Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

158. Baking it Down - Comfy Mistakes

🤦‍♀ 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 mis...

157. Baking it Down - Deborah Deborah Deborah

⭐ Deborah Deborah Deborah When you've not been seen, heard, or understood. Grab your popcorn - 🍿 we covered a buttery topic on today's podcast when a Canadian restaurant went viral for all the wrong review reasons. 🧈 Blaming Deborah in a now globally reaching door sign, Heirloom Restaurant closed its doors this April citing issues with... well, unhappy clients. 👨‍🍳 How did they handle it? 😠 Making unhappy clients even unhappier clients. 😡 Whether it was a staged publicity stunt or a busin...

156. Baking it Down - Class is Canceled

⛔ Class is Canceled - What to do when you need to cancel cookie class. When you venture into the wild world of cookie classes, the last thing you want to do is consider canceling said cookie class. BUT - it's just a fact of life that even the most seasoned instructors will have to face a cookie class cancelation. Heck - we've been doing this for years now and it still happens. No one's above it. So best that we all learn from it. And that's today's podcast, how to mitigate having to cancel...

155. Baking it Down - Upsetspectations

😡 Upsetspectations - How setting expectations up front can keep us outta hot water. Upsetspectations - the tongue-twister we came up with to describe what setting expectations as a baker and then not meeting them as a baker creates in your clients.  🛫 Listen - you're the one piloting the plane here, you get to set the expectations because likely your clients don't really have a clue what goes into baking. But when you're the pilot 💺 and don't tell the cabin to buckle up, you set yourself u...

154. Baking it Down - Cottage Curb Appeal

🏡 Cottage Curb Appeal - How zhuzhing up your front lawn can increase sales. 🌼 Happy first day of spring! And with sunny skies (for some of us - ⛄ my apologies to y'all gettin' snow), it's time to consider that curb appeal - ya know, 👀 the stuff people are glancing at as they walk up to your house to snag their sweet treats. Ya see - marketing encompasses more than just cute captions and pretty social media posts. 🎀 It's also packaging and customer experience - and if you have at-home pick-...

153. Baking it Down - The Facebook Ouch-tage 2024

👎 Facebook Ouch-Tage - And what we can learn from Papa Zuck. I remember exactly where I was when it all happened... I was... sitting at my computer like I always am. I reached for my phone - only to realize, in horror, my access to the mighty blue thumbs-up app was no more. How was I supposed to post that absolutely hilarious baking meme (see bottom of email)?! Or... or... heart-care react to someone asking whether the "copyright violation" email was a scam or not?!!  😭 Where were YOU when...

152. Baking it Down - Copy This

✍️ Copy This - Copy Formulas for Beginners. 🗒 If you see a big blank space asking "What would you like to say" and your brain follows suit and also turns into a big blank space - copy formulas are you're new bestie.  🤔 First - what's copy?  📑 Copy is any text you use to sell or persuade someone to take an action (like buying cookies). So copy could be the caption on Instagram, the social media text you write on Facebook, the newsletter you send monthly, or the bio writeup you have on your...

151. Baking it Down - Hobby vs. Have To

🎨 Hobby vs. Have To - And what Bob Ross has to say about it Okay okay - Corrie and I couldn't agree on the ✨definition✨ of "hobby baker" since most of us are technically a hobby baker - but in reality - I don't consider filing business taxes, updating your LLC yearly registration, and tappin' a lawyer to check for a trademark anything remotely close to "hobbyist."  So for this Onesday Wednesday newsletter, we'll consider the "hobbyists" folks who don't have to make money but want to create...

150. Baking it Down - License to Delight

🪪 License to Delight - And what we can learn from $400 perfume.  Twin2 is back in her "Corporate Girly Era" with Neiman Marcus and "Patrick 2" - and here's what we learned from their customer experience manager that will help you delight your own customers all the way to the bank. Waiting up in the (fancy) corporate office of Neiman Marcus - a department store so expensive that my hands instantly got sweaty - we had a chance to speak with their CEM - Customer Experience Manager. When I men...

149. Baking it Down - I Adject...ive!

☝️ I Adject...ive! - Using different words to sweeten the deal. Your business will live and die by the words you use - either words used to make more sales or words used unintentionally to make a sworn enemy whose new purpose in life is to drag you through all the local community groups.  *shudders* But in today's podcast, we're talking about words to sweeten the deal, deter an unwanted action towards a desired one, or let the client down niiice and easy (not community group draggin' roun...

148. Baking it Down - Branding Woes

🪧 Branding Woes - The process to proceed with the perfect branding. If your commitment-averse (like yours truly), you'll find branding one of those long-term relationships you may eventually regret. So how do you build a brand when you're not sure of what you're building in the first place? Fair question. The answer? It's a tricky blend of approaches. Oh yeah - and it's very frustrating. But you know what's more frustrating? Having to re-brand after you've already established a committed f...

147. Baking it Down - Peeky Blinders

👀 Peeky Blinders - When to Look and When to Look Away The typo was intentional (this time) - 👀 it's a play on words when it comes to peeking over the proverbial fence of social media to see what our competition is up to.  🧠 But staring leads to comparing and that can be a real mind-trip wondering why the highlight reel of your nearest cookie competitor looks like they're one post away from being featured on Food Network while you're struggling for seasonal sales.  So - are we to blindly w...

146. Baking it Down - G-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s 101

🎁  G-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s - What to Watch out for Choosin' a Winner. Giveaways - do you do them? If so, what do you need to watch out for? What should you give away? How do they enter? How do you make the post? How do you choose a winner? 🧠 Giveaways are tempting - I mean, who doesn't want free stuff? Marrying a giveaway to audience growth seems like a no-brainer - 👀 buuut there are a few things you need to watch out for before you pick that winner. 🎁 Giveaways - Things to Know 🆓 Watch out fo...

145. Baking it Down - Not All Leads are Created Equal

☎️ Not All Leads Are Created Equal Let's define some words before we jump into this week's podcast topic: ✅ Lead: someone contacting you to secure a potential product or service ✅ Qualified Lead: a lead that has been vetted and is willing to pay your price or work with your availability ✅ Converted Lead: a lead that has turned into a sale, a sign-up, or a confirmation (ideally this is when money exchanges hands) ️🎯 So - the goal of marketing is to generate leads - ie. get the phone to r...

144. Baking it Down - Community Groups 101

📍 Community Groups 101 - Creating Your Greatest Lead Source Community groups - you love them, you hate them, you love to hate them, you hate to love them - but they are a lead source powerhouse, and we're not ones to sit on the sidelines when it comes to making that dough (baking and monetary types).  So what happens when you get banned from a community group? Or when your community group doesn't allow sales? Or if your community group is a dead group plagued by mobile detailing duct clean...

143. Baking it Down - EYO (End of Year) Tasks

📑 A list of EOY Tasks to set you up for sales in 2024 Hopefully you've survived the holidays and with NYE being a more muted cookie holiday, you get a chance to breathe, meet your kids you've not seen in 6 months because you've been sequestered in the kitchen, and take a little time to binge some good ol' Netflix.  During this lull of a week in between 2023 and 2024, here are some easy wins you can knock out to set yourself up for some sales in 2024 (hey - businesses don't get a break, ami...

142. Baking it Down - Burnout Boundaries

💚 Burnout Boundary - How to ward off the Spirit of Grinch-Mas. 'Tis the season to h-h-hate your bakery business. I can't even judge, I'm a slave to the "cookie SuperBowl" where we sell the MOST volume all year x10 (see the diagram from Google search queries for "Sugar Cookies" below). 🔥 It's our time to shine - shine - shine, baby, and then go out in a glorious flame of burnout bust! But that's bad for business.  So - here's Corrie's list of burnout boundaries to save ya from your sleighin...

141. Baking it Down - The Cookie Class Kits Explained

🏫 The Cookie Class Kits Explained and how you can get all 13 kits for $4.84 each Okay yeah - Heather here. I made a calendar boo-boo and thought I'd be in town on Monday, but turned out, I'll be outta town, so I had to record the "Tuesday Podcast" for the "Onesday Wednesday Newsletter" on Sunday - so, 👋 hello from the past.  Since I had to podcast a la solo, I figured I'd walk you through why the Cookie Class Kits are a great deal right now. And I'll break down what ya get, for how much, a...

140. Baking it Down - Vendy Blendy Marketing-Endy

🙊 Vendy Blendy Marketing-endy and what you can learn from our blendy blunders. We may not be allowed to talk about "the event that shall not be named," but that doesn't mean we can't learn from it! A lot of marketing goes into the yearly Vendy Blendy, and it seems like each year we learn a little more from both the Vendys and the Pendys (turned Spendys).  So let's take a look under the hood on how the Vendy Blendy can help your bakery market better in 2024. 🔊 1. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat 3...

139. Baking it Down - 2023 Best Baker Gift List

🎁 Best Baker Gifts 2023 (feel free to forward this email)  🎅🏻 Corrie had a genius idea (they come around to her once a decade) to ask bakers what they think other bakers would want should they find their names scrawled on Santa's nice list this year. 📜 Ho-Ho-Hold your credit cards, because some of these are really creative! We've come up with an "actually affordable," mid-grade, and budget-buster list for you... to forward to your... ahem... in-home Santa.  🧑‍🎄 So if you find your friends...

138. Baking it Down - If I Gave You a Million Dollars

🤑What if I Gave You A Million Dollars... Would you do it? 🤔 "Do what? But also - yes," you might ask - and that's exactly the point of this week's podcast. If you knew you were going to get a million dollars for taking a benign action, most of us wouldn't think twice before we did it. Full confession - 👕 I was cleaning out my closet, 👖 donating what I hadn't clearly worn in over a year to the VVA nonprofit to resell in their thrift stores. 👚 As I'm perusing this jam-full closet, my brain i...

137. Baking it Down - Surviving Q4

😵‍💫 Surviving Q4 - the fight for the newsfeed It's the time of yeeeear... when the reach is low and the engagement is even lower. What gives?! I'll tell ya what - the deep pockets of big corporations capitalizing on the "year-end consumer" who is primed to pay.  It's a fight to the feed death in Q4, and we've got some tips and tricks to help you gain some ground. 🥊 Reset Expectations. We're in a battle of the business and the newsfeed is the fighting ring. Bigger companies with bigger po...

136. Baking it Down - The Last Rule Bender

⤴️ The Last Rule Bender - bending the rules for the bottom line You know we preach policies. 👏 Protect your boundaries. 👏 Charge your worth. 👏 Guard your peace. But you may be surprised to know we also say "bend the rules." You see - the policies are the "big bad monsters" we use as our fall guy.  🤷‍♀ "I'm sorry - my policies state no refunds for no-shows." 🤷‍♀ "Oh man, I wish I could! But my policies say that payment is due at time of order." 🤷‍♀ "Darn it - I would, but the policy state...

135. Baking it Down - Audit of a Cake Class

🍰 Audit of a Cake Class and the lessons we're implementing. Corrie and my mom and sisters all met up on Sunday for a cake class - they had a blast, but they also got to be on the "student" side of a class for once (Corrie specifically). So she made some notes she could take back to our own class drawing board. Here's her "bake down" of her mental notes post-caker crash course. 🎂 1. Remind - Remind - Remind! "Eventbrite reminds attendees of the basics of their event, but go out of your wa...

134. Baking it Down - Squeezing the Most outta the Vendy Blendy Berry

🍓Vendy Blendy Berry (and how to squeeze the most from it) It’s that tiiiime of year… 😍 when the cookie world falls in love with some STELLAR deals. It's the third-ever Vendy Blendy! (👀 oh and how to win one of two Bambu Baby Carbon X1C 3D printers?! More on that in a minute.) Get into the holiday spirit by treatin’ YOSELF to some cookie cutters, stencils, tees, and icing tips – oh my! Everything you’ll want to know to squeeze the most from your cookie dough is listed below. But don’t forge...

133. Baking it Down - Corporate Girly Era

💼 Corporate Girly Era Corrie was on a mission this year to enter her ✨corporate girly era✨ - 👨‍💼 a time in her life (and business) where she gets most of her leads from small to medium-sized businesses (and heck - at this point, international businesses).  Why? 🧦 Because corporate clients rock baker's socks - that's why. Here's the magic of corporate orders: 🏢 Single POC likely 🏢 Deep business pockets  🏢 Basic Designs (heyo, logo cookies) 🏢 Potentially for recurring orders 🏢 Large-sca...

132. Baking it Down - The 1 Percenters

1️⃣ The One Percenters As admins of a group of niche cottage home bakers, we get to see a lot of questions about getting sales - and even more people thinking they can compete on price to gain traction in the marketplace.  But competing on price is a literal race to the bottom - the bottom of your bank account. Ya see, if I lower my price by $1, and you lower yours by $2, and then I counter by lowering my price by $4... well, let's just say pretty soon we'll be able to duke it out standing...

131. Baking it Down - Consistent Crows

🦉 Consistent Crows Ruth Ann (twin grandmother - my middle name is Ruth, Corrie's is Ann... you see what they did there, don't ya?) has a habit of being consistent. Not just any type of consistency - she's radically consistent. I mean - you could set the atomic clock to her ability to wake up at 6AM on the nose.  So - last year, 🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉 (I know, these are owls - but there's no crow emoji) when a family of 5 crows shows up at the bottom of the driveway one day and she sprinkles (🍧 see: hundred...

130. Baking it Down - Make Mistakes.

🩹 Make Mistakes. I watched (see: was addicted to) a TikTok the other day where an insanely successful older man was interviewed on a podcast. 🤔 The interviewer said, "How did you know it was time to expand your business? Which metric were you tracking that helped you make the jump into expansion?"  🧐 "Metric? We weren't following a metric. I knew we needed to grow because we weren't making any mistakes. When your business is growing, you're making mistakes because you're trying new things,...

129. Baking it Down - How You get Them is How You Keep Them

🍿 How Ya Get 'em is How Ya Keep 'em Things we want when we market: 🤩 High engagement! 🤩 Exponential growth! 🤩 Reach as wide as the Atlantic - heck the Pacific!  🤩 Big Numbers! 🤩 Lots of Likes!  🤩 All the money in the WORLD!  But what don't we want? All the above if you went about getting it the wrong way. Such is the topic of this week's Baking it Down Podcast - how you get them is how you keep them.   🛒 Let me break it down for ya with a marketing case study as big as your local ma...

128. Baking it Down - the Pricing Dance

💃 The Pricing Dance When's the perfect time to introduce price into the "cookie conversation"? Is it message one, 👋 "Hello, my name is $68 dollars a dozen?" Or is it after 50 messages when you've spent days (maybe even a week?) mocking up, designing, ordering cutters, and checking gel colors you've got, only for the client to turn "tire kicker" and say it's a bit out of their budget? 👟 Yikes to both scenarios.  That's the topic of today's podcast - the delicate pricing dance. You know, th...

127. Baking it Down - The Nuclear Option

💣 The Nuclear Option 💵 Put ya money where ya goals are. Here's all you need to know about this week's podcast: PayPal: [email protected] 💥 Okay - a lil' more context before you send me your life's savings.  I really like David from the Raptitude Blog - and one of his more recent emails talked about "atomic accountability" in the form of the nuclear option. 🤯 It's putting your money where your goals are. Here's how he words it - basically, there are things you ✨need✨ to do ...

126. Baking it Down - Narcissistic Conversations

 🗣️ Narcissistic Conversations - how chatty cathy is costing you cash Okay - this isn't exactly what you think - I mean, we're not talkin' about your Narc ex. That's between you and a therapist. BUT we are talking about narcissistic conversationalists - of which many of us at times have been guilty. 🤑 And it's costing you cash.  The term, coined by Charles Deber, a sociologist, is called Conversational Narcissism and it sounds more innocent than you think. 🙊 Since we all are constantly in...

125. Baking it Down - Vendy Blendy Reggy

🛒 The Vendy de Blendy Is Open for Vendor Registration And we need your help - to bug the shops you wanna see Vendying the most!  Okay - before I tell ya the who-what-where-when-why of the Vendy Blendy, lemme tell ya why we're talking about the un-talk-about-able. 🧠 We thought finally taking our own advice and working ahead this year would let us have a longer run-time promoting the vendors (📆 win) and let us not stay up so late at the last minute (😴 win) and let y'all bug the shops you wan...

124. Baking it Down - TOMA

🧠 T-O-M-A 🧠 🍅 Thought I typoed "tomato" didn't ya? I wouldn't put it past me at this point. But alas - no. It's an acronym this time. "What other weird acronym are the twins talkin' about today?!" 🗣️ Yeah - agreed, but this marketing jargon may make you sales without selling!  ⬆️🧠 T-O-M-A: Top of Mind Awareness.  Think of "TOMA" marketing as a way to stay in front of a client without directly saying "hey - yo, yeah you - don't forget to buy from me." If a client only needs to place an or...

123. Baking it Down - The Gold Ratio

🪙 The Gold Ratio 🪙 I know some of you are screaming at your computer screen right now sayin' "IT'S GOLDEN RATIO!" But hold up, now ya hear! It's a play on words (but trust that 99.9% of other times it's a typo - but this time it isn't... surprisingly).  In marketing, it's easy to fall prey to numbers. Numerical evaluations are THROWN at us daily. Just consider all the math problems we see as marketers turned business owners turned back into marketers.  🧮 Followers on Instagram 🧮 Reach on...

122. Baking it Down - A$$et A$$umptions

💲 Asset Assumption 💲 "A$$uming makes a butt outta you and me" - words have been changed to protect the innocent, but the stance stands true. Assuming client expectations rather than communicating them steals your business a$$ets and leaves you with an empty bank account and an angry customer.  But I get it - communication is hard, we're busy, the clients are vague, there's more dough than hours in a day. But assuming our clients ✨should just know✨ is leaving a lot up to interpretation - an...

121. Baking it Down - Good Fast Cheap

✌️ Good. Fast. Cheap ✌️ Choose Two. Heather - still carless - has been bumming rides, but "get a pre-purchase inspection" isn't the only lesson learned here. Her derelict car had the option to go to a shop up north or another shop down south - both highly recommended. 😍 Heather: "Hey [mechanic]! Was wondering if I could get my car shipped to ya! You come highly recommended, and frankly - your pricing does too." 😬 Mechanic: "Yeah - you sure can. I'd be happy to work on your car ✨and✨ for a...

120. Baking it Down - Primed for Prime Day

🛒 Primed for Prime Day 🛒 🛍️ We may not be Bezos Billionaires, but we can learn a thing or two from the e-comm king. Jeffy has us in a headlock with his annual Prime Day Deals - and as we sit here refreshing the feed to lightning deals, 🕯 the twins wax old on both how to melt candle wax and how to implement some of the FOMO magic into our cookie businesses. 💳 Nine Ways to Prime Your Audience to Spend 🤑 1. Prime Day is annual = you know it's coming!  📦 Amazon Prime Day started in 2015 and ...

119. Baking it Down - A-B-C

118. Baking it Down - Tomorrow Me

🗑 Tomorrow Me 🗑 My dad used to make us stay after church and help clean up the nursery rooms, classrooms - whatever needed cleaning. When he'd change out the wastebins, he'd throw in an extra liner. I asked him why. "Because today I know I have enough liners, but next week, I might not."  This is the concept behind "Tomorrow Me" - taking very small actions today when you know you have the time that'll save you potential future stress.  Tomorrow Me isn't a big concept - in fact, "tomorrow ...

117. Baking it Down - Olive Garden No More

🫒 Olive Garden No Mo' ❌ We're NEVER going back to the Olive Garden!  Kidding - I am absolutely going back - every Tuesday before the podcast actually. BUT... we noticed something crazy at the "OG" that we don't often witness at other restaurants - the sheer entitlement. But what causes the OG crowd to feel like they're owed more than bottomless bread baskets and endless salads?  Here's our theory: pricing, freebies, and exclusivity.  Weird parallel incoming: Hermes bags are the opposite ...

116. Baking it Down - Check the Check Lists

📋 Checking the Checklist 🤔 Heather: "I feel like we're forgetting something." 🙃 Corrie: "Yeah - I'm getting that vibe too." 🤔 Heather: "Whatever it is, it's big."  😬 Corrie: "Oh most definitely." So - full confession: Corrie and I completely forgot the icing (and one tub of PME sprinkle eyeballs) at this weekend's 🐠 Under the Sea 🐠 sugar cookie decorating class. 😨 Imagine my horror as we enter the venue, 30+ minutes from the "icing fridge" only to realize my frosting aphasia. 🚙🚓 With t...

115. Baking it Down - Sugar my State Collab 101

🌎 Sugar my State Collab 101 It's the upcoming Sugar My State Cookie Collab and we want YOU to participate (and get the most out of your participation). So here's a brief breakdown of what Cookie Collabs are and how to get the most bang for your bakin' buck from them! Listen to this episode on your favorite podcast player!  🍪 What is a Collab Before we jump into the why, let's cover the what. Cookie Collabs aren't unique to Sugar Cookie Marketing Group - but they've likely only been around...

114. Baking it Down - We Would Like to Formally Apologize

🙏 We're Sorry Okay - I'm not really sorry - but I'm sorry you think you can't be sorry, and I'm here to help you learn how to be sorry as a business owner - sorry if you were hoping for a sorry.  We see it posted often in the groups: NEVER APOLOGIZE - it shows WEAKNESS. It also makes you 100% RESPONSIBLE and AT FAULT.  And those comments are not wrong. There are types of apologies that do more harm than good for the apologizer - and that's what I think they're talking about. Apologies tha...

113. Baking it Down - S-E-Oh My

🕵️ S-E-Oh My We've talked "SEO" on previous podcasts, but it's always great to revisit the cold audience maker by touching on four points we think will help you reach more search engine traffic.  (Search engines = placed where you can look up words and find results. Google is currently the biggest search engine in the world.) This is SEO in a Google Search Engine Results Page (also known as a S-E-R-P) - see those white arrows? Those are all places where SEO can drive you more leads. But S...

112. Baking it Down - Dry July

Okay fam - here's what separates the marketers from the panic-ers. (is that a word??).  We're entering a period Corrie Mira and I like to refer to as 🏜 "Dry July" ☀️ - but it encompasses the entire summer months from June - August.  It's in these months (as reflected by this Google search report for "sugar cookies" - image below) that your orders will likely slow. 📉 This is expected for our industry.  Things you can do during this time: 🚫 Do not panic. Readjust your expectations in terms...

111. Baking it Down - Refund Recap

110. Baking it Down - The Cookie Car Lot

🚗 Pricing the Cookie Car Lot 🚙 Wanna buy a... car? Today's podcast topic (which is a day late due to CookieCon - no, it's not Wednesday, sorry about that) is about the "cookie car lot" - comparing how automotive brands use pricing tiers to sell more cars... and we'll use it to sell more cookies.  🏎 Showing off the Flagship  Every major auto manufacturer has a flagship vehicle - that one car so fast, so cool, and so very, very expensive.  😬 Audi has the R8 ($158,000) 😯 Acura has the NSX ...

109. Baking it Down - Watch Your Receipts