Want to know the secret to doubling sales in your home baking business? Today I am resharing two of my top tips that helped me to see increase within my home bakery and build more brand awareness.
Remember that all growth does take time. In business there will always be ups and downs but showing up for yourself and not giving up is key.
In this episode we will cover:
Busines FREEBIES:
Grab my FREE resource guide and get 30 plus resources to level-up your home bakery business click here to grab my FREE guide and get more tips from me every week.http://bit.ly/bakersresources
Are we friends on Instagram? If you enjoyed this episode TAG ME at @bakingforbusiness
I really do appreciate each and every one of you guys and LOVE meeting new baking friends.
Want to know the secret to doubling sales in your home baking business? Today I am resharing two of my top tips that helped me to see increase within my home bakery and build more brand awareness.
Remember that all growth does take time. In business there will always be ups and downs but showing up for yourself and not giving up is key.
In this episode we will cover:
Busines FREEBIES:
Grab my FREE resource guide and get 30 plus resources to level-up your home bakery business click here to grab my FREE guide and get more tips from me every week.http://bit.ly/bakersresources
Are we friends on Instagram? If you enjoyed this episode TAG ME at @bakingforbusiness
I really do appreciate each and every one of you guys and LOVE meeting new baking friends.
Hey, sweet friends, my name is Chef Schaumburg. I started my baking business with a bottle of DeCerano and one Bundt Cake pan. Fast forward to today, from news to magazines, speaking on national stages and more. I can truly say that baking has changed my life. So now, as a bakery business coach, i get to help others have the same success. I've helped hundreds of my students across the world and my global membership program create six figure businesses, mainly from home. The Baking for Business podcast is an extension of that, from actionable tips to valuable tools and resources that can impact you as a business owner. I truly believe y'all. We would never have been given a gift if we couldn't profit and prosper from it. So come on, darling. What are you waiting for? Hey, baking friends, i hope you guys are having a wonderful day.
Speaker 1:So have you ever wondered how I actually doubled sales in my business? I share all the time behind the scenes and in-depth looks and I'm always preaching and teaching and helping you guys get more sales. And sometimes people ask me about my business personally because on the Baking for Business podcast, i share my student success, and I do that because I want you to see that things are possible, not just for myself, but for others also. So I had someone say I want to know how you did it, like what were some steps that you specifically worked on, and all of these things I share are things I've actually worked on, but I thought it would be really cool to share two particular things that really helped me to change my business and actually double my sales. When I look back over the years, making these changes is really what helped me to grow my business locally my home baking business And so today I hope that these things help you also, so let's go ahead and get into it. If you are not, do me a favor. If you are not following me on social media, what are you waiting for? Because I love hearing from you guys. I love when you guys tag me and tag the show. I Am Human, i talk and I write back to each and every single one of you guys. So if you've been enjoying the Baking for Business podcast, please do me a favor, follow me at Baking for Business on Instagram and let me know what you'd like to hear, what you want to see me cover, or I may be able to direct you to an episode that you may have already looked over. All right, so let's get into it. Two ways I doubled my sales in my home baking business. One of the first ways got my little handy dandy notes here so I don't miss anything. One of the first ways was actually creating my own promotions.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I know some people are in cities and generally I'm going to tell you, go where the volume is. You know, i think every baker should be active. You should participate in pop-ups, festivals, local events and all those things. However, some people don't have events in their area. Or what if you do have events in your area let's say a farmer's market or something like that and you notice that their book, maybe they already have amount of vendors and there's no room for you. That's actually one of the first things I noticed when I first started. I started in the farmer's market that was in another city. It was a small little city called Denim. However, the main market that I wanted to be in, they already had enough vendors. So usually, like most people, i could cry, i could have a pity party or you know we'll. There's no orders around here and you know all the excuses, because I'm big on when you guys give me excuses. I'm like no honey, let's take your excuse and let's turn it into an effort, because that just means you have to give more effort. And then so I decided well, what if I had my own sales? I mean, as a business, that's what we're supposed to do anyway. So there are three promotions that I worked on particularly to make sure that I was bringing in sales in my business. One of those was daily offers.
Speaker 1:Now, you can go against me with this. I know some people have a totally different opinion with this, and my opinion on that is that that's why some of y'all stay broke. But I know a lot of bakers who are like Oh, I have to have a 72 hour notice, or I have to have a week's notice in order to fulfill a cake order. And I'm like well, what if it's something simple? You know, i'm always telling my students especially those of you guys who are listening who say I want to leave this job and I want to do this full time. Well, honey, in order to do this full time, you're going to have to have money coming to the business every single day. So if you're not getting daily sales in your business now, how is that going to change Now that the overhead is lower when you're at home, because when you're at a bakery, what do you notice? bakeries have? they have case cakes and what do they have available every day? whole cakes for people to buy.
Speaker 1:But somehow there's this, this, this stigma or this attitude that's floating around and a lot of baking groups and stuff like that. Well, i need to notice and this and that or, and then we take it as if the person is being rude because they didn't order cake in advance. Here's the thing, honey When you start to get your business found and for a lot of my students, their orders come off of the internet, they don't come off social media. Number one. Number two when you start to get more traffic to your business, if you're not able to quickly turn around a product, that's going to be a problem.
Speaker 1:So one of the things I started offering was daily offers, and one of the reasons why and I'll give you a big tip is I had a person call me years ago and I had that mentality to and I wasn't really keeping things on hand, things in the freezer, things that a person could just grab and go, which is what I was doing was I was just going to grab and go cakes. And what happens is someone died. Now what am I supposed to tell her? Oh well, that person that they should have died 72 hours ago. So I haven't noticed to fulfill cakes. No, in fact, i actually found out. This is a big nugget. So you ready? write this down, because if you know about keywords and you know how to use this, this may help you, and I think one of the biggest tips is actually one of the top Google things online.
Speaker 1:And so she was looking to send a cake as a gift. So, because I felt bad and because I knew in my right mind, i was like I'm going to make a cake and create a cake. I just, you know, make it naked, slap it together. It doesn't take much time. After I had that order, she gave me a tip. I felt so much better and I said you know what? I should probably start doing this and keeping this on hand. And this was years ago.
Speaker 1:And then I did, after I was ready to go to keep cakes on hand, and what I found was that the more I listed my business on places off of social media, the more phone calls I got. And when those calls came in, i was ready because I didn't have a mentality of you have to give me 72 hours to be told I can decorate a cake and decorate a cake in less than 10 minutes, and there are tons of ways to make a cake look glamorous that you can decorate in less than 10 minutes. Shout out to all my students and entrepreneur community because you guys know I'm very big on this on you having daily and weekly offers. So, creating daily offers, that was one of the first things. After that, the second thing was creating weekly offers. So, again, since I didn't qualify for why? I want to say I didn't qualify but they were booked and I wasn't able to get into this market And I knew that I had to push my business in front of other people, okay, well, what are some of the other ways that I can partner with companies and businesses so that I can get my product in front of people?
Speaker 1:A lot of times when you guys feel like I wish I had more followers or I wish I have more sales, sometimes you have to break that on down and don't worry, i'm here to break it down for you. That's what a bacon business coaches for. So usually, when I hear you struggle with followers and sales. What I know you normally have is a traffic problem and you have a brand awareness problem, so you're not getting the traffic that you feel you need to get so that people can know who you are, and you're not raising the brand awareness that you should be raising so people do know who you are. All right, so I wasn't going to let traffic be my excuse. And again, for those who were like there's no market here or the markets book, then this podcast is for you, honey, because we're not going to let traffic be your excuse.
Speaker 1:So the next thing was I came up with weekly offers, and what made this even better was that I was able to partner with other third party platforms. Now, everybody doesn't have this Option. Some third party platforms allow you to partner with them If you are a home baker, some don't. However, i also had access to a commercial kitchen, which I could use anytime that I did need to prepare stuff aside from home. So do I bake from home? so there's a home baker? Yes, but do I have access to additional kitchen space? Yes, and then I also have office space too, and I still have all three of those to this day.
Speaker 1:So, when I had weekly offers that allowed me to show up. I was on waiter, i was on Uber Eats. I did Door Dash. I didn't like Door Dash at all And Grubhub was not allowed in the state of Louisiana for a home baker. But waiter and Uber Eats, that was my jam And I rocked that out for a couple of years And every single week I showed up and I had a different offer. Now hear me out. You don't have to be on waiter or Uber Eats, but what is something weekly that you can be doing in your business to where people start to know you, they start to get familiar with it, and you always, always, always, have an offer, something that's available. All right, so now we're still on step one, excuse me, which is creating your own promotions.
Speaker 1:So I went over how I added daily promotions, how I added weekly promotions. The last thing I did was that I did partnerships with other locally owned businesses And because I would partner with locally owned businesses, get this You ready for it I was doing pop ups for free. So therefore, as opposed to entering pop ups that had other people, competition, additional vendors and stuff like that, what I found was that when I work with the business one on one. Normally they did not mind me setting up in their shop. I would talk to them, i would pitch them. There is a way that you go about getting those, and if you're an entrepreneur community, let's continue this conversation because we can definitely do so there. However, i'm just giving you the idea for all listeners, for you to DIY work on it on your own If you don't want to work with me, but hey, no pressure. But I would reach out to other stores and that allowed me to pop up and that allowed me to use their traffic in order to get more eyes on my business.
Speaker 1:Ok, i found stores like boutiques, stores that had my ideal clients, stores where they were selling things at a price point to where I knew Hell, if I wouldn't buy it. I would look at it and be like who, what? that's how much? right, because we talk on last week's podcast eight mistakes about how, sometimes, when we have a certain feeling towards money, that we tend to project those thoughts onto our customers. So I wasn't going to. No, no, rinky, dinky stores or nothing like that. These were consignment shops. These were nice stores that were owned locally by people that didn't mind me.
Speaker 1:Partnering So was the win-win. I would give out some samples while I was there, but I would also sell some products while I was there, so I was able to get the brand awareness. Then I was able to convert those people because I was building a list Like I tell you guys all the time, you should always be taking emails So I was able to convert those people from the store traffic and bring them into my world, and then that helped me increase sales whenever I would send out emails. Ok, so that's the third way. So we have daily promotions, weekly promotions and in-store partnerships, all right. So now the second tip that was all on tip one was creating my own promotions.
Speaker 1:The second tip was that I decided to switch to corporate orders or to solely focus on corporate orders. One of the reasons why I wanted to focus on corporate orders is not why people think so many people assume that, well, corporate orders means you're always making hundreds of orders for these big companies And while that is great and it is true sometimes there are other companies and corporations who order as well, who may just order one or two hundred, as opposed to people who order five and six hundred all the time. But the reason why I switched to corporate orders was because I knew that these people were spending money that's not theirs. They had to provide for their employees, so they had to fill the gap. Anyways and most of these companies actually do love giving and hiring locally owned businesses. In the month of, during Black History Month, we have some students in my membership who were actually able to get corporate orders with Target. They were found organically which I'm a big pusher being found organically, making sure you put yourself on places besides social media, and they were able to work with those brands and companies.
Speaker 1:So when I switched my focus and I switched my focus three ways. Number one, by switching my social media strategy to make sure that I was talking and I was showing and I was displaying offers and items that I had that would actually benefit a company or corporation if they choose to hire me. That was the first step. The second step was that I was actively promotion promoting, excuse me, i believe firmly in Mike and Ike, meaning your two feet. There's this company. I just shared it with my students inside of my group coaching program, the entrepreneur community, and it's called Taylor Chip And I love them And one of the reasons why I love them is because they've been featured on Forbes and taste in all these other places. And no matter how much they've been featured, no matter how long they've been in business, they still get out every single week And they give out samples and they get out and they talk to their community. They push themselves.
Speaker 1:I find one of the main reasons why big occurs, why you guys struggle so much with sales, is because some of y'all are just lazy as fuck. You sit on your ass, you can make a social media profile and then you think, oh, i'm posting, i'm posting, I'm posting, so the sales are going to come. Honey, you've got to do more than post. And some of y'all post and ghost. You post and then you don't talk back, you never show your face, people don't talk to you. Now you're in this whole damn loop And I'm thinking why would people buy from you? you don't show up consistently, and when you do show up and post, you don't even speak. Now, this isn't the social media podcast. We'll talk about that on another one. But again, so it can't just be making social media posts and thinking well, this is how I'm going to grow my business, so I would get out, i would make samples, i would have a schedule. I had a hit list of places that I knew I wanted to work with And I created this list in a certain way and we'll talk about this in a few couple weeks. But I was very intentional on speaking to people, getting out and getting to know people and networking So that I can get those accounts All right. So, poof, that's a nutshell. I want you guys to think about it, but I hope this help.
Speaker 1:Today's a quick episode. What you guys know, i like to be with y'all during your lunch break, so tag me. I love to see some of y'all got. Some of you guys are very passionate about what you eat during lunch and you tag me and you're. I was listening to my lunch break and this is what I was eating. So shout out to all those meal prep, because some of y'all been tagging me and some stuff. I'm like what is that? what are you eating? but it is. These are two ways that I've been able to double sales in my home baking business. So how can you use these strategies? number one pick one of the things that relate to you. I'm going to say that right now.
Speaker 1:Number two create a plan to work on it, but not also a plan to work on it? create a plan to promote it, because I don't want someone to do something one time and say, oh, i tried that it didn't work. I tried something 15 times before I give up on it. Some of you guys, you give up way too soon. Have you ever seen that meme where a person is digging and digging and digging? It's like the minute they decide to walk away They were only one more day. If they just want to push their shovel one more time, gold was on the other side, but they got tired and they gave up, so they never get the gold. That's how some of you guys are and I want you to change that. Continue to show up, no matter how many times you get told no. I was listening to me with Beyonce and she was like there, she's 120 something Grammys, but she's lost 40 something times.
Speaker 1:Okay, so create a plan. Be active in promoting your plan, no matter what you hear in the beginning. Be active and be consistent and be sure you check your analytics and the data in your business so you can make changes as needed, so that you continue to show up and you continue to be better. Alright, so I hope one of these tips helps you guys. Do me a favor. If you're listening to this episode, be sure to tag me at faking for business on Instagram. I love to see you guys listening and if you have an idea for a podcast episode, slide in my deal and let me know. Don't be a stranger. I can't wait to talk with you guys more next week. Bye for now.