Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

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This week we cover a topic that can get some bakers into trouble - hiding in the bushes of their exes. Kidding - that was our mom, but the concept still applies when it comes to stalkin' our clients.

The issue arises when we feel we're owed more than just the money we made for an order. As someone who loves to peek over the fence of past lovers myself, it can be tempting to sneak a peek at a client's Facebook page or business page to see if they've posted pics of their party... and then to turn a lil' sour when you realize they did and just conveniently happened to forget tagging your and your bakery business. 

😣 "Well, twins - referrals are the lifeblood of my lead sources! I need tags and shoutouts to earn more income. And you said you're business-centric, right?! It's okay if I comment, "So nice baking for this event - I'm the cookie baker, @[tags business passive aggressively]." 

I hate to say it boo-bear, but your "praise" was piles o' cash and anything beyond that just ain't owed to you. While yeah - the tags are awesome, the posts full of praise about you amazing, and the emails fawning over your fantastic flood can make your toes curl... it is not owed to you.

📚 In the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy - a book written for men, but still some great takeaways - 🤫 Robert Glover talks about "covert contracts" - these are contracts made not in writing. And that's what's happening with this whole bein' owed beyond the bread (ahem - casheesh). 

I see this happen in the Marketing Group - 😣 bakers who feel as if they're owed more than just the money they were paid. It's a quick recipe for resentment, and we're here to break up with the bad mojo.

1. Your money is your motivation.

💵 Fall in love with money (within reason). What we mean is: your only job was to bake cookies. In exchange for those amazing cookies, someone gave you the life energy they exchanged with their employer in the form of money - they gave you some of their life - 🤑 and the money was the physical representation of that. That was the contract. Nothing more. 🍰 Anything additional is icing on the cake (that they proverbially paid for so - again - not required). 

2. Stop stalking.

🙈 Blinders are the best way to tune out the torture of wondering if you were tagged. You can't know what you can't see, right? Stop stalking your clients (and while we're at it, your exes... right mom?). If you can't stop from looking or party pics are showing up in your feed, Facebook has a "mute friend" option - use it. 

3. Create review-generating assets.

😩 "But twins! I need tags to get leads!" Sure - leads do come from tags, but they also come from good reviews - so instead of stalkin' your client, send a follow-up email asking them if they wouldn't mind leaving you a review on your Facebook Page or your Google Business Profile. 📑 If you think you should be allowed to market to their party attendees, use a Munbyn thermal printer to throw a cheap printed sticker on the back of each cookie (adding the ingredients can help it look less like "PLEASE HIRE ME" and more like "hey - allergies include, but also... hire me, maybe?"

4. Incentives for reviews.

🎁 Not my favorite approach - but when it works, and if you work it right, it produces great results. The thing about thinking you're owed tags is likely because you're too dependent on word-of-mouth for your lead gen. By building up other lead sources, you can grow... well... other lead sources. 

5. Learn to let it gooo.

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About two years ago, Corrie and I started meeting (well, 😭 she was kicking and screaming) each Monday for what later became known as the 📅 Monday Morning Marketing Meeting with the Miracles. The MMMMM for short. 

😕 Meetings can feel pointless unless they, well, have a point. And that's where meeting frameworks come in clutch. A framework is a meeting structure - and there are so many you can choose from. The MMMMM is built from the EOS Level 10 Meeting Agenda (not mine, just what we use), 📌 and it's been really solid in helping us get a grip on where we're goin' and how we plan to get there.

🔑 Now the key to this meeting is consistency - same time, same day, each week - take notes. 

 Meeting Details:

• 🤝 Duration: Not to exceed 90 minutes
• 🤝 Time / Date: Exact same each week
• 🤝 Frequency: Once per week
• 🤝 Meeting Notes: Required (I just keep a running Google Doc each week for notes)

I recommend finding a study buddy (aka accountability partner) who is a baker that is similar to you. Meaning if you bake cakes, find a cake bakin' buddy. If you're doing this only part-time, find a like-minded part-time hustler. Introverted? You can do this on your own! Just make sure you are holdin' yourself a-c-c-o-u-n-t-a-b-l-e.

Now here's the framework - we've tweaked this a bit to fit our own needs, so feel free to build from this base yourself. 

• 🤝 Check-in (5 minutes) - this is where you start off with a positive mindset. We like to do a "one good personal / one good business" check-in from both of us to kick it off. 🧠 Puts everyone in a positive mindset and it's fun to hear good things about each other.
• 🤝 Scorecard Update (5 minutes) - This is simple - only report on the key metrics. Don't assess them - just state them. For example: I made 4 posts this week. 💯 Total Facebook reach was 1,230 users. I brought in 6 leads this week. I converted 2 of those leads. My average sale this week was $78 dollars. My total revenue this week was... you get the point. Find the key metrics for your business and record them here.
• 🤝 Rock Update (5 minutes) - Rocks are quarterly goals. You set up a quarterly "Rock" and then you give an update on it. For example, a Rock can be "teaching cookie classes in Q2." 🪨 Since we're in Q2, this will be a Rock we're working towards. An update would be, "I secured a location to teach classes" or "I signed up for the Cookie Class Kits to use the materials to teach my first class." (shameless plug)
• 🤝 Customer/Employee Headlines (5 minutes) - These are any major company updates or any wins you've received from customers. You can announce you're discontinuing a product, adding a new product, or a 🥂 5-star review your client left ya on Google. 
• 🤝 Action Item Review List (5 minutes) - This is where you review you last week's "to-do" list. What did ya get done, how it went, what it produced, etc. This is not where you add to your to-do list nor where you asses why things didn't get done - that's the next step. ✅ This is just a "what did you do last week" point.
• 🤝 Issues: Identify / Discuss / Resolve (60 minutes) - The meat and potatoes of this meeting (meat-ing?), the IDS portion is where you talk about roadblocks, where they're coming from, and what you can do to work past them. This is a good place to break down bigger, more overwhelming tasks. 🚧 For example, "teach a cookie class" is too big. What do you need to do first before you can teach a class? Secure a venue. Add "reach out to venues to find a free location" to your to-do list for this week. 

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I was watching a YouTube video featuring a TedTalk where a salesman asks a member of the audience for their pen. He then asks how much the person bought the pen for. "Five dollars," the guy tells him. The salesman then asks if anyone in the audience wants to buy his newly acquired pen for $5 bucks.

✍️ The salesman then says he's going to take the pen and drive it to a ritzy part of town to an expensive jeweler where he's going to place the pen in a mahogany wooden box lined with velvet and place it in a glass case and point a spotlight at it where you can only view the pen with the assistance of an employee who will unlock it from its secured cabinet. 🎁

The salesman asks, 🤔 "Do you think the pen would still be worth $5?"

The resounding answer was that the very same pen that was worth $5 is now worth more. Why? ✨The value changed✨ - even when the pen didn't. The more value we create, the higher the price point we can set.

💎 Consider the diamond-water paradox when thinking about value vs. price. 💧

Diamonds are far more expensive than water. The price of tap water is negligible and the average price of a 3-carat diamond is $41,395 (according to Google's AI). 

But... ☀️ consider the shift if you were stranded in the desert, starved and dying of thirst. 🥵 Diamonds become worthless when your life is on the line, and the ✨value✨ of water has increased exponentially. While neither water nor diamonds changed - the situation around them did. 

And value, the subjective worth of an object, increased the price of water and decreased the price of diamonds (to the desert dweller at least). 

🤔 So - how do we apply this price/value concept to your bakery? 

Increase ✨value✨ so you don't have to compete on price. This means adding value to everything around your product - your packaging, your photography, your customer experience, your response times, your availability, your product line, your return policy, etc.

Then raise your prices. Why? 🧠 We simple-minded humans associate high value = high prices. 

A good indicator that your "value proposition" needs some polishing up is if you're getting a lot of price objections. The value isn't at the forefront yet, so they focus on price. Once you get your value proposition dialed in, price pushers will become a thing of the past. 

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by clickin' here - Episode 160 - Price vs Value Prop.

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This week's podcast is a deep dive into a post I made in the group earlier this week - the post regarding "woe is me" threads saying the cookie industry is done, pack it up kids, you don't gotta go home, but you can stay... in this kitchen.

You see - that defeatist mentality ain't go no business being in a business-centric group. It will limit your sales and, over time, cause you to quit. Quite literally the opposite of marketing and growth mindsets. 

😭 "But I've tried (and cried) everything! It's not working anymore!"

Have you, though? Have you actually tried everything? Because there are now 159 Baking it Down podcast episodes covering 159 marketing tactics. And I'll wager you aint' tried even a third of the stuff we talked about. That's what today's podcast is about.

And even if you did - 🥤 have you ever wondered why Coca-Cola, founded in 1886, ✨still✨ buys ad space at the beginning of every movie? 🎥 They've been at this for 138 years and they still keep hittin' the marketing campaign trail! It's because consistency - over long periods of time - produces results.

Marketing ain't a one-and-done. If it was, I'd be out of a job and 🤑 cookiers would be millionaires. It's repeated effort for a really, really long time.  Let's jump into the post.

--

I often see people complain about their local markets in these groups.

• 🧈 The price of butter is too high,
• 📉 Competitor prices are too low,
• 👥 The market is saturated,
• 🚫 The market doesn't want cookies,
• 🎟️ Too many people teaching cookie classes,
• 🪑 Too few people taking cookie classes,
• 👎 The competition isn't as good as you,
• 😭 The competition has more tag-happy friends than you.

You get the point.

👀 There are 45,000 people here - so I get the honor of reading many contradicting opinions on why sales aren't where we expected them to be.

Teeechnically... 🙅 you can only write "the cookie game is done" if you attempted every marketing tactic covered in this group. Then, and only then, can you say with certainty that the party is truly over.

🏃 I mean - how can you say you won't win a foot race if you never ran the race in the first place? Same applies to marketing. Can't say you can't sell anything if you didn't try everything in your power to sell it.

You can't say, "No one buys my cookies" if you never told absolutely everyone that you were selling cookies, right?

So allow me to ask... have you:

• ✅ Attempted to market to commercial businesses by dropping by with a logo cookie.
• ✅ Worked on growing your review profile by getting new reviews and responding to bad reviews in a way that will increase sales.
• ✅ Focused on upping your curb appeal for in-person pickups.
• ✅ Implemented copy formulas to increase conversion rates - AIDA, PAS, 4 C's, 4 U's, Before After Bridge.
• ✅ Implented "customer delight" methods to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
• ✅ Used better adjectives to make your products and pitches sound more appealing in social media posts and emails.
• ✅ Streamlined your branding for easier brand recognition across all print and digital profiles.
• ✅ Run g-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s to engage your page / group audience frequently.
• ✅ Focused on adding value to local community groups each week.
• ✅ Created your own local community group to better facilitate a value-added hyper-local community group.
• ✅ Consistently posted to your social media every week for an entire year.
• ✅ Created an email list on a newsletter sender (Mailchimp, Flodesk, Constant Contact).

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We had a (very) abbreviated podcast today - thanks to the door guys. 🚪 But in the few minutes we did get to chit-chat, we wanted to touch on "uncomfortable mistakes."

😿 Being bad at something sucks. It's no fun making mistakes. In fact, it feels like bad business acumen to make mistakes, right? I mean - imagine a business built on mistakes. Who would want to hire them!?

But successful businesses were built on the backs of mistakes. It's the "failing forward" that separates the business-ending mistakes from the "oh - I learned another way not to do that, let me try something else" business-building mistakes.

🤦‍♀ Mistakes mean you’re learning.

If you're not failing, you're not learning. There's a clip on Reddit of a guy learning to do a backflip - he actually gets pretty okay, then starts doing worse before finally sticking the landing. *crowd goes wild*

🧠 That's how the brain works (well, not in learning how to back flip - I ain't got the health insurance plan to be trying that). 

You try something new, and in your cluelessness, you have a bit of beginner's luck. As you intentionally refine your process, you get a little worse before finally becoming successful at something. Congrats - you learned something - you failed forward.

🤦‍♀ Growth = failing forward.

There's a difference between "failing" and ➡️ "failing forward." In the prior, you likely quit. This is the wrong type of mistake. The mistake we want is where we know we're going to mess up, but the whole time, we're making mental notes - "Ah yes, don't put the green Jimmy sprinkle in before the cake batter has cooled - that gives E.coli vibes. Noted." 

📝 Then back to the drawing board once more to implement what we now know not to do - ta-da! We just failed forward. Enough failing forwards and you've got yourself a new skill, my friend!

🤦‍♀ Bring clients into the learning phase.

Don't be shy - invite others to cry! Kidding, it rhymed. But Corrie had a good point. When clients ask her to do stuff "out of her wheelhouse," she lets them know! 

🤝 "Hey - this would be my first time trying that technique - I've always wanted to attempt it. Worst case, you got yourself some free red cake pops, best case, you got what you wanted! Let's do this!" 

🤦‍♀ Have a refund fund ready to go.

Mistakes are only hard to stomach if someone loses. But in the event of failing forward, we hedge our bets with our "oopsie budget" - 👮‍♂ the proverbial baker get-outta-jail-free card when it comes to making mistakes. That way mistakes don't hurt so bad (our ego and our wallets). It's easier to take a risk when you know there's a financial net there to break your fall.

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by searching - Baking it Down - Episode 158 - Uncomfy Mistakes.

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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 business owner who had just finally had enough of Deborah and her depressing reviews - regardless, they're now shuttered - and here's a small... ahem... heirloom... we can take with us when it comes to replying to reviews.

(if you're as nosey as me and don't mind some colorful language - 🍅 google "heirloom restaurant Canada Reddit" and enjoy the rabbit hole).

🔟 10 Ways to Handle a Bad Review

First things first - how you handle bad reviews isn't a reflection on how well you bake - but rather how well you business. 🤝 Good business owners understand that a bad review can be a tool to secure more business. Lackluster business owners think it's a digital fight - and act accordingly - costing them time and money (even more they don't realize they're losing out on). 

• 1️⃣ Understand that everyone will eventually get a bad review (or at least an unhappy client).

If we could please everyone what kind of person would that make us? See - the thing is, you can't please everyone - so fully come to terms with that, at some point, someone will be leaving you a bad review. It's just gonna happen - and once we accept that, we take away the emotion out of it. 

Repeat after me: "I am a business owner. I will get a bad review. That is okay. How I handle that review makes all the difference." 

• 2️⃣ Walk away - 🕒 a minimum of 24 hours (the damage is already done. don't make it well done by replying in anger).

No one died from not getting a reply to their bad review in time. Thus, take your time in replying. Waiting, thinking, and letting the offended emotions dissipate will clear your mind when writing a reply to a bad review. The last thing we want is to take a page from Heirloom and make the bad, worse. 

• 3️⃣ Write a rough draft reply - 🤓 then have a third uninvested party read it.

Write a rough draft - AND BEFORE YOU POST IT - have the least emotional person you know read it first. Ask them, "Does any part of this response sound emotional or defensive?" If they say yes - change that part. We want zero emotional replies here. If you get defensive at their critique... well, I got news for ya, kiddo.

• 4️⃣ Lower your defenses. ️🥊

I can't stress this enough. Lower. Thy. Defenses. Listen - whether or not they're right - they are upset. Raising your defensiveness escalates every situation. Don't do it. If 24 hours wasn't enough to drop that cortisol level, take another 24-hour break until you calm down. Do not run your business on high alert - you'll make mistakes that'll be much harder to fix.

• 5️⃣ Acknowledge their experience as valid. 🤝

This is a huge sticking point in the Sugar Cookie Marketing group. Validating how someone feels does not mean you agree with what they said. We are all allowed to feel how we feel (even if it's wrong). Validating an emotion looks like: "I know you're upset right now." 

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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, when to consider canceling, and how to cancel, and what to do after you have canceled a cookie class.

⬇️ Feel free to save this graphic for future reference - it's what we covered on the podcast ⬇️

🛑 When to Mitigation a Class Cancelation

Okay - before we go straight to canceling, I like to see if we can still sell the seats. We're going to have to get creative to fill seats last minute - and it may touch your profit margin a bit, but there are times when "the show must go on" is a better business move than walkin' away from a non-refundable room rental fee. 

• 🛑 If someone has a sickness, give them a class credit / refund as quickly as possible - 🤧 we do not want to force their hand and have them come.
• 🛑 For reasons other than sickness, tell the canceling attendee, "If either of us can sell your ticket, I'll refund you." This way you're guaranteed a "one out, one in."
• 🛑 Offer Bo-Go to current class attendees (bring a friend, get a discount). We use this one - most folks have friends, it's a great way to fill seats + make the attendees have a better time.
• 🛑 Offer up free tickets to a community group (marketing cost now). This will be a 100% loss of ticket revenue, BUT it's a great marketing tactic to raise awareness for your classes to a local audience.
• 🛑 Ensure your "no-show policy" is really dialed in. You can't go back in time and write your no-show policies. Every few classes, we just have people literally not show up - and we never hear from them.  They knew the no-show policy and respected it.

🤔 When to Consider Canceling

Okay - let's say we still can't move seats - it's now time to move to the "should I cancel this" phase. Hey - it happens. The sooner we act though, the better (but yes - there's a balancing act: cancel too soon, you could have sold those seats, cancel too late, you may get a (very small) mob of angry would-be class attendees.

• 🤔 Time Frame: before you bake (we do 7 days). Don't bake then cancel - you'll be out not only a potential room fee, processing fees, but also ingredients costs. Make that decision before you get to the kitchen.
• 🤔 Threshold - what are the minimum required signups to cover room costs? Sometimes your costs can still be covered even with a small crowd - so consider only canceling if you will be operating below your costs (room, ingredients, labor), otherwise - I'd keep the show goin'! 
• 🤔 Don't focus on room capacity - focus on costs + profit. We see some posters write, "I only sold 50% of my tickets" but when asked about how many that is, that's 10 whole tickets (as in their venue could seat 20 people). Our 100% capacity is 10 tickets - so focus on costs and profit, not on a filled room.
• 🤔 Does the venue have a refund cut-off? Sometimes paid venues will let you out of your room fees if you cancel X days in advance - consider that when making the class "TOD" call. 

❌ How to Cancel

Okay - now it's time to make the call - we are going to cancel. How do we go about this.

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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 up for some troubled turbulence (and a bad review).

In this week's podcast, 😳 we cover things we find sugar cookiers forget to set flexible expectations that blow back in the baker's face (😭 and land you in Sugar Cookie Marketing group begging the comments not to client bash so your thread doesn't get prematurely locked).

When we see these threads pop up in the group, the first question always asked is: 🤔 What were the policies in place before this became an issue? 

You'll live and die by your disclaimers, TOS, expectations, and heads-ups.

Here's the most common complaints that we see posted in the SCM group. When you find out one of these bad boys is causing an "unset expectations" issue for you, you'd pay just about any amount to travel back in time and tie these loose ends up. 🪡

• 📑 Color Accuracy - "colors will be close, but aren't guaranteed to be 100% accurate."
• 📑 Hand-Made Disclaimer - "cookies are a hand-made product and made include some minor defects. While kept to a minimum, please remember these are delicious, but not perfection." 
• 📑 Follow-Ups - "thank you for your order - you'll hear from me again 2 weeks from your pick-up date to confirm details."
• 📑 Refunds - "my bakery has a no refund policy - if you're unhappy with anything about your order, please let me know and we can find a resolution that works for you." 
• 📑 Invoice Paid to Reserve - "here is your invoice - please note that the invoice must be paid to reserve your date, and I cannot guarantee the dates availability after today"
• 📑 No Show / Porch Pickup Policies - "your pick-up time is X:XXAM. in the event you cannot show up for your pick-up, your cookies will be..."
• 📑Price Transparency - "my custom dozens start at $X and increase based on design and set complexity and order size."
• 📑Delayed Disclaimers - "in the event that the baker cannot fulfill the order / teach the cookie class, the policy is..."
• 📑Cancelation Policy - "we do not offer full or partial refunds if your event is canceled - but these cookies will taste delicious regardless." 

These will only get ya started. The key to remember is: NO ONE IS READING YOUR TOS, DISCLAIMERS, OR WARNINGS. So you have to keep reminding clients bringing to light the expectation that fits them best. 

👀 Tune into a client you suspect really wants exact color matching - then set their expectations on colors and icing. 

👀 Look for clients you think may want really frequent communication schedules - then set their expectations about your response times.

👀 Check for clients with spotty communication once you've sent the invoice - then set their expectations on your "pay to reserve" booking system.

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🌼 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-ups, that includes your front stoop. Doubtful that a hoarder also has a stain-free kitchen countertop - 🧼 as such, we want our home to reflect our products: clean, nice, approachable, and pretty. 

In this week's podcast, 🌱 we cover some spring cleaning check-list items and after that, how to turn some turf cleanup into local community group sales 🤑

Okay cool - that entire list is pretty self-explanatory, but hey, I never said no to saving a checklist and checkin' it twice (🎅🏻 call me the Santa of several to-do lists).

🤔 "Heather, where's the part where I make more sales? I know how to mow."

Okay - 🔑 here's the key. For the following tasks, you are NOT going to shop online or on Google. You're going to shop l-o-ca-l-l-y and you're going to go about it by asking in local community groups... 🤫 as a baker. 

• 🧹 Finding a local powerwasher.
• 🧹 Hiring a carpet cleaner.
• 🧹 Looking for a custom wreath maker.
• 🧹  Sourcing a custom wooden sign maker (woodworker). 
• 🧹 Searching for a custom doormat maker. 
• 🧹 Bonus Options: Finding a window washer. 

And here's how you're going to ask for these local business recommendations:

1. ✅ Go to a local community group.
2. ✅ Take a picture of your front yard - pictures get more views in groups.
3. ✅ Post something like this: "Hey [community group]! People often pick up their cookie orders from my doorstep, so I absolutely need to spruce it up for spring! I'm looking for a local small business to do [local service]."
4. ✅ Then actually hire the business. 
5. Before the business gets there, take a before picture. Once the business leaves, take an after picture.
6. ✅ Go back to the community group and leave a review for the business posting the before/after photos + tagging that business + tag the person who recommended them to you + and tag the admins for running such an awesome resource group. 

Wash rinse and repeat (🐶 both the posts and your front door if you have a dog like Ray).

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by clickin' here - Episode 154 - Cottage Curb Appeal.

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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 Meta went down!? 

Okay - so it wasn't that serious - in fact, a lot of you probably missed it, but for an hour around 11AM est on Tuesday last week, all Meta apps went down - Threads, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. 

😰 And while an hour of outage ain't a world-ender - it could be a business ender. Imagine if Facebook disappeared tomorrow - how long would it take you to rebuild your lead funnel? Would you be able to fill seats for that cookie class next month? Or would you still have been able to reach out to those 2 clients with pick-ups today?? 

⏰ Yeah - this isn't the first time Meta took its 15-minute smoke break per se. It happened back in 2021 too - and many of us swore we'd never be caught with our digital pants down again. But many more of us got busy and never got around to shoring up our loose leads ends. 

So - what can we do not to let this upend our customer base should it happen round 3? We (as always) have a list!

What We'd do if Facebook never Existed.

1️⃣ Create an Email List. 

👉 Recommended Apps: Gmail, Mailchimp, Flodesk

Right off the bat - create an email list. If you're reading this newsletter, you got an email from me ✨5 minutes✨ after Facebook went down. See - that's the power of an email list. An easy way to create an email list is by adding your past clients. If you weren't collecting those before, start now. You can add an opt-in on your submissions forms that reads: ✅ Yes, I don't mind being added to your email list for pick-up updates.

2️⃣ Diversify your Social Media Presence (outside of Meta).

👉 Recommended Apps:  LinkedIn, TikTok, GMB / GBP, Nextdoor, Yelp

Facebook and Instagram are the fan favorites of bakers because they really just work well in bringing in leads. But if Meta pulls the plug, we're going to need to have backup socials to reach our audience. This is not a "if you build it, they'll come" scenario - you'll actually have to work on growing these platforms - same way we say to work the Facebook algo. Start now, reap when Zucky's having a bad day.

3️⃣ Get a Website STAT.

👉 Recommended Apps: Square, Wix, Shopify, MyCustomBakes 

Websites are the "digital hub" of your business. From a website, I should be able to contact you, buy from you, learn about you, and connect with you (on social media). They're also a handy way to pass along information quickly. A simple banner stating "ALERT - PICK-UPS SCHEDULE FOR TUESDAY ARE STILL ON." 

4️⃣ Always Capture Emails / Phone #s.

👉 Recommended Apps: Google Workspace / Google Voice

Newsletters are for promotions or mass emailing, but Google Workspace (Google's business Gmail) is for regular contact with clients. Collect those emails, then take the conversations out of Facebook Messenger and into Gmail - a much more reliable form of communication. And while you're at it - snag their phone numbers too - perfect backup-to-the-email-backup-to-the-social-media-platform backup.