Fed up with working for less than minimum wage?
Want to reach higher paying customers but don't know how?
Need to market your business but don't know where to start?
Don't have the confidence to put your prices up?
There was a time when I would have answered a resounding “yes” to all of the questions in the graphic above.
I’d been the classic “mum who bakes” when I decided I could turn my hobby into my career and officially launched in 2006.
After 6 years of basically playing business owner, I expanded the business and moved into my first studio. I really felt that I had something, but I just didn’t feel confident enough to put my prices up, which meant I got into debt, I fell behind on the rent payments and I started to fall out of love with something I had always had a passion for.
This hurt. I knew I could make cakes, that was the easy bit. What I didn’t do was understand that there is more to a cake business than just cake!
While I was trying to answer these questions my husband was made redundant and I became the main breadwinner.
Now, I’m not a quitter, but this was a tough time.
The easy choice would have been to give up the studio, be to go back to “mum who bakes” and get a 9 to 5.
Erm - HELL NO!
There was no way was I going to give up my business.
I loved it and I'd worked bloody hard at it. So, after some serious soul searching I realised that I needed to see outside the (cake) box. My eureka moment was when I realised that I knew how to make cakes – I had to learn how to sell them!
So, I took the last few £'s we had and invested on my business learning. And now, here I am. Everything has changed.
I make the cakes that I want to make.
I charge the prices I want to charge.
I am no longer fielding out enquiries from low budget clients.
My clients are asking me to quote for events at top end venues and include celebrities and royalty.
My cakes have featured in OK magazine gaining me huge exposure.
I have more time to spend with my family making memories.
I love to travel and I have now spent time discovering Malta and Italy as well as numerous weekends away in the UK
Most importantly I am making the money I want to enable me to live the lifestyle I want.
All thanks to making a few small changes to how I approach my business.
But here’s the point.
When I really needed that information at the beginning, it just wasn't there. There were loads of people out there ready to tell me how to ice a cake, or how to make a sugar flower, or to sell me the latest gadget that would allegedly make cake decorating quicker and easier.
This was all great but I knew this stuff!
No one could, or would, tell me how to run a cake business. No one who could say, been there, done that, and made the mistakes. So, instead of being able to avoid these mistakes, I had to make every single one and pay dearly.
So I realised there was a learning here. Why should others have to make these mistakes, and have their confidence and their resources depleted?
That’s why I created Cake Biz 101. Taking into account everything I learned and put into place to turn my business around. It’s not a secret formula, and there is no magic wand, but by following these key stages, I can give you the tools and the support you need to turn your cake making business into a profitable one. You will no longer be an expensive hobby!!
When you start working ON your business and not just in it - EVERYTHING CHANGES!
