper Planner Gift Card (for the pen / paper girlies)
    4. Bambu P1P Printer
    5. Dehydrator (Cabellas is what Corrie uses - 10 tray)
    6. Bakety Bake Royal Batch - 5 Lb (code TWINS again - 10% off)
    7. House Cleaner
    8. Massage Gift Cards
    9. Apple Pencil (2nd Gen)
    10. Custom-made Cookie Signage / Pick Up Box for Porch Pick-ups
    11. Sweetest Tiers Stencil Holder
    12. Photography Backdrops (code SUGARCOOKIE saves 20%)
    13. Airbrush (Sweet Pink Olive / Cookie Countess)
    14. Kodak Luma 150 Projector
    15. Stands (Shop Canvas / Arkon)
    16. Half Sheet Pans (Corrie suggested Nordic Ware)
    17. Chua Mats
    18. Nielsen Massey Vanilla Extracts
    19. Hulken Bags
    20. Nutrimill Artiste Mixer
    21. Cash for Cookie Events (CookieCon / SoFlo)
    22. Fancy Scribes (The Sugar Cookie Dealer)
    23. Americolor Nifty Fifty
    24. Monthly Class Subscriptions: Artee McGoo, Sams Cookie University, Colorful Cookie, Cookie Class Kits by Cookie College


    🎁 Budget Busters

    1. Eugene Dough Sheeter (save $25 with this link)
    2. Create a Room
    3. Primera's Eddie
    4. Bosch Universal Plus Mixer (maybe try code SCMARKETING)
    5. Bambu Carbon X1C Bundle
    6. A Year in Cookie College (get 2 months free when ya sign up)
    7. A Cricut (to print stencils / packaging)
    8. iPad Pro (and Procreate)
    9. Americolor Heavenly Seventy


    πŸ‘‚ Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by clickin' here - Episode 139 - 2023 Best Baker Gifts List.


    138. Baking it Down - If I Gave You a Million Dollars Nov 21, 2023
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    πŸ€‘What if I Gave You A Million Dollars...


    Would you do it? πŸ€” "Do what? But also - yes," you might ask - and that's exactly the point of this week's podcast. If you knew you were going to get a million dollars for taking a benign action, most of us wouldn't think twice before we did it.

    Full confession - πŸ‘• I was cleaning out my closet, πŸ‘– donating what I hadn't clearly worn in over a year to the VVA nonprofit to resell in their thrift stores. πŸ‘š As I'm perusing this jam-full closet, my brain is jumping through hoops to make excuses as to why I suddenly may need to wear that shirt tomorrow that I haven't looked at in 2.5 years. 🫣

    🧠 Wild the mental gymnastics our brains can flip through. Also wild to think at one time I thought I could pull off a crop top. But I digress...

    So - I thought to myself, πŸ€” "How many shirts would I throw into that donation pile if I was offered a million dollars to only leave hanging what I actually wore?" I can guarantee you that I wouldn't think twice before another half of my closet found the donation bag.

    πŸ€‘ I'd do a lot of things for a million bucks - and purging my fashion faux-pas would be an easy one to add to the list of "can do's." πŸ€” But why is it so easy for me to purge my ponchos when there's a million bucks on the line, but take away the green stuff, and I suddenly think I can make Mary Janes work at 35!?

    Incentive - πŸ’΅πŸ’΅πŸ’΅ specifically, incentive we can see. 😜

    The issue with running a business is that the incentive is often hidden behind time and tasks. πŸ₯Έ We aren't sure there's a million bucks on the other side of making that post or going Live on Facebook, so we think up excuses - much like me with the πŸ€” "Well, maybe I do need that shirt that's 2 sizes too small."

    But how do you know that there isn't a million dollars? πŸ₯§ There's a giant proverbial pie out there - and there's enough slices of said pie to go around. But the catch is - only you can cut your own slice.

    πŸ’° And the way small business owners cut their own slice? Put the work in. Put the excuses to bed. Show up. Repeat. Until that million dollars - or that paid-off mortgage, or the kid's college tuition, or the... or whatever that hidden incentive is? Work until you get that.

    πŸ’³ Work as if you knew someone would give you a million dollars if you did the thing. Whether posting to social consistently, entering your corporate girly era, joining a local chamber meeting, teaching cookie classes, hosting a pop-up - πŸ’° do it as if you had a million-dollar check waiting for you on the other side - because who knows, there just might be.

    Listen to this podcast on all major podcast players (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Pandora...) or by clicking here to listen to Episode 138 - If I Gave You a Million Dollars.


    137. Baking it Down - Surviving Q4 Nov 14, 2023
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    πŸ˜΅β€πŸ’« Surviving Q4 - the fight for the newsfeed


    It's the time of yeeeear... when the reach is low and the engagement is even lower. What gives?! I'll tell ya what - the deep pockets of big corporations capitalizing on the "year-end consumer" who is primed to pay.

    It's a fight to the feed death in Q4, and we've got some tips and tricks to help you gain some ground.

    πŸ₯Š Reset Expectations.

    We're in a battle of the business and the newsfeed is the fighting ring. Bigger companies with bigger pockets are paying bigger bills to win Facebook bids. Lots of πŸ…±οΈ Bs, but the πŸ’― A+ will be earned by the page that understands this and uses it to create compelling content to fight through the feed clutter.

    πŸ’β€β™‚ Listen - it's going to be harder to reach your audience. Your engagement will be lower. And that's okay - because knowing this will help us to create a better campaign to adjust to the deeper pocket punches.


    πŸ₯Š Be Annoying.

    Corrie is very adept at this (lol). But seriously - no one is being annoyed by your posts because no one is seeing your posts. So πŸ‘ be πŸ‘ annoying! And don't just post the same thing 10 times - yeah, that's not ✨quality✨annoyance. We need to be ✨creatively✨annoying.

    • πŸ‘Š Use the Stories feature.
    • πŸ‘Š Host a Facebook Live.
    • πŸ‘Š Post a Reel.
    • πŸ‘Š Create a poll.
    • πŸ‘Š Make a feed post.
    • πŸ‘Š Run an ad.

    All of these are features to sneak into the feed and annoy your audience in a way they don't think is annoying - but it's everywhere all the time.


    πŸ₯Š Be Consistent.

    Be consistent! It's so easy to get all those holiday orders in, tuck your head between your legs, and head off to the kitchen only to reappear in January wondering if all the sales followed the groundhog back into his burrow. We may get busy - but we can't be too busy to market - unless we're willing to leave the sales to our competition who is willing to be present on their pages.


    πŸ₯Š Test. Test. Restest.

    Your audience shifts into 🧠 "year-end consumer brain" in Q4, and adjusting your content will be a necessary step in making sure we're still resonating with that audience. How are we gonna do that? Test and retest! Long-form content (example below), short-form content, different creative (aka pictures), videos, Lives, emojis (Corrie thinks I use too many... πŸ™‚πŸ˜„πŸ˜†πŸ˜…πŸ˜‚πŸ€£πŸ˜ŠπŸ˜Œ).

    Test it - see how they respond. Then retest it again - see how they respond ✨ again ✨. Wash, rinse, and repeat until your audience is primed to react, respond, and reach for their wallets. What works in 1️⃣ Q1 isn't likely going to work the same in 2️⃣ Q4. Adjust accordingly.


    πŸ₯Š Learn to Pivot.

    πŸ“† Sometimes you hoped your audience would like Advent Calendars and sometimes your audience just happens to 🚫 not like Advent Calendars. 😭 We can't cry over spilled meringue powder - but we can pivot!

    πŸ’ƒ If advents don't sell, swing back by pivoting to DIY kits - test, test, and retest and see if that hits your audience's sweet spot. Test PYOs, test cookie classes, test DIYs, test customs - and keep pivoting until you find the product your target audience flips for.

    πŸ₯Š Admin Day.

    Set aside an admin day - this is a day you are NOT allowed to touch a Bosch, Kitchen-Aid, or oven. On this day, you realign yourself each week to stay on top of posting, follow-up, invoicing, and customer relations. ❌ This day SHALL NOT BE A BAKING DAY ❌ - πŸ€‘ no matter how tempting the rush fee charge may be.


    136. Baking it Down - The Last Rule Bender Nov 07, 2023
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    ‴️ The Last Rule Bender - bending the rules for the bottom line


    You know we preach policies. πŸ‘ Protect your boundaries. πŸ‘ Charge your worth. πŸ‘ Guard your peace. But you may be surprised to know we also say "bend the rules." You see - the policies are the "big bad monsters" we use as our fall guy.

    • πŸ€·β€β™€ "I'm sorry - my policies state no refunds for no-shows."
    • πŸ€·β€β™€ "Oh man, I wish I could! But my policies say that payment is due at time of order."
    • πŸ€·β€β™€ "Darn it - I would, but the policy states that there's a rush fee for orders placed with less than a 5-day runtime."


    πŸ’ͺ🏼 The policies are in place to protect us - but that doesn't mean they're written in stone (or rock-hard, stale dough). You see - by bending certain policies, we can snag the bag and come out lookin' like our client's hero (🦸 wearing an apron as a cape in this scenario).

    🚩 The key to effective rule-bending is knowing when there's a win for the baker and the client. A win-lose rule bend is a loss for someone, so might as well just stick with the policies. Let's look at some examples.

    πŸ—’οΈ Rule Bender Example 1: It's a Pick-Up Date.

    Let's say you have a set pick-up date on Saturdays, but the client wants to move it to Friday. What do you do? 🦨 Tell them "ain't no way, honey bun - rules are rules and your hiney better be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed come Saturday at 8AM!"? I mean - you could. It's in your policies. BUT - could you snag a sale by bending just a little? ‴️ For example, a rule bender would say this:


    πŸ—’οΈ Rule Bender Example 2: It's Delivery.

    Corrie doesn't offer delivery - ‴️ that is until she bends the rules a bit. When she got an order from a large department store in our local city center, 🧈 you butter believe she jumped in her car. Why? By bending the delivery rules, she snagged a HUGE sale - and another, and another - from the same store. So when a big account asks for front-door delivery, it may be a good time to do some old-fashioned rule-bending.

    πŸ—’οΈ Rule Bender Example 3: Class Credit.

    Corrie and I have some pretty strict class cancelation policies - unless we bend them a bit. Here's the thing - πŸ’³ Eventbrite doesn't tell you this, but if someone does a chargeback, they'll 100% refund them (and not ask you). 🏦 So - if I bend my "no refunds" policy and turn it into a future class credit, I may be able to snag an additional sale for the now-empty seat AND get that future class money from the credited sale. One of those "win-win" scenarios.


    πŸ—’οΈ Rule Bender Example 4: Copyright Copy Cat.

    🚫 Corrie does not offer copyright cookies. But she bends the rules with likenesses. (Where that legal line in the sand is between you, your liability policy, and Disney lawyers and is a bit too deep to swim in in today's podcast but I digress). πŸ’ƒ But the likeness of a copyrighted character can be just enough rule-bending to snag a sale.

    Most rules aren't meant to be broken. But many rules are meant to be bent. Knowing which ones and how far to bend them comes with practice - and keep in mind, bending the rules may be makin' the sale, but it also leads to a bit more liability exposure. So weigh your options and make sure you have a fully funded oopsie budget to stave off bad reviews for bent rules.

    β›” "No" is only a complete sentence for a bad salesperson. Find the common double-green-flag ground for you and your clients to both win-win while you laugh all the way to the bank.


    135. Baking it Down - Audit of a Cake Class Oct 31, 2023
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    🍰 Audit of a Cake Class

    and the lessons we're implementing.


    Corrie and my mom and sisters all met up on Sunday for a cake class - they had a blast, but they also got to be on the "student" side of a class for once (Corrie specifically). So she made some notes she could take back to our own class drawing board. Here's her "bake down" of her mental notes post-caker crash course.


    πŸŽ‚ 1. Remind - Remind - Remind!

    "Eventbrite reminds attendees of the basics of their event, but go out of your way to email a personal reminder. Nail down some extraneous details - like to confirm the class has met the minimum attendee requirement. It'll go a long way in establishing a relationship with your students before they get there too. Plus it's nice to cover your butt by emailing your "no show" policies before class start time."

    πŸŽ‚ 2. Start on Time.

    "We were in a second class following a prior class that had run over a bit. Since the first class ran over, it put the teacher in "rush mode" and didn't give her or her assistants much time to breathe. A great tip we'll be taking back to our classes is letting the first class know that they have to be out by X time. Also - I'd like Heather to build in a little extra time in between our first and second classes - 30 minutes just isn't enough time if we have students leaving 10 minutes late and new students arriving 15 minutes early."

    πŸŽ‚ 3. Bright Eyed / Bushy Tailed.

    "We gotta keep our energy up for all classes - even if our stomachs are growling louder than our Spotify playlist. Folks paid for "bright-eyed" twins, folks better get what they paid for. I think we should bring a snack in between classes - and throw in a few diet cokes to keep us awake and engaged."


    πŸŽ‚ 4. Imperfection is Perfect.

    "I feel like I'm trying too hard to impress attendees with my skills that I forget that they're trying to learn, not be wow-ed. I gotta introduce more "Here's a common issue and how to address it" rather than "Look, I've been doing this for years and you haven't - be amazed as you try to keep up." I think it'll make the class more relatable if I come down to their level versus them coming up to mine."


    πŸŽ‚ 5. Reference Materials.

    "During the cake class, I never really knew what the "end goal" design was, so I felt like we were flying blind a bit. I know that in our cookie classes, we have the PowerPoint but at no point do they really get to see the "end result." I'd like to print out and laminate some pictures of the final product and have them in front of each attendee to look at during the decorating process."


    πŸŽ‚ 6. Drop Zones.

    "Mom put her purse so close to the buttercream, she almost had a tasty tote - and I think we don't tell people when they show up where they're allowed to drop their stuff. Moving forward, we should tell them where they can hang their jackets, drop their bags, and let them know more about what to expect. That way they don't feel like they are fumbling with their belongings and can just enjoy the learning process."


    πŸŽ‚ 7. Supplies on Supplies on Supplies.

    "I know we learned from this during a few Christmas classes a couple of years ago, but having fresh supplies for each class really cuts down on wait times. We had to wait for clean bowls from the class before us which really slowed the progression of the class. I think having supplies dedicated to each class would really move things along. It may take a cut out of the bottom line initially, but in the long run, it'll really shorten class times and make for an overall more enjoyable experience I think."


    πŸŽ‚ 8. Say Cheese.

    "Take pictures and when you think you've taken enough, take more. The more photos you take, the more options people ha


    134. Baking it Down - Squeezing the Most outta the Vendy Blendy Berry Oct 24, 2023
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    πŸ“Vendy Blendy Berry (and how to squeeze the most from it)


    It’s that tiiiime of year… 😍 when the cookie world falls in love with some STELLAR deals. It's the third-ever Vendy Blendy! (πŸ‘€ oh and how to win one of two Bambu Baby Carbon X1C 3D printers?! More on that in a minute.)

    Get into the holiday spirit by treatin’ YOSELF to some cookie cutters, stencils, tees, and icing tips – oh my! Everything you’ll want to know to squeeze the most from your cookie dough is listed below. But don’t forget to join the Vendy Blendy Facebook Group – that’s where all the money-savin’ magic happens!

    🫐 Here's how to squeeze the most juice from the Vendy Blendy berry.

    🎁 1. Inventory what you're missing.

    We need to know where we're at before we know where to go. So let's start by spending the next few weeks taking inventory of what you have - supplies, bags, ingredients, tees, classes. We don't want to waste our hard-earned cash buying things we already bought, so start by making a list of "do have" and "do need." πŸ€” Ask "what's running low, what's about to break, and what do I already have?" That'll be a great jump point to plan out the Vendy Blendy spendy.


    🎁 2. Create a Blendy Spendy budget.

    We don't want the Vendy Blendy to be a relationship endy, so come up with a budget and stick to it! As with any solid budget, you'll want to fund your "things I need" line items first. Those are the necessities we were gonna buy anyway - but might as well buy at 20% off. Once that's funded with the fun-ds, budget for the wants - the things you don't need, but it'd be nice to have. Once that's funded, add a max spend limit - a hard line in the "sales sand" where you won't cross. That way the Vendy Blendy won't end in buyer's remorse.
    🎁 3. Pre-Shop the Vendors.

    We've got 47 confirmed Vendys right now - 3 more that have told me yes, and 2 more that are getting their shops together. That's a LOT of Vendys - so pre-shop them now. I prefer an Excel spreadsheet to track purchase links, but Corrie likes throwing things in her Etsy carts' "save for later" feature. Whatever you do - save time by pre-shopping. I've added the current Vendy's list to the group description.

    1. πŸ‘‰ See the List: https://www.facebook.com/groups/vendyblendy

    Remember - Vendys are running 20% off or more - so your cart's total $ amount will drop by quite a bit come November 24th!


    🎁 4. Set Expectations with Your Family.

    🀳 The Vendy Blendy is all of the 24 hours on the 24th, and while I don't expect you guys to be glued to a computer like me and the Vendys are, you will wanna check in throughout the day. ⏰ The best way to be guaranteed some "alone time" with your phone is by letting the family (in their πŸ¦ƒ turkey comas 😴) know that you'll be checking your phone throughout the day to enter some fun door prizes and get a few deals and steals.


    🎁 5. Treat Yoself!

    There are a lot of new vendors this year, so that means a lot of GREAT baker gift ideas! πŸ‘°πŸΌ We absolutely do not mind you inviting your spouse to join the Vendy, tagging them in the products you'd like πŸŽ…πŸ» Santa to bring you, and then crossing your fingers that one of ya wins a door prize. If anything, 🧠 it's a genius idea, you smart baker, you!


    🎁 6. "During Vendy Blendy" Best Practices.

    οΈπŸ›’ Try snagging your favorites right at midnight so you're not left with an empty stocking when/if a Vendy sells out of their fan favorites. Check back throughout the day since door prize posts can be posted whenever! πŸ’ͺ Support the Vendys! Even if you're not shoppin' from them, leave a comment on their products, thank them for paying into the Blendy, and if you've bought from them in the


    133. Baking it Down - Corporate Girly Era Oct 17, 2023
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    πŸ’Ό Corporate Girly Era


    Corrie was on a mission this year to enter her ✨corporate girly era✨ - πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’Ό a time in her life (and business) where she gets most of her leads from small to medium-sized businesses (and heck - at this point, international businesses).

    Why? 🧦 Because corporate clients rock baker's socks - that's why. Here's the magic of corporate orders:

    • 🏒 Single POC likely
    • 🏒 Deep business pockets
    • 🏒 Basic Designs (heyo, logo cookies)
    • 🏒 Potentially for recurring orders
    • 🏒 Large-scale orders typically
    • 🏒 Very little back and forth

    😣 In the world of lots of detailed custom orders with clients breathing down your neck, fighting you on pricing, and showing up late for pickups while asking for discounts - corporate orders can be a breath of fresh air.

    And a really great way to diversify your income streams. 🌊 That way when the summer vacay season comes, your lead sources don't dry up as they head for the waterfront with the kiddos.

    SO - you're in, and you want a slice of this corporate cake. 🍰 But how? Here's our 6-step workflow to getting into your ✨corporate girly era✨.

    πŸ’Ό 1. Your content has to shift.

    To attract corporate, you must become corporate - well, at least your content has to feature it. Don't have a corporate order to feature? Make one up! Find a business you can feature and then surprise the business with a logo cookie.
    πŸ’Ό 2. Secure the tools.

    When we say corporate, we mean quick - and often to a larger scale than customs. We ain't bakin' for baby turnin' 1 no more, we're baking for large events where the "corp client" likely wants to hand 200 folks a cookie with their logo on it. How can you work at scale? Invest in the tools to do so. Here's what we've got:

    • ✨ Airbrush machine
    • ✨ Cricut for stencil cutting
    • ✨ Bosch for big batches
    • ✨ Eddie for D2F printing (direct to food - gutter folk)
    • ✨ 3D Printer for custom cutters

    This stuff ain't cheap. Eddie alone is $3,000. A Bambu Carbon (which we happen to be giving away TWO at this year's 2023 Vendy Blendy) runs $1500. BUT - with these large-scale corporate orders, we are pulling in large-scale corporate checks which is a great way to cover the investment costs of these machines and then some.

    πŸ’Ό 3. Nail down the corporate tech.

    πŸ’° Nothing says "small beans and risky at best" than a baker telling a corporate client to pay them PayPal "friends and family" so the baker can skip out on taxes. If we want corporate money, we gotta look corporate ourselves. πŸ“§ Get that custom domain - it's $12 bucks and that custom email while you're at it - it's only $6 and makes a 🌎world🌏 of difference when it comes to looking legit.

    • ✨ Get a Custom Domain / Email
    • ✨ Send the invoice from an Invoicing Software
    • ✨ Get your government EIN
    • ✨ Set up a Business Bank Account
    • ✨ Maybe get a Business Address (UPS sells these)
    • ✨ Have your W9 ready to go
    • ✨ Setup business Insurance (just in case)

    πŸ’Ό 4. Start a corporate outreach campaign.

    Well, if stuff sold itself, I'd be out of a job. Fortunately for me, it doesn't - but that means we need to design a marketing campaign to reach our business buddies. Email lists - yes, BUT - segment them out. Make a list for just corporate clients. It'll make a lot more sense to send them team-building packages. Not so much to the baby who just turned 2 who you baked for.

    πŸ‘‚ Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by clickin' here - Episode 133 - Corporate Girly Era.


    132. Baking it Down - The 1 Percenters Oct 09, 2023
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    1️⃣ The One Percenters


    As admins of a group of niche cottage home bakers, we get to see a lot of questions about getting sales - and even more people thinking they can compete on price to gain traction in the marketplace.

    But competing on price is a literal race to the bottom - the bottom of your bank account. Ya see, if I lower my price by $1, and you lower yours by $2, and then I counter by lowering my price by $4... well, let's just say pretty soon we'll be able to duke it out standing in the unemployment line.

    You cannot compete on price. So how do we get more sales in a somewhat saturated market if we can't use discounts and deals as incentives?

    Increase everything else. And I'm not saying get your boxes lined with gold leaflets - but rather increase everything but just one percent.

    One percent is pretty easy. I mean - what can you do just a single percentage better than you're already doing? Let's start of with an example - emails.

    Are you using a custom domain? Do you have a quick response time? Do your emails include pertinent information about the client's order confirming their details in each correspondence? Does your email signature look nice? Changing any of these is an example of increasing by 1%.
    🀏 One percent sounds... well, piddly if I'm honest. If you told me I'm getting 1% off at the Vendy Blendy - I'd tell you where you can shove it (... which would be in my shopping bag because a deal's a deal, amiright?!). But 1% across a myriad of different aspects of your business can amount to major experience changes! If I changed 30 things by just 1%, I'd have an increase of 30% in customer experience for my small business.

    And that is huge. πŸ‘

    Other ways you can increase by 1%:

    • 1️⃣ Use custom packaging or cute accents like themed bows
    • 1️⃣ Include a thank you cookie with your client orders
    • 1️⃣ Offer multiple ways to pay to make it easier for clients
    • 1️⃣ Have a website that includes all of the information needed to make an informed purchase
    • 1️⃣ Have a top-notch communications plan with clients letting them know next steps, followups, and reminders - before they have to ask

    You don't need to be the best baker with the best packaging with the best ingredients with the best turnaround times. But you can be the baker who is 1% better at replying to emails. The bakers who as a curb appeal that looks 1% nicer than the next. And a customer refund policy that's 1% more appealing than another's. It adds up.

    🀏 The small things can make big differences in your bottom line.

    πŸ‘‚ Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by clickin' here - Episode 132 - The One Percenters.


    131. Baking it Down - Consistent Crows Oct 03, 2023
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    πŸ¦‰ Consistent Crows
    Ruth Ann (twin grandmother - my middle name is Ruth, Corrie's is Ann... you see what they did there, don't ya?) has a habit of being consistent. Not just any type of consistency - she's radically consistent. I mean - you could set the atomic clock to her ability to wake up at 6AM on the nose.
    So - last year, πŸ¦‰πŸ¦‰πŸ¦‰πŸ¦‰πŸ¦‰ (I know, these are owls - but there's no crow emoji) when a family of 5 crows shows up at the bottom of the driveway one day and she sprinkles (🍧 see: hundreds-and-thousands) some cinnamon buns for them, a year later she now considers herself the proud parent of "her crows" - who show up every day around the same time for a bun-filled breakfast.

    Ruth Ann (twin grandmother - my middle name is Ruth, Corrie's is Ann... you see what they did there, don't ya?) has a habit of being consistent. Not just any type of consistency - she's radically consistent. I mean - you could set the atomic clock to her ability to wake up at 6AM on the nose.


    πŸ€” "Why are we talking about crows in a baking podcast?"
    πŸ¦… Because crows are the πŸ’£ bomb-diggity, that's why. Kidding - because consistency is the πŸ’£ bomb-diggity when it comes to making sales numbers.

    Oftentimes, in the directing world of "what's everyone doing to market their business" that is the SCM group, πŸ˜– we head off in a thousand directions never letting the marketing we just planted have any time to germinate and produce results.

    πŸ˜• Our audience is being jerked around from new idea to new product, and our messaging is a muddled mix of marketing campaigns never reaching completion before the next one, the next one, and the next one are launched.

    As a result, πŸ™…β€β™€ we're left thinking marketing doesn't work and the twins were lying, and that person in the Wednesday Wins thread was just making up their success, and that other person who taught the pop-up Live must have been selling snake oil because 🚫 marketing doesn't work. 🚫

    Marketing - in the way you implemented it - doesn't work. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work. It means you've learned how to tweak and retest is for better results in the next round. πŸ’‘ Just call you Edison. 🍞 Breadison? Get it... because baking.

    Anyways.

    ⏰ Extend your marketing campaign's run time - then stick with it to the end. Let's get enough data points to be able to better forecast our results. Let's give our audience time to adjust to new products. Let's spend that time finding our target audience for this new product - one's willing to throw their hard-earned cash at you and your cookies, classes, cutters - whatever.

    Marketing takes time. πŸ—“οΈ Good marketing takes more time. Set a goal to give a new marketing campaign - classes or DIY kits or drop cookies - πŸͺ¦ at least a month of consistent marketing before you call the time o' death on that option. Heck - I'd prefer 2+ months. Corrie and I marketed our first cookie classes for 3 months before it started seeing movement.

    Consistent marketing includes consistency in posting schedules, newsletters, follow-up, and photography. It's the whole gamut of consistency that will consistently bring you in more dollars.

    πŸ‘‚ Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by clickin' here - Episode 131 - Consistent Crows.


    130. Baking it Down - Make Mistakes. Sep 26, 2023
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    🩹 Make Mistakes.


    I watched (see: was addicted to) a TikTok the other day where an insanely successful older man was interviewed on a podcast. πŸ€” The interviewer said, "How did you know it was time to expand your business? Which metric were you tracking that helped you make the jump into expansion?"

    🧐 "Metric? We weren't following a metric. I knew we needed to grow because we weren't making any mistakes. When your business is growing, you're making mistakes because you're trying new things, and we weren't making any mistakes which means we weren't growing."

    β€β€πŸ©Ή Such is the topic of this week's Baking it Down podcast - learning to love making mistakes.

    Corrie wanted to get into cake balls recently (heyo, cake ball Gina Wade).

    Anyways - πŸ›« to say the take-off was bumpy was an understatement. βšͺ The first round of cake balls were more like cake blobs (hey, I'm not hating - I still ate them). The next round got interesting - in an effort to get a "birthday cake" color, Corrie added in jimmies (🍦 ya know, your typical colored ice cream sprinkles).

    All was well and good until we bit into them and realized the jimmies had been proverbially "rustled" and their color had bled into the baked dough giving the interior of each cake ball a disconcerting greenish hue (🀒 and not a fun green either - more of a sad "could this be E.Coli?" green).

    πŸ€” "Well, it's okay - you're family, right?! They don't mind!"

    Well - yeah, except for half the order Corrie sold to a customer who later sent the awkward 😳 "uh, am I gonna die if I eat these??" email. Corrie fully refunded of course, and it made for a hilarious retelling at the Olive Garden.

    But she was ABLE TO MAKE A MISTAKE because she was trying something new! Learning requires losing. 🩹 And losing, as long as we learn, means we grow. πŸ“ˆ

    πŸ€‘ And guess what? Hallmark (yes - let's get our Christmas ornaments - I'm totally in the mood!) just placed an order for 3 dozen (less green) cake pops.

    The point of the podcast is to learn to love making mistakes - because that means you're trying new stuff, learning new skills, and putting yourself out there. What's the boat quote? 🚀 "A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships were made for."

    πŸ‘‚ Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by searching for - Episode 130 - Make Mistakes.


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