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🛑 Hit the Breaks - How to take big bakery breaks.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 213 - Hit the Breaks, we cover the fact of life that just sometimes, along your business journey, you need to take a big break. 

If you've listened to past podcasts, you know we're anti-"big break" when it comes to marketing because it's really hard to stop and start marketing when funnels are long and competition is well, competitive. 

However, the beauty of being your own boss is that when life requires significant breaks, you're able to take them - with the correctly set expectations that it will impact your marketing and lead generation. With the right setup, that negative effect can be mitigated. And that's what today's podcast is on - the strategy behind big breaks.

Note - if you're taking a small break, like something under 2 weeks, disregard this strategy. You likely don't even need to alter your current marketing much, if at all, for a small break. We are talking big breaks, as in 2 months. 

⛔ 1. Make an announcement 

When it comes to big breaks, we need to c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e effectively because nothing is more frustrating than to go place an order with your favorite baker for an event that just happens to fall during that baker's big break. So we need our audience to fully comprehend our break and what it entails.

• ⛔ Add a defined start and stop date for your big break. I'm talking "July 1, 2025 - August 15, 2025" type specificity. This can help your audience plan around your break without being ambiguous. 
• ⛔ Unpin ALL pinned posts and JUST leave this announcement post pinned. We want to make sure all the attention is brought to a singular point - our break announcement. 
• ⛔ Do NOT put the dates you're out of town. Thieves can use this information to figure out that your house is homeowner-free and rob ya. Again, this podcast is for "taking a break from my bakery" breaks, not "at the beach for the week" breaks.

⛔ 2. Schedule out posting and newsletters

Contrary to "taking a break," we don't want to fully ghost our socials and newsletters. We live in an algorithmic world, so fully ghosting can make it really hard to reach our audience when we return. So we make maintenance posts just so Zuck doesn't think we've fully abandoned our baking ship. 

• ⛔ Schedule fewer posts during this absence. While we're not working, we don't want to post at the same frequency as when we were working - it's confusing. Bring your scheduled posts down to once a week - if you're taking off 2 months, that's only 8 posts.
• ⛔ In each of these posts, you're going to reiterate your break start and end dates. This way, your posts are sending a confusing message of "Wait, I thought she was on break? But she just posted about baking a fun set??"
• ⛔ The copy should not drive sales. We don't want to have any CTAs in our maintenance posts, because we don't want people to take an action at all. We're on break. So don't ask people to click to your website, place an order, or contact you.

With your newsletter - constantly drive folks who caught ya "on your big break," to sign up for your newsletter so they can get the inbox exclusive on your 'big break return." It's a decent way to grow your email list while still staying in touch about your break schedule. You may want to send an email giving folks a heads up about the break (1 month out), the official break announcement, 1 newsletter during your break with a reminder about the return, then a return-day announcement. 

⛔ 3. Update all auto-responses

Your business has a lot of auto-responders designs for big

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⏰ 1-Hr Admin Tasks - Setting up time blocks for tasks.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 212 - Admin Hour, we break down four different "admin hour" frameworks you could spend each week pluggin' away at to be a better baking business.

"Admin Hours" are groupings of tasks that take up an hour spent on one specific aspect of your business - social media, bake prep, customer management, and inbox management - the four frameworks we cover this week. 

By spending a dedicated few hours a week on these "admin hour" tasks, you'll save yourself a future headache, streamline your workflow, and become a competitive baker in your space (as well as stress less as you forget fewer orders and run out of fewer cookie tags ya already sold).

🕰️ 1. Social Hour

Staying consistent on social media will be a great foundational strategy. But to be consistent, we must make time to create content. Here's a social media "admin hour" framework you can build from:

• ⏰ 20 Mins - Schedule this week's posts (3x/wk minimum)
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Reply to comments
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Comment on posts in a few local groups
• ⏰ 30 Mins - Make a Reel (film / edit / voiceover / post)

You can add multiple "social hours" to your week depending on how aggressive your social media marketing focus is. And these hours can ebb and flow throughout your cookier calendar year as needed (for example, when you're fully booked, drop down to 1 hour, when the upcoming month looks light for orders, add in a few more social hours).

🕰️ 2. Inbox Hour

If you've not tasted of the sweet nectar that is inbox zero, you're missing out. Walking up to an inbox only full of actionable emails you got in the last few days is a breath of email-fresh air. Once you reach the coveted "Inbox Zero," your inbox-power-hour will look something like this:

• ⏰ 20 Mins - Reply to all emails / Ping follow-up emails
• ⏰ 10 Mins - File emails away to reach Inbox Zero  again
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Transpose orders / tasks to Google Calendar
• ⏰ 10 Mins - CRM - Follow up with orders placed this time last year

Getting an inbox hour on your weekly task list puts you in control of your calendar (rather than the stress of being a slave to a calendar missing your dentist appointments and that one order you forgot to write down).

🕰️ 3. Admin tasks

Likely the one you don't wanna do but are forced to do, running a business requires admin tasks. Here's how we'd break up that hour spent "behind the scenes" of your bakery biz:

• ⏰ 10 Mins - QuickBooks Bookkeeping Update
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Adding new leads to CRM
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Inbox Zero
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Inventory Check
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Weekly Meeting (Asana)
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Plan Out Week

So again - your admin tasks may take longer than this - and that's absolutely fine. The goal is to consistently show up for at least an hour for these recurring tasks, turning you into a consistent working powerhouse.

🕰️ 4. Baking Prep

Baking preparations for the week can streamline your baking workflow because you're not stuck running to the cutter corner for every order. I prefer to do this stuff on Mondays and capitalize on the time saving all week. Whichever days you choose for your admin hours is up to you, but sprinkling in a baking power hour is a must for a ballin' baker.

• ⏰ 10 Mins - Wash Baking Mat and other supplies
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Wipe down Surfaces / Disinfect 
• ⏰ 20 Mins - Collect Cutters for the Week
• ⏰ 10 Mins - Dough Ready / Dough Day Planned
• ⏰ 10

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↩️ Luxury Refunds - Refunds are a business strategy.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 211 - Luxury Refunds, Corrie wanted to recap yet another reminder on why luxury bakers should consider luxury refunds. 

🤔 What's a luxury refund? It's the baked-into-the-price guarantee that if something goes left, the baker will make it right - and typically that will be through a refund.

Per the twin, we can't claim 💰 "luxury brand and thus luxury pricing," but claim 😭 "I'm just a small business, give me a break" when things go wrong. Luxury price needs to be threaded throughout your entire sales process. Yes, refunds included. 

💰 1. Be Refund-Centric

When you think about luxury brands, you're likely not picturing a front-desk person telling unhappy clients that that sounds like a them-problem when the client has an issue. Noooo - you picture luxury brands like hotels handling all the gross parts of staying in a hotel = managing luggage, door hops, taxi cab and uber calls, clean rooms and room service - you get the point. Luxury pricing includes making things right for our luxury clients. 

A refund-centric company will have its happiness guarantee baked into its policies before the client even orders. If there were two bakers equal in every way but only one offered a 100% money-back guarantee, which do you think clients would choose? Be that baker.

💰 2. Take refund culpability 

Most of the time, it's not a 100/0 split on who is at fault when it comes to client issues. ⚖️ Likely, there's shared culpability. But a luxury brand would still take culpability from the client. 🤨 "But twins! I wasn't wrong, they were!" We know - but you're the business owner, and a luxury business owner at that. Don't be afraid to say, "I'm so sorry - I misunderstood when you wrote XYZ! My apologies - I'd love to make you whole regarding this issue." 

🔑 The words "I'm sorry" will unlock more doors than they shut - believe ye we.

💰 3. Offer refunds often

Here's the thing - you won't have to refund often if you're willing to refund. Why? You'll find that clients actually aren't trying to get free stuff - they just want their cookies. 🛑 Being gracious to your clients by offering refunds will allow your clients to actually ask you not to. People are more understanding than we give them credit for. We just have to allow them to have the elbow room to exercise that grace - 🥊and they can't when you're threatening them by blaming them for the order issue.

💰 4. Refund swiftly 

Be quick to refund, as in don't make your clients fight you for it. With every message rejecting the client's issue, you're one step closer to the dreaded, "Well, I also found a hair in the cookie." Pluuuus, when you address the first issue rather than forcing customers to rattle off 10 reasons why they think you should offer them recourse, you get the brownie points of being "that baker" that puts customer service first and foremost.

💰 5. Refund and be generous

When it comes to refunding, don't nickel and dime your clients and expect them to appreciate it. 🤕 If you made a booboo, grab the biggest band-aid. 🩹 Rather refund too much than too little and leave the clients hurt (and in your review profiles, finding their written vindication). "But I only messed up a few cookies!" We get it, and we're not necessarily saying a full refund, but a "barely there" refund won't cut it. As an example, maybe a rebake and a partial refund may be the answer to satisfy the client's upsetting experience.

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💸 Selling in Community Groups - Turn groups into lead gen powerhouses.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 210 - Selling in Community Groups, we are talking about the same topic we presented this past Tuesday at What's Popping Con (a convention for Cake Poppers). This content is all available on our website by clicking this button - it's a lot of info and free templates, so click here to snag that stuff while it's still posted.

If you're already thinking, "There are no community groups in my area," consider starting your own. In this course, we'll cover some of the group mechanics that can help you form the foundation of your own community groups. Community groups that are valuable resources can be massive lead gen opportunities for the group admins.

🧠 A group is only as good as its management team. High-quality groups require a lot of effort, but they pay out in dividends.  

• https://www.sugarcookiemarketing.com/popping

💸  Snag a Free Tracking Template!

We live and die by our spreadsheets - and using one to track community groups allows you to stay on top of specific group rules, posting times, post types, group size - you get the point. This free Google sheet is built out for community group management. Use the dropdown to categorize each aspect of your local community groups. 

Way too often, users get banned from community groups for breaking the sales rules specifically. It's important to keep track of each group's sales policies so we're not permanently banned from selling there.

We're going to look for about 10 local community groups if possible, but we'll take what we can get. The more options you have, the more potential audience you can reach. 

It's important as a seller to understand how groups can be run within Meta's group options and features as these can affect your posting abilities within groups.

⚠️ An important aspect of selling in a community group: following their rules. Take a minute to join the Example Facebook Group we're using for the rest of this lesson - you can join it by clicking here > answering the membership questions > agree to the group rules. Let's run through some common community group Q&As to help you better understand how to approach groups when making your sales posts.

🔗 Rules can be found for any group by adding /rules to the end of the community group's URL (example: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sugarcookiemarketing/rules). 

💸  Group Profiles - How to Optimize

When you join a community group, you automatically create a group profile separate from your Facebook profile (although still connected). Think of your group profile as a version of you specifically made for that group. Optimizing these group profiles can help increase lead generation in your community groups. Each community group you join creates a unique group profile for that specific group.

You can customize:

• ✍️ Your profile intro (150 character limit)
• ✍️ The profile cover photo (1640x600 pixel sizing)

When other users click on your profile within that group, they are taken to your group profile. Admins can also use your group profile to see admin actions taken against you, your group activity, as well as your profile information. From there, they can also click to your personal Facebook profile. 

Your group profile is only a part of your overall Facebook persona. Optimize your personal profile as well. You can tag a business page or insert a URL in your personal profile. You can update your cover photo to feature your latest bakes, and you can share content from your baking page to

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🤏 Half It then Half It - Make goals small and then smaller.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 209 - Half It Then Half It, we cover a topic Heather saw on the Diary of a CEO podcast with Dr. Alok Kanojia on goal setting. 

The concept is pretty basic - set a goal. Then take that goal and half it. Then take that half and half it again. You're now left with only 25% of that goal. And guess what? That 25% is much more doable than the big, massive, overly sized goal you couldn't eat whole. 

Breaking (baking?) goals into edible chunks makes for small bites that we can accomplish to get us to our bigger goal. 25% Goals aren't as fun to tell people about - they get the vibe of, "Okay... and?" And that's what makes them so valuable - because they're not big, they allow us to take small movements forward. 

Sure - we won't get the accolades for announcing some giant goal like, "THIS YEAR, I PLAN TO OPEN STORE FRONT," but the path to opening a store front is long and lonely - I'd rather claim this year to do the thankless foundation work required to get into a brick and mortar rather than make a big announcement with no execution (remember the "No One Likes a Party Planner" podcast episode).

🤏 1. Example - Facebook Lead Gen

Turning Facebook into a lead gen powerhouse is a BIG goal - and one we really like. Facebook can really make some sales for bakers. But let's half that goal:

• 📏 I want to turn community groups into a referral source.

Even better! We narrowed it from "ALL of Facebook," which is a massive task to tackle down to an aspect of Facebook. But per the doc, we can go smaller! Let's half that half.

• 📏 I want to make this one specific group a resource for my bakery business.

There we go - in fact, this will be next week's Podcast topic (turning Local Community Groups into Referral Powerhouses after we teach it at What's Popping Con 2025 on Tuesday).

🤏  2. Example - Brick and Mortar

Most bakers dream of seeing their business logo in bright lights on a building they leased. And who wouldn't?! Talk about a HUGE goal that feels all warm and fuzzy! But brick and mortar dreams aren't built overnight, but rather on consistent "half of a half" goals over time. Let's half that B&M goal:

• 📏 I want to contact a commercial leasing agent to learn more about taking on a B&M lease.

Love it - so much more actionable than "I will open a brick and mortar bakery," but can we half it again? 

• 📏  I'm going to reach out to the Sugar Cookie Marketing group and see if any B&M bakers would take a 15-minute call from me to talk about the "first 6 months" of prep needed to get started on potentially opening a bakery in the future.

Loooove that so much more. That's a "half of a half" goal that will actually teach you something - whether a brick and mortar bakery business is meant for you.

🤏  3. Example - I want to be a social media expert.

As a marketer myself, love this goal - but it's a chunky one. Taking on all of social media is admirable, but that's not going to move a needle because it's too broad. Let's see if we can half it.

• 📏 I want to focus on making my Facebook page a valuable resource for my business. 

Just like the community group goal, LOVE this - it'll be a huge boon to your business goals. But can we go smaller on this halved goal? I bet we can.

• 📏 I will post to my business Facebook page 2x a week to establish a baseline for a posting schedule.

There we go! 

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🥊 Multi-Holiday Showdown - How to tackle multiple holidays.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 208 - Multi-Holiday Showdown, we wanted to talk about the scourge of Q2 holiday line-ups. With these non-heavy-hitting baker holidays falling mid-month and/or on top of each other, it makes for a confusing marketing strategy. Do you tackle all of them to maximize sales? Or will that dilute your offerings too much and you'll sell out of nothing but be stuck with materials for a whole 'nother year? 

Here's our take on a multi-holiday marketing showdown in mid-spring. 🤧 Heads up - I'm slightly under the weather, so forgive any typos (and forgive typos when I'm not sick too lol).

🥊 1. Don't choose every holiday

Find a few holidays and focus on them - heck, even focusing on one is probably a better approach than trying to sell out for every holiday in Q2. Mother's Day is a hit or miss with some bakers, Teacher Appreciation seems like a good bet, and Cinco De Mayo seems more like a location-based seller rather than a guaranteed sell-out. Consider that Teacher Appreciation cutters and packaging can also double for graduation sets and the "last day of the school year" teacher gifts.

🥊 2. Past performance = future performance

We'd recommend choosing holidays that have been consistent for you in the past. If they sold well then, they'll likely sell well now. Trying out a "new" holiday in the slower part of the cookier's calendar year may cost you more than it brings in, so we'd stick with the consistent seller.

🥊 3. Treat them as separate content buckets

Content buckets are a strategy you can use to plan out your social media content (see Episode 182). As such, these competing holidays shouldn't share a bucket, but rather get their own separate content pillars that you'll pull from for the duration of the promotion of each holiday. Tap these buckets frequently until you feel like you've sold enough. Content buckets don't have to be systematically drawn from - you can use more content from a specific bucket as it supports your sales goals. 

🥊 4. Increase marketing runtime

If you have two holidays fighting for the marketing limelight, you'll want to increase your marketing runtime. Corrie and I always prefer around 6 weeks to include planning + cutter securing + photography + marketing. It's enough time to account for any wild cards like weird weather or slow sales.

🥊 5. Sold out? shut up

Once one holiday sells out or you're happy with the sales numbers, drop that content bucket out of your marketing strategy completely and refocus your efforts on the underperforming holiday target. Once "Mother's Day" is sold out, there's no real marketing purpose to keep posting about it when there's another product we need to move more of.

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 208 - Multi-Holiday Showdown 

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💡 No One Likes a - Party planner (ideas without execution).

💩 A forced a play on words from "no one likes a party pooper" - but in this case, we're focusing on 🧠 "ideas guy" who love to plan and fail to launch. These folks talk up "the next great thing," and yet the idea never exits the ol' cranium to make it to market.

🗺️ Having a plan is good - but too much of a good thing, and you've got either a perfectionist or a serial starter, but you definitely 🚫 don't have a viable product. ⚔️ And that's why planning is a double-edged sword. You have to have a plan, but some bakers turn "making a plan" into a never ending excuse as to why they've not launched [that cookie class] or [that new bakery item] or [the vendor event that's now since come and gone] or [that cookie cart]. You get the point. 🚧 They turn planning into roadblocks.

💭 They spend their whole baking lives in the dream stage so that they never have to take the risk to launch and possibly fail. But our challenge is to accept failure and fail forward. Here's some ways to ensure you're not a party pooper... I mean, planner.

💡 1. Determine your mvp

MVP = minimum viable product. 🤏 That's the "least amount I need to do to be able to take this concept to market for a v1 release." In simpler terms, what's the simplest thing you can produce from your idea and use to test if your marketing would bite? 

This "MVP" concept forces the forever-planner's hand by making them launch as soon as something is good enough. They can't wait until it's perfect because it's no longer the minimum viable product. Take Stupid Car Tray (podcast sponsor - use code SUGAR to save 15%). They're on their v3 tray. What if they'd only launched when they felt their product was super refined? 🤑 They would have missed years of sales. Same with you, ya party planner. Stop planning, start pushing out product. See if they bite. If they do, then improve. 🚀 Launch and learn.

💡 2. Two types of "party planners"

Okay, maybe "party planner" wasn't my best play on words, but there are two types of "ideas guys" - which camp do you tend to find yourself in? 

• 🏢 The Perfectionist - The perfectionist builds the perfect skyscraper. It's got the best finishes, the best appliances, the most amenities, but they never list the condos for sale. They're in a perpetual state of trying to make everything good, better, best. They never fail because they never open.
• 🏚️🏚️🏚️🏚️ The Serial Starter - The type of person who lays the foundation for many ideas, but never builds a single house. This planner loves an idea, runs out to source materials, then panics at the thought that they weren't naturally talented at the thing and jumps on the next bandwagon, leaving a trail of partial starts (and budget buster) in their wake (and basement storage closet).
• 🏡 We need to be the single home builder who lays the foundation, constructs a modest home (aka MVP), sells it, then gets hired to add on to the home later. At all stages, this planner is generating income while improving their craft.

💡 3. Plan = yes | Overplan = hard pass

Planning is a business necessity. 🗺️ Venture out without a map and you're bound to get lost. 🧭 But business (and life) exist in the gray areas. Same with planning. ❌ Spending no time planning is just as bad as spending all your time planning. 👎 Plan enough, then take that first step out there. Remember - you can always tweak. ⏳ But you can't time travel, meaning we can't go back and launch when we "coulda - shoulda - woulda." Take the leap of faith, push out the MVP, see what happens, cap'n.

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💳 Expound then Expand - Plan before your purchase.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 206 - Expound then Expand, Corrie wanted to come to the altar with her confession of packaging purchases. Yeah - we're talkin' to the "overconsumption cookier" this week, 👣💥 and it'll step on some toesies (starting with Twin2's... er... TwinToes?).

It's easy to get ✨shiny object✨ syndrome when you check out the Best Bakes threads in the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group thinking, "Well, if that sold well for them, it might sell well for me! Let me buy these supplies." 

Here's the thing - that's not a guarantee, and it can actually be a distraction, not a sound business decision. And guaranteed it's going to impact your financials. Even worse is if you do get the supplies and never get around to selling that adorable Easter Egg PYO carton - 🥚🥚🥚🥚 you're now stuck with colorful cartons for an entire year - and that's bad for business and your bottom line. 

💰 1. Start with 1 versatile backdrop

White matte finish (use code SUGARCOOKIE on thebackersco.com to save 25% - they're one of the podcast sponsors that keeps this content f-r-e-e for y'all) is the most used backdrop Corrie has, citing that it's the one she reaches for 85% of the time. 📸 Know what that means? That's likely the only backer you'll need to get started. Yes, in time, snag a few more options, but when you're just getting started, "one and done" it until you've maxed out your photography skills on that backdrop. Then expand.

💰 2. Learn from the Target trays

If you were in the SCM groups around 2021 - 2022, you lived through the fun (funky) Target trays - 🪵 a wooden tray Target sold in its dollar spot that took the craft world by storm. Specifically, cookiers gravitated to this tray since it made for a high-quality package for about 20 cookies for Christmas - 🎄 talk about a best seller! But such is panic buying, some stocked up on these trays and were left with an unfoldable storage nightmare when they didn't sell out. 

The lesson? Find out if your audience wants the product first - then purchase. ️🎯 Overbuying for your clients who never wanted the product in the first place is a bad investment. What's the value of 50 wooden trays if no one will buy them? Hint: it's a negative number. 

💰 3. Purchase plain packaging to start

🎀 Cute packaging is a great way to up your customer benefits packaging and set you apart from the competition, but not if it sets you apart from your profitability. There's a sweet spot between really high-end custom packaging unique for every holiday and packaging that's on the plain side but works for any occasion. 

🏳️ I'm not saying "cheap white Amazon boxes or bust," but I am saying if you're getting started or you're in "packaging purchasing purgatory" rehab, go back to the basics. Add in fancy when necessary (and buy an appropriate amount - so like, not 50 units when you likely only have time to bake 10), but have the cheaper fallback as your go-to.

💰 4. Cut out overbuying cutters

Have your steel-toe boots ready, but here it comes. Overbuying cutters can cut your profit margins down to nothing. 🔲⚫ Plaques to get started and basic shapes are likely fine in a lot of cases. Client wants something super custom? Offer to bill them that cost or source a cutter you already have in your stash that's super close to their design and can save them a few bucks. Likely, your clients won't care, and you'll be able to stay away from cutter overconsumption. 

(🖨 And you 3D printer folks can learn a lesson here too - cutter takes up storage, and just because it was cheaper to print doesn't mean it doesn't have

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🪄 Top Marketing Tips - Submitted by group members in March.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 205 - Top User Submitted Marketing Tips, we challenged the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group in March to make more posts - and 4 winners would be chosen to join The Cookie College on our tab (I'll announce those soon). But the marketing tips were so good, we thought we'd feature a few on this week's podcast! 

The layout of this newsletter will look a little different since I'll include the 📸 screenshots from the authors (gotta give credit where credit's due). I read them in no particular order, but they're all great tips. If you want to see the screenshots, snag our blog at www.sugarcookiemarketing.com/blog this week once I've updated it.

🎧 The rest of this post will be those marketing tips - but snag this week's podcast episode to hear our take on 'em.

✨ 1. Reach back out to corporate clients

"My marketing tip is don't be afraid to reach out to past corporate clients about ordering again. I just received two orders (one for 300 and one for 1000 cookies) just by reaching out and basically saying, "Hey, you ordered this time last year, would you like to order again?" Sometimes they just need a reminder that they want your cookies." - Tammy

✨ 2. Use “for sale” homes for headshots

"Want to do a branding photoshoot, but thinking your kitchen ain't fancy enough? Why not use a nearby model home? I haven't met the homebuilder yet or the sales person for them, who didn't appreciate the shout-out when you post your pics. Guess what? It's free. I called to ask when their slowest times were & I made plans for an hour. I left them all the baked cookies I had for the shoot." - Sharon

✨ 3. Incentives through discounts

"Every cookie class I've hosted, each attendee gets a little take home gift. I'd love to see what ever one else does! Here’s a sample of mine: I make a mini 3D printed cookie cutter and provide a coupon for either custom orders, or it may sometimes be $5-$10 dollars off the next upcoming cookie class. I find it’s been working very well to get those to return to classes or place orders for customs." - Jennifer

✨ 4. Seek out strategic local businesses

"Local. Businesses. My husband and I have made a list of local businesses in our area, from mom and pop shops to large warehouses, and we've been strategically picking some to take boxes of samples and business cards to.

• Would this business employ my target clientele?
• Would bringing samples to this business get my business name in places it isn't currently known?
• Does this business openly support other small businesses?

...are a few of the questions we've been considering.

We've gone to car dealerships, furniture stores, medical offices, boutiques, salons, coffee shops, YMCAs, and we have more on the list.

Doing this has greatly increased my following; and shortly after beginning this, the owner of the local Harley Davidson reached out!" - Alayna

✨ 5. Be your #1 fan and believe it

"Start actually thinking of yourself as a business owner! I'm a stay-at-home mom, so when people ask me what I do, that’s what I reply with. I've been listening to the podcast and it's empowered me - and at the dentist the other day the hygienist asked what I did and I said 'I own a custom sugar cookie business' By the time I'd left the office I handed out 5 business cards and have already gotten an order from them." - Tara

✨ 6. Save for samples

"Marketing tip - Have extra cookies left over? Great, cut them in quarters and freeze them. Save them as samples to give out at the next market or event. Always only offer one flavor of a sample otherwise, people will want to try

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🥦 In the Market for Markets - How to scope out the ideal vendor setup.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 204 - In the Market for Markets, Corrie wanted to talk about the 5 tips to help you source a strategic farmer's market (or recurring vendor event) relationship that bolsters that bottom line.

🥕 1. Is the market marketing itself?

Markets are businesses too - and as a marketing podcast, what would we be if we didn't say the ideal market is well... marketing. Markets live and die by the efforts of their organizers, so if the organization isn't promoting the event - guess what? Foot traffic won't follow. 

🕵️ Finding a market that's doing its job of marketing is a recipe for market success. While it'd be nice if all the vendors did their share of the marketing heavy lifting too (more on that later), finding a market that has social media profiles posted to and updated frequently, a website with all the info necessary for attendees to find their way, and event listings on Facebook and event listing websites are signals that market means business. And business = selling more bakes.

🥕  2. Do your "market" research

Research your potential market match before you sign any contracts. Not all markets are created equally, so understanding the implications of this seasonal relationship can make a sales difference if you get stuck with a low performer.

• 🤔 How long has the market been around? 
• 🤔 How often do you see it recommended when people in community groups ask for local market recs?
• 🤔 Is the market growing or shrinking?
• 🤔 Is there diversity in vendor types - think pickle booth, honey booth, etc.?

Using community groups to get these questions answered is a great way to get authentic feedback (and maybe market your

🥕  3. Question the organizers

Once we get outside feedback, it's time to go all in - by that we mean contact the organizers. Now - yes, the organizers are biased in their favor, so we need to keep the questions more "information gather-y" and less "how great are you-y" (we get it, they're great). Here are some ideas:

• 🤔  Can I get a list of vendors?
• 🤔  How much does it cost per week? Month? Season?
• 🤔  What are your weather policies?
• 🤔  What insurances do you require? 
• 🤔  Do I need to supply the table / tent / chairs?
• 🤔  Do you have a drop-in rate? 
• 🤔  What are your cancellation policies?

🥕  4. Contact past vendors

Contacting past vendors is another great way to get insider info. You might be able to source this by scrolling back through the farmer's market's social media posts from years ago, but another great way is by asking in community groups, "Has anyone been a vendor at the [Farmers Market]? I'd love to ask you a few questions!" Keep in mind, squeaky wheels tend to complain the loudest, so get a few different vendors to give you feedback - one that used to vendor there, one that still vendors there, and maybe one that is considering it. We'd ask them these more open-ended questions to get more authentic responses:

• 🤔  How do you feel about how the organizers manage the event?
• 🤔 How many years have you vended here? Do you plan on returning long-term?
• 🤔 What 2 factors bring you back here year after year?
• 🤔 If you could change one thing about this market, what would it be?

🥕  5. Prep for the market

Once you've found your perfect market match, it's time to really dig in. Treat this market like you would a cookie class - market the market.