The Bread Winner Podcast

Thanksgiving is so late this year that between Small Business Saturday and Christmas, you have exactly 27 days to sell. There is no time inside that window to go find new customers, which means the bakers who fill those 27 days with orders are the ones whose neighbors already know they exist before the end of October.

This week I am walking you through a 10-minute check-in on your third-quarter numbers, then a three-week plan to build local visibility before your holiday pre-orders open. You will leave with three numbers to track and a simple, repeatable way to get seen by the people already looking for a local baker this season.

🎯 The Seen and Sold Sprint starts October 10th. Enrollment closes October 9th: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/sprintwaitlist

🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast

🍞 The Bread Winner Inner Circle opens twice a year. Get on the waitlist: https://www.carolinebower.com/innercircle

📋 Download the FREE checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist

🧮 Grab the Profit & Pricing Calculator: https://www.carolinebower.com/calculator

✉️ Join my email list: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/newsletter

🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: https://www.carolinebower.com/links

📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

In my very first holiday season, I said yes to opening day at a pumpkin patch because I was sure it would be packed. I sat there for nine hours in the September heat with my kids and sold four loaves of bread. That day taught me more about choosing events than any market I have ever done, and today I am handing you the exact framework I built from it.

I am sorting every selling opportunity into three categories, recurring markets, one-off events, and pop-ups, and walking through the four questions that decide whether any of them is worth your Saturday. I also answer a listener voicemail about recovering from a bad bake day.

🎯 The Seen and Sold Sprint opens for enrollment in early October. Get on the waitlist: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/sprintwaitlist

🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast

🍞 The Bread Winner Inner Circle opens twice a year. Get on the waitlist: https://www.carolinebower.com/innercircle

📋 Download the FREE checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist

🧮 Grab the Profit & Pricing Calculator: https://www.carolinebower.com/calculator

✉️ Join my email list: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/newsletter

🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: https://www.carolinebower.com/links

📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

Online revenue follows an audience. It does not go out and build you one. That is the part the internet conveniently leaves out.

This week I am answering a voicemail question from Lindsay of Lindsay Bakes Bread about building additional income streams in a microbakery. I break it into three categories based on how much each one depends on you actually baking and being physically present, walk through real numbers on workshops versus online products, and give you a simple framework for figuring out which stream actually fits your goals, your capacity, and what your family needs right now.

🎯 The Seen and Sold Sprint is back in October. Enrollment is open now: https://sprint.carolinebower.com

🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast

🍞 The Bread Winner Inner Circle opens twice a year. Get on the waitlist: https://www.carolinebower.com/innercircle

📋 Download the FREE checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist

🧮 Grab the Profit & Pricing Calculator: https://www.carolinebower.com/calculator

✉️ Join my email list: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/newsletter

🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: https://www.carolinebower.com/links

📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

I am still the one doing every single 4 a.m. morning. I am still the primary production baker in my own bakery. And somewhere in the last six months I realized I am not meant to be that person forever.

This week is a real, unscripted six-month review, March through August, using the same four questions I ask every single month: what's working, what's not, what I learned, and how I'm moving forward. I get into the messy middle of building a team, why I closed the bakery for three weeks in July and how a workshop paid for it, the real numbers behind walking away from my longtime farmers market, and the identity question I've been sitting with lately about whether I'm a baker or a business owner who bakes.

🎯 The Seen and Sold Sprint is back in October. Enrollment is open now: https://sprint.carolinebower.com

🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast

🍞 The Bread Winner Inner Circle opens twice a year. Get on the waitlist: https://www.carolinebower.com/innercircle

📋 Download the FREE checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist

🧮 Grab the Profit & Pricing Calculator: https://www.carolinebower.com/calculator

✉️ Join my email list: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/newsletter

🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: https://www.carolinebower.com/links

📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

If you asked me whether ingredient costs have gone up across the board the last few years, I would have said yes without a second thought, and I would have had zero actual evidence for it. So I went and pulled the real numbers, and butter genuinely surprised me.

This week is a different kind of episode. Instead of a how-to, I am walking you through three things I found when I actually researched what is happening in the bread world right now: whether sourdough demand is really holding up, how your customer's eating habits have shifted without much fanfare, and what ingredient prices have actually done over the past year versus what we all assume they have done. Plus, a baker's question about blending whole grain flour into a familiar dough, and my new favorite inexpensive kitchen tool.

🔪 The immersion blender I'm loving right now: https://rivr.link/0bw-Qb_ISG

🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast

🍞 The Bread Winner Inner Circle opens twice a year. Get on the waitlist: https://www.carolinebower.com/innercircle

📋 Download the FREE checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist

🧮 Grab the Profit & Pricing Calculator: https://www.carolinebower.com/calculator

✉️ Join my email list: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/newsletter

🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: https://www.carolinebower.com/links

📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

There is a two-gallon jar in my bakery right now full of vanilla beans and cheap vodka, with a piece of masking tape on the lid that just says December. It is not going to be ready to sell until the holidays, and that is exactly the point.

This week I am walking you through the nine real things I am doing in my own bakery this August to set up a smoother November and December. That includes auditing my menu and my prices in the same sitting, scheduling a recipe testing day before the holidays get loud, starting a slow-build gift product that needed to begin this week instead of in December, and getting my workshop tickets live before people start Christmas shopping. The last two are not holiday prep at all. They are how I am setting up January, including a first announcement I have been sitting on for weeks.

📖 Read the full show notes: https://www.carolinebower.com/9-ways-to-get-your-microbakery-ready-for-the-holiday-season-episode-138

🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast

🍞 The Bread Winner Inner Circle opens twice a year. Get on the waitlist: https://www.carolinebower.com/innercircle

📋 Download the FREE checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist

🧮 Grab the Profit & Pricing Calculator: https://www.carolinebower.com/calculator

✉️ Join my email list: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/newsletter

🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: https://www.carolinebower.com/links

📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

Did you know that up until the fall of 2021, selling a loaf of bread you baked in your own kitchen was completely illegal in New Jersey? Not just restricted — illegal. They were the last of all 50 states to change that, and it only happened because a group of home bakers decided to go and ask. That story is the backdrop for this entire episode, and I think it is going to encourage you more than you are expecting.

This is a topic I have touched on before but never gone this deep on — and after spending a couple of weeks doing real research, I have a lot to share. There is genuinely good news happening in the cottage food law landscape right now, there is some misleading information out there that could get bakers in trouble, and there are real, practical steps you can take if your state's laws are holding your business back. Whether you are just getting started, approaching your income cap, or feeling frustrated by restrictions in your state, this episode is going to give you clarity, encouragement, and a clear path forward.

• 🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast
• 🍞 Join the Bread Winner Inner Circle: www.carolinebower.com/innercircle
• 📋 Download the FREE checklist — Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist
• 🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: www.carolinebower.com/links
• 📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

Two years of the Bread Winner Podcast, and the episode you keep coming back to is the one where I looked back at my very first year in business. So I am bringing it back for our two-year birthday month.

I am wrapping up year three now, baking out of a brick and mortar with a bread oven and a commercial fridge, and I have been out of the house for over six months. All of it was built on what year one taught me. This replay of Episode 82 walks through the processes, the systems and the mindset that made years two and three possible, including the parts I got wrong and the growing pains I would warn you about. If you are in your first year right now, this is the episode I would hand you.

One more thing. I have added a new segment to the show, so you can record me a voicemail with your question using the SpeakPipe link below and I will play it and answer it on air. I would love to hear your voice on the podcast!

📖 Read the full show notes: https://www.carolinebower.com/what-i-wish-i-knew-before-i-started-selling-sourdough-bread-episode-136

🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast

🍞 The Bread Winner Inner Circle opens twice a year. Get on the waitlist: https://www.carolinebower.com/innercircle

📋 Download the FREE checklist, Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist

🧮 Grab the Profit & Pricing Calculator: https://www.carolinebower.com/calculator

✉️ Join my email list: https://carolinebower.myflodesk.com/newsletter

🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: https://www.carolinebower.com/links

📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

If you have ever answered the question "so what do you do?" with "I just have a little sourdough business" — this episode is for you. This is one of my most personal and most passionate episodes, and I am so glad to be bringing it back for our two-year birthday month because I believe it deserves to be heard by every single baker who has ever minimized what she is building. This is not a tactical episode. It is a heart-level conversation. And it might be exactly what you needed to hear today.

In this episode I am making the case — clearly and with a lot of passion — for why it is time to drop the word "little" from your business vocabulary for good. What you are building is significant. The impact you are having on your family, your community, and the next generation is real and it is worthy of being spoken about with pride and confidence. I am giving you seven concrete, actionable steps to help you start owning the value of your business in the way you talk about it, think about it, and show up for it every single day. By the end of this episode, you will have a clear path forward — and hopefully a whole lot more confidence in what you are building.

• 🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast
• 🍞 Join the Bread Winner Inner Circle: www.carolinebower.com/innercircle
• 🌐 Join the Bread Winner Network: www.carolinebower.com/bwnetwork
• 📋 Download the FREE checklist — Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist
• 🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: www.carolinebower.com/links
• 📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough

I have been talking about Project Broadcast on this podcast for years — and in this episode, I finally got to sit down with the CEO himself, Jake Dempsey, for a conversation I have been looking forward to for months. If you have ever wondered why texting works so well for microbakery businesses, how to set it up, or how to use it in a smarter way, this episode is going to be a game changer for you.

Jake has been building Project Broadcast for nearly a decade, his platform has sent over a billion text messages on behalf of small business owners, and he genuinely cares about helping entrepreneurs grow. We walked through my exact texting workflow, he gave me feedback on what I am doing well and where I am leaving opportunity on the table, and we answered some of your questions from the Bread Winner Summit too. There is so much practical gold in this one.

Links:

• Join Project Broadcast Here: https://app.projectbroadcast.com/sign-up?referral=breadwinner
• 🎙️ Send me a voicemail on SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/breadwinnerpodcast
• 🍞 Join the Bread Winner Inner Circle: www.carolinebower.com/innercircle
• 🌐 Join the Bread Winner Network: www.carolinebower.com/bwnetwork
• 📋 Download the FREE checklist — Your First Steps to a Successful In-Home Bakery: https://www.carolinebower.com/checklist
• 🛒 Shop my sourdough microbakery favorites: www.carolinebower.com/links
• 📱 Follow me on Instagram: @carolinebower_sourdough