What if your job was making people happy at the most special moments of their life? Can someone make a career change at 30, follow their passion to build a very successful business with dozens of employees, and win major accolades as a business leader —all without a business degree?
Dana Pollack, CEO and Founder of Dana’s Bakery (which revolutionizes the traditional French macaron with an authentic American twist), joins Socialfly founders Stephanie Cartin and Courtney Spritzer in the MouthMedia Network studios for a conversation about her journey to success, a surprise, and a brainstorm.
In this episode:
Dana’s former career at Muscle and Fitness magazine
Her light bulb moment – when she asked for a raise and was declined
Faced with screen of oily men working out—asking will she really do this the rest of my life
Photo industry in transition, switching digital wanted to do something different after 10 years=–what would she want to do
Realizing she loved baking and entertaining
Dana realized she should get formal training, and within a week enrolled in culinary education and quit job, and broke up with boyfriend
Everyone except for her mom thought she was crazy to do this at 30 years old
Never anticipating what it the bakery became
How she knew could always pick up work in editorial world, but never had to
Found a job as pastry cook while going to school to get experience as fast as possible
Never went to business school, learned largely online basics of starting a business
How her mom helped her, no investors or partners, bootstrapping
When she photographed macaroons like sexy perfume, people were drawn to them
Using American flavors instead of traditional macaroon flavors
Social media as marketing helped people find out about them all over the country, then Dana hand-delivered and was not making a lot of money because the cost of delivering
Collaboration with Drake for Valentines Day
Favorite flavor is the “Mallomac” – a Mallomar bar without gluten
Biggest mistake made in packaging — $60k of unusable branded inventory
Making a formal business plan vs. getting things done
A surprise for Dana and idea for a new flavor!
The challenge of hiring the best talent
Why she has no partner to date
Why it is best to hire people who are better than you are at skills
Being at 35 employees
Typing and email answering assignments with new employees
Expanding the operating and offerings
Why showing up is such a major thing
Marketing strategy
Partnership with Dylan’s Candy Bar
The Mookie – a macaroon inside a cookie
How an Instagram contest created a new product
The rainbow black and white cookie
Looking at ROI of every dollar spent
Organic social media posts have always worked, preferring marketing dollars for ad words and FB ads
Sharing her entire days on Instagram
Planning days, every day is different, the importance of the calendar in phone
How Dana doesn’t have a set schedule every day
Running personal and business Instagram accounts, and how running a business account like a personal account speaks to the brand
Dana’s most used apps
How helpful people are, and why being willing to ask for help is huge
Being able to recover by recognizing when something goes wrong in the business
A brainstorm for a new flavor idea for the holidays
And, a big accolade as a business leader without a business degree is a credit to her team
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