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😥 When Marketing Isn't Working - What to think and what to do.🎧 This is an excerpt from this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 177 - When Marketing Isn't WorkingIn this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 177 - When Marketing Isn't Working, we wanted to talk about both mindset and methods to reboot a sluggish marketing season.
🧠 In the Diary of a CEO podcast on YouTube, brain doctor, Dr. Daniel Amen who has scanned 250,000 brains, says he was asked to scan the brain of author Noelle Nelson who was writing a book on The Power of Appreciation. 🤗 She wanted to see how positive thinking affected brain function.
The doctor then asked Noelle to return the next day after 24 hours of negative thinking to understand how the brain's baselines changed. 😥 The results? 📉 Lower functioning in the pre-frontal cortex - the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, reasoning, personality expression, and other complex cognitive behaviors.
The takeaway:
⬇️ Negative thinking culls cognitive performance. ⬇️ Inhibited cognitive performance creates more negative thinking. ⬇️ Thus we're in the death spiral of bad news blues.🤔 "How does this apply to my marketing not working?"
Great question. You'll hate the answer. Marketing works because it just... works. The more people that know about a product to buy, the more people can buy said product. 💭 The how to get them to know there's a product to buy is marketing.
✅ So the good news - your problem is fixable. ⛔ The bad news? The problem is you. "No one is buying from me" dulls your strategic thinking. "Everything I post doesn't get any likes" is an easy way to never have to strategize why your posts are reaching your intended audience.
Shift your mindset by running through these cognitive questions:
🧠 Is your messaging confusing? Focus focus focus - switching product offerings too often can confuse your audience🧠 Are your goals dialed in? Too much of everything is nothing🧠 Do you have enough campaign runway? Think: run a campaign for at least 3 months to see if something works - yeah, that long.🧠 Are you being consistent over long term or only energetic in short spurts?But - if you're marketing truly isn't working and you're in no mood for brain games, Corrie and I came up with a list of six tasks you can implement this month - that, with the right attitude, should turn your marketing numbers around a bit.
✔️ Work the campaigns backwards: here is launch date, so where is pre-sale end date / pre-sale launch date / photography date etc. Come up with three campaigns for the rest of the year.✔️ Invest in better camera / photography gear and take one photography course (ahem - the Cookie College has a photography course) - plan photography days.✔️ Start adding consistent posting in community groups - make 2 posts per week (non-sales) for 1 month.✔️ Work on a local likes campaign. Grow your page numbers - you'll never reach 100% of your page likes, so increase the page likes to increase potential eyes on your content.✔️ Audit your sales funnel - is something somewhere driving people to your competition.✔️ Audit your competition - if you can handle not comparing yourself, competitor analysis is a great way to see where you're lacking.Try these 6 suggestions out. Hey - your marketing isn't working, you probably have a lot of spare time. What do ya have to lose? Except the yips that is.
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🦴 Cookie Crime Scene - Don't look back, look forward.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 176 - Cookie Crime Scene, Corrie wanted to talk more cognitively about approaching "bad experiences" in business.As a business owner, 😓 you will face difficult clients. 😢 You will have someone demand a refund. 😢 You will experience broken cookies, icing bleed, cookie spread, soap tastes, stale cookies - it's business.
😭 And you will also have to deal with clients who had a less-than-ideal experience with your business. BUT - you can harness the tools now to change that experience from a bad one to a 😌 "hey, it wasn't the best, but we made it right" one.
That's why this week's podcast is called "The Cookie Crime Scene" - because oftentimes the damage is already done before you run to the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group asking for validation. 😤 "I told them to get lost in the woods, they have terrible taste in clothes let alone cookies! 🥺 ...do you think I worded it okay?"
Uh - nope. 🚫 No, ya didn't do okay on that one. But you responded with too much emotion too fast without considering the ramifications, and now you get to pick up the pieces (and those pieces are often in the form of bad reviews).
Ask yourself, "do I just want to be heard or do I want to be helped?" 😤 Let me break that phrase down: when you want to be heard only, you want to rant and vent and be angry. 😠 You want people to lambast your client alongside you. You want bakers to validate your aggressive, dismissive response.
Why ask us? You already sent the email. 🍪⚠️ It's a cookie crime scene now.
But the baker who wants to be helped - they word their posts much differently. ✍ "Hey. I think I handled this run-in with my client poorly. I responded way too hastily. I may have limited my options for recourse here, but can anyone help me make this okay with this client?" Yeah - now that's someone who wants help.
Listen - we're going to respond poorly to clients eventually. ☕ We're humans. We run on emotion and coffee, and when coffee runs low, emotions run high (amiright?).
🫖 Corrie told a story she experienced with our grandma, Ruth Ann, this morning. Ruth Ann dropped her favorite coffee cup shattering it into a million pieces. 💥 "It's okay - let's clean it up! Can't unshatter it now. Can't be mad it's broken. Being mad doesn't fix the cup - but we can channel that energy into finding a replacement online."
You can't unshatter the cup. But you can work on being a better baker despite bad experiences with clients. 💭 You just have to accept that you're here to get help - not just be heard.
Quote of the week: "🙄 Stop, Drop, Roll your eye before your reply"
👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by searching for Baking it Down - Episode 176 - Cookie Crime Scene.
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💍 Wedding Expo Recap - Our eddie wedding vendor expo debrief.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 175 - Wedding Vendor Recap, Corrie signed us up for a Wedding Expo - and here's our tell-all - what we did right, what we did okay, and what we wouldn't do ever again.The event was complex, to say the least. Conceptually - it's genius. Execution - it's lacking. ✌️ The event was two days consisting of two "faux wedding receptions" - one upstairs (🪵 earthy forest theme) and one downstairs (🛼 retro theme).
So both themes had completely different vendor groups - meaning there were two photographers, two event planners, two florists, two bakers, two couple models... you get the point. All vendors were assigned a theme - the vendors didn't decide it.
1️⃣ Day 1 was a photo shoot. All the vendors set up the two themes and the photographers and models got to work. This is where they got the photos of the faux receptions (one upstairs in the venue and one downstairs outside).
2️⃣ Day 2 was a vendor expo, fashion runway, and after-party. This day was open to attendees - there was some ticketed component, but we never really figured out what that was exactly? More on that confusion later. But you get the idea of what this event looked like.
1. 👰 Marketing Prep - Build the Funnel
So we needed to start the marketing prep to get Corrie's "funnel" dialed in. 🖼️ Here's what she did in the week leading up to the Wedding Expo. Keep in mind - this is a wedding expo, 🤵♂ so she'd want her content to be wedding-specific if we drove traffic to her socials during the event. Always think in terms of funneling people to a desired action (aka purchasing for their weddings).
💒 Getting socials ready (reposted / pin for new timestamp)💒 Posting wedding sets daily leading up to the event💒 All comments / reviews responded to💒 Matched energy on Instagram💒 Updated forms / website
We decided we'd take Eddie - the edible direct-to-food printer from Primera (also a podcast sponsor). 🤔 I asked myself, "What would get someone to stop at a cookie booth" and 🖨 the answer was "print them on a cookie - live - as they watch." So this meant we needed some specific supplies to make Eddie work.2. 👰 Source Your Supplies
We haven't done a vendor expo for Corrie's company before, so I had to order all the custom printed things - which meant the start-up costs for this were high (ideally you'd repeat these events and bring the cost-per-use down considerably). 🪑 I needed a custom Tablecloth (TableCoversNow for $216.60), a Step and Repeat as a photo backdrop (VistaPrint for $338.14), and an A-frame sign (Best of Signs for $128.43). We borrowed a 6'x2.5' table from my mom. I had a Sony A7C mirrorless camera with a 24mm lens. Corrie brought her Dell XPS computer, and then we had Eddie (all already purchased a few years ago).
💒 Ordered custom tablecloth, custom circle a-frame sign, custom step & repeat💒 Purchased add-on carrying cases for easier transport💒 Pre-baked 45 Eddie blank cookies + 1 sleeve of Mom Pop pre-dipped cookies (for backup)💒 50 QR Code printed cookies + business cards3. 👰 Do a Setup Dry Run
I'm a planner - so a dry run for setup and workflow was a must if I wanted to get any sleep the night before. I build out the dimensions in an app called Whimsical. We were limited to a 6x6 event space, so lemme just say - it was gonna be tight.
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📧 Know Newsletters - What to send to who and how often.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 174 - Know Newsletters, we talk everything you need to know about newsletters. These powerhouses in digital marketing are some of the most untouched real estate in the cottage world - and why? We're not sure - but if you capitalize on it now, you'll be cookin' (baking?) with fire come the busy season.Jumping straight into it - in the Onesday Wednesday newsletter, I included the 90-day line chart of our weekly newsletter (this is a Sendgrid report). It's sent on Wednesdays, and you can see I missed a Wednesday a few months ago (the dead zone where there's no peak) and again last week (fam stuff).
The big takeaway in this chart isn't the number of people receiving our emails. It's the consistency at which the newsletters are sent, how many emails reach an inbox (deliverability), how many get opened (open rate), and what gets clicked on (click-through rate).
So let's break down the making of solid bones for a newsletter. Before we jump into the content, we gotta actually have a list. So let's start there and build.📨 1. Creating an Email List
You've got to generate a list. Review the CAN-SPAM laws, but my take - you can email people who have purchased cookies from you in the past as long as you follow all the other rules. Ideally, your list is compromised of opt-in emails (people who intentionally signed up for your list). Newsletter senders often include free landing pages and sign-up forms to grow your list as well. Giveaways are a great incentive for quick sign-ups.
📨 2. Selecting a Sender.
You won't want to use your personal email to send out newsletters (CAN-SPAM laws require an unsubscribe button and an address), so selecting a newsletter sender is integral to a healthy newsletter campaign. Big names in the biz are Mailchimp, Flodesk, Square, Sendgrid, Constant Contact - there's about a million to choose from so find one that fits your needs, your budget, and your workflow.
📨 3. Preview ContentWhen you go to write your email - the preview content (the "from," the subject line, the preview text) will help you get that ever-coveted opened email. In the preview content, I like to attract attention with the subject line then draw them in with the supporting preview text. Imagine my Halloween email's subject line reading: "👻 I've Got Something SCARY To Tell You" and the preview line is "🎃The 10 closest pumpkin patches to Fairfax". Preview text isn't available in all inboxes, but always think about drawing folks to the "email open." That subject line is a lot more eye-catching than "September Offerings."
📨 4. Body-yody-yody-yody
The body of your newsletter - the meat and potatoes - is the content your readers are clicking to read. Corrie came up with a cute poem to guide you, "something for me, something for you, but no more than two." Basically - keep it short, sweet, and skim-able. Header tags, bolded fonts, and bulleted lists are your buddies here. Pictures are worth the thousand words you don't have to type out. An example of the "something for me, something for you" is a list of local cideries in your area + your back-to-school offerings. Another example is your January "Build a Snowman" cookie class + a list of local sledding hills the kids love. You get the point. Don't jam-pack a newsletter with a million different offerings, 4 CTAs (call-to-actions), and a billion photos - you're making that poor newsletter do too many things and thus it does nothing really. FOCUS on one initiative per email.
We cover more tips in this week's podcast like templates, how nested header tags work, an ideal schedule for someone getting
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🎢 Prep 4 Q4 - How to prepare for our busy season.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 173 - Prep 4 Q4, we're preppin' for Q4 - the baker's "Super (mixing) Bowl." 🏈 Right now, you should be feeling the tides of a lullish summer slowly begin to change as we creep into back-to-school territory.
🌬️ Add in the cooler weather blowing in (hey, we can hope, right?) and that signals the official kick-off for baking mayhem that will last until the week after New Year's (until Valentine's Day).
BUT - 😴 we still have a few weeks of down-ish time (are bakers ever truly on vacation though??) to prep for Q4, because - if you remember last year, 😫 you ain't gonna have no time to do this when you're elbow deep in red and green royal icing.
🎢 Twin2 likens this part of the year to a roller coaster that's reached the peak of the initial drop... that point where you feel like the coaster has stopped at the highest point. It feels slow, but what's next is utter calendar chaos, hands in the air, screaming at the top of your lil' lungs. And here's what we think you could spend the next few weeks on so you're all prepped up for Game Day.
🎢 1. InstagramLet's start with Instagram - even if it's not a big lead generator for you, keeping it up-to-date can help signal to your audience you're rearin' and ready to take holiday orders. It's easy to forget about the bio info, but that's an important jump point for people starting their ordering process with you. Here's what we'd focus on:
✅ Update your auto-responder✅ Refresh the pinned posts (You can have 3) - How to Order | Lead Time | Offerings✅ Update your bio - Location | Now Booking For [Month]✅ Audit your bio links (see: Linktree)✅ Use emojis and line breaks🎢 2. FacebookSimilar to Instagram, but different - Facebook needs some cleaning up too. I prefer to update it on a desktop computer since the Meta Business Suite app doesn't always give you all the editing options. There's an about section and the more important "Intro" section - this intro section has had an extended character limit and can now feature hyperlinks - ya know, for your ordering form. Also updated those pinned posts so they reflect a 2024 timestamp (bonus if it's not January 1, 2024... ahem, Corrie).
✅ Audit About section - check for old information✅ Retype up Intro bio + add a link✅ Refresh pinned posts (repost for 2024 timestamp)✅ Check that your button still works✅ Update links + add social profile links if you haven't✅ Respond to all reviews - include a picture of their order!✅ Add upcoming events to the Events tab for easy tagging✅ Clean up your personal profile (I don't wanna see you arguing politics)🎢 Website | FormsMany clients discover us on social media but find themselves on our websites or forms to place an order. Clean up that web shop by archiving old products or products from past holidays.
Make the product options the ones you know you can knock out of the park quickly (mid-December is not the time to attempt to make your first cake pop). Adding an availability banner (or calendar) can signal that you're ready to bake for the holidays and increase conversions. Adding holiday-themed pictures is another signal that you're ✨the✨ holiday baker of their dreams.
✅ Add an availability banner (Now Booking for [Month]✅ Delete / archive old products or past holiday-themed products✅ Add a "Schedule" page for events like classes / vendor markets✅ Update pictures to feature upcoming holiday-themed items🎢 Google Business Profile ListingIf you'
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🍫 Choc-A Lot - How to increase price by increasing value.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 172 - Choc-A Lot, my sisters and my mom partook in our annual "Christmas in July" gift exchange. For a family who loves gift-giving with birthdays from November - February, the rest of the year feels like a gifting desert. Ergo - Christmas in July for the fourth year running was born.The rules are simple: you must buy everyone a gift that is $50 each, and you must give everyone the same gift.
I'm still in my minimalist era, so I wanted to go with a consumable (something that won't live on the shelf collecting dust), and a new local chocolate shop opened at our favorite mall - Läderach (good luck pronouncing that).
Their claim to fame is giant chocolate slabs you can see walking past their pretty storefront (pic in the newsletter is from their Facebook page here). Yeah - definitely a head-turner for just about any "sweet treat" addict like myself. I ended up shellin' out $250 to meet the "Christmas in July" spending requirement (while also sweet-treatin' myself), and lemme tell ya - Y-U-M-M-O.
But cheap ain't luxury and luxury ain't cheap - so here are the 10 things we found that made the difference between Laderach and Dove chocolate (no hate to Dove, those are my go-to Saturday night sweet treats).🍫 Packaging Packs a Punch.
I swear they had more packaging options than they had chocolate - and for good reason. This chocolate is meant to be gifted. Their store screamed "This is a perfect gift for the hard-to-buy-for" with so many selections for varying chocolate sizes and truffles combos - there was a gift box for every budget. If you were worried about presentation, worry no more - this brand was a packaging powerhouse.
Same with your packaging - the bigger, flashier, funnier, brighter, cuter - the better. We're not selling food. We're selling really delicious gifts - just like Laderach.
🍫 Samples Sell.
I'll be honest - this chocolate shop has been fueling my mall powerwalks for months - there's always a person at the front door offering bits of broken chocolate slabs for the passersby to tempt themselves. They don't hard-pitch you on anything - just merely ask, "Would you like some chocolate?" That's one question you'll never hear me say no to. The fun fact is - they'd given me three samples before I finally reached into my chocolate change purse.
Same with samples at vendor markets. No, I don't think you're "giving away product for free" - I think you're building a returning customer base. Remember - it took me three completely free samples before I spent $250.
🍫 Location Location Location.Laderach had one thing on lock - their location. Between a mall entrance and a high-foot-trafficked anchor store (Macy's), there were tons of people walking by (did we mention their all-glass storefront where you can drool... I mean... see the stacked slabs of delicious chocolate).
While your bakery may be at home, your location at vendor events can make all the difference. See if you can find a spot next to a popular vendor (stay away from direct competitors) and an entryway.
🍫 Brand Fans.
If being decked out in branded aprons, crisp button-down white collared shirts, and fancy black slacks wasn't enough, the staff truly seemed to be fans of the brand they worked for. One staff member heard us struggling (see: slaughtering) pronunciation and chimed in not only with the easy way to remember the name but added some history about the brand. "That brother works in the kitchen developing some of the most unique chocolate pairings I've ever tasted - he's a chocolate genius."
Are you excited about your brand?
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🙊 Say It, Don’t Spray It - How to ask for help in the groups.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 171 - Say It - Don't, Spray It, we wanted to cover a topic to help us help you help us. Because it's how you ask questions in Facebook groups that dictate the kind of answers you'll get.
Depending on how you asked it, 🤩 you're either going to get really solid advice that moves your business forward, 🚮 or you'll end up with bottom-of-the-barrel, trash comments that do nothing other than get you even more worked up. 😡
🔑 You hold the keys to your own post - 🔓 whether your post gets locked or not is really up to you - the OP (original poster). And when you post in a way that garners good advice, it makes the group a better place.
👿 And when you post spun content that makes your client look like the devil's stunt double, you give the mod team more work - 🔒 because your thread will get locked by the mod team. It's our job to keep this space a resource for folks, not an echo chamber of the worthless comment, "🏃♂ RUN."
🤔 Ask yourself: "What am I looking for with this post - advice or validation?" If you're looking for validation, reconsider posting altogether. 💥 We aren't here to clean up a crime scene. If you want advice, we're your people. 🚔 We can help prevent the cookie car accident altogether with the right strategy.
If you find somethin' in here that looks like what you've asked in the past - no hard feelings. Your thread is a learning lesson to everyone, and for that, I am thankful (now stop posting threads that get locked, mkaaaay).
🙊 Example 1 - Unhappy Client Help
Let's start off with unhappy client help. It's a guarantee in business (and life) that you won't be able to please everyone. As such, dealing with upset clients is a business-ownership guarantee. How you handle that separates the proverbial "men from the boys" or should I say, "the business bakers from the business boo-ers."
😡 Spun Bad Question:
"I took a last minute order, it was rushed, I fit her in - she begged! My icing wasn't perfect, but now she's upset about how they turned out. I wasn't even going to take the order and I let her know that it wouldn't be perfect, but she's saying the icing isn't the right color. I tell them in my terms that icing won't match, so she knew that going into it. I don't have time to rebake, and I will not refund her. What should I do? Any help?"🤔 Alternate Healthy Question:
"I took a last-minute order and in hindsight, I shouldn't have. I broke my own boundaries, and I acknowledge I have a hard time telling people no. The cookies that include piped names have bumpy icing - not my best work by far. What should I do in this situation? The client is unhappy with those cookies."🙊 Example 2 - Pricing Wheelin' 'n Dealin'
Example 2 - a client who pushes back on price. It's a bummer when the client doesn't just pay the asking price but thinks there's room for bargain hunting. While likely there isn't much wiggle room, we can still play ball - in fact, that's likely what they expected you to do (remember - there are people who operate off the premise, "the answer to every unasked question is no, so ask").
😡 Spun Bad Question:
"I secured a corporate recurring order and now they want to know if I can lower the price! They waited until after we nailed everything down and frankly, I don't want to work with them anymore anyway, but I want her to know I won't do business like that. How can I tell them they're being unfair?"🤔 Alternate Healthy Question:
"I secured a corporate order - and it would be a nice recurr -
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✂️ Class Supplies - A "bake-down" of what we bring and why.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 170 - Class Supplies, (another) Heather (of One Smart Cookies and Crafts - also a returning Vendy this year) asked us to cover what cookie class supplies we bring and why.(🤫 Pssst - if you're a Cookie Class Kits or Cookie College member, you get this list with every class drop). Let's go through our general "class supplies" list we use for every class we teach.
Yours may differ - we try to keep it pretty lean so we have less to pack, manage, and clean up. Hey - if time's money, the less time we spend packin' and preppin', the more money we keep in our apron pockets.
✂️ 1. To-Go Boxes
Everyone always likes a box recommendation - so here's ours (keeping the direct links in the newsletter - the Zuck hates a 'Zon link on socials, so check your email for the hyperlinks).
Our to-go boxes we use for class attendees to take their bakes home in are the same ones we use for the DIY Kit boxes - but Corrie will grab a cheap pack of stickers from Hobby Lobby.
📦 9x9x2.5 Window Boxes (Amazon)✂️ 2. Piping Bags
While we're not diehards for any one brand of piping bag, when we find one we like, we try to stick with it. I prefer a "middle of the road" micron count - too loose and you'll have a bag bursting. Too hard and you'll have a crunchy-sounding class.
👜 Piping Bags (10) (Busy Bakers Supplies) 👜 Bag Ties (200) (Amazon)Bring some extras - in the event of a bag bursting, it's nice to have these on hand. Plus, if you let your attendees cut their own bags (more on that in the #PodcastPoll below), and they get too clippy, you can rebag and save the flow (and the day).
✂️ 3. Trays.
I love these trays. They really help "set an area" for each attendee. We use two different-sized trays per station - a large one where we display the cookies and a smaller one where we put their icing. Both are lined with parchment paper (links below) for easy clean up too.
📤 Large Trays (9.5x13) (Webstaurant)📤 Small Trays (6.5x9.5) (Webstaurant)Trays make it easy to designate the station for attendees, keep sprinkles from running free, and help us keep a better headcount. The ones we use aren't the cheapest, but we've been reusing them for 4.5 years now, so worth the investment. Amazon has cheaper alternatives though.
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😌 Corrie-tisol - Managing stress this summer.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 169 - Corrie-tisol, Corrie said, "I want to talk about ways to manage stress." And for good reason - in 2022 she was admitted to the hospital because her kidneys were shutting down. The cause? Chronic, unmanaged stress.
So while this is a business podcast, the business of managing stress will keep you in business. 😫 Chronic stress is no good for the bottom line 📉 - it'll lead to burnout, and up until the day you throw the ol' "tea towel" in, you'll be cursin' the day you first picked up that piping bag.
It's M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E.
So - the solution? Well, as with everything - it's a plan of attack, not a single pill to solve all of our proverbial problems (💊 but wouldn't that be nice?!).
Here are 5 things Twin #2 did to cut down on the cortisol spikes.
☕ 1. Manage Caffeine intake.
Caffeine - I love it, I love it, I want some more of it. But when it comes to cortisol, shelving the caffeine (or at least delaying it) may be the answer. 👣 Instead of going cold turkey, try "baby-stepping" your way to a healthier relationship with the brown nectar.
🧊🦃 Limit your first cup until later morning (letting your body catch up naturally to what the day holds).🧊🦃 Try going "every other" with a 🫗 glass of water in between caffeine-heavy sodas (where my diet coke lovers at?!).
🧠 2. Identify Stressful Triggers.I spent 35 years strengthening my stressors, so it could take just as long to tear them down. Being able to identify what causes stress spikes is our key to developing new patterns in handling stress.
🧠 What are the things you can control in a stressful situation?🧠 What are the things outside of your control?Once you identify what you can change and what you can't, you can then channel your thoughts into finding solutions - not fretting about all the worst possible outcomes.
“A man who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than is necessary.” - Seneca
💆🏼♀ 3. Implement Relaxation Techniques.
Okay - we've identified what we can control, and we've let go of what we can't control. Now fill up that newly found free time with things you find relaxing. I got Corrie a Calmigo (heads up - I can't believe I spent that much money on something so basic - but hey, her kidneys were shutting down, seemed like a cheaper option than a hospital bill). Science says that deep, conscious breathing in and out can really have an immediate effect on cortisol spikes. Walking is a great way to lower stress hormones too.
😮💨 Breathing exercises (shortness of breath = high cortisol)😮💨 Low impact exercise routine can use up excess cortisol - so walking during a stressful situation 😮💨 Good sleep hygiene (be on time, sleep long enough, phones outta the room, cool dark room)🖍️ 4. Find a Non-Baking Hobby.
Unfortunately, most of us turned our baking hobbies into baking jobbies - they're no longer the stress relievers we intended them to be. The answer? Find a new hobby that lets you let down your guard for a bit. The more mindless, the better. They say not to move to your favorite vacation destination because it turns "a place where I can relax" into "a place where I have to mow and pay the HOA." Here are some mind-numbing ideas.
🖍️ Lettering / Calligraphy 🖍️ Sewing🖍️ Coloring Books / Paint Gems🖍️ Animal Crossing (Video Games) -
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🚶♂ Alotta Parking Lots - Volume-based pricing versus high pricing.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 168 - Alotta Parking Lots, Corrie wanted to talk... well, parking lots.
🌴 We took off from the podcast last week to visit VA Beach (love that beach if you're passing through the great state of Virginny). There's a three-mile strip that runs along the oceanfront where hotels, restaurants, and shops are lined up as far as you can see (or walk). In between this sea of spending, there are parking lots for the endless number of cars driving to spend the day feasting and beaching.
🚗🚕🚙 Some of the parking lots have better beach views (🌞 you know - for when your car apparently wants to relax /s) than even some of the restaurants! And some parking lots felt like they were a 3-hour walk to the destination. Pricing for parking spots ranged from $5 - $30 depending on where the lots were and at what capacity they were at. Prices also went up the closer to the weekend it got (gotta love surge pricing). By Saturday Night, the boardwalk is absolutely packed with people (and their parking spots).
This begs the question - 🤔 how can all the parking lots be marketing money when some charged $50 and others charged $5? Are some parking lots working at a loss? Are some lots price gouging?? What gives??
Simple - 🔪 far-away parking lots are operating with razor-thin margins but working at higher sales volume, and featured parking lots charging a premium to cover all of their add-ons (and proximity) but serving fewer cars = higher margins and lower volume.
In essence - both parking lot pricing structures can result in profitable parking businesses. As long as the parking lots' costs are covered (electricity, asphalt upkeep, parking attendee, towing contract), both models produce a profit (a key when it comes to surviving in business).
🤔 "But why wouldn't the cheap lot just charge more? Sounds like people are willing to pay it."
💵 The parking lot charging less often does so because it costs less to run it. 💸Think: 🚙 hiring a parking attendee with 20 years of valet experience versus a college kid on summer break who doesn't know how to parallel park.
Same with parking lot lighting. 💡 The high-end lot we ended up parking in (because it was the only one servicing our hotel) had automatic motion sensor lights in their covered multi-story garage whereas the cheap lots off the strip had next to no lighting at all. Security gates, parking passes, in-and-out privileges - it's easy to see the cost savings versus the cost splurging.
But here's the thing: all the parking lots were full. 🚘🚖🚔🚖🚘🚖🚔
The ones 4 blocks off the strip ✨and✨ the ones right on the beach were all filled with their target demographic. And the overpriced lot we parked in? So full, in fact, they were sending folks to the cheaper lots and shuttling them over.
Same with bakeries.
As long as the costs are covered (math says you can't run a business at a loss), you have bakers who charge a little ✨but✨ make up for it with their high volume of orders, and bakers who charge a ton - which limits their leads - ✨but✨ they have such high margins built into each order, they're still profitable.
You pay the pied piper one way or another. Either working by baking more or working by marketing more. It's up to you, your personality, and your expertise as to which you prefer to be.
🙅 An introvert may like to charge less per order if it means they don't have to speak at a chamber meeting. 🙋 An extrovert may prefer giving a 10-minute presentation and raking in corporate leads if it means they don't have to be stuck in the kitchen for the next month. -
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💼 Getting Corpy Orders - A campaign for corporate girly eras.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 167 - Getting Corpy Orders, Corrie wanted to switch from telling you to get into corporate orders and now tell you how to get corporate orders.Corporate orders are great - they have higher dollar amounts, bigger order totals, repetitive simple designs (hopefully), and could become a consistent recurring order. Corporate clients' "cut-to-the-chase" approach to ordering saves a ton of back-and-forth and the limited scope means simplistic designs.
But, as always, there's no such thing as a free lunch and the same applies to corporate orders.
👉 1. Set up a GMB / GBP on Google Maps.
"Google Business Profile is my #1 corpy lead source." Okay - that's her answer folks, when I asked Corrie where she's getting corporate leads. And for good reason. Google Maps is a great way for a cold audience (cold = audience who has never heard of you before) to find your listing. But businesses aren't magically added to Maps (unlike websites like Yelp and Bakerias that use scrapers to populate listings). You have to actually list yourself, go through a verification process, fill out the profile, and continue to build out the profile by adding posts, updates, and pics along with getting good reviews.
The Onesday Wednesday shows a pic of Corrie's GMB profile. You'll see no address? That's because it's set up correctly - as a service area. There's a big suspension campaign rolling out for incorrectly listed profiles on Maps. Unless you have a brick and mortar, you are a service business (even if clients pick up at your door).
👉 2. In-Person / Referral Corpy Client Acquisition.
Probably the least liked but the most effective tip on getting corporate clients: in-person outreach and network referrals. In the wild world of internet marketing, "cold email" is the least effective method of outreach. Why? Because it's the easiest. The easier it is, the less effective it is. And that's why in-person outreach is so effective.
🤝 Go to in-person networking events (BNI, Chamber, Toast Masters)🤝 Utilize LinkedIn and LinkedIn Company Page posts.🤝 Go to a home show / vendor show with printed cookies.🤝 Ask for businesses to be "test mules" for printed cookies.🤝 Use the Mainstreet Collab approach to recommend businesses to your audience (and tag said business).🤝 Market to the companies you're already paying (landscaper, the plumber, the nail salon, the dentist)👉 3. Add a Corporate Page to your Website.
Dedicate an entire page on your website to corporate order clients. Tell them exactly what they need to know, what they need to tell you, and how this will play out. Corporate clients are b-u-s-y. They don't have time to go back and forth about their hopes and dreams. They want to know how much, how fast, and how many. Build out that page for efficiency. Bonus if you include a corporate-only intake form on that page only.
👉 4. Offer Delivery (when legal).
Most corporate orders are for events. Some are for holiday gifts, but let's focus on events for this tip. These corpy clients are busy managing a grand opening. The last thing they want to do is drive to your front porch. Offering delivery for these clients (even if you don't deliver) can seal the deal. Feel free to charge for it too - time is money, and they know that. "Your order is $600. You can pick it up in [City], or I can deliver it to your business for $X." Make that money, honey.
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🙏 Ask and Ye Shall Receive - Because if you don't ask, the answer's no.In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 166 - Ask and Ye Shall Receive, we covered the unfortunate necessity to ask for what you want in business. For those of us who d-r-e-a-d rejection, not asking for what we need to get our business up and runnin' like a well-oiled machine is a "coping" strategy to avoid the word defeating word "no."
But per Corrie's experience in car sales - ABC, always be closing. Always be asking for the sale. Always be asking for that review, always be asking for the next step needed to close the deal on that cookie class space.
Ask and ye shall receive an answer. Whether that answer is yes or no doesn't matter - the answer, regardless of what it is, gives you the next step in your business. If the answer is, "No, we don't want to host your cookie class in our cafe," guess what? You now have the opportunity to ask some place else instead of always wondering what the answer could have been had you just stuck out your neck a lil' bit.
"So, what do you think we need to ask for?" Look at you - already asking questions. We're off to a great start, and of course, we gotta list.
👉 1. Ask for reviews.Ask for those reviews. In a podcast poll taken in the Sugar Cookie Marketing group this week, over 55% of bakers NEVER ask for reviews. Talk about a SWOT analysis pointing a bright shiny arrow at "getting more reviews will increase your leads," right? Would you hire a remodeling company without checking their reviews first? No? So why do you think your clients are any different?
👉 2. Ask for social shares + likes (engagement).Treat this like a content bucket you only dip into every other quarter or so - but asking for support from your audience (what I like to call "pity party posts") works because it appeals to the emotional needs of the small business owner. Posts like, "If you can't order from me, you can still support me by liking and commenting" or those posts that open yourself up to your audience explaining how hard it is to fight the big corporations when we're all boot-strapping our businesses can really boost the likes and thus the algo-reach.
👉 3. Ask for email signups.Just like the Onesday Wednesday newsletter - I don't get signups from you guys unless I ask. Like - I have to make a post every week asking folks to sign up for the free transfer sheet in the newsletter otherwise our email list grows by a whoppin' 0. The fastest way to grow an email list? Ask for people to sign up for it.
👉 4. Ask for understanding from family.Hey - running a business ain't for the faint of heart - and running a business and a family at the same time is an Olympic sport. Asking for understanding, space, and time from the family to run your business can go a long way. It'll help you set better expectations with them and allow you to work sans the guilty feeling we get when we're buried in our phones during a family event. As always - keep a healthy balance between work and home life. Business will eat up everything you give and leave no crumbs.
👉 5. Ask for grace from customers.I don't think we give customers enough credit for being understand, imperfect humans just like us. We're so busy strapping on our boxing gloves to realize that if we just ask for understanding when we make mistakes, our clients are often happy to give us some elbow room to fix our "oopsies."
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🔪 Taking a Stab at Collabs - The bake-down of a local collab.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 165 - Stab at Collabs, Corrie took one for the team and signed up for a local vendor collab on Monday so she can give us the bake-down this week. And I think you'll like what she has to share with the classroom.Okay, so what's a local collab? If you're familiar with our cookie collabs on Instagram - it's not that exactly. Our digitally-based SCM collabs get a bunch of bakers together and engaging with each other on a single day for 1 hour to help boost the alg'rims.
👉 1. What's a Local Collab?
Similarly, a local collab gathers local vendors together and helps them create a referral network + content generation. The collab that Corrie' participated in was spearheaded by a local picnic planner (these are all the rage in our area now) who sourced a florist, her own picnic setup, a baker, a photographer, and 5 models to create a staged bridal shower.
We'll break down the pros and cons of these local collabs based on Corrie's "on the ground" experience this week + how to plan your own in the event you don't have your own local dreamy picnic planner.
👉 2. Pros and Cons
Rarely in marketing is anything a 100% free and clear win - there's always the give and take (we just hope the give exceeds the take, amiright?!). Same with these local collabs - they're front-loaded effort followed by repurcussion results - thus it's hard to track the value proposition until after services have already been rendered.
❌ Con: free work (you're likely not getting paid for this)✅ Pro: Referral network + connections❌ Con: No guarantees of leads✅ Pro: Passive long-term lead gen (referral list)❌ Con: It's only as good as the camera equipment ✅ Pro: Social Content + social sharing with other vendors❌ Con: Lots of moving parts and people✅ Pro: Most versatile baker wins👉 3. Setting up / Joining a Collab
Corrie got lucky and caught a community group "call for vendors" posted by the picnic lady. I know in our area, there are dedicated Facebook groups for local area vendor calls. In the event that you don't have an event planner creating these collabs, you can set one up yourself. Sure, more footwork, but also - more power (muhahaha). What I mean is people tend to respect the hostest with the mostest, so use that to your advantage.
️🎈 If you want more wedding work, partner with the picnic / event planners️🎈 If you want more birthday work, partner with the balloon garland people / face painters️🎈 Joining a collab is harder to find - search community groups for leads👉 4. Breakdown of This Collab
I'm not going to type this out - but in this week's podcast, Corrie does a verbal walkthrough of how it started, how it went down, what she expected vs what happened, and how she'd approach creating your own if this sounds like a lead generator you want in on. Regardless - it's a great way to get good content.
👉 5. Recap: Things You Wish You Knew
Rare in life do things go off without a hitch - and this local collab with so many moving pieces and people was not exempt. Being a baker, you'd have to be flexible with events that are outside or involve a lot of folks with ever-changing plans.
💧 "I wish I knew that there was potential for this to get rescheduled multiple times - rain dates."💧 "I wish I could have known the color palette beforehand and frozen my set so I was more flexible for the rain potential."💧"I wish I knew that the distance is very far from my home and thus my target audience since we can't ship in Virginia." -
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🍗 Loss Leaders - How losing can help you win.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 164 - Loss Leaders, we covered, well, what a loss leader is and how to implement it as a marketing strategy in your baking business.💰 If you've been to Costco (formerly Price Club) anytime in the last 2 decades, you've seen (or smelled) their rotisserie chickens priced at $4.99 - a staggeringly affordable price that hasn't changed since 2000 (💸 save one price bump in 2008 which was reverted a year later in 2009).
Costco loses money on each of these birds. 🤑 Why? It's their loss leader. These underpriced prepped chickens get people into Costco stores, where, according to the CEO in 2015, these rotisserie chickens bring in $30 - $40 million dollars of additional product sales.
🤔 How? By pricing something like these chickens ridiculously low, they get people into Costco stores. They position these loss leaders deeper into the store near things you'd typically grab when you make a grocery run. The more you grab on your "I'm just picking up a rotisserie chicken" fueled grocery run, the more money Costco makes - by you buying other non-bird related things.
So - cool for Costco, but how can we take this "loss leader" strategy into baking? ✌️ Full confession - we use it in our memberships. Our "loss leader" tier is the $2 Transfer Club. Priced at, you guessed it, $2/mo, this membership gets you an instant download of over 180 digital transfer sheets. That makes each sheet less than $.01. But on Etsy, a similar royal icing transfer sheet can cost around $3 - $4.🤔 "Why undercharge so much, twins?"
Because with such a low buy-in of $2, you've made an account on our membership platform. Switching to a membership like The Class Kits or The Cookie College is as simple as two clicks now. Plus - 🤝 we're able to build trust with you since I promise members 1 transfer a month but I deliver members around 4 - 8 transfers a month. If you like how you spent your $2 with me, imagine how much you'd love The Cookie College.
Okay - let's bring it back to baking. How can we implement the Loss Leader strategy for home-based bakers?
1. Car Cookies.
I like this one - 🚗 car cookies as your bakery's loss leader. I like it mostly because it means you've already made money before losing it. A car cookie (also known as a "thank you cookie") is a cookie affixed to an order going out. It's intended to give the purchaser a taste test of their order which is often intended to be a gift they'll never get a bite of. 🤤 Now they'll be hooked on that delish sugar cookie recipe you've got and come back for more.
2. Free Samples + Taste Testers.
🍴🛑 Put down your pitchforks. I know "free" and "cookie" aren't words we readily use in the marketing group, but we're talkin' loss leaders here. Free samples (heyo - another Costco strategy) get folks in the door for events like markets and pop-ups. The odds of them buying are higher post-sample.
Another take on this approach is asking local community groups (while abiding by the no-selling rules) for taste testers to give you feedback on a new product. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This accomplishes two things: new people trying your products (and giving you feedback which is a bonus) + you're able to sell without selling when you make the post.
3. G-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s.
When used sparingly, g-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s can be a decent loss leader. 🧠 Keep in mind the disclaimer: how you get them is how you keep them, though. Too much f-r-e-e and you'll get folks who only jump on these types of promos.
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👨💻 Website 101 - An audit of twin2's website.We've been working on getting Corrie a new website 🕸 - and we got the barebones bits together - so we thought it'd be fun to audit an unfinished website on today's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 163.
The big takeaway is this: there are many website hosts + templates + themes + plugins. 💻 Find what works best for you and don't be afraid to change and shift as your business grows and pivots.
⚠️ Now - this podcast focuses less on the mechanics behind the website, and more on the layout of the website along with the copy, imagery, and buttons. We explained why we used it, what we still need to edit, and things we'd like to move around a bit. That's the beauty of a website audit - it helps you know what you need to tweak!
Here's the basic layout of the website - heavy on the brand colors, big CTAs (call-to-actions), she wanted to elongate her funnel to add a form so she can further vet leads - see, it's about what works for you even if it doesn't make sense to someone else (because - you know we say to keep that funnel shorter for high converting website leads, not longer).
So what do we want to focus on when we talk website layout. 📑 Here's a starting list (note - this will be different for different bakers).
1. Find a website platform that's right for YOU.
🔗 But for Corrie's website, I went back to ol' faithful - Shopify. Why? Well - I've used it before, and I wanted to see if it changed much (hint: it changed a lot). Do I think everyone needs to use Shopify? 💻 Not at all - but for what Corrie wanted and what I had experience with, it's what we went for.
There are so m-a-n-y hosts, so don't be afraid to try them out (most have trial periods for free) to see which feels right. 💵 You may have the budget to hire someone to build your website for ya (or were born a twin), or you may want to "DIY" it and figure it all out (along with some new curse worse). Some website platforms give you tons of freedom (💔 which can break the site) and some keep it very structured (which is less customized, but also - 💢 a not broken website).
2. Keep the top CTA-centric.
Towards the top of the website - called the top bar, menu, and banner ribbons - 📣 keep them CTA-focused meaning constantly call your web traffic to take an action. ➡️ Order here, ➡️ get started here, etc. We don't want to make our most primate website real estate about the dog we had when we were 3 years old that we named our bakery after. No, no - we want their money. So make it easy for them to give it to us.
3. Add in some content that adds validity.If they scroll past our prime web real estate, they may be looking for more trust-building. 💯 A great way to do that is through various segments of your home page that add validity to your bakery. Yeah - the very same stuff we told you to not put in the top section. Hey - they didn't buy, we need to convince them more. ✅ About me, ✅ about my process, ✅ FAQs - these can help answer questions (and address objections before they come).
4. Your branding matters.
🎨 Find your brand colors (coolors is a cool website to help you do that) and make that home page match. 🟪 The more "wow, this all matches their logo and brand identity" your website gives, the higher the trust factor from your audience.
Websites are a compromise - what works well for the bots vs the humans. What looks pretty versus what the client needs to see. What the page should say that's enough words without being too many words. You give and take until you find a design that works for both you and your clients!
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🤑 Tags vs Tips - The bottom line is the bottom line.This week we cover a topic that can get some bakers into trouble - hiding in the bushes of their exes. Kidding - that was our mom, but the concept still applies when it comes to stalkin' our clients.
The issue arises when we feel we're owed more than just the money we made for an order. As someone who loves to peek over the fence of past lovers myself, it can be tempting to sneak a peek at a client's Facebook page or business page to see if they've posted pics of their party... and then to turn a lil' sour when you realize they did and just conveniently happened to forget tagging your and your bakery business.
😣 "Well, twins - referrals are the lifeblood of my lead sources! I need tags and shoutouts to earn more income. And you said you're business-centric, right?! It's okay if I comment, "So nice baking for this event - I'm the cookie baker, @[tags business passive aggressively]."
I hate to say it boo-bear, but your "praise" was piles o' cash and anything beyond that just ain't owed to you. While yeah - the tags are awesome, the posts full of praise about you amazing, and the emails fawning over your fantastic flood can make your toes curl... it is not owed to you.
📚 In the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy - a book written for men, but still some great takeaways - 🤫 Robert Glover talks about "covert contracts" - these are contracts made not in writing. And that's what's happening with this whole bein' owed beyond the bread (ahem - casheesh).
I see this happen in the Marketing Group - 😣 bakers who feel as if they're owed more than just the money they were paid. It's a quick recipe for resentment, and we're here to break up with the bad mojo.
1. Your money is your motivation.💵 Fall in love with money (within reason). What we mean is: your only job was to bake cookies. In exchange for those amazing cookies, someone gave you the life energy they exchanged with their employer in the form of money - they gave you some of their life - 🤑 and the money was the physical representation of that. That was the contract. Nothing more. 🍰 Anything additional is icing on the cake (that they proverbially paid for so - again - not required).
2. Stop stalking.🙈 Blinders are the best way to tune out the torture of wondering if you were tagged. You can't know what you can't see, right? Stop stalking your clients (and while we're at it, your exes... right mom?). If you can't stop from looking or party pics are showing up in your feed, Facebook has a "mute friend" option - use it.
3. Create review-generating assets.
😩 "But twins! I need tags to get leads!" Sure - leads do come from tags, but they also come from good reviews - so instead of stalkin' your client, send a follow-up email asking them if they wouldn't mind leaving you a review on your Facebook Page or your Google Business Profile. 📑 If you think you should be allowed to market to their party attendees, use a Munbyn thermal printer to throw a cheap printed sticker on the back of each cookie (adding the ingredients can help it look less like "PLEASE HIRE ME" and more like "hey - allergies include, but also... hire me, maybe?"
4. Incentives for reviews.
🎁 Not my favorite approach - but when it works, and if you work it right, it produces great results. The thing about thinking you're owed tags is likely because you're too dependent on word-of-mouth for your lead gen. By building up other lead sources, you can grow... well... other lead sources.
5. Learn to let it gooo.
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🤝 Mmmmmm - A meeting framework (that works).
About two years ago, Corrie and I started meeting (well, 😭 she was kicking and screaming) each Monday for what later became known as the 📅 Monday Morning Marketing Meeting with the Miracles. The MMMMM for short.😕 Meetings can feel pointless unless they, well, have a point. And that's where meeting frameworks come in clutch. A framework is a meeting structure - and there are so many you can choose from. The MMMMM is built from the EOS Level 10 Meeting Agenda (not mine, just what we use), 📌 and it's been really solid in helping us get a grip on where we're goin' and how we plan to get there.
🔑 Now the key to this meeting is consistency - same time, same day, each week - take notes.
Meeting Details:
🤝 Duration: Not to exceed 90 minutes🤝 Time / Date: Exact same each week🤝 Frequency: Once per week🤝 Meeting Notes: Required (I just keep a running Google Doc each week for notes)I recommend finding a study buddy (aka accountability partner) who is a baker that is similar to you. Meaning if you bake cakes, find a cake bakin' buddy. If you're doing this only part-time, find a like-minded part-time hustler. Introverted? You can do this on your own! Just make sure you are holdin' yourself a-c-c-o-u-n-t-a-b-l-e.
Now here's the framework - we've tweaked this a bit to fit our own needs, so feel free to build from this base yourself.
🤝 Check-in (5 minutes) - this is where you start off with a positive mindset. We like to do a "one good personal / one good business" check-in from both of us to kick it off. 🧠 Puts everyone in a positive mindset and it's fun to hear good things about each other.🤝 Scorecard Update (5 minutes) - This is simple - only report on the key metrics. Don't assess them - just state them. For example: I made 4 posts this week. 💯 Total Facebook reach was 1,230 users. I brought in 6 leads this week. I converted 2 of those leads. My average sale this week was $78 dollars. My total revenue this week was... you get the point. Find the key metrics for your business and record them here.🤝 Rock Update (5 minutes) - Rocks are quarterly goals. You set up a quarterly "Rock" and then you give an update on it. For example, a Rock can be "teaching cookie classes in Q2." 🪨 Since we're in Q2, this will be a Rock we're working towards. An update would be, "I secured a location to teach classes" or "I signed up for the Cookie Class Kits to use the materials to teach my first class." (shameless plug)🤝 Customer/Employee Headlines (5 minutes) - These are any major company updates or any wins you've received from customers. You can announce you're discontinuing a product, adding a new product, or a 🥂 5-star review your client left ya on Google. 🤝 Action Item Review List (5 minutes) - This is where you review you last week's "to-do" list. What did ya get done, how it went, what it produced, etc. This is not where you add to your to-do list nor where you asses why things didn't get done - that's the next step. ✅ This is just a "what did you do last week" point.🤝 Issues: Identify / Discuss / Resolve (60 minutes) - The meat and potatoes of this meeting (meat-ing?), the IDS portion is where you talk about roadblocks, where they're coming from, and what you can do to work past them. This is a good place to break down bigger, more overwhelming tasks. 🚧 For example, "teach a cookie class" is too big. What do you need to do first before you can teach a class? Secure a venue. Add "reach out to venues to find a free location" to your to-do list for this week. -
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💸 Price vs Value Prop - Value is relative(ly easy to manipulate).
I was watching a YouTube video featuring a TedTalk where a salesman asks a member of the audience for their pen. He then asks how much the person bought the pen for. "Five dollars," the guy tells him. The salesman then asks if anyone in the audience wants to buy his newly acquired pen for $5 bucks.✍️ The salesman then says he's going to take the pen and drive it to a ritzy part of town to an expensive jeweler where he's going to place the pen in a mahogany wooden box lined with velvet and place it in a glass case and point a spotlight at it where you can only view the pen with the assistance of an employee who will unlock it from its secured cabinet. 🎁
The salesman asks, 🤔 "Do you think the pen would still be worth $5?"
The resounding answer was that the very same pen that was worth $5 is now worth more. Why? ✨The value changed✨ - even when the pen didn't. The more value we create, the higher the price point we can set.
💎 Consider the diamond-water paradox when thinking about value vs. price. 💧
Diamonds are far more expensive than water. The price of tap water is negligible and the average price of a 3-carat diamond is $41,395 (according to Google's AI).
But... ☀️ consider the shift if you were stranded in the desert, starved and dying of thirst. 🥵 Diamonds become worthless when your life is on the line, and the ✨value✨ of water has increased exponentially. While neither water nor diamonds changed - the situation around them did.
And value, the subjective worth of an object, increased the price of water and decreased the price of diamonds (to the desert dweller at least).
🤔 So - how do we apply this price/value concept to your bakery?
Increase ✨value✨ so you don't have to compete on price. This means adding value to everything around your product - your packaging, your photography, your customer experience, your response times, your availability, your product line, your return policy, etc.
Then raise your prices. Why? 🧠 We simple-minded humans associate high value = high prices.
A good indicator that your "value proposition" needs some polishing up is if you're getting a lot of price objections. The value isn't at the forefront yet, so they focus on price. Once you get your value proposition dialed in, price pushers will become a thing of the past.
👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by clickin' here - Episode 160 - Price vs Value Prop.
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🥲 Excuse my Excuses - Don't cry unless you've tried (everything).This week's podcast is a deep dive into a post I made in the group earlier this week - the post regarding "woe is me" threads saying the cookie industry is done, pack it up kids, you don't gotta go home, but you can stay... in this kitchen.
You see - that defeatist mentality ain't go no business being in a business-centric group. It will limit your sales and, over time, cause you to quit. Quite literally the opposite of marketing and growth mindsets.
😭 "But I've tried (and cried) everything! It's not working anymore!"
Have you, though? Have you actually tried everything? Because there are now 159 Baking it Down podcast episodes covering 159 marketing tactics. And I'll wager you aint' tried even a third of the stuff we talked about. That's what today's podcast is about.And even if you did - 🥤 have you ever wondered why Coca-Cola, founded in 1886, ✨still✨ buys ad space at the beginning of every movie? 🎥 They've been at this for 138 years and they still keep hittin' the marketing campaign trail! It's because consistency - over long periods of time - produces results.
Marketing ain't a one-and-done. If it was, I'd be out of a job and 🤑 cookiers would be millionaires. It's repeated effort for a really, really long time. Let's jump into the post.
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I often see people complain about their local markets in these groups.
🧈 The price of butter is too high,📉 Competitor prices are too low,👥 The market is saturated,🚫 The market doesn't want cookies,🎟️ Too many people teaching cookie classes,🪑 Too few people taking cookie classes,👎 The competition isn't as good as you,😭 The competition has more tag-happy friends than you.
You get the point.👀 There are 45,000 people here - so I get the honor of reading many contradicting opinions on why sales aren't where we expected them to be.
Teeechnically... 🙅 you can only write "the cookie game is done" if you attempted every marketing tactic covered in this group. Then, and only then, can you say with certainty that the party is truly over.
🏃 I mean - how can you say you won't win a foot race if you never ran the race in the first place? Same applies to marketing. Can't say you can't sell anything if you didn't try everything in your power to sell it.
You can't say, "No one buys my cookies" if you never told absolutely everyone that you were selling cookies, right?
So allow me to ask... have you:
✅ Attempted to market to commercial businesses by dropping by with a logo cookie.✅ Worked on growing your review profile by getting new reviews and responding to bad reviews in a way that will increase sales.✅ Focused on upping your curb appeal for in-person pickups.✅ Implemented copy formulas to increase conversion rates - AIDA, PAS, 4 C's, 4 U's, Before After Bridge.✅ Implented "customer delight" methods to differentiate yourself from your competitors.✅ Used better adjectives to make your products and pitches sound more appealing in social media posts and emails.✅ Streamlined your branding for easier brand recognition across all print and digital profiles.✅ Run g-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s to engage your page / group audience frequently.✅ Focused on adding value to local community groups each week.✅ Created your own local community group to better facilitate a value-added hyper-local community group.✅ Consistently posted to your social media every week for an entire year.✅ Created an email list on a newsletter sender (Mailchimp, Flodesk, Constant -
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🤦♀ Comfy Mistakes - Getting comfortable with uncomfy mistakes.
We had a (very) abbreviated podcast today - thanks to the door guys. 🚪 But in the few minutes we did get to chit-chat, we wanted to touch on "uncomfortable mistakes."😿 Being bad at something sucks. It's no fun making mistakes. In fact, it feels like bad business acumen to make mistakes, right? I mean - imagine a business built on mistakes. Who would want to hire them!?
But successful businesses were built on the backs of mistakes. It's the "failing forward" that separates the business-ending mistakes from the "oh - I learned another way not to do that, let me try something else" business-building mistakes.
🤦♀ Mistakes mean you’re learning.
If you're not failing, you're not learning. There's a clip on Reddit of a guy learning to do a backflip - he actually gets pretty okay, then starts doing worse before finally sticking the landing. *crowd goes wild*
🧠 That's how the brain works (well, not in learning how to back flip - I ain't got the health insurance plan to be trying that).
You try something new, and in your cluelessness, you have a bit of beginner's luck. As you intentionally refine your process, you get a little worse before finally becoming successful at something. Congrats - you learned something - you failed forward.
🤦♀ Growth = failing forward.
There's a difference between "failing" and ➡️ "failing forward." In the prior, you likely quit. This is the wrong type of mistake. The mistake we want is where we know we're going to mess up, but the whole time, we're making mental notes - "Ah yes, don't put the green Jimmy sprinkle in before the cake batter has cooled - that gives E.coli vibes. Noted."
📝 Then back to the drawing board once more to implement what we now know not to do - ta-da! We just failed forward. Enough failing forwards and you've got yourself a new skill, my friend!
🤦♀ Bring clients into the learning phase.
Don't be shy - invite others to cry! Kidding, it rhymed. But Corrie had a good point. When clients ask her to do stuff "out of her wheelhouse," she lets them know!
🤝 "Hey - this would be my first time trying that technique - I've always wanted to attempt it. Worst case, you got yourself some free red cake pops, best case, you got what you wanted! Let's do this!"
🤦♀ Have a refund fund ready to go.
Mistakes are only hard to stomach if someone loses. But in the event of failing forward, we hedge our bets with our "oopsie budget" - 👮♂ the proverbial baker get-outta-jail-free card when it comes to making mistakes. That way mistakes don't hurt so bad (our ego and our wallets). It's easier to take a risk when you know there's a financial net there to break your fall.
👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by searching - Baking it Down - Episode 158 - Uncomfy Mistakes.
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