Baking For Business Podcast
The BFB podcast is a no fluff, no BS podcast dedicated to helping bakers, treat makers and cottage food entrepreneurs build and grow in business, life and everything in between. Chef Schonberg is devoted to sharing tips, resources and conversations tailored to those in the baking industry. With her tough love perspective and passion for marketing Chef Schonberg makes it her mission to uplift and educate those in the baking profession.
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Baking For Business Podcast
#Ep 88: From Viral Home Baker To Digital Product Success With Sarah Does Sourdough
Can a loaf of bread change your life? For Sarah from Sarah's Sourdough(@saradoessourdough), the answer is a resounding yes. Join us as we unravel Sarah's journey from an Australian stay-at-home mom in Oklahoma to a flourishing sourdough entrepreneur.
Discover how Sarah managed to scale her home-based bakery from humble porch pickups to a thriving enterprise, thanks to a pivotal viral moment and a strategic focus on digital products. Sarah’s $20 ebook, "Sourdough for Beginners," became an overnight success, generating over $13,000 and proving the power of trust and relatability in building a loyal customer following.
In this episode, we will discuss:
- How Sarah started her cottage bakery
- How she transitioned from wholesale to porch pick up's
- How she uses content to grow her brand
- How she is using her platform to teach others to have sourdough success with digital products and more
Want to connect with Sarah? Follow her here on Instagram (Sara Does Sourdough)
Ready to make sourdough? Check out her guide here and be on the lookout for her new video course.
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Hey, sweet friends, my name is Chef Sean Bird. I started my baking business with a bottle of DeSorono 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 in my global membership program create six-figure businesses, mainly from home.
Speaker 1: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, sweet friends, and welcome back to the Baking for Business podcast. Today is a wonderful day because we are talking to Sarah from Sarah's Sourdough. Chances are you've probably seen her viral post the beautiful young lady who sets up for her porch pickup and chances are you've definitely seen her beautiful breads and the amazing crumbs that she shares. Today she's going to talk all about how she started her journey, but also her amazing digital products, how she's helping people in the sourdough realm to grow, expand their business and get started. So, sarah, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Hello, glad to be here, Hi listeners.
Speaker 1:It's so nice to meet you. So for those who may not know, how did you get started baking in general?
Speaker 2:So I was never a big baker until COVID actually. So I became like a stay at home mom and just needed, you know, some different hobbies. I am a hobby girl. I'm always like dabbling in different hobbies so music, art, cooking but I was like never a baker. And after I had COVID I actually had something called parosmia and this is where like food, like lots of different food tasted like rotten meat for 18 months and it was horrible and as like a foodie, like that was honestly, this sounds so dramatic because it's just food, but it was a very dark time in my life and then so it was most food for you know, a long time that tasted like rotten meat, except for like bread and potatoes. So I you might notice my weird accent I'm actually Australian and I've been living in Oklahoma for almost nine years now.
Speaker 2:When I first came to America, I had like extreme culture shock with the food. So food here it was just very different. Everything is like sweet and everything and I'm used to it. Now I love American food now. Okay, I just wasn't used to everything like being fried and everything having sugar and like so much salt. I wasn't, it was just a cultural shock, but I love. I love American food now Okay, don't get me wrong but it was especially the bread that gave me some culture shock. It's like it's a different type of bread to the bread back home in Australia and in Europe and it's sweet. And so during this time after COVID, where I was, a large portion of my diet was bread. I was a little bit miserable because it wasn't like the type of bread that I love. And then I started seeing like sourdough all over my social media. Like did you ever get the sourdough algorithm?
Speaker 1:Yes, I guess a lot.
Speaker 2:So I just saw, honestly, like it wasn't professional bakers making the sourdough bread, they were like stay-at-home moms doing it. I had a lot of time on my hands, I was at home, so stay-at-home mom, and I just decided I thought you know what? And so stayed home mom, and I just decided I thought you know what, I'm just desperate for some good bread so I can have some tasty Vegemite on toast. And so I started sourdough baking. And so I was never a big baker before that I hadn't. I wasn't baking muffins or cookies or any other type of bread. I just like sour baking was my first exposure to baking in general.
Speaker 2:Um, so I I took it took like a month to make a good loaf. Um, first of all, I made my starter from scratch and it was definitely not ready when I started. Uh, I, I wish I had photos of my first loaf. I was too embarrassed by it, but it's like no, I wish I had a photo so I could just see how far it came. But it took a month to make a good loaf and from there, you know, I just became obsessed. So, yeah, that was so. I baked my first loaf of sourdough January 2022. That's the timeline, yeah.
Speaker 1:So from going through that, dealing with the, the food kind of allergy relax reaction that you had, and then finding sourdough and falling in love, what made you decide to say, okay, I want to do this as, as a business?
Speaker 2:So, um, I never, ever, ever thought I could have a business, that I could run a business. Um, my husband is the entrepreneur of us. I am always, I have always been, we've been, entrepreneur of us. I am always, I have always been, we've been. We got married very young. I have always been like I will support you and cheer you on, like I was always that person. I never thought like I could make money in this way. So, um, like I said, I became obsessed with sourdough.
Speaker 2:I was literally for almost a year, giving away 10 to 15 loaves a week. I was baking so much bread to give away to family, friends, neighbors. We didn't have much money at the time at all, so it was just a way to give to people as well. Um, a fresh loaf of bread is worth a lot to someone. They, they know that you love them when you, when you bake them a fresh loaf of bread. I was doing that and people would say to me you should sell this, you should sell this. And I think I was just so self-conscious, like not confident at all. I didn't think it was like that good, good enough to sell. I didn't want to have to worry about having a business or like the different. I'd heard about cottage food laws. When I looked into a little bit, I didn't want to have to deal with that, so it was never on my radar at all.
Speaker 2:And then, january 2023, I got approached by one of my friends who started a market. She started a little food market basically a farmer's market, but like in a little shop, and she needed a sourdough bender. She said, hey, why don't you just try it out? Um, so that was January 2023. I sold my first loaf of sourdough bread. I just went, I had to take that jump and just went ahead and did it. I went to actually drop my loaf off. At like I had like six loaves my first drop. I went to drop those off and I thought, oh my gosh, I need like packaging, like I don't have like a name or anything. So I thought I'll just do Sarasota, it's literally on the fly and I don't know. I just I just stuck with that since then.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. And so now you're doing the markets. You've sold your first loaf. I'm pretty sure business picks up because from selling that first loaf to now having posts where you're doing your porch pickup which your porch pickup posts went viral. So now you go from selling from markets to having this beautiful at-home setup. What made you decide to jump on the bandwagon of pop-ups and just really doing your own big sales from home?
Speaker 2:So when I was doing it's the wholesale model, that's how I started. I was selling it at my bread at a discount to a market and so that they could make money, right, so you sell it for less, and it was always on like their schedule. I had to do a certain amount at a certain time each week and as a mom of littles um, that was I like wanted to do it. I, like you know, I was very much like hustling that first little bit, um, but it was putting a lot of stress on me, um, cause I had. How old was I? I had a six month old at that point. Um, yeah, my youngest was six months, and so I just thought it would be wise if I start, if I didn't put all my eggs in one basket.
Speaker 2:I really wanted to start building my own customer base. Technically, my only customer was this one little market. I tried a little market pop-up. That just it was. It was fine, but it was just a bit more stressed than I wanted. You can tell I'm not. I don't like being stressed, um, so, yeah, so I actually saw some other people on Instagram doing like a porch pickup model. One of them was the early rise in San Francisco they did this porch pickup model and so I went ahead, I signed up. There's this platform called hot plate, which is actually the great platform I think. Have they been on your podcast before?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we talked to the CEO Rishi. He shared a wonderful platform, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I got on that, I started using that and I had my first porch pickup I think in March of 2023. And I had three orders and I was so excited it just went on from there. I just kept it consistent. So I was doing wholesale and porch pickups at the same time and my end goal was to just do porch pickups, cause I knew, like with my, the way my family is, like my husband's, very, very busy. He's so supportive, but he has his own business. Um, and then I have my two girls. I just knew like the porch pickup model would be what's best for our family If I could just be home and run my business completely from home on my own schedule and build up my own customer base from that. And so, yes, that's what I started doing and I did it every single week. So that was March. I started some weeks. I did not get any orders at all and I would still bake and then reach out to my customers. And, yeah, guess what people, if they found out you just baked a fresh loaf of bread, they'll come drive and pick it up and pay for it.
Speaker 2:Um so um, the biggest thing was just being consistent with that. I wanted to be known as my customer's baker, their bread baker. So what happened was I got to a point I was baking 50 loaves a week out of my home oven and I was spent. I was getting to that point of being stressed again. It's like baker burnout, right when it's like I need to invest in some more equipment to make this more manageable so I could make more money as well in less time. And so it was October of 2023. I invested in a bread oven very large investment, like $8,000. I invested in a bread oven very large investment, like $8,000. And I spent a couple other you know few more grand like with some other bakery equipment that I couldn't have at home here.
Speaker 2:And in that same week, um, I had my first like viral video and it was me setting up for my porch pickup and since then I think so I think I my hot plate like customer base was like 200 people at that point, and then after that week, it got up to 700 people. So I've gained like 500 customers that signed up to my menu notifications like one week. So that happened. And then I also I didn't know this was a thing I had a my post on Facebook marketplace go viral. I didn't know that you could get trending on Facebook marketplace, but that's what happened, so a lot of people locally found me from that as well, and I'm so thankful. Um, I dropped wholesale cause, you know, like I said, push pickup was my goal just to bake once a week, do it all from my home, have customers come to me, meet my customers, and so I dropped wholesale and ever since then, this is what I've been doing every single week.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, and so now fast forward. You're being profitable with your sourdough, you're having amazing success. Your posts have gone viral and with that comes questions. So one of the things I always recommend to my students is to scale, and you did that beautifully, because you got started with digital products, which I love. And so was there a fear of how did you now, where you stepped into the digital realm of thinking, do I want to share my recipes? Should I? Yes, Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, the thing about teaching is you're being very vulnerable because it's like you're literally like am I qualified to teach someone this? Like what if my student does better than me? Like there's a lot of that type of thing. And so, literally, like, if you decide you're going to teach someone something you have to be willing to like, let that go Right, and like, let it go and let all that self consciousness go, let insecurity go, and just, you know what the best thing you can do in life is pass on skills and, um, teach others. You know what the gift that you have in your hands and hope that they do better than you.
Speaker 2:And so I got asked a lot with the, you know, my, my account was growing and a lot of people were asking me. They were seeing that I was teaching in-person classes and they said are you going to take this online? I really want to learn from you. Um, there's a lot of beginner sourdough resources out there, but you know, people are drawn to certain teachers and so, for my audience, I really wanted to put something out there where they could learn sourdough just from scratch, and so I came out with a digital product. It's a $20 ebook Sourdough for Beginners a step-by-step guide to making your first loaf. That's all it is. It's literally, it's not too complicated, it's just. This is how you make your first loaf and it's an overview of understanding sourdough. It's kind of like a foundational resource.
Speaker 2:So I came out with that with December 2023. And I think it's made like $13,000. Whoa, that is awesome. Yes, and so most of that was right at the start. You know, you know I get it. You know, maybe once a day it trickles in and some days a bit a bit more orders Depends. If I have a video, do really well, funny enough, sell more of those. But I just have the one, one resource right now and I'm working on some others for in the future.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and I think that's so amazing because too often people think you know that they have to sell, like multiple recipes, or they have to keep putting things out there. But you literally you've generated over $13,000 in additional revenue to your bakery brand with just one $20 guide.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that is so amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm so, I'm so thankful and it's amazing Like the. The number one thing is like I made something like that exactly fits my what my audience wanted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you said it best too. Everyone always has that question of okay, well, it's free or it's already out there, like why would someone buy from me? But it's because people buy from who they can relate to and not everyone gives information the same. So I love how you said it's like it's step-by-step. You walk your people through and they have that one resource where they can learn from seeing you, and then take it to the book and then learn how to learn how to do it themselves. And so from that guide, what platform do you sell your guide on?
Speaker 2:It's just on my website. I looked into Etsy and stuff and I thought I already have a website that I'm paying for. I'll just put it on there. So that's what I'm not. I'm not like a pro website person. I just use Wix.
Speaker 1:I just I do too. I use Wix, I love Wix. We have an amazing Wix guy, and that's awesome, because sometimes it's just about doing the best you can with what you have. Like you said, you already have a site, so there's no need in investing both. So what is your day-to-day look like now in selling digital products and being a cottage baker? What does a day in the life look like?
Speaker 2:Okay. So, honestly, the way, the way I live my life is to have as much downtime as I possibly can, and so I work really hard, like three days a week basically. Uh, well, two and a half days, so like from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday evening I'm working really hard, and then the rest of the week I'm with my family and with my girls and we're having fun, and so so basically Tuesday afternoon I'm prepping all my ingredients for prep day, which is Wednesday. Tuesday afternoon I also I feed my starter, I measure out all my water and flour and everything and salt. Like I do everything so that it's easy when I wake up in the morning on Wednesday, I wake up at four or 5am and I mix my dough. I do about 130 bakes a week, so that includes like bread and like pizza bases and stuff, um, and so that's about how much I can do right now and that is that is a wonderful like over 100 loaves as just a one woman entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:That is amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good like to be able to do that weekly. Like I'm so thankful it's a lot of work, um, but I'm I'm thankful that that consistency. Now, wednesday, I'm prepping all day. I've hired a baking assistant, which was one of the best things that I did. Like she does all the cleanup, the cookie dough packaging, helps me weigh out loaves um, also, without her at this point I wouldn't have time to make so much content, and so she just saves me a lot of hours with cleanup and stuff to where I can put that into making content and so, speaking of content, do you notice any one post in particular that helped you to like, really sell your eBooks, or any one post that your students like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, when, basically, when I talk about, okay, this is how you make a sourdough loaf, um, those, definitely those do the best because it is literally what my eBook is about. And so when I, whenever I mentioned the ebook, it sells a lot of like. I post a lot of lifestyle content as well, like what my life looks like in the cottage bakery, and not every post is meant to sell my ebook, right, um, and not all my posts do so. I have noticed, in particular, ones that talk about my ebook, or ones that are about like, how to make, actually how to make that, or those are the.
Speaker 1:That's the content that I noticed that I've taken sales, yeah, that's awesome, and so now, from this amazing guide that you have, now you're working on another awesome digital product resource for your students, which is showing them how they can host their own community classes, which is something I'm passionate about as well. So, community sourdough classes. So what will that resource look like for your students, and tell us what made you want to share that one okay, so I hosted I think it was 15 live workshops last year.
Speaker 2:Um, particularly sourdough, right, because that's what I do. I had so many local people wanting to, wanting to learn from me, and so I started doing workshops. I honestly was so stressed about it when I was first doing it. It was a lot of just figuring things out, but last year, 2023, alone, with just doing workshops, that added $15,000 to my business. Yes, yes, and most of that time I was severely undercharging as well. Um, so I must how many? I said I did 15 classes. It was either. It was between 15 and 20, um classes, and and so I honestly, I have so many cottage bakers that follow me and my journey and so many people are like, ask, you know, you can tell like they wanted to know how I was doing classes.
Speaker 2:They were in the same spot I was last year trying to figure things out, because people want to learn from them too, and so I wanted to put together a resource to show people how to teach a sourdough class, and so it's a video workshop. It's fully recorded, like masterclass style kind of thing. It's an all in one package, like giving you all the resources for it, but it's also like teaching you how to come up with your own class as well. It is particularly sourdough. Yeah, I know I'll get asked, asked questions can I do this? If I have like a cookie business and something it is, I did make it for, in particular, how to host a sourdough workshop, um. So, yes, that's the. That's a resource. I'm excited. It's. It's honestly it's to add another income stream to people's cottage bakery business. But even like stay-at-home moms that know the skill of sourdough there's so many people like that out there and so, yes, excited.
Speaker 1:I love this for you. I know your baking followers, your fans. They're going to benefit because really that's the only two ways that I found to honestly scale within this realm is either with teaching, teaching classes and teaching digital products. So your students would definitely benefit from that. And for all you sourdough lovers, we will have all of Sarah's information in the show notes, so if you click it, you will be able to go straight to her guide. You'll also be able to go to her website so that you can join her mailing list and get all the details of when that course drops. And so, sarah, what advice would you have for anyone who, in their baking business, is thinking about a digital product, but they're scared?
Speaker 2:I would ask you like why? Why are you scared? You kind of have to get to the root of the problem. For me, coming out with a digital product, I knew I was being so vulnerable and I found out the fear was out of a place of insecurity, and so I was. Honestly, I battled with insecurity a lot of my life. I'm kind of just I'm in my confidence era right now, yeah, and so a lot of it is just believing in yourself. You have a gift that the world needs. There is someone that is going gonna thank god that you taught them what. What you taught them, it's gonna impact people's lives. Um, you have, you have this gift in your hands and it's kind of a selfish thing to keep that to yourself, girl. So, yeah, and some people just need that little push, that little encouragement, that little bit of you know showing them how to do it, which, amanda, I mean, that's what you do. You help people with digital resources, digital products, and so it's like why not?
Speaker 1:happy that you opened up and decided to share your gifts. I know that your guide will be amazing and I know that your video course is going to be awesome. Also, sarah, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for stopping by the podcast Before I let you go.
Speaker 2:We're going to play a quick game of lightning round. Are you ready? Okay, let's do it. What is your favorite color? Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite color? Blue. What is your favorite kitchen utensil? You cannot live without.
Speaker 2:I love my Danish whisk, my dough whisk.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Do you have a celebrity crush? Probably Ryan Reynolds. I don't know All the. Or the fox from Robin Hood. Oh my gosh, it's always been him.
Speaker 1:Okay. What is a dessert you cannot live without?
Speaker 2:Oh, honestly, just okay, this is going to sound weird, guys, but they're called licorice bullets. It is dark chocolate covered black licorice and I I my mom brings them from Australia. Anyone who comes visits from Australia they know they bring me so many of those, but that's something I always have. They don't sell them here, but that's something I always have in my pantry.
Speaker 1:I've never dipped my licorice, but that sounds good.
Speaker 2:It's good. Yeah, well, it's an acquired taste. It's an acquired taste. I've heard I'm obsessed, but I've heard from other people, like my husband, that it's an acquired taste. What is your favorite book? My favorite book? Definitely the Hobbit.
Speaker 1:Awesome and I believe we got through them all. Sarah, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for stopping by the podcast. It was such a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thank you All right you guys.
Speaker 1:So how amazing was Sarah. I hope that you were truly inspired by her story. There are so many different nuggets that I got from speaking to Sarah that I'm sure will definitely help you guys as well, and one of them is it's so amazing to see us evolve, not just as bakers but as women, because what I really loved is that how Sarah stated. You know, she did wholesale, but when she wanted more, she went for more Porch pickup. She did porch pickup, but when she saw an opportunity to serve more with the questions she received, she stepped into digital products. Now she has her guide, which I mean over $13,000 in sales on one guide. Oh my gosh. I love that. As a result, those are the type of results that I love for my students to have, and I know that if Sarah could do it, you can do it too.
Speaker 1:So all of her links below are in the show notes. I hope that she inspired you to all the sourdough people. You better hop on her guide, because that's gonna be your go-to to help you elevate your sourdough people. You better hop on her guide because that's going to be your go-to to help you elevate your sourdough and just all bakers in general. I hope that her story helped you to understand it's never too late to start something new. Go for your dreams and, of course, why not go digital honey? And if that's you, then I would love to invite you to Digital Wealth for Bakers as well.
Speaker 1:Digital Wealth for Bakers is an amazing online comprehensive course where I would love to invite you to Digital Wealth for Bakers as well. Digital Wealth for Bakers is an amazing online comprehensive course where I would love to be your personal guide. There's different courses to help you start, grow and build your digital product business. We have an amazing supportive community with other like-minded six-figure baking entrepreneurs there helping and contributing and making sure that everyone's questions are answered, and it is just such a beautiful place for you to network with other bakers and for me to literally hold your hand while you make your digital products. So what's stopping you? You can always visit wwwbakingforbusinesscom backslash DWB to start working with me inside of Digital World for Bakers, and I'll also add the link to the show notes as well. Until then, thank you guys so much for listening. I pray this story inspired you and, as always, take care and bye for now.