Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

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1️⃣ Treat yourself like an employee.

Remember back to that last job you had in retail -  🤔 when the clock hit quittin' time, you were outta there. You should have the same boundary with your "boss self" - when it's time to close up shop, do it. Tell your boss, "Hey, sorry! You only had me scheduled until 5 o'clock! I'm out. But see ya tomorrow." If employee-you didn't feel the need to work overtime, why are you doing it now? Remember - there will always be work to do - and even if you do all of it, there will still be more. 

Work will eat whatever you feed it. So put it on a "work-life" diet and only give it what you're willing and wanting to. 🤤 Stop feeding an insatiable beast.

2️⃣ Protect your Fridays.

Now this is a new one I've been trying out. No, it's not the whole "4-day work week," but instead an overage day - a day I allocate for any work that wasn't done the four working days prior. I don't schedule anything on Friday, but I reserve it for those inevitable tasks that have a nasty way of sneaking into an already packed schedule.  

If you don't work a Monday - Friday schedule like I do, guess what! You can choose your weekends. If you do pick-ups on Saturday, make your weekends Sunday and Monday, then your overage day could be Monday. It's your schedule, boss, and you get to set it.

3️⃣ Smart-ify your Work Schedule. 

I found these smart plugs on Amazon that work with Alexa and Google. Basically, any device you plug into these suddenly becomes "smart" meaning I can now control it from an app. I use these to help me stay on balance by:

• Having my office lights turn off at closing time.
• Having my bedroom lights turn on a bedtime. 
• Schedule to turn my 3-D printer off after the print is finished.
• Turn my crock-pot on in the morning.
• Turn my pet's lights on and off depending on the day.

These small hacks can help you stick to your work-life regimen of closing down at a certain time (trust me - working by computer light in the pitch dark makes you wanna run for the covers!). 

4️⃣ Budget for a Solid Sleep Schedule. 

I'll take this one to my comforter-lined grave - get a good sleep schedule and stick to it. EIGHT HOURS - you read that right. Don't believe me? Snag the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker (PhD). If you're operating at a sleep deficit, your mind is operating in a fog.  

5️⃣ Batch Your Week.

Reverse calendaring (thanks Jessica Gensel for that Facebook Live), weekend pre-planning, and batch baking can all save you work time leading to a better work-life balance. 

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🌄  Death-Ground Strategy in Business

Yeah, so that title is violent - but the concept behind Robert Greene's 33 Strategies of War is actually pretty solid, and it's the focus of our Baking it Down Podcast this week.

You see - when there's a mountain behind an army blocking their only way of retreat, and their only option is to "do or die," they'll fight 3x harder to win.

Why? Because failure isn't an option. And when you can't afford to lose, you'll do just about anything to win. The same could apply to your business goals. If you had to sell 10 custom orders - because not selling them meant you were on the streets tomorrow, what would you do to make it happen?? I'd wager you'd do an awful lot to ensure you had a roof over your head.

🤔  "but Heather, I'm not a violent person."

Me either. Think of it this way...

If I paid you $1,000,000 to teach a cookie class, what would you do to make it happen?
Well, you better believe I'll be knocking on every door from here to Timbucktu to fill a seat, come heck or high water.

👣 Warning - this newsletter may cause some feet injuries because I might step on a few toes. But I have good reason. 👣  

🛌 But oftentimes in our businesses, we put a pillow fort behind us ready to catch us and all of our glorious excuses. 

• 🛌  I couldn't teach the class because the only venue I reached out to didn't reply.
• 🛌 I couldn't sell watercolor cookies because the one time I tried to learn it, it didn't look very good.
• 🛌 I didn't sign up for The Cookie College because I'm too busy to take a class. 
• 🛌 I can't post Reels, I don't know how to find trending music.

Those excuses look comfy, don't they? Definitely not a mountain behind your back forcing your hand of excuses and making you "do or die" try, I'd say.

They say spending 100 hours practicing something will allow you to be considered "very good" at that thing. One hundred hours sounds like an insanely long amount of time (unless you're scrolling on TikTok, then I think it translates to about 1.5 earth hours). 

But lemme break this down for you:

• 10 Minutes a Day for 600 Days = 100 Hours
• 20 Minutes a Day for 300 Days = 100 Hours
• 30 Minutes a Day for 200 Days = 100 Hours
• 40 Minutes a Day for 150 Days = 100 Hours
• 50 Minutes a Day for 120 Days = 100 Hours
• 60 Minutes a Day for 100 Days = 100 Hours 

If you sleep the recommended 8 hours a day, spend another 8 hours a day working, that leaves you eight hours to spend how you want to. Can you take one of those hours and allocate it to a new decorating skill? Planning a cookie class? Taking a Cookie College course?

You're not on a Death-Ground strategy and the only person who stands to lose here is you. I don't care. I mean, don't get me wrong - I love you, your ideas, and your business. But if you don't reach your goals - I don't care. You care. It's your life. It's your future. Not mine. 

So act like you're on a Death-Ground to reach your goals. Or at least acknowledge that your pillow fort has the finest Egyptian-sourced cotton you could spend your 10-minutes a day finding.

🌄 Find your mountain and put it behind you, then fight like heck for your future. 

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🎯 What are Target Audiences?

If you thought this newsletter was about the Dollar Section at Target, you're probably not alone *trembles in plastic apple containers* - but much like beloved Target, we need to target our audience. And unlike Target, we can't appeal to everybody.

🤔 "Heather, you're off here. Listen - if I appeal to everyone = more people will buy from me. I ain't no Einstein, but the more people I reach, the more sales I can make."

You're not wrong - in theory. The more people who do know about you, yes, can order from you. But what you can't see is how many people who know about you still don't order from you because your brand messaging is fuzzy.

🤔  "Fuzzy? What mean you?" 

Let's say I wanted to start a group to talk about marketing and selling sugar cookies. But - sugar cookies. That's so limiting! Let's instead create a group that talks about selling all baked goods. 😬 Yeah, that'll get us access to a much larger audience! 

But just baked goods? 😬 What about hot sauce people and kombucha bros?! Okay - you're right. Let's create a group that features tips to sell things you create under cottage laws. Wonderful idea! 

Hold up - why limit ourselves to cottage laws? Maybe throw in brick-and-mortar bakeries, bottling companies, and breweries too. 😬  Good idea. Storefront audiences - they're pining for tips to make more sales to cover leases.

Waaaaidaminute. You know what - the same concepts we use to sell edible goods, we could actually use to sell candles and other products as well. 😬 Awesome - let's call the group, "Selling Things You Make (Group)," wide open to a huge target audience who will love to learn from us.

But what about importers and resellers? 😬 There's a huge market for those people too - and if we add them to our audience - well, heck! The Cookie College will be bursting with new signups! But we won't be able to call it The Cookie College anymore, huh? We'll call it "How to Sell Absolutely Anything Ever!" 

My point is a bit long in the tooth, but it can be summarized in this quote:

"When your messaging speaks to everyone, it speaks to no one."

🎯 Okay - I see your point. So who is my target audience?

Think of your target audience as a really tight-knit group of people. We want to keep our targets small - the smaller the better. A great way to start off determining who your current target is is by taking an average of who purchased from you in the past 1 year. 

Think narrow thoughts - speak almost about a single individual. What's that person's age? Male or female? Kids or child-free? Empty nesters or elementary school? Dinks or single-income? Home schooled or public schooled? Be specific. 

🎯 Okay - I've got the person narrowed down. Now what?

Now begin crafting your messaging to speak to that person. If that person has kids, talk to people with kids. "But what if some people don't have kids." They're not your target - remember, you just came up with your target person in the step above. "But won't they feel left out?" No - they'll find someone whose targeting they fall into. You need to focus on people who fall within your target audience.

🎯  Hey - what's the worst that could happen? 🎯 

Odds are if you haven't determined your brand voice, your messaging is already pretty generic and slightly fuzzy. The worst that could happen? You find a true tribe of customers who are more loyal to you than Corrie to a Target parking lot. 

Go forth. Find your target. And laser focus on what they want, like, and hate. Then speak to them about those topics. You're going to find that customers can connect with you on a deeper level (and end up reaching deeper into their pockets).

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🏃 Run, Forest, Run!

You always hear us refer to marketing in terms of "run-times" - but what are we saying when we sub in track days for calendar weeks? Don't worry - no gym routines here. 

Run times refer to the number of days / weeks / months designated for a marketing campaign.

So - let's apply it to BTS (for some reason, I thought people were making Korean boy band cookies this whole time, but I digress). How can we use a marketing lifecycle to prep our audience for the upcoming back-to-school offerings?

Quick poll before we do - in a poll of about 300 SCM group members, the results on BTS offerings and run-times is interesting:

• 🏃 6 Weeks Out - 0%
• 🏃 5 Weeks Out - 1%
• 🏃 4 Weeks Out - 12%
• 🏃 3 Weeks Out - 32%
• 🏃 2 Weeks Out - 18%
• 🏃 1 Week Out - 3%
• 🏃 Not Offering BTS - 31%

Three weeks is the most popular run-time for back-to-school sets.

*  I would make a disclaimer that BTS is unlike any "cookie holiday" in that it typically sneaks up on our target audience at a time when a majority of bakers have taken the summer off. I'd assume Halloween will be a bit different.

🏃 So how can we build out a "marketing lifecycle" for back to school?

Your run-times will be different than my run-times depending on your location, back-to-school date, target audience, and how prepared you are. There's no wrong answer, but if you're looking for an answer of some sort - here's mine: we start with a 6-week marketing cycle. So if your BTS date is August 29th, guess what - you're getting your BTS cycle going this week.

🏃  1. Awareness - getting your audience prepped

First stage in this 6-stage / 6-week cycle is awareness. You're not expecting to make any sales now, but your form is probably ready just in case. You're basically introducing your audience to your offerings. Kinda like the "Hey girl heeeey" posts. This is the top of your back-to-school funnel.

🏃  2. Engagement - getting your audience to react / post / like

This is the fun stage. Asking for your audience's opinions on your offerings, posting their kiddos' last first-day-of-school photos, or hosting a contest for last year's report card grades. You're still not asking for the sale here, but you are getting people excited!

🏃  3. Evaluation - getting your audience to pick you

This is where you set yourself up as the "best in the business" - whether in cute packaging, customer support (more on that later), and featuring great past client reviews. You're also telling them your pricing options, informing them of pick-up dates, and last calls. Make it *easy* to pick you, or they'll pick someone else.

🏃  4. Purchase - getting your audience to give you money

And BOOM goes the dynamite. At this stage, you ask for the sale. Make buying *so* easy. Communicate effectively. How to order. Ease of ordering. Confirmation of order. What to expect after the order. Do NOT make it hard for people to give you their money. (ps - you could also up-sell add-ons here)

🏃 5. Support - getting your audience to trust that they made the right decision

Listen - once money exchanges hands, you can't ghost to the kitchen for 2 weeks. You can have these emails already written and ready to go - even before you made the first sale. Email clients the minute they order (auto-responder), then use a mailmerge app or bcc your list to follow up a week out from pick-up, the day before pick-up, day-of pick-up, and heck, even after pick-up! Make these clients your clients for life.

🏃  6. Loyalty - getting your audience to shout you from the mountain tops

This is where the true business owner shines. The ability to turn a custom

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🎄 Squeezin' the Most out of a Collab

We're Havin' a Cookie Collab on July 29th. You're invited. But here's how to squeeze the most "marketing" juice from said collab.

🎅 First off - what are collabs? 

Collabs aren't unique to the cookie world - but they are just as fun across the board. The concept is pretty simple. A group gets together, works to create a concept using a theme, and on a set day and time, they post up the completed work on social media.

🎅 But like - why do it?

Great question. Different collabs have different goals. For example - here are some of our past collabs and their goals:

• 📆 June 2021 - Logo Cookies Cookie Collab - to turn your cookie into a logo to push your skills
• 📆 July 2021 - Then ‘n Now Cookie Collab with Sugar Cookie Marketing - to demonstrate to your audience how much you've advanced
• 📆 Oct 2021 - Main Street Cookie Collab with Sugar Cookie Marketing - to feature a business as a cookie and get corporate leads
• 📆 Dec 2021 - Meaning of Christmas Collab - to give back to the community 
• 📆 May 2022 - Susan Reed Cookie Collab with Sugar Cookie Marketing - to raise awareness of an industry scam
• 📆 July 2022 - Christmas in July Cookie Collab with Sugar Cookie Marketing - to work ahead on Christmas offerings

So yeah, different collabs can have different goals. And that's the benefit of them. Whether working ahead or helping your community, these collabs give you a great excuse to put yourself out there and try something new. The goal of the Christmas in July collab is to work ahead so, come Christmas, you're not runnin' around with all the baking pans, none of the time, and none of your Christmas offerings to post.

🎅 So that's it? It's just "because"?

Close - but there's a bit more marketing to a collab. When everyone posts up on social media, they not only agree to participate but also to engage with others who participated. This is a form of manufactured engagement, and while social media companies dislike the practice, it still works, so we're still doin' it until reported otherwise. 

🎅 How does that work??

When you make a post, that post is "shopped around" to users on a social platform. The more users that engage with the content, the more the algorithm thinks, "Wow, this content is keeping users on our platform! We should show it to even more users!" This is the beauty of collabs. While the goal is not to follow other bakers, other bakers will comment on your posts allowing your post to reach more of your audience. A win-win. Not only can you involve yourself in a fun industry event, it also benefits your social reach. 

🎅 Okay - I'm in. What do I have to do?

I knew I liked you! It's pretty easy. Here are the steps:

1. Before July 29th, bake, decorate, and photograph something you plan on selling this Christmas / Holiday. It's got to be Christmas or Holiday themed - that's the key.
2. On July 29th, at 11 AM Eastern (time zones - they're important here) you'll post your photo + caption to Instagram.
3. This is Instagram-only. Facebook doesn't work well with hashtags yet unfortunately. 
4. Use the hashtag #sugarcookiemarketingcollab in your copy. This is probably the most important step. 
5. Once you post, go engage with any content posted on that date at that time using the group collab hashtag. 

🎅 Easy as Pie - er... cookies? 

Yep! And if you want some additional tips - listen to this week's podcast about Cookie Collabs! We threw in a few more tips to really squeeze the most outta this collab.

Any more collab tips? Feel free to start a thread in

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🙊 Working with the End in Mind

"Help! A client said my cookies were too dry!" 

❌ "Block them."

❌ "Tell them to bring you the cookies back."

❌ "Tell them all sales final."

❌ "Tell them to kick rocks." (or cookies that are hard as rocks 😂

It's no doubt that in an open forum like Facebook Cookie Groups, you're going to get a biased response in dealing with client issues. Heck - we've all been on the receiving end of a less than savory client email. 

But what if you worked with the end in mind?

Lemme explain - in every confrontation, there are typically three optional ends:

• Win / Lose - one person wins 100%, the other walks away with 0%
• Lose / Lose - neither party walks away with any %
• Win / Win - both parties walk away with a portion of 100% - this is a compromise situation 

Your goal should be the win / win. Contrary to popular belief, your clients don't want to deal with messy refund situations either. In a 2021 poll collecting 1,654 comments from Sugar Cookie Marketing Group Members, most bakers don't have to refund - even when it's offered.

• 0 Order Refunds - 71%
• .5 Order Refunds - 4% (less than a whole order)
• 1 Order Refund - 16%
• 2 Order Refunds - 3%
• 3 Order Refunds - 1%

It's not you against your client. It's you and your client against a problem. Being on the same side of "resolution finding" puts you together as a team finding the best possible outcome for two parties vs. you against them - in which case, it's a fight to the proverbial death - winner takes all, loser loses. 

✅ Pro-tip: Losers don't take losing very well. Rather they take it to review profiles

Here are a few tips to help you "work with the end in mind" and make the best decision for your business: 

1. Give Yourself 24 Hours. You can use this in your personal relationships too - giving yourself some distance from an issue right off the bat gives your brain a chance to process and your emotions some time to simmer down. Brash decisions and emails rarely result in the most calculated course of action.
2. Find a Bounce Buddy. Bounce ideas off of a third party who isn't invested in the outcome and isn't a yes man (or woman). Third parties can provide unbiased perspectives. Bonus if it's someone with a business / customer relations background.
3. Make a List of Compromise Options. I love a list. Make a list of all the possible outcomes and then find that "win-win" one that gives both people a little bit of a win.
4. Create an Oopsie Budget. Refunds hurt because they hit your pocket. But what if I told you they didn't have to - not when you have a budget for mistakes funded by other client orders. Creating an "oopsie budget" allows you to run to the refund without gettin' that hit in the wallet.
5. Consider the Confirmation Bias. In a group of like-minded people, we often seek out the answers that resonate with our beliefs. This is dangerous because counter-opinions, even if they may be the best approach, are dismissed since they're immediately seen as "that's not what I think the answer should be - so thus you're wrong." Confirmation biases blind us to better options and different experiences. 
6. Read without Emotion. I make Corrie do this with texts from her ex. Don't insinuate emotion- anger, spite, frustration, annoyance - it's easy to infer these from text-based communication. But it may set you off in the wrong direction - defensiveness. Attempt to read correspondences with the least emotional inflection possible. It'll help you sift through the words to find the meaning - one that may be less attacking than you initially expected. 

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"No." - Mark Zuckerberg

🤔 What would happen if you lost access to Facebook for 90 days?

Not sure? Well, consider it. ❌ Facebook's new "enforcement technology" AI ain't takin' prisoners, and there's not much you can do about it - except this one thing.

Backstory - Corrie woke up this morning to find her primary account (Corrie Miracle) suspended for a meme she posted 1 year ago in The Cookie College Facebook group. The meme? Here ya go... [RSVP to our newsletter to see this - I don't wanna get in trouble]. This is the offending meme.

Facebook admits that its software is still learning and tends to err on the sides of "too strict" and "too loose" as it learns from human reviewers if it hit or missed the mark on content violations. 

🤖 "Our technology proactively detects and removes the vast majority of violating content before anyone reports it." 

"Our human review teams use their expertise in certain policy areas and locales to make difficult, often nuanced judgment calls. Every time reviewers make a decision, we use that information to train our technology. Over time, across millions of decisions, our technology gets better, allowing us to remove more violating content. " (read more here)

Okay - but how does this affect you? Here's the thing - Corrie didn't just get a post deleted. She also got a slap on the wrist - a big one at that.

• ❌ No Facebook Lives for 90 Days (hosting or attending)
• ❌ No Facebook Ads for 90 Days
• ❌ No Facebook Page Posts / Management for 90 Days
• ❌ Posts in groups will appear lower in feeds (no expiration) 

And this isn't it. Last week, the SCM Instagram Account got a wrist slap from a meme of a person choking their own shadow with the caption "When you finally figure out who's been ordering all those cookie cutters." 

But get this - the meme was posted in an Instagram story that had expired over a year ago. And yet Facebook still deleted the content even though it was no longer publically accessible.

So what do you do? I doubt you'll love my recs but here they are:

• ➡️ Go back into your post history - business, Instagram, and person profiles - and delete any content that skirts the line of appropriate and "could be slightly offensive." 
• ➡️ Add a second admin to your business pages. 
• ➡️ Stop posting controversial content - politics and other hot-button topics - to any accounts associated with your business pages. 

Hey - I don't make the rules. I just get in trouble with them, and I'm trying to save you from a similar fate.  I (Heather here) got a ban last year from saying that 🏡 homes with 🕷️ in them should be 🔥 to the ground. (I've since publically apologized to all spiders who were offended). But the ban happened instantly - in fact, it was a comment I made on a Facebook Live on storefronts. As soon as I had made the comment, in less than 60 seconds, my account was flagged and suspended from interacting on Facebook Lives for 30 days. 

👀 Like - yeah, I couldn't even watch them let alone engage. 

Is this ideal? No. Is it fair? Probably not. But are you a business owner with leads coming in from Meta-owned properties? Yes. And I think this is important enough to stir some action to mitigate the further loss of your content and profiles.

🕷️  Long live the spiders.

Have you experienced issues with the AI enforcement tech? Feel free to start a thread in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group).  

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Why Why Why Why Why.

🤔 Never thought we could learn how to run a root cause analysis from the kid in the back seat of your car, did ya? 

I'm working through a college-level textbook on Operations Management - and the book referenced root cause analysis - to figure out what the true problem is. 

🤕 Oftentimes, we grab a box of bandaids and run around patching the symptoms of bigger issues, shocked when - you guessed it - the bandaid fails and you're stuck grabbin' more bandaids and spending more time well, band-aiding.

😀 But here's the good news.

❌ You're doing it wrong. 

Hear me out. You're diagnosing the wrong problem. You're diagnosing the symptom of an underlying issue. And unless you figure out how to find that deeper issue, you won't see any long-term results from your short-term fix. 

🕵️ So how do we find the root cause? Welcome the 5-Whys. No - I didn't make this up, it was actually in the 400-level textbook. You ask why five times - at the fifth "why," you've probably found the real issue, and now you can get started on fixing it.

Let's play this out:

Issue: 🤕 My USPS shipped cookies arrived broken to their destination. 😭

1️⃣ Why? USPS handles packages roughly.

2️⃣ Why was USPS able to break them? I didn't package the cookies with bubble wrap.

3️⃣ Why didn't you use bubble wrap? I didn't want to spend more money on packaging or insurance.

4️⃣ Why did you want to spend more on packaging and insurance? I didn't charge enough for this order to account for that additional cost.

5️⃣ Why didn't you charge enough for the order? I don't know my costs, so my pricing didn't reflect the additional packaging required.

✅ Ah - so the root cause is inappropriate price points for shipped cookies. 

So - challenge: Why your business. 

Ask why - and keep asking. "Why are my clients showing up late?" "Why is no one leaving me reviews?" "Why are my classes not filling up?" Ask why - and then keep on asking. You'll be surprised (and delighted) with where ya end up.

Did ya oot cause analyze your biz? Tell us where your 5-whys landed ya. Feel free to start a thread in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group). 

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😳 Marketing Overwhelm.

😖 Feeling like you're drowning in marketing tips and tricks? Here's a three-step life jacket.

Hey - the Baking it Down Podcast has 65 episodes - most of those episodes chock full of Corrie's annoying elephant noises, Phoebe scrambling to run out the door, and a handful of marketing ideas in each episode. On top of that - if you're in the SCM group, you're seeing about 50+ posts a day. Sprinkle in other Facebook groups, resources, and podcasts on marketing and sales - and yeah, we're reaching "marketing level overload" and fast. 

It's easy to read headlines, podcasts, and emails with the "5 things you have to do to grow on Instagram" or "If you're not churnin' out Reels, what are you even doing with your life?!" and think you're standing still while every other baker around you is moving at marketing lightning speed. 

😳 What it feels like is that you're standing still while business opportunities whiz by. That paralysis can make you feel like you're not doin' it right - or not doing enough - or not really doing anything at all. 😩 And it can be depressing to think you're not fast enough to get out your D-A-D DIY kits or jump on the profitable "bronut" train or... oh yeah, weren't you supposed to start teaching decorating classes, do that last cookie collab, add a pre-sale option to that website you haven't build yet? 😵

The list goes on - and your marketing feels like it isn't. 

😓 Sheeeesh. Talk about overwhelming. 

But guess what - ✈ none of us here are Marketing Mavericks, and we're not on the flight deck of social media takin' off at supersonic speed (had to get my Tom Cruise reference in). 

The key it marketing success is this: 🕵️ ONLY focus on the marketing information that supports your goals. Yes - I'm literally telling you to tune us out. If you want more tips on how to tune Corrie out, let me know - I have many methods.

But seriously. If you're focused on business finances, ❌ skip the Gingerbread Live. If you're focused on Fourth of July pre-sales, ❌ skip the YNAB-finance Live (on June 9th at 1:30 btw). If you're heck bent on moving, snag last week's podcast (Movin' and Shakin') and use the one on Cookie Classes as background noise you don't intend to take notes on, then turn off the group's notifications until that last box is unpacked. 

🚫 Overwhelm is an indication of unfocused goals. 🚫

If you don't know where you wanna head, heading everywhere will get you nowhere fast. Figuring out what your goals are is the first step in determining what needs listening to and what needs tuning out. And in the fast-paced world of marketing - the "tuning out" will be a lot.

In this week's podcast, we cover three tips to stop overwhelm. You can listen on your favorite players - Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Alexa, Audible and more. Click here to get a handle on overwhelming marketing mayhem. 

Got any more ideas to help with overwhelm in the business of business? Feel free to start a thread in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group).